Chapter 2972: Make A Profit

With a spatial tremor, five warships of the Crocodile Clan transitioned into the attacked mining area.

The Licker swarm guarding outside the mining area immediately charged toward the warships.

“It’s mutant worms, fire!”

The light beam cannons loaded on the warship, together with the focused light beam and the densely gathered cutting weapons, launched a forward volley.

After the concentrated fire attack, the area in front was filled with shattered blood and flesh.

Huh?

The captain of the Crocodile Clan’s lead warship quickly noticed something unusual.

The mutant worms in the mining area were somewhat different from the previous swarms they had encountered.

Upon closer inspection, the ground was covered with fragments of blood and flesh, which were rapidly wriggling and healing at a speed visible to the naked eye, reconstituting into mutant worm bodies, and charging toward them once again.

Continue to fire!

The ships unleashed another round of bombardment.

The mutant worms possessed extremely strong regenerative abilities. Even after being completely blasted apart several times, they were still able to recover as if nothing had happened.

Not far away, Fang Heng and Zaka’s group of players watched from a distance as the flesh and limbs on the ground were blasted to pieces under the beam weapons.

“Mr. Fang,” The accompanying flying squirrel clan captain said softly, a bit nervously, “The warship is very powerful. If they find out we’re stealing ore…”

“Shh.”

Before Fang Heng could respond, Zaka raised his hand to signal to stay quiet and whispered, “Don’t panic. Just watch and learn.”

After several rounds of attacks failed to fully eliminate the Lickers, the Crocodile Clan had no choice but to use physical injection weapons designed to counter the Seed of Ouroboros. Only then were they able to temporarily suppress the Lickers’ regenerative abilities and completely clear the Licker swarm.

After confirming the area was secure, the ships hovered in midair.

The Crocodile Clan’s forward scouting team disembarked from the ships and entered the iron mine to investigate.

Huh?

Upon entering the mine, the Crocodile Clan members wore looks of deep confusion.

Too strange!

There wasn’t a single mutant worm creature inside the mine, but there were clear signs that the entire mine had been heavily excavated.

What did it mean?

In such a short time, a full one-third of the mine had already been excavated!

The Crocodile Clan captain was stunned and signaled his subordinates to search the mine carefully.

Even after checking the mine repeatedly, they still found no trace of mutant worms.

What was going on?

Where was the ore?

Eaten by the mutant worms?

The Crocodile Clan warriors exchanged glances, all feeling puzzled.

After thinking for a while, the Crocodile Clan captain had no choice but to report the situation to fleet headquarters via communication.

The fleet headquarters also found the situation baffling.

Mutant worms never seen before had been found in the mining area?

And they could devour ore?

What was happening?

With no other clues on-site and unable to keep consuming the combat strength of five ships, they were ordered to return for now.

Fang Heng remained hidden not far away.

Only after seeing the Crocodile Clan’s ships transition away, leaving behind only one guard team to watch the mining area, did he step out from the shadows.

Zaka and Arkley, along with a few others, also emerged from behind a rock alongside Fang Heng.

“Mr. Fang, do they look down on you? They actually dared to leave just one team behind?”

Zaka was speechless, thinking the Crocodile Clan was truly bold.

Leaving just one guard team?

Wasn’t that just giving it away?

Fang Heng shrugged, which was as good as agreeing.

“Chi, chi chi…”

In the mining area, the ground once again began to crack.

The remaining Crocodile Clan team, on high alert, was suddenly shocked to see a type of brown-spined mutant worm they had never seen before burrow out from the cracks below and charge at them!

“Shoo! Shoo shoo!!!”

The Crocodile Clan immediately raised their beam weapons to fight back.

Completely ineffective!

In just a few moments, dense Lickers surged out from the underground fissures and devoured the Crocodile Clan guard team entirely.

The flying squirrel clan’s captain, following Fang Hen,g opened his mouth in astonishment and cautiously swallowed.

Was there such a tactic?

But thinking carefully, Fang Heng’s summoned creatures could freely infiltrate underground and had extremely high mobility.

Meanwhile, both the Crocodile Clan and the Shadow Clan were forced to concentrate massive combat strength on fighting the powerful insect nest swarm at the front lines, leaving them unable to spare forces to deal with Fang Heng’s scattered swarm.

As long as the swarm was given a little time, they could quickly strip the mining area clean of ore!

Fang Heng waited in place for a while and continued to control the Licker swarm to collect ore.

Zaka nudged the flying squirrel clan’s captain Jenny beside him and asked, “Well? What do you think?”

Jenny nodded blankly and replied, “Very impressive. But… won’t our underground passage eventually be discovered?”

“Tch, don’t worry. Once the ore is transported, we’ll clean up the passage. Right now, the front-line battle is so intense, they don’t have time to carefully search the mining areas.”

“Ah, well…”

Jenny thought about it and felt that it made sense.

With the terrifying mining efficiency of the zombie swarm, a medium-sized mine could be cleared in just half a day.

In that case…

What was there to be afraid of?

Time to grind!

Grinding means profit!

At that moment, the five Crocodile Clan warships had just transitioned into the main battlefield domain to regroup with the fleet. The Crocodile Clan soon received another message.

They had lost contact with the Crocodile Clan team left behind.

Huh? What did that mean?

Attacked by the swarm again?

The Crocodile Clan captain was incredibly frustrated. He tried several more scouting missions with ships, but the results were always the same.

Each time they wiped out the swarm, and as soon as they left, the swarm returned.

Endless harassment!

Although the front line remained stable for now, all the mining areas under their watch were increasingly harassed by swarms. They couldn’t possibly assign a ship to guard each mining site, right?

After trying a few more support missions, they still couldn’t stop the elusive swarm, and the Crocodile Clan started to burn out first.

Helplessly, they were forced to choose to give up.

It was quite frustrating.

Fortunately, the humans were still being obedient, dutifully providing the materials needed to build defensive towers.

Seeing that even the powerful Crocodile Clan was helpless against the mutant worms in the mining areas, the other allied races also gave up the mining areas to focus on the front lines.

If all went smoothly, the front line would be secured in two to three days.

Then they could return and reclaim the mining areas!

In the mining area–

After watching the Crocodile Clan abandon the mines completely following two to three rounds of failed reinforcements and losses, Fang Heng knew they wouldn’t be coming back.

“Mr. Fang, your wisdom is truly admirable.”

The flying squirrel clan had become completely convinced by Fang Heng.

Everything had gone exactly as Fang Heng had predicted.

After calculating that repeatedly reinforcing the mines was a losing proposition, the Crocodile Clan decisively gave up on all but the most valuable mining sites, which were now directly guarded by ships.

A smart move: focus on the big, let go of the small.

Fang Heng nodded and said, “Let’s keep expanding. Strip all the surrounding mining areas clean. We still need the flying squirrel clan’s help. As for profit sharing, follow the usual agreement.”

The flying squirrel clan’s captain’s eyes lit up and said, “Of course! No problem! Forgive my bluntness, but you are the greatest race in the universe!”