As Lu Qing's body grew, his flight capabilities improved right along with it.
With a single flap of his wings, he was already back on the tree trunk.
The trunk that had felt spacious yesterday was a bit too narrow for him today.
He couldn't even squeeze into the tree hollow anymore.
"Dazhuang, come out."
At his call, Dazhuang woke with a groan.
Seemingly waking up on the wrong side of the bed, he complained as he shuffled out of the hollow. "I ate my fill yesterday, so I'm sleeping in today. What are you yelling for? Watch out or I'll beat you up..."
The moment he stepped out of the entrance, the complaints abruptly ceased.
Dazhuang trembled. He raised his triangular head in disbelief, staring at the "huge" Scythe shining with a red light right in front of him.
Behind the Scythe was a thick, hill-like body."Qing Yi... are you Qing Yi?"
Having spent every waking moment together for days, Dazhuang could still recognize him.
Lu Qing swung his Scythe, sending wood chips flying and leaving a large gash in the tree trunk.
"How about it?"
Dazhuang looked at the gash in the trunk and exclaimed, "Too fierce! Super fierce! How did you get so tall and mighty?"
"Even the Lord would have to clamp her four legs tight if she saw you."
Lu Qing withdrew his Scythe and fluttered his wings. "I eat a lot, so naturally I grow fast!"
"Makes sense! What did you eat?"
Lu Qing tossed a green worm to him. "Just this. I ate all night and wiped out two nests. I saved this last one for your breakfast."
It was a massive one.
Dazhuang froze. "A green worm? You wiped out two nests..."
"Yeah, it was easy!"
It really had been easy, just like eating at a buffet.
Dazhuang, however, cried out in alarm. "We're in trouble now! The Green Worm Lords are extremely vengeful. You destroyed their nests, so they definitely won't let us off! We need to move, quickly!"
After saying that, he dragged the green worm corpse and prepared to flee.
Lu Qing simply smiled, entirely unhurried. "What are you panicking for? To me, green worms are just a buffet! It doesn't matter how many of them come!"
Dazhuang sensed something unusual on the ground. He glanced down, and his body jolted. As if terrified, he let the green worm corpse drop down the trunk to the ground below.
A Green Worm Lord looked at the corpse falling in front of it and instantly flared with rage. "It really is them! They're the ones who killed my kin! Minions, get them!"
Down on the ground, hundreds of densely packed green worms were crawling, wriggling their bodies toward the large tree.
Dazhuang was instantly scared out of his wits, his four secondary legs scrambling in total disarray.
"We're done for, we're done for, they've got us! They'll hunt us endlessly! Hurry and find a place to hide! If we have to, we'll change territories..."
Hearing a strange noise, he turned his head and discovered that Qing Yi had actually flown straight down.
"Are you crazy? The ground is covered in green worms! Isn't this just throwing your life away?"
Dazhuang was on the verge of tears.
He had two good friends in this life. Xiaoheiyi had already fallen victim to the green worms, and now Qing Yi was going to do the same?
...
Of course, Lu Qing wasn't crazy. Right now, he was extremely excited.
There were many green worms in this forest, but they were too scattered, making it rather troublesome to hunt them down!
Now that they were gathered together, wasn't this purely paving the way for his grand leveling-up endeavor?
For Lu Qing, who possessed Fourth Grade strength, First Grade green worms were absolutely a buffet delivered right to his door.
The moment he landed, the green worms clamored and swarmed over.
However, Lu Qing's crimson Scythes were incredibly sharp. A single slash could often cleave two or three of them in half.
Within just a few swings, he had cleared out an empty zone around himself.
"Minions, keep charging!"
The green worms showed no fear of death, rushing forward all at once.
Naturally, Lu Qing did not hold back. His two Scythes lashed out in a blur of crimson shadows.
The sheer power gap between the Fourth Grade and First Grade was absolute. They had no room to defend themselves whatsoever before being harvested on the spot.
...
Dazhuang watched in a daze.
He knew Qing Yi was fierce, but he hadn't expected him to be this fierce.
The tough-skinned, highly troublesome green worms actually had zero ability to fight back against Qing Yi!
...
Green blood splattered all over the ground as the green worms met their end under his Scythes one by one.
The eyes of the four Green Worm Lords glowed green.
"My boys!"
Two of the Green Worm Lords grew truly frantic.
They had originally come out of shared hatred to seek revenge, but they never expected the enemy to be so brutal, slaughtering their troops in such a short amount of time.
If they didn't act now, their forces would be completely reaped!
One Green Worm Lord opened its mouth and spat out a wad of silk.
The wad of silk began to expand the moment it was expelled.
By the time it reached Lu Qing, it had already turned into a small net.
He had no idea that a Green Worm Lord possessed this kind of skill. Caught off guard, he failed to dodge in time, and the inherently sticky net snagged onto his secondary leg.
'Species: Green Worm Lord, Grade: Low Tier Fourth Grade'
The reason he hadn't provoked the Green Worm Lords while raiding their nests last night was because they possessed Fourth Grade strength.
Now that he had advanced to the Fourth Grade himself and excelled in offense, he naturally wouldn't let them off.
The other Green Worm Lords quickly followed suit, unleashing their unique "magic" attacks and wildly spraying at Lu Qing.
Flailing in the chaos, he got stuck by a few of them, leaving him looking somewhat disheveled.
He didn't have any long-range attack methods. If he kept getting sprayed like this, he would probably be bound up like a rice dumpling.
As expected of the Fourth Grade! Even the Green Worm Lords, whose offensive capabilities were relatively weak, could still manage to tie him down!
After dodging a few more small nets, Lu Qing did not hesitate to flap his wings and take to the air.
In the blink of an eye, he had already disappeared among the dense leaves.
"Damn it, that Mantis escaped!"
"A mere Mantis dared to provoke us green worms. He's lucky he ran fast, otherwise he'd taste what it's like to be torn apart alive today!"
The four Lords furiously vented their rage.
The green worms that had luckily survived quickly began to flatter them.
"The great Lord bugs are mighty! Invincible!"
"A puny Mantis dares to act up? If you were one step slower, our Lords would have made you serve them in bed!"
"With a Mantis? That's too brutal! Yet I'm actually excited!"
The four Lords half-raised their bodies, smugly enjoying the praise.
Just then, they felt something drop from above.
Looking closely, they realized it was the small nets they had spat out.
"Why are nets falling from the sky?"
With their substandard intellect, they twisted their heads to look up.
A massive, dark-green shadow was rapidly diving down.
Scythes gleaming with crimson light aimed straight for the head of one of the Green Worm Lords.
Had they ever seen a blade technique descending from the heavens?
The extremely sudden attack left the four green worms with absolutely no time to spit out their silk nets.
The one targeted by the Scythe had no chance to dodge and was struck directly on the skull.
Clang!
It actually couldn't cut through!
Lu Qing flapped his wings to cushion his descent and landed steadily on the ground.
Was the defense of a Fourth Grade Green Worm Lord really this strong?
After all, with a single strike of his Scythe, he could hack a gash into an ancient tree.
Yet he couldn't break a Green Worm Lord's defense?
After surviving the ordeal, the Green Worm Lord came to its senses and immediately grew arrogant.
"Hahaha, trash! It feels just like a tickle! Very comfortable!"
"Come, come, come, give me another scratch..."
The courage of the neighboring Green Worm Lords instantly swelled. If he couldn't break Lord Zhe's defense, then naturally he couldn't break theirs either!
"Lord Zhe is mighty! This puny Mantis is simply a clown!"
"Hahaha, jumping all over the place like a little Mantis! We'll tear your legs off in a moment!"
After a brief moment of hesitation, Lu Qing brought his blade down without a second thought.
This time, he activated his skill, Violent Strike.
The red Scythe instantly turned a deeper shade of crimson.
This attack targeted the exact same skull that had proven impenetrable moments ago.
The Green Worm Lord didn't notice anything unusual at all. It even stretched its head out, waiting for a "scratch."
In the next instant, the fist-sized head, along with its entire body, was sliced in half with a single strike.