Five minutes later, the trio moved deeper as they created distance from the Thunderbird Guild.
Almond wanted to earn free spirits, but it was too dangerous to stay there. That Knight was a Silver rank level 5, someone they couldn’t hope to defeat at the moment and couldn’t run away if he decided to chase them.
They passed by three hives of Willowbees and crossed six hundred meters of distance before finally stopping at the next hive they saw.
“Let’s do this fast,” Lily said as she took out her bow, aiming a 45-degree angle at the house-sized hive sixty meters off the ground dangling on a big branch.
Natalia was hidden behind a big rock while her clone was right below the Hive on ground level, which she would use to taunt and distract the Bees. Almond also commanded his spectral wolves to accompany Natalia’s clone for higher efficiency in taunting the bees.
After all, It was clear that no matter who attacked the Hive, the Willowbees would first go for the targets that were close to them.
A few seconds later, Lily released the arrow as it struck a level 7 Willowbee Worker, killing it before proceeding to stab the hive.
The Willowbee Workers hummed heavily as the air vibrated, all flying towards Natalia, who started running.
Almond captured the spirit of that level 7 Willowbee and immediately used it right below Natalia’s clone, but with its lag of a second, Natalia got out of its range while the three Willowbees that were closing in on her got caught up in the blast.
[You have killed a level 7 Willowbee Worker.]
[You have killed…]
Two Willowbee Workers died while one was injured.
Meanwhile, Lily also started shooting arrows empowered by Mana, often piercing two or three Willowbee Workers at once.
The moment fifteen Willowbee Workers died, the Willowbee Guards spawned from the hive. They were bigger and had a huge venomous sting, unlike the Willowbee Workers, who only had small stings and usually attacked with their piercing hands.
Ten Willowbee Guards of levels 8 and 9 arrived as they quickly flew towards Almond and Lily.
“Dodge their stings or destroy them,” Almond said before he unsheathed his sword, his eyes dancing with the light of thrill as he rushed forward.
He wanted to move and fight physically with a sword since the moment he held it. And seeing the incoming Willowbee Guards, he couldn’t hold himself back.
*Sreeee!*
Four black venomous stings shot at Almond upon seeing him rushing forward, but Almond waved his sword as he destroyed one while moving at high speed before jumping and directly landing on a Willowbee Guard, his sword piercing its head.
Physical Enchantment was activated as he overpoweringly moved his hand, slicing the Willowbee Guard’s head to its tail in half.
[You have killed a…]
‘Shush.’
Almond jumped as a Willowbee Guard was about to attack him with its piercing claws, but it was as if he was already skilled with a sword, Almond parried the attack by moving the sword, his hand speed fast as he sliced it into two pieces.
‘What the…’ Lily was taken aback. But she didn’t have time to take a look at Almond as she took out her daggers, jumping into the fray to kill the three Willowbee Guards coming at her.
*BOOM!* *BOOM!*
Almond used two Spirit Explosions by using two level 7 Willowbee Worker’s spirits.
One of them turned special, oozing out a green spark that poisoned the Willowbee Guards, ultimately killing three Willowbee Guards in two explosions.
Almond’s legs anchored on the ground as he exerted his strength and jumped high, his sword directly piercing a Willowbee Guard from below, but he still went up until he was within 10 meters of distance between him and the Willowbee Hive!
‘Spirit Explosion.’
He put five spirits of Willowbee Workers, stacking them and sticking them right in the hive as he used the Spirit Explosion skill. Moreover, since they killed over seven Willowbee Guards, the Willowbee Queen was also emerging and got caught in the blast.
*BOOOOM!*
The hive was destroyed as its chunks fell on the ground while the injured Willowbee Queen shrieked.
‘Let’s see,’ Almond’s eyes glinted as he fell down but his eyes were on the Willowbee Queen as he used his new skill, Spirit Syringe.
A mystical ghastly syringe appeared and was injected into the Willowbee Queen before.
It was filling up rather quickly, 20% in one second.
Almond landed on the ground, Lily appearing right beside him.
The remaining Willowbee Guards were killed by her and Natalia’s clone was also destroyed.
She arrived here beside them as well, ready to fight the remaining Willowbee Workers and the Queen.
Almond and Lily leveled up to 8 while Natalia reached level 7.
“Let’s do this,” Lily smiled as she chugged a Mana potion and dashed, her daggers glinting.
Almond held his sword tightly as he also dashed, still having plenty of Mana to last in the battle, he continued slicing the Willowbee Workers into half while waiting for the Willowbee Queen to descend.
A few seconds later, the Queen descended, already injured and poisoned, as one of the explosions became special. Its vitality was at 67% already.
The Spirit Syringe was already filled so Almond was about to go there and grab it himself with a high-speed dash empowered by Physical Enchantment, but surprisingly, the moment he looked at the Syringe, it vanished and appeared in front of him.
‘Nice!’
The fight against the Willowbee Queen was uneventful as Lily and Almond finished it off with one attack each while Natalia used a debuff skill on it called Mirage Blindness, making the Willowbee Queen hallucinate that there were multiple Lily and Almond, which caused its attacks to miss.
“Let’s go. We have to change our location and I know a perfect place,” Almond said as he absorbed the Spirits into his pocket and started moving, arriving at a nearby tree before punching it.
‘Not this.’
He moved to the next tree several meters away and did the same while Lily and Natalia followed him.
“What are you doing?” Natalia asked.
“There’s a chance one of the tree trunks is hollow and it’s a good hiding place since these tree trunks are wide and big, especially at the bottom.”
A minute later, they found a hollow tree Almond pierced his sword and carved out a door and the trio entered inside.
After creating small holes for the light to pass through, they sat down in meditation to recover.
A hiding place was required if one wanted to meditate since meditating would require them to focus deep enough that they wouldn’t know what was happening around them.
Strong adventurers had multiple ways to keep themselves safe, but for the newbies, it was better to be safe than sorry by finding a good hiding spot.
‘Time to check the loot and get strong.’