Beast Taming Patrol

But if you add the word "Nest" behind the Dark Demon Spider, then it becomes a completely different matter.

Spider-type beasts usually live in groups, and to eliminate them within their nest?

That would be far more difficult than killing a single individual.

Although Li Hong mentioned that it was just a small-scale nest, there would likely be no fewer than twenty elite Dark Demon Spiders, and even more juvenile ones.

The juveniles weren't much of a concern in terms of strength, but their overwhelming numbers could still pose a problem.

After many battles, team members were quite familiar with one another's strengths.

Li Hong's team of ten had a relatively balanced strength and was of average level among the ten teams.

The difficulty of their task suggested that the tasks for the other teams wouldn't differ much.

"Is this really a reduced difficulty?" a member of Li Hong's team couldn't help but murmur.

How did it not feel any easier at all?

"Your original mission was to eradicate a small-scale Evil Dog gathering area," Li Hong said expressionlessly. "If any of you have an opinion about the current task, I don't mind switching back to the original one."

The members of Li Hong's team fell silent.

The Evil Dogs, a high-level dual-type Dark/Ice commander species.

Even a fool would know how to choose.

Seeing that his team members had stopped talking, Li Hong snorted coldly and then continued, "Tang Long's team, step forward!"

"Your instructor is injured, so the final exam task will be overseen by Instructor Zhou Ran," he explained, glancing at Tang Long's team lined up in a row and continued, "Within five days, under the lead of an instructor, explore a large-scale Mare Wolf gathering area near the border frontline. Unless you encounter a commander-level beast, the instructor won't intervene."

A member of Tang Long's team, sharp to notice a difference between their task and Li Hong's team, immediately raised his hand. "Instructor Li, are we only required to explore, without the need to eradicate?"

"If you can eradicate a large-scale beast gathering area, I'll call you the instructor!" Li Hong let out a cold laugh. "If you want to try, I won't object."

The team member decisively shut up and shrank his head back.

Mare Wolves were high-level commander species of the Dark type.

A large-scale Mare Wolf gathering area would have hundreds of commanders and thousands of elites.

Eradicate?

He was just asking casually.

"Instructor Li," another member from Tang Long's team raised his hand and spoke, "I'd like to know, what exactly does 'explore' entail?"

Li Hong didn't respond, but glanced at Zhou Ran instead.

This new instructor who filled the gap in Tang Long's team looked over the members and said, "To explore means to assess the specific strength of the beasts in their gathering area, to determine how many juveniles, elites, and commanders there are inside. Only after detailed assessment can we send others to eradicate them later."

The members of Tang Long's team nodded slightly, indicating they understood.

Seeing there were no other questions on this side, Li Hong once again spoke loudly, "Zhao Yue's team, step forward!"

"Your task is..."

Each team, as called upon by Li Hong, stepped forward to stand in line and then learned about their final exam task.

Although everyone's exam tasks were approximately of the same difficulty, their contents varied.

Exploration, eradication, clean-up of the battlefield, reinforcements for the war zone.

All sorts of task types were distributed to different teams.

Finally, Li Hong's gaze swept over the last ten people in the field who had not yet been called out, and he spoke in a deep voice, "Xing Yun's team, step out!"

Other teams that had already received their tasks immediately focused their attention on Xing Yun's team of ten as they stepped out.

Lin Su, Zhang Xiaoyu.

These two had given the most exceptional performances in the previous combat tasks.

Zhang Xiaoyu's mushroom power was a one-hit kill for all elite beasts of the hierarchy, and Lin Su had single-handedly boosted the entire team's performance.

And these two were both in Xing Yun's squad.

So, what would be the difficulty level of the final assessment task for Xing Yun's squad?

Everyone felt especially tense and curious.

It would definitely be harder than their tasks, but the question was, how much harder?

As Xing Yun's squad of ten stepped forward, Li Hong didn't keep them in suspense.

He glanced at Xing Yun, who stood silently by his side, and then spoke.

"Your task is to set out from the edge of the border battlefield within five days, infiltrate about five kilometers into the Dark Demon Immortal Country, and explore a small-scale Fear Demon Statue nest. If there are no attacks from Commander or Monarch level beasts, the instructors will not intervene."

As his words concluded, the crowd erupted in surprise.

Five kilometers, for the vast territory of the Dark Demon Immortal Country, was barely an infiltration, just the outermost periphery.

But it still meant leaving the range of the border battlefield and stepping into the territory of the Immortal Country.

Previously, other squads had not faced such a requirement.

Beyond that, the other task requirements for Xing Yun's squad were even more challenging.

Explore a small-scale Fear Demon Statue nest! Enjoy new stories from empire

It was exploration, not eradication.

And it was just a small-scale nest.

But these were Fear Demon Statues!

A lower Monarch race of the Spirit type!

They all possessed the Monarch Power ability and were much more powerful than the Commander beasts.

Moreover, the concept of a Monarch race nest is entirely different from that of a Commander race nest!

In a Commander nest, the Commander tier is the strongest, and the Elite tier is the common combat strength.

In a Monarch nest, the Monarch tier is the strongest, with the Commander tier as the common combat strength!

For different hierarchical levels of beasts, the criteria for defining the scale of a nest varies.

It's not difficult for Commander races to reach the Commander tier, so even a small-scale nest may have two or three Commander tier beasts present.

However, it's much harder for Monarch races to reach the Monarch tier. Although they can grow normally to the Monarch tier, the speed of growth limits the occurrence of Monarch tier, so in a small-scale nest there might not be any Monarchs at all, and at most only one Monarch tier beast would appear.

Considering that Fear Demon Statues are not born through offspring breeding like other species but naturally taken shape from dark caverns, their numbers are somewhat less. In a small-scale nest of Fear Demon Statues, aside from the potential Monarch tier, there would be at least five Commanders, hundreds of Elites, and even more at the juvenile stages.

Such exploration is even more difficult than some eradication tasks.

The only solace, perhaps, is the slow movement speed of the Fear Demon Statues.

But even so, this task was far more challenging than those assigned to other squads.

The members of Xing Yun's squad exchanged glances, all smiling bitterly.

Lin Su couldn't help but sigh softly.

Fear Demon Statues, ah...

Old and familiar beasts.

(Second update before six in the evening)