"They are coming!"
Milo shouted and prepared for the assault of the magical beasts.
The others in his group did the same and set themselves up in a circular formation that covered every angle.
Daniel wielded a silver sword, Milo had two daggers, Phoebe held a spear with both her hands, and Troy and Manuel were ready with their swords pointed toward the walls.
"They should be only rank 3 beasts, no need to waste mental energy on them."
Daniel loudly ordered and the others nodded in approval, their strength was way superior to that of those weak creatures.
Three of them had a rank 4 body after all, using spells would be overkill.
The worms slowly came out of the tunnels and inspected the situation.
In the eyes of those simple beasts, the five humans in a circle in front of them were simply too scary.
They exuded a strong battle intent and they were working together, they would rather go after the solitary human in the deeper parts of their lair.
However, their leader had given specific orders so they jumped at them after a short moment of hesitation.
The result of that fight was quite predictable.
Sixty or so magical beasts in the third rank tried to encircle the cultivators but were vanquished in a few minutes due to the immense difference in power.
Daniel gracefully waved his sword which emitted sharp shining lights that cut the creatures as soon as they came in contact with them.
Milo inflicted precise wounds on every worm that came too close to the formation, killing each of them in one blow.
Phoebe used wide attacks, fully expressing the power of her long weapon, and preventing most of the creatures from coming close to them.
Troy and Manuel were slightly less impactful but still killed a few worms.
It wasn't that they were weak but rather that their three companions were much stronger than them.
When everything was over, Daniel moved to collect the corpses with a satisfied gaze.
His space-rings were already equipped with items that gathered the blood of the worms so the collection part was fast and smooth.
'I should collect three to four hundred of these to be sure. These ambushes are quite useful.'
He thought before being brought back to reality by a strong earthquake.
The room began to tremble just like it had happened to Noah.
"Milo?"
Daniel shot an inquisitive look to Milo but he could only shrug his shoulders in answer, he was confused about that situation too.
Then, cracks began to fill the floor of the room and big pieces of the terrain fell in the empty space downward, creating dark pits in the ground.
In the end, the ground broke and revealed the hive-like structure of the lower layers.
The five nobles didn't have any method to fly or to slow their descent.
When they lost their footholds, they fell straight into the nest, separating themselves during the fall when they managed to reach for a cave.
Meanwhile, Noah was running at high speed, killing as many worms as he could.
His tactic was simple: kill all the weaker beasts and have a one versus one against the rank 4 creature.
'Intelligence is useless if you don't have the necessary strength to use it!'
Those were his thoughts.
The fact that the rank 4 Excavating worm had a Bloodline inheritance and had awakened its sea of consciousness didn't directly increase its battle prowess.
Intelligence required means to be scary, it was almost useless if it didn't have ways to be applied.
That's why, Noah decided to vanquish its army before facing it, without the possibility of setting encirclements and formations, the threat of its intelligence would be greatly reduced.
However, the exploration of the lair revealed itself quite challenging.
Most of the tunnels were vertical and required the usage of his wings to effectively explore them.
Also, the worms could freely dig their way away from the battle, escaping Noah's chase and reorganizing in another area.
'This is annoying, I've only managed to kill around thirty worms since I entered the lair, they always escape when I kill too many of them. The way in which they escape is suspicious too, it seems that they are trying to lure me somewhere.'
Noah was chasing every trace of life that he found as he had planned, yet, when dealing with a beast with a Bloodline inheritance, he could not act in the same way he did with normal magical beasts.
He had to be wary of the plots and traps of his opponent, he couldn't just jump at every worm he saw.
'If I end up in a closed space with hundreds of magical beasts in the third rank and the leader, I might be in trouble.'
Then, a tremor ran through the underground area which made Noah stop his advance and jump in the air, warily inspecting the terrain as his wings kept him flying.
'Mh? Did it come from above?'
A sound shifted his attention toward the upper parts of the lair.
As he watched, two figures fell from one of the passages, doing their best to slow down their speed.
One of them was a woman wielding a spear that continuously tried to stab on the walls to create a handhold.
However, her efforts were vain since she could not exert much strength as she fell and her weapon always failed to stick in the wall.
The other one was a man with a sword that Noah found familiar.
He was panicking, looking at how the floor was nearing him.
Then, the woman gave up on stopping her fall and used the spear to launch herself toward the man.
Once she reached him, she grabbed him and prepared herself for the landing.
THUD!
A loud thud resounded in the area as the two cultivators hit the ground and created a cloud of smoke.
Noah was surprised and calmly went back on the terrain without moving his gaze from those two cultivators.
When the smoke vanished, he was able to see that the woman was squatting with a pained expression as she held the man safely in her arms.