There was only silence after Tian Tian cut up the ball, but then everyone came out of hiding and cheered for Tian Tian.
They were naturally happy since Tian Tian had just saved their lives.
If she hadn't made a move, it was certain that they would have died here to this strange ball.
After they celebrated their survival, they quickly turned their attention to the corpse that the ball had left behind.
But just like before with the walking dog creatures, after the ball had died, its corpse had suddenly started to scatter into ashes. It didn't take long before the plastic cover and the bit of acid still on the ground completely disappeared.
However, this time, they were caught off guard by what they found.
There was a bottle of liquid which wasn't really that surprising since they could see that it was a bottle of the liquid from the inside of that ball creature. As for the bottle that appeared, they had no idea where it came from and they didn't care about that right now since there was something else drawing their attention.
Beside the bottle of liquid, there was a chest that had appeared.
This wasn't a small chest or anything, this was a chest that reached Tian Tian's waist and was about a meter in width. This chest was even bigger than the ball creature that had appeared before.
No matter how one looked at it, something like this shouldn't have dropped from that small ball creature. But there was no denying the cold hard facts that had been placed in front of their face.
Tian Tian and the others were careful as they approached the chest, but they found that there were no traps around it.
Now the only thing that they had to worry about was if there were traps inside of it, but the mercenaries couldn't contain their curiosity anymore. So while Tian Tian was lost in thought, one of the mercenaries came forward to open the chest.
Tian Tian immediately reached out her hand and tried to stop them by saying, "Wait, don't open it!" But it was already too late when she said this as the lid of the chest was already opening.
Seeing this, she immediately took several steps back and moved far away from the chest, as if she was afraid that something would pop out of it.
However, the chest just opened like a normal chest, revealing what was hidden inside.
The mercenaries all crowded around the chest and started looking at what was inside, immediately revealing a shocked look.
Tian Tian saw that there were no traps that were coming out of the chest, so she slowly made her way over to the chest as well. When she saw what was inside, she was surprised by it as well.
Inside of the chest was a sword, but it wasn't just any sword. It was a sword that was identical to the one that she had pulled out and used against the ball creature.
It was the same sword that Lin Fan had brought to and sold to the Mercenary Guild.
This was a sword that was a High Qi Gathering Realm Artifact.
The mercenaries could feel the aura that was coming from the sword and they had some understanding of artifacts with their experience, so they knew that this sword was definitely not a normal thing. But since they knew that, they didn't try to take it at all.
That was because they had already reached an agreement with the Mercenary Guild that all special items would be kept by the Mercenary Guild.
They would be able to keep items like the fang and the bottle of acid for themselves, but something special like this sword had to be handed over to the Mercenary Guild.
The main reason they didn't have any courage to take it was because Tian Tian was here.
Tian Tian was the one who had taken care of the ball creature all by herself, so this sword belonged to her in the first place. Not to mention that she was much stronger than them, so they didn't have the courage to fight her for it.
After being shocked by the sword in the chest, Tian Tian pulled it out. As soon as the sword was removed from the chest, the chest also dissipated into ashes just like the corpses of the monsters they defeated.
Holding the sword in her hand for a bit, she then turned to the second strongest member of their group and said, "Use this for now."
That person was surprised by this, but then his eyes lit up as he excitedly grabbed the sword.
The others all looked at him with envious looks, but those envious looks didn't last long after they heard Tian Tian's next words.
"Use that sword to help me fight the ball creatures."
As soon as they heard this, the expressions of all the mercenaries froze.
The ones that didn't receive the sword all had looks of relief on their faces before looking at the person who had received the sword with looks of pity. The one that had received the sword had a look on his face that looked like he was about to burst into tears, but he didn't in the end since he was safer than before as he had something to defend himself with.
Their weapons were useless against the ball creatures, but Tian Tian had already proven that this sword could resist the acid from those ball creatures. So these two swords were the only things that they could use to fight these ball creatures without being affected by their acid.
After they had finished sorting out everything, they continued deeper into the forest in a new formation.
As they continued deeper, they found that it wasn't just the ball creatures that were in this forest, there were other creatures that lived here as well.
The ball creatures appeared mainly on the edge of the forest and as they went deeper into the forest, there were snails and walking mushrooms that appeared.
When they first met these snails and walking mushrooms, they hid to observe them first.
Through their observations, they found that these creatures weren't weak at all like their appearance suggested.
The snails were able to roll up in their shells and move at incredible speeds to tackle their enemies. The power behind these tackles couldn't be underestimated either since they had seen a snail crush a tree trunk with one of these tackles.
Even if they were cultivators, they knew that if they were to take one of these hits, they would certainly have their bones broken by this tackle.
As for the mushrooms, they watched them release all kinds of different spores that had different effects on the prey that they hunted. They could tell what kind of effects the spores had based on the colour of the spores, but they definitely didn't have a way to deal with these spores.
After all, these spores could poison people, put someone to sleep, stun someone and make them unable to move, and do all kinds of other different things.
Without proper medicine or preventative measures, it would be suicide to fight these mushrooms.
So all that they did was hide among the trees and observe these snails and mushrooms without engaging.
The main reason why they didn't attack was that the aura from these snails and mushrooms was in the Fourth Qi Gathering Realm. They were far stronger than the mercenaries that Tian Tian had brought with her, so it was useless for her to have them fight these monsters.
As for why Tian Tian didn't fight them herself, she actually wasn't confident that she would be able to win.
After all, the speed that the snails showed was even hard for her to keep up with and the mushrooms had their spores.
This was just a scouting mission, so there was no need for her to risk her life like this.
After they finished observing the mushroom and snails, Tian Tian brought her group back to the edge of the forest. While she couldn't go any deeper with this group, she didn't want to leave just yet.
They had obtained the chest with the sword after killing their first ball creature, so they wanted to see if they could get a few more swords before leaving this dungeon.
With two people working together to block the acid shots of the ball creature, it was much easier for them to fight the ball creature this time. They were able to take turns blocking the shots and drawing the ball creature's attention, allowing them to quickly pull in the distance between them and the ball creature.
Once they were in range, even the second strongest mercenary was able to easily cut through the ball creature.
It seemed that the ball creature's body was very weak and it was very easy for them to cut through them, so as long as they were able to get close, anyone would be able to kill this thing.
The only real difficulty was having to deal with its acid attacks.
But this ball creature didn't drop a chest like before. All it dropped was the bottle of liquid.
Even after killing several of these ball creatures, they found that all they dropped were bottles of acid from before. Not a single one of them dropped a chest for them.
It seemed that this chest drop had a special condition or it was just based on luck, it wasn't something that happened every time.
When they were planning on continuing their hunt for the ball creatures, they suddenly heard a powerful roar coming from the center of the forest.
This roar created a shockwave that spread all over the forest and even caused their hearts to flutter. It was almost as if it was a spiritual attack on them as they somewhat lost control of their spiritual energy.
There was no doubt that the owner of this roar was powerful.
It seemed like there was some kind of powerful creature that was hiding at the center of this forest.
Based on her previous experience, Tian Tian assumed that this powerful creature was most likely guarding the exit to this forest, so she knew that if they wanted to go further, they would have to defeat it. However, she could also tell from that roar that it was impossible for them.
It was even impossible for them to fight the snails and the mushrooms, so there was no need to mention the powerful creature living in the center of the forest.
With this thought in mind, Tian Tian said, "Let's go, we're leaving."
She didn't let herself get greedy by trying to hunt more slimes. She chose to lead her group out of the dungeon because if they were caught whatever created that roar, they would never have a chance to leave this dungeon.
In the end, their lives were the most important things.
Read 𝓁at𝙚st chapters at (f)re𝒆we(b)novel.com Only