Chapter 1677: Dog Eat Dog

After ending the call, Lin Huang's figure gradually transformed into a Mantis King.

His level of disguise was already no longer mere simple camouflage but a transformation resulting from a card contract.

This sort of transformation allowed him to take on the appearances of all of the Monster Cards he owned. Furthermore, he would also be able to fully inherit all of the relevant Monster Card skills.

The Mantis King that he had currently transformed into was one of his Monster Cards.

As long as he did not remove the disguise, he could maintain it indefinitely, and no one would be able to see through the ruse.

At the very least, lord-level beings would certainly not be able to see through his disguise.

Hiding in the biggest Bug Tribe mother hive in this great world as a Bug King was practically equivalent to being in the safest place in the entire great world.

However, Lin Huang was not concealing himself here for safety.

He knew very well that in this mother hive, be it Queen Mothers or Bug Queens, even their most powerful abilities would not exceed middle-rank lord-level.

It was only a matter of time before Nine Snake and the other two upper-rank Lords would annihilate this hive once they had joined forces. At most, it would only drain a small fraction of their Odyl.

However, as far as Lin Huang was concerned, this was not his goal. It was merely a small supplemental benefit.

Initially, when he had begun choosing battlefields, he had been considering barren regions.

This would allow him to avoid casualties.

In the great world, there were actually quite a few regions that met this condition.

After looking at several of these places, Lin Huang suddenly discovered a region that was in the core zone of the Bug Tribe. It surrounded the Ten Thousand Bug Maze in the Bug Tribe mother hive.

This was an empty zone constructed by the Bug Tribe specifically to protect the mother hive of the Ten Thousand Bug Maze and had been specially cleared out for this purpose.

However, any living beings that dared to enter this empty zone would be surrounded by the Bug Tribe army immediately.

Lin Huang's discovery of this empty zone was what had led him to transfer his sights to the Ten Thousand Bug Maze.

He suddenly felt that his previous way of thinking had been wrong.

The Ten Thousand Bug Maze was clearly a better battlefield.

The Bug Tribe had wreaked havoc in the great world for countless eras. They now occupied a small, distant plot of land and had become one of the most powerful Tribes.

Furthermore, given the Bug Tribe's reproductive ability, this entire great world might have become their empire if not for the fact that various parties had joined forces in eras past to limit the Bug Tribe's numbers through occasional wars.

The Ten Thousand Bug Maze was the largest Bug Tribe hive in the great world.

Throughout the eras, the hive had continued expanding. Currently, it already encompassed more than twenty star zones.

Over 50% of the Bug Tribe in the great world lived in this giant hive. What was more, there were at least ten Bug Tribe Lords guarding it.

Lin Huang had intentionally chosen this place as his battlefield primarily to draw upon the group of Raiders' powers to destroy this hive, thus removing a grave threat to humans in the great world.

Secondly, he could attack without holding back in here and not worry about harming innocents.

Thirdly, killing mass numbers of Bug Tribe monsters would mean he would definitely be able to obtain many complete bug beast Monster Cards and card fragments. He could use these to expand the numbers of his Bug Tribe army.

Fourthly, all of the Bug Tribe Lords that died here would enter the virtual realm. Lin Huang would subsequently be able to harvest another round of benefits there.

This could be considered killing four birds with one stone.

Compared to other barren regions, this was undoubtedly the better battlefield.

Lin Huang, in his Mantis King disguise, hid himself in a bug cave and patiently waited for the Raiders to arrive.

An hour practically flew past just like that.

Just as Lin Huang was about to start his countdown, Nine Snake appeared above the giant hive of the Ten Thousand Bug Maze with the eight investigators.

As they were too quick, the Bug Tribe could not stop them in time.

However, since enemies had appeared right before their eyes, the Bug Tribe responded immediately without hesitation. A massive horde of bugs swarmed furiously at the nine invaders.

Naturally, Nine Snake and the others did not take the bug horde seriously. Only one middle-rank Lord attacked.

It was a white-robed "Priest".

He struck at the air with an open palm.

In an instant, frightening white rays of light like those of an exploding star lit up the entire Ten Thousand Bug Maze.

The swarming bug horde rapidly melted like accumulated snow under a bright sun. Within three seconds, the tens of billions of bugs in the first bug horde wave were completely annihilated.

This was suppression resulting from an absolute gap in abilities.

Naturally, Lin Huang was able to observe everything happening in the outside world using Divine Telekinesis. Even he could not stop nodding as he watched this subduing of the bug horde.

However, the second bug horde wave arrived merely a moment later.

A massive number of bug beasts surged in a frenzy from various hive exits. Almost in the time it took to breathe, hundreds of billions of them had gathered.

This time, the bug hordes were no longer coming at their opponents in a frontal assault. Instead, they swarmed toward the nine Raiders from every direction.

Not only that, the number of bug beasts joining the battle kept on increasing.

This did not surprise Lin Huang at all.

The Bug Tribe was an extremely ferocious Tribe. They would not easily negotiate with their enemies.

What surprised Lin Huang was that Nine Snake and the rest did not seem as if they were intending to negotiate with the Bug Tribe either. Instead, they were planning to die in here with the Bug Tribe.

He realized why after thinking about it carefully for a moment.

The Bug Tribe was inherently enemies with every other Tribe in the universe. The Raiders must have slaughtered countless Bug Tribes in the universe as well.

Now that they had arrived in the great world, the Raiders looked down on these "native" Bug Tribes even more.

Although they knew Lin Huang was merely drawing on the might of the Bug Tribe, the nine Raiders attacked the Bug Tribe without hesitation anyway.

This antagonism was also what Lin Huang was most desirous of seeing.

Like a tsunami, massive numbers of bugs surged from all directions toward the nine Raiders hovering in midair.

Nine Snake and the rest did not panic in the least. The three upper-rank Lords were even calmer; they did not look like they were going to attack at all.

Just a split second before the wave of bugs was about to swamp all nine of them, the white-robed "Priest" took action again.

He tapped the air with a finger. A silver gleam the size of a needle point seemed to slowly drift above their heads. Suddenly, it seemed to freeze in midair.

The next instant, endless silver gleams spread out in all directions. Not a single spot was overlooked.

Wherever the gleams passed through, all the bug beasts were charred to ashes and dissipated in the air...

The silver gleams even found their way through the bug hordes and struck the surface of the Ten Thousand Bug Maze, creating a loud buzzing sound.

Priest smiled faintly. "This hive's defenses are pretty good."

"It's at least as powerful as an intermediate-grade Dao Weapon." Red-haired Scarlet Fox's interest seemed to have been piqued. He turned his head and looked at Nine Snake beside him. "Let me have this hive. I'll trade it with something of the same value."

Nine Snake did not even look at Scarlet Fox. He merely stared at the hive. "Up to you."

When Nine Snake said this, disappointment clearly flashed through the eyes of the few middle-rank Lords present.

Within their midst, the white-robed "Priest" betrayed a slight change of expression as well. However, he did not dare to argue with Scarlet Fox over this matter.

He even had some regrets about the words that had slipped out of his mouth earlier. He wondered if Scarlet Fox would have coveted the hive if he had not brought up the power of its defenses.

Naturally, Scarlet Fox noticed all these microexpressions. However, he merely smiled and ignored them.