The sight before him scared Zhao Li speechless, his face filled with disbelief, and his attacking movements stopped.
"Zhao Li, what are you doing!"
At this moment, the shouts of the others brought him back to his senses, focusing his attention on the Blood Mantis in front of him, but his heart was already in turmoil.
Through the continuous attacks of the crowd, the four Blood Mantises were finally defeated, their HP dropping to zero, and they died completely.
It was a pity that nothing dropped.
"Look, everyone!"
"How is this possible? He killed three Blood Mantises by himself?"
"What the Hackclaw Squad said was actually true?!"
...
Everyone stared blankly at the corpses beneath Cheng Xing's feet.
In their minds, the words of the Hackclaw Squad echoed, and at the same time, it felt as if an invisible large hand had slapped them hard across the face. It stung terribly.
Especially when they saw that all the Blood Mantises at Cheng Xing's feet had dropped items, their eyes went wide with shock.
Why did these people venture into the Disaster Area? Wasn't it for money?
Cheng Xing ignored their fervent gazes and picked up the items on the ground.
"Blood Mantis Tentacle x 2"
"Quality: E-grade"
"Item Description: Tough and resilient, an excellent choice for crafting long whips."
"Blood Mantis Kidney x 2"
"Quality: E-grade"
"Item Description: Contains indescribable energy."
"Blood Mantis Spear"
"Quality: E-grade"
"Effect: Damage increased by 20%"
This time, his luck wasn't great; he only got a few materials and an E-grade spear.
After returning, he gave everything except the kidneys to the Hackclaw Squad.
This made the Hackclaw Squad almost unable to resist rushing forward to hug Cheng Xing's thigh and loudly call him foster father.
An E-grade weapon could sell for over a hundred thousand, and those E-grade materials could fetch thirty to forty thousand. They had never earned so much money since they started out.
Zhao Li and his group, not far away, saw this scene, their eyes turning red, wishing they could swap places with the Hackclaw Squad.
The captain of the Hunting Dog Squad, in particular, was so regretful his guts turned green. After this battle, they were the weakest; not only were their team members more or less injured, but nothing dropped, and they only got a little experience.
Compared to the Hackclaw Squad, it was like heaven and earth.
At this moment, their attitude towards Cheng Xing did a 180-degree flip, and they shamelessly stepped forward and said,
"Boss Cheng Xing, actually, we believed you from the start!"
"It's all Zhao Li's fault. He was badmouthing you to me privately. We were all deceived by him."
"Can you take us with you too?"
...
Seeing everyone curry favor with Cheng Xing, Zhao Li's face twisted with anger, because he also wanted to go.
Liu Gu, beside him, was ashen-faced. Cheng Xing's power exceeded his imagination. Offending such a person meant he was completely finished in the future.
"Didn't we agree? Each fighting for themselves. Everyone, don't just randomly acknowledge a new boss."
Seeing this scene, Cheng Xing gave a cold smile and mercilessly refused.
The reason he gave the items to the Hackclaw Squad was, firstly, they immediately sided with him; secondly, the materials and weapons were things he didn't need, and with his 100% drop rate, he didn't lack these at all; thirdly, he just wanted to make these people regret it.
They didn't stand by him when he was slandered, but now that he showed his strength and they knew there were benefits, they came to curry favor.
Where in the world are there so many good things?
Hearing Cheng Xing's refusal, the Hunting Dog Squad could only leave disgruntled. In contrast, the other C-grade talent team, seeing they were rejected, cursed and said,
"What are you putting on airs for? You're just a little faster than us at reaching Level 10, aren't you?"
"When we spoke to you humbly, that was giving you face."
"You'd better not be ungrateful."
...
These people were not like the Hunting Dog Squad; their talent levels were high, destined to go further on the path of adventurers.
In their view, Cheng Xing was just a little higher level and had enough money to buy group skills.
"Face? Did you eat the Face-Face Fruit or something?"
"A bunch of people who get chased around by two Blood Mantises still have the nerve to jump around in front of me. If it were me, I'd just find a crooked neck tree and cosplay a teru teru bozu."
"The way you guys turn with the wind, it's like an old grandma crawling into bed—it cracked me up."
...
As a player with both parents alive in Zaun in his previous life, Cheng Xing didn't tolerate them at all. After a burst of eloquent curses,
this group of people returned speechless and dejected.
They couldn't beat him, and moral blackmail? With Cheng Xing's combat power, he could make your moral high ground as laughable as a cover.
Su Yanran, watching Cheng Xing's outburst, had little stars in her beautiful almond eyes.
"So this is how you can argue!"
...
"Boss Cheng Xing, something seems to be wrong."
At this moment, a sharp-eyed member of the Hackclaw Squad suddenly seemed to see something, and his face changed dramatically.
Soon, everyone noticed something.
A night breeze swept by, dark clouds covered the moon, and darkness enveloped the land.
Only pairs of crimson eyes lit up in the darkness, like scattered starlight, completely surrounding the mall where everyone was located.
Looking at the scene before them, almost everyone felt their throats go dry and couldn't help but swallow.
They knew very well what those eyes represented.
As the clouds parted and the moonlight shone again,
the surrounding scene turned everyone's faces pale.
Even the usually relaxed Cheng Xing and Su Yanran now wore a rare expression of solemnity.
Looking around, there were dozens of F-grade Blood Mantises, completely enveloping the entire mall.
In everyone's field of vision, the Disaster Beasts information interface, which popped up from the system's appraisal, formed a curtain wall.
Despair, silently and imperceptibly, spread through everyone's hearts.
"What's going on? Has Qingcheng expanded too quickly? How could such a Blood Mantis invasion occur!"
Su Yanran crossed her jade hands over her chest, while her other jade hand stroked her chin, her brows tightly furrowed as she pondered deeply.
But what was strange was that so many Blood Mantises were still surrounding the mall, not initiating an attack, as if they weren't there to kill people, but just to trap them.
However, an unexpected event soon occurred: five Blood Mantises slowly stepped into the mall's range and charged towards Zhao Li and his group, while on the other side, four Blood Mantises stepped out and rushed towards Cheng Xing and his team.
Zhao Li and his group had no choice but to brace themselves and attack again. Five Blood Mantises were still not a problem for them, but it was far from as easy as before.
After more than ten minutes of fierce fighting, the five Blood Mantises finally died at their feet, but their bodies were covered in green blood, a stark contrast to Cheng Xing, who remained relaxed on the other side.
This time, their luck was slightly better; the five Blood Mantises still dropped one material.
However, before they could even distribute it, five more Blood Mantises slowly stepped into the mall's range.
"This isn't a Disaster Area expansion!"
...