Each palm strike landed with flawless precision, knocking down the dark shadows charging with killing intent.
The felled shadows were all embedded directly into the forest floor. On closer inspection, they were common-looking gray stones, their surfaces densely pocked like barnacle shells, each about the size of a millstone.
Though they resembled stones, they were actually unidentified stone beetles.
Embedded within the ground where the gray stones had struck were dense, flea-like jointed legs.
Now, numerous unidentified stone beetles used these springy jointed legs to bounce and ricochet, attacking Netero from various incredible angles.
The dizzying multi-directional net-like assault was enough to make one's scalp tingle. Yet Netero, at the center of this net, looked to an outsider like an old man leisurely practicing Tai Chi in a park in the morning.
Not only was he not panicked in the slightest, he seemed to be enjoying himself while maintaining a certain seriousness.
Pat! Pat! Pat!
Compared to the booming sounds coming from other parts of the forest, the sounds of Netero's golden Guanyin striking down the stone beetles were more like the suppressed pfft of automatic rifles fitted with silencers.
Somewhat crisp, even pleasing to the ear.
Stone beetles kept attacking from all sides in an endless stream, but under Netero's precise strikes, they achieved nothing.
A hundred meters away, several members of the Zodiacs stood outside the combat zone, watching Netero's performance.
These members were: the intelligence officer, Pyon… the defense officer, Kanzai… and the biology officer, Ginta.
The three of them were not joining the fight. At Netero's request, they were observing this battle as spectators.
"Barely able to see them clearly. They're bugs, not stones." Kanzai's eyes followed the black streaks cutting through the night air. With his excellent dynamic vision, he discerned the stones' true identity.
"But Chairman is really robust for his age. His eyesight is no worse than a young person's."
Watching Netero toying with the attacking swarm in the palm of his hand, Kanzai couldn't help but praise.
Pyon was playing on her phone, head down, and said absently, "Is it really okay for us to be afk-ing here? Everyone else is probably working."
"What afk-ing?"
Kanzai looked at Pyon blankly.
"Huh? If you don't understand, forget it." Pyon glanced up at him, then went back to her mobile game.
Pyon's dismissive attitude made a vein pop on Kanzai's forehead. He gritted his teeth, "I don't understand, but can't you explain?"
"No. Complicated, and troublesome." The thought of explaining gaming terms to Kanzai was terrifying.
"..."
Kanzai's cheek twitched, and he said angrily, "You had to learn from someone, and it had to be that revealing pigeon woman's tone of voice."
"Oh, oh, oh."
Pyon gave another perfunctory reply.
Just then, a white pigeon pierced through the dense canopy, diving down like a fighter jet to peck at Kanzai's head.
Hearing the whoosh of air, Kanzai's eyes instantly sharpened. He leaped back, avoiding the pigeon attacking from above.
Pyon's fingers, which had been pressing the phone's buttons, suddenly stopped. Seeing it was a pigeon that attacked, she shook her head slightly and continued playing.
Ginta, who had been concentrating on watching Netero's fight, couldn't help but look at the disturbance beside him. Seeing it was a pigeon, he sighed lightly and turned his attention back to the combat zone.
Kanzai, who had leaped back, looked at the pigeon that had abruptly halted, and cursed, "Damn, that revealing pigeon woman's ears are really sharp. She could hear that."
The pigeon calmly watched Kanzai for a moment, then spread its wings and flew back into the sky.
Kanzai silently watched the pigeon fly away, then quietly gave the distant bird the middle finger.
Several minutes passed.
With the final palm strike from the golden Guanyin, the battle ended.
All around, on the ground and even on tree trunks over five meters in circumference, bodies of unidentified stone beetles were visible.
The forest returned to silence. Netero lowered his hands and withdrew the golden Guanyin.
Outside the combat zone, Pyon, Kanzai, and Ginta, seeing the battle had ended, walked toward Netero.
"Chairman, you've worked hard."
Ginta said to Netero, who was stretching his neck.
"Just a little exercise for the joints," Netero smiled.
'Just a little exercise?'
The three of them looked at the hundreds of stone beetle corpses strewn about and were speechless.
If they had to handle a situation like this, they'd be half-dead from exhaustion, right?
Pyon squatted beside one stone beetle corpse, took a photo with her phone, then poked at the pockmarks on its shell with her finger.
"Don't touch it recklessly yet. We can't rule out contact toxins on the shell."
Ginta, responsible for biology, immediately stopped Pyon's reckless action.
"Fine, I won't touch it. It's not like it'll explode, right?"
Pyon snorted but obediently refrained from touching it further.
Ginta replied very seriously, "We also can't rule out the possibility of corpse explosion. Such biological characteristics aren't uncommon in the ecosystem."
"..."
Pyon opened her mouth, then wisely chose to remain silent.
Ginta raised his hands, conjuring a pair of white gloves out of thin air, put them on, then flipped over the stone beetle embedded in the ground.
The beetle's underside was almost entirely covered in flea-like legs. At a glance, it was hard to count them quickly. Besides the jointed legs, no other organs were visible, like a mouthpart for feeding.
"I'm going to dissect it."
Ginta habitually announced, then took a specially designed sharp scalpel from the case he carried and began dissecting the stone beetle's body with practiced skill.
"I say, is dissecting it meaningful? Can you even eat it?" Kanzai scratched his head.
Ginta seemed not to hear Kanzai. He quickly cut the stone beetle into several pieces.
Gradually, the observing trio fell silent.
They saw that the stone beetle's interior was mostly rock, with only faintly visible slender tendons. It seemed like stone yet insect, insect yet stone.
"Is this a rock or a bug?" Kanzai stared, dumbfounded.
When Ginta extracted a quail egg-sized, heart-like flesh organ from inside the stone beetle's body, they were all speechless.
"What a strange biological structure," Ginta exclaimed in awe.
Netero stroked his beard, looking slightly disappointed. "Seems it can't be eaten."
"Uh..." Ginta looked at Netero, then at the stone beetle heart held with tweezers. "Let me confirm. This heart should be edible."
"Oh?"
Netero immediately perked up with interest.
"Chairman, speaking of which, what's the threat level of this thing?"
Pyon, after all, was part of the intelligence team and had her duties. She took out a notebook, ready to record information about the stone beetle.
Netero thought for a moment and replied, "E+."
"Ah? That low?" Kanzai was surprised.
"What's so surprising? This isn't the Six Continents… it's the Dark Continent. A is the upper limit for the comprehensive rating. So this bug being E+ isn't strange."
Pyon noted down the rating Netero gave without looking up.
The Hunter Association's action teams had a clear threat rating scale for various Dark Continent's threats.
For example, the Chimera Ant sub-species had a comprehensive rating of B. The gaseous life form Ai had a rating of A.
Generally, threat ratings of A, B, C, and D were worth noting, while E, F, and G weren't as concerning.
It's worth mentioning that while A+ was the highest level on the threat scale, there was no actual upper limit.
For instance, the continental dominator-level creature, the Rock Island Crab, was rated A+. But the colossal sea creature Law killed in the deep sea was also rated A+. Yet the two were worlds apart in strength.
Therefore, when the Hunter Association rated encountered Dark Continent's creatures, they generally set the lower limits very low. This was also why Netero rated this stone beetle, which would be a C+ on the Six Continents, as E+ here.
That was a full two levels lower.
In the rating criteria, all colossal-sized creatures were basically classified as A-level, entities that individual human combat power could rarely overcome.
At some point, the booming sounds from the forest had subsided.
"The other areas should be finished too," Kanzai said, looking at the forest returned to silence.