Underground, Darius had passed all the checkpoints Gunner and Xela had created as they had progressed down here.

Darius noted that each hive had been utterly decimated and since their queens were now in his possession, there was no chance of re-population.

Of course, if one were to sit down and calculate, the number of hives the Branded Servant Duo had cleared out in the past month or so would only amount to 2% of the total population.

Darius took them deeper and deeper, until the entire group was about halfway down the entire underground system. They were located where the Adept and above hives had been situated, and the congregation was much greater than those above.

After all, during the yearly culling, the main targets were those Amateur and Journeymen hives since they were the easiest to deal with. Adept hives and those deeper down were older and more united, thus proving to be extremely hard to deal with.

Well, it didn't bother the 'heroes' much, because, for Adept hives and above, their rate of growth was severely stunted due to the severe lack of resources the continent had.

It was the weaker hives that could grow rapidly by even eating dirt, thereby enforcing the older hives.

This was unacceptable!

Even if the bugs were weak and lacked resources, they could multiply with the smallest infusion of energy. Once their numbers were saturated and were enough to swarm this entire continent, they would quickly expand seaward and consume the lives there.

On that topic, the seas of Faust were a special domain. While yes, they did have monsters and extreme maritime life, they also had the best and most untapped resources on the entire planet.

The reason the sea wasn't used much in Faust wasn't due to danger, but distance. The continents on Faust were so far from each other that using a boat to traverse the sea to reach the closest one nearby was about the same distance as using a rocket to fly to the moon.

And so, they traveled to each other using teleportation arrays instead, which was why they were so expensive in the first place. If you had the free time, you were free to spend a dozen years or so moving along the sea until you reached your destination.

However, in the context of the Insects, this was an advantage for them. Once they were plentiful enough, they would move into the sea to start consuming marine life. The small bugs would wait on the continent while the higher-ranked ones that were somewhat humanoid would dive in, and gather huge amounts of marine life to feed the weaker ones to grow their power.

The question now was, if the Insects were capable of doing this, why hadn't they done this long ago?

And therein lay the answer as to why the Gods issued this yearly culling. Not every other year, not every five years, nor once a decade, but EXACTLY a year apart.

You could bet your entire fortune that they wished they could send groups down there every 5 minutes instead, but that would be counterproductive. Not enough powerhouses, and no manner what, some of those who entered would never come out.

It was reasonably okay to lose their Amateurs and Journeymen, but if Adepts and above were to die down there, they would be providing the Insects with flesh to grow new troops, allowing them to kill more until a positive cycle on the behalf of the insects would form.

This was the despair in dealing with this troublesome race. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Coincidentally, this was also the reason the Grandmasters had reacted too strongly to seeing Insects at the shores. They had long suspected that the Insects might still be living on maritime resources, by digging a pathway underground that led to the sea.

It should have been impossible for those hives down there to have survived this long otherwise. As such, they assumed that Darius' bugs were trying to prevent the warriors from going down below and interrupting some very important moment.

That was why they had concentrated so hard on culling Darius bugs, which had led to the appearance of Darius and co.

Now, it could be said that the Grandmasters 100% believed that the bugs were up to something and had even contracted outside help to achieve their goals.

What they couldn't understand was why any sane entity would assist the bugs in any way, because that would be destructive. The only real way to cull such a species would be to starve them to death, but the circumstances made this extremely difficult.

At this point, Darius arrived near one of the Adept hives and smiled as he opened his Character menu. When he compared it to Gunner and Xela, he noticed that they had gone quite far ahead of him, but that would balance itself out in time.

Right now, Darius noticed he still had 50 unallocated skill points which he had been saving for when he entered the Adept stage.

However, for that he would first have to finish this Quest, as such he directly allocated 19 of these points into the Insect Soul Curse spell, greatly increasing its capability.

[Insect Soul Curse - Level 20 Spell

Grade: Intermediate

Cost: 100 MP

Description: Plant a curse of weakening on any member of the Insect Race that afflicts them through the soul. This weakens them by 50% for 60 days and is insanely contagious.]

Darius smiled. From a 25% weakening for 3 days, it now weakened them by 50% for 60 days. This gave him two months to allow the poison to spread, and all Insects regardless of level would have their power drop by half.

Darius immediately cast the spell on a nearby Insect guard that was patrolling the outskirts of an Adept hive. The very next moment, a grayish light shot into the Insect's body, and it froze in place.

Its robust and valiant movements suddenly became lethargic and it fell over on its back with its legs twitching weakly. What amazed Darius was that it wasn't the only Insect to react that way.

Not one minute later, the entire hive had frozen in just the same manner and fell on their backs, twitching with pain and lethargy.