Woosh!

One swing of the sword took multiple enemies out, splattering abnormal amounts of blood in the air

But no matter how many she killed others would fill their place, there was just no end to these pesky bugs

"Master was right, it would take me a few hours to whittle down half of them and that's without me wasting time defending myself"

Right now her whole body was covered with a purple hue, this made any attacks from these mosquitos useless against her, but at the cost of her attack power dwindling as she could no longer put any aura into the sword

'I'm wasting too much aura when I make the shield around me, if only I could control the thickness then I would be able to channel it to both my weapon and my body at the same time'

That task would be for later though, first she had to master keeping her clothes on else she would die of embarrassment before anything killed her

So she continued on swinging left and right while using that time to comprehend her aura more

Suddenly the earth started to shake under her feet, making her and the flying mosquitos pause slightly in surprise

'Earthquake?'

That was the first guess that came to mind until she heard rumbling noise from the east, turning her head in a hurry she saw the trees swaying roughly, then a shadow pounced out of them

"Anput?"

The usually lively hound was running in haste with three gems in her mouth, her state seemed a little wretched but not too dangerous

"Why is she already done?"

Just as she asked that question a horrifying amount of beetles poured from in between the trees, filling her vision with yellow

"?!?!?"

She didn't bother understanding the situation anymore and turned to run in the other direction

'Wait, the pearls!'

Her running figure took a turn and headed straight into the clump of mosquitoes, bulldozing her way through

From the moment the mosquitoes saw the beetles they headed out to engage, that thinned the amount guarding the blood drop that she wanted

Still, it wasn't that easy to get as they rammed their bodies into her, slowing her down as they converged around her in an attempt to hold her in place

"Haaaaa!!"

In her haste, she swung her sword with all her might, covering the dull sword with her purple aura which extended straight from her body shield into the sword

That opened up a hole in their encirclement, allowing her to quickly grab the pearl and run out, but not without all the mosquitos flying behind her in a mad bid to reclaim their treasure

This series of events put Anput in a very dangerous situation, the beetles were chasing her from behind madly while the mosquitos gave up on fighting the beetles and started to chase Ellis in front of her, that way she was stuck between the beetles and the mosquitos

Originally she was faster than the beetles as although they gained momentum pretty quickly it was deterred by the trees dotting the surroundings making them slow down or smash into them, some even took the trees down as they gave chase

Now though she couldn't speed up lest she gets stuck between the mosquitos who would most definitely attack her if she got too close

Every second she spent between those two lessened the distance between her and the beetles, she could feel all eyes on her, boring holes into her body with their beady eyes

"Awuuuuu!"

She could only howl to the skies in askance of help, hoping her comrade would realize the trouble she was in

Ellis did indeed look behind when she heard her howl but she couldn't see anything through the huge cloud of bugs

'How do I stop their charge?'

She realized by now that they were chasing Anput for the same reason the mosquitos were chasing her, clearly those three gems were the treasures of the beetles

She thought the situation through but could not come up with a way to deter that wave with just her power alone

'Alone...I could use the mosquitoes!'

The idea seemed great as she pictured the swarm of mosquitoes clashing with the swam of beetles from the side, with a plan in mind she started to run to the side, bringing al the pesky flyers with her for a spin

Her plan indirectly achieved what Anput had hoped for, allowing her to pick up her speed once again with the cloud of buzzers gone

Rumble Rumble~

The sounds of clicking and rumbles seemed closer now though, turning her head she saw the beetles were closing in faster than before, even though she was supposed to have sped up

"Huu huu"

It was then that she noticed her body getting heavier by the second, her fur seemed to gain weight as it started to droop on her body, heat then assaulted her from within, flooding her sensory systems, making her eyes puffy and burning her nose

Rustle....

The noise of leaves scattering in the wind was the last thing she heard before her body couldn't endure anymore, passing out mid-run

...

'What a mess'

He surveyed the swarm of beetles in front of him while carrying the fainted Anput over his shoulders, knowing that something had gone very wrong in his plans

'Whatever had happened needs to be sorted out later, first, these bugs need to be taken care of'

He took a quick glance toward the swaying grass behind him before looking back at the beetles

"This was meant for the mosquitoes, but I guess you need to be taken care of first"

Beetles were weaker than mosquitoes alone as they had no manoeuvrability and were easy to kill with a little bit of strategy, but as a swarm they were more dangerous and any bug swarm out here as their charge trampled over all that stood in their way

At first he was running in their direction but his body suddenly darted to the side without any pause or slowing down his momentum, an incredible show of control that sadly had no observers

With his sudden change of direction the beetles were forced to slow down their momentum so that they could turn, else with their momentum and heavyweight they would flip over if they made a sudden turn

That moment of sluggish movement was what YuJu needed, or rather, what his pursuers needed

Slice Slice Slice~~

The sound of blade slicing flesh and rock resounded from his back, revealing the swarm that he had brought along himself

Originally they were very hard to spot but since they revealed themselves one could now spot several green figures at the side of the beetle swarm, sharp and long scythes for hands, killing at least two beetles with each swipe

They were the Jade Mantis species that YuJu had lured, but unlike the other two swarms he didn't take a treasure per se but attacked them instead, angering them into chasing him

"They should buy me enough time"

Even though the Jade Mantes were individually much stronger than any beetle other than the two giant guardians they were low in numbers as they were originally solitary hunters and had only grouped up because he had attacked their leader, that's why they would eventually get overrun

At least that's how it was supposed to go until the beetles utterly ignored their predators and rushed madly at YuJu without a care for their life

"? Hmm, interesting"

He didn't panic at this unexpected development, instead his eyes darted toward Anput's twitching body in his arms, thinking about what she could have done to make them so persistent

"Hmm?"

It was then he noticed she had three gems in her mouth which she clutched tightly even as she fainted

"Three Burial Gems?"

This was impossible, his information had told him only one burial gem existed within the nest at this time for having three meant they were...

"They were hatching the scarab queen?"

Now everything made sense, Once any beetle swarm had at least three Burial Gems they might attempt to hatch a queen, and Anput must have tried to pick it up thinking it was a gem and ate it in the process, explaining why she was in this state and why the beetles wouldn't let her go

With all the pieces put together, he now knew how to deal with the situation

Instead of rushing in one direction, he started to zig-zag forward, making the swarm change direction each time in fear of losing their target, this slowed them down allowing the mantes to reap them from behind faster as they didn't need to exert themselves to catch up

This continued on for minutes until he saw the black cloud following a purple and red streak which he was waiting for

Soon Ellis noticed him too and their eyes locked, he opened his mouth but didn't say anything, instead pointing at it, then at the bead in her hands

Somehow she felt she understood him, hastily throwing it into the air, landing safely within his mouth

The second he shut it all the mosquitoes raged about in the air, somehow losing their target and not sensing it within him, so they targeted the close Ellis who had stolen it to begin with

Soon the two swarms closed in, boxing the two in between

Ellis slowed down her pace and readied her sword, she was about to turn around and open a path in the mosquito cloud to allow her master an escape but he didn't seem to agree as he accelerated past her and kicked her into the air, right above the beetles

"Ahh!"

The surprised Ellis quickly started to use the shells as stepping stones, jumping from one shell onto the other like she was jogging, making her feel like she was on a treadmill

While YuJu was rocketed into the nearby trees, hidden from the bugs sight, while that fooled the mosquitoes who couldn't sense their treasure anymore it didn't make the beetles lose track of him at all

He didn't want them to either, instead, he merely kept running at a moderate speed, watching the last swarm clash into the beetles with anger and irritation, venting their loss on the invading bugs

With this the beetles now had the mantes reaping their lives from behind, the mosquitoes blocking their path from the front while trying to get past their hard shells, and lastly, Ellis who was now swinging her sword from the back as well, raking in as much exp as she could

'Perfect'

He was elated at this situation, he needed but run and victory would eventually be theirs