Rui and Kane were shocked, but they forcibly suppressed their reactions as they focused everything they had on getting out. If the two of them made even a single mistake, it would truly be game over. Even Rui did not think he could survive an endless wave of Squire-level ants attacking him from all directions simultaneously.
Both of them needed to do their jobs just perfectly. Kane needed to maintain Void Step and ensure that he never stopped, even if Rui did, since he was the one maintaining the Void Step technique.
Rui, on the other hand, was responsible for navigating the way out. However, he couldn't just pick the most straightforward path since a lot of these paths were getting clogged up with ants that were rushing in. He needed to not only find paths that were free enough for them to travel through but also paths that weren't clogged up yet.
Not only that but he pushed himself to the absolute limit as he used the singular predictive model he had on the ants due to how similar they were to predict which tunnels would not get clogged and blocked, leading them to most likely eventually be detected as they would probably lose any room to move at some point.
SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT
Rui and Kane endured the pain of being cut by the extended claws of the passing ants with grim expressions. Making it out alive was their highest priority at the moment, such wounds were inconsequential.
"There it is! The exit!" Rui's expression lit up as they shot toward the end of the tunnel leading outside, before finally exiting the ant mountain.
The two of them heaved a sigh of relief amidst their pants.
"What the hell happened?" Kane asked, now that they were finally safe.
"The ant queen noticed the fact that most of their stockpile had gone when she came over for more supplies," Rui explained. "The ants simply responded to her call and immediately went rushing in towards her. That's why the tunnels were being clogged with those ants rushing towards her."
"I see," Kane nodded. "Well, I'm glad we made it out of that mess. Dying there would have been quite painful. Shame we didn't get the entirety of our quote though, there was still a bit left behind before she interrupted us."
"It's fine," Rui remarked calmly. "Let her have it. It'll probably benefit us. Look."
Rui gestured towards the mountain. The next moment, all the ants immediately emerged from the tunnels of the ant mountain before climbing out of the floor through the many tunnels.
"These ants are heading out of the floor this quickly?" Kane raised an eyebrow.
"Of course, the queen ant is agitated by a sudden shortage in their stockpile, she'll no doubt be paying greater attention to them from here on out. Just now, she instructed the ants to find and bring her more esoteric ore deposits as soon as possible," Rui translated her instructions to the rest of the ants.
"I see, so we succeeded," Kane smirked.
He considered the plan that Rui had come up with to be a little insane, but he understood that if Rui thought it worked, then it probably was a pretty good plan.
"Whoever runs into the queen is going to have quite a lot of difficulty," Rui remarked.
"Hell yes," Kane eagerly agreed. "What kind of creature is able to scream that powerfully? How powerful would its actual attacks be? Its body is far more powerful than even a grade-ten Martial Squire's body, if not for its lack of Martial Art techniques and its unwieldy size, it would be a force entirely unfit for the Squire Realm."
"That's quite accurate," Rui nodded. "In my estimation, a grade-ten Martial Squire alone is going to be insufficient to take down the queen. Most likely one will require a powerful S-rank adventurer team to kill her. And that's assuming that none of her ants are around."
"True, man, taking on the entirety of all ten thousand ants, and the queen, that's something only Martial Seniors can do, right?" Kane asked.
"Yeah," Rui nodded. "No Martial Squire is taking on that floor. The dungeon as a whole is definitely a Senior level threat. Still, as for whether it would be able to beat a Martial Senior…"
Rui did not dare say that it even could.
He still deeply remembered the battle of the three Martial Seniors in Vilun Island, the sheer power that each Martial Senior displayed made a lasting impression on him.
"… It probably can't," Rui shook his head. "Not even this giant dungeon that is the target of my objectives, is a match for a Martial Senior. It does make me feel small."
"Well, you're just a grade-six Martial Squire," Kane shrugged. "Give it time, and I'm sure you'll become extremely strong. You're definitely going to reach the Senior Realm."
Rui appreciated Kane's vote of confidence, but given that he knew just as much or less about the Senior Realm, it wasn't very reassuring.
"What do we do now?" Kane asked.
"Well, we're done for now," Rui nodded. "We need to get the esoteric ore deposits back to the Kandrian Empire soon enough anyway. We can harvest anymore with the energy consumption and storage limit of the dimensional storage ring."
"Right, let's head back and come for the dungeon again?" Kane asked.
"I want to spend some time looking into the effects of the ants scouring the Shionel Dungeon," Rui replied. "I am curious about certain things that might be relevant to our future plans…"
Ants generally had an excellent sense of smell and could track food from great distances away, he was wondering if that could help them track different sources for esoteric ore deposits by virtue of esoteric ore deposits being their food. In that case, the ants might actually allow him to detect other floors with great ease. All he would need to was keep track of their path every time they got a new food source.
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