Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Feng Luo reached out and shifted the submachine gun in Mu Zi’s hands slightly off its aim, then said to the surrounding people who had looked over, “No! It’s my pet!”

“Pet?”

Boss Meng looked at 24K vigorously chewing on the crystal it was holding with its six claws on Feng Luo’s shoulder, and said with a look of curiosity, “Little Brother Feng, you actually have a beetle as a pet? Your taste is pretty unique!”

“But even though it’s a beetle, it’s so cute. So golden and shiny!”

Little Witch’s eyes sparkled with interest, and Little Snow’s expression was similar. After all, 24K’s shiny golden appearance was as alluring to women as sparkling treasure to dragons!

Feng Luo had always been more low-profile. Other than on Death Hunter Island in front of Big Pineapple and Phoenix, he had never exposed his pet in front of anyone else. Therefore, no one had ever met 24K before. This was their first time.

“Little Brother Feng, your pet seems like the same kind as the beetles in these ruins. Was this beetle of yours caught from a nearby region?”

Of course, everyone was naturally curious about the fact that, other than its color, 24K was almost identical in appearance to the Black Beetles in these ruins! Having quite a few holes chewed out of his Energy robe by beetles, Chairman Jiao, who seemed a little worn-out, had an even more curious look.

“Judging by its brilliant appearance,” Boss Meng said with certainty after observing 24K in detail, “Little Brother Feng’s must be an Elite-grade. After all, someone like you definitely wouldn’t take interest in a normal pet!”

The conversation with the two middle-aged players helped Feng Luo create a new background and type for 24K.

“No,” said Feng Luo. “24K is… a special mutant beetle… but it was indeed gained from my mission in this region previously!”

Feng Luo shook his head, initially wanting to reveal a little, but suddenly changed his mind mid-sentence. Because at that moment, he suddenly thought of something!

A large part of 24K’s background was due to the opportunity boost gained from the Lu Conglomerate’s city-building mission.

He had to admit, at that time with the horrifying beetle population in the NC-5504 ruins, it was not possible at all for normal solo players and even small-scale guilds to enter and reach the temple to meet the golden king beetle!

So then, even if he had a top-grade Biochip, it would still be impossible for him to get such a rad pet as 24K!

However, if say 24K was gotten from the city-building mission, it was very possible that till the day 24K was famous and even named “ number one pet”, some players of the Lu Conglomerate would definitely be spreading all sorts of rumors, even exaggerating the matter on the forum – after all, jealous people were what was most abundant in games!

If not for the close relationship between Nightless City and Lu Conglomerate, or for him agreeing to be roped in by Night Star, this situation perhaps would not have emerged. Even if there were people spreading rumors, it would have been controlled by Night Star.

But it was probably hard to avoid the contradiction between Nightless City and the Lu Conglomerate head office now, and so this situation would be highly possible!

“If so, why not do according to what Boss Meng and Chairman Jiao said and separate 24K’s background and the city-building mission, like this, it’ll prevent trouble in the future!”

Feng Luo’s eyes sparkled.

This was also the reason why he had changed his mind mid-talk.

“A special mutant beetle?”

Everyone’s faces shown a “no wonder” look.

Other than the common Normal, Elite, Commander and (quasi-)BOSS differentiations, there were also some monsters in with special attributes in their introductions such as “mutant, leader, independent-type” and others.

Monsters with these attributes were different from those of the same Grade, and even have a higher chance of being more powerful!

In everyone’s understanding, Feng Luo’s words meant hinting that 24K’s ability was stronger than Elite-Grade monsters; in today where almost all pets were Normal, it was undoubtedly deserving to be “honored”!

Of course, they would not have known where Feng Luo’s honor had come from, the “special mutant” was already an exceptionally low-key term.

Because 24K’s attributes, in actual fact, should have been described as “special type BOSS”!

…

Since having already decided to follow the exploration mission to the end in order to gather the four Legendary equipment shards and the Sonic Weapon blueprint, everyone did not delay for long. After resting for a few minutes and generally replenishing their HP, they continued on!

The surrounding environment of the following route had many changes.

The underground base passageway, suspected experimental laboratories and other places which initially should have been mainly made from metallic infrastructure had many spots chewed up into a mess.

There were even some places where the metal had been completely bitten off, exposing the hard rock layer, and even the rock layer had been chewed into many black holes.

Undoubtedly, this was all the work of the Black Beetles, as 10 over Black Beetles would occasionally emerge from these holes all of a sudden, lunging at the players!

Luckily, Mu Zi’s detection talent and the Rare-Grade Recon Meter in his hand were enough a power boost – beetles hiding within a certain distance would all be able to be found by him first thing!

Then with the players focusing their firepower altogether, it did not allow these scattered beetles to cause too great a threat!

Of course, in contrast with the scattered beetles, once again meeting two hordes of up to thousands and even one horde with over 1500 beetles was truly a threat!

The exploration team finally suffered some loss…not just Gunners, but also that Heavy Armored Warrior, havinghis main shield damaged and his spare shield also being destroyed by chewing in the end – both of them had died in the third wave of beetles!

This was furthermore when these beetles were all only of Normal-Grade, when there was not even one Elite-Grade!

But no matter what, the remaining eight players had finally advanced to a spot over 20 meters from the “target location” and had found the “final BOSS” which everyone had been anticipating – the Commander-Grade Black Beetle!

Above a silver-colored metallic wall similar to the passageway on the right but had been chewed up into many little holes, a beetle with a size four times that of a Normal beetle lay quietly on the ground. There were also another 100 Black Beetles two times the size of Normal beetles, continuously crawling on the ground around it and on the wall and ceiling!

“Black Beetle Commander, Level 40 · Commander, Species Number: HSJ-98843, HP: 20000. Talent: ?, Skill: ??”

“Black Beetle, Level 35 · Elite, HP: 7000. Species…Talent: Destruction (C), Skill: ??”

Mu Zi had already quickly uncovered the attributes of these two types of beetles, although unable to uncover some of the parts, at least the HP was not high, and the Grade was considerably low in comparison to most players!

These attributes undoubtedly made everyone relieved. They did not sound too powerful!

“Still, let’s not be careless, its ability shouldn’t be weaker compared with the previous three Commander monsters!”

Feng Luo reached out to give the Eye of the Thunder a quick change of magazine.

He had always thought that a mission with Legendary equipment would not be so simple!

On his shoulder, 24K was hugging an Energy Crystal but no longer munching, its eyes stared straight at the Commander-Grade Black Beetle and there was as if doubt in its little eyeballs!

“Hu!”

As the players stepped into this last stretch of distance, all the Elite-Grade Black Beetles began to move!

“Hu, hu, hu!”

One by one, the Elite Black Beetles suddenly opened their hard shells, stretching out their semi-transparent wings, then with dense wing flapping noises, charged in the air at the eight remaining players!

“What! These Elite Black Beetles can actually fly?”

The three Manipulators in the team had already begun preparing skills. With the Machine Gunner and one Heavy Armored Warrior less, everyone knew that they had to use high-damage skills to try their best at mass-killing these Elite Black Beetles!

But no one had thought that these Black Beetles could actually fly!

Although it indeed looked like there were wings on these Black Beetles’ backs, those previous few thousands of Normal Black Beetles had crawled along between walls – there was none flying at all!

Thus, this situation clearly took everyone by surprise!

Once all the Manipulators had prepared, the 100 Elite Black Beetles had already charged up to half the distance, opening their mouthpieces capable of biting through Alloy Armors!