In this round of battle, Rod had killed more than three hundred black ants, harvested over four hundred thousand Souls Without Spirit and dozens of souls.
Even for the current Rod, this gain was quite impressive.
His long-depleted reserve of Souls Without Spirit finally had a bit of a stockpile, and the long-empty Soul Altar was at last filled with a heap of gray, murky souls.
Although it wasn’t immediately useful, as the existing stars had already passed that stage, and new stars were nowhere to be seen, having a bit more in reserve did provide some peace of mind.
Rod checked his own state, his soul was somewhat weary, his Spiritual Energy was about half remaining, and the aftereffects of "Awakening" had not completely dissipated, meaning he had used only about one-third of his Spiritual Energy in this battle.
The "Star Shuttle" was indeed powerful!
Compared to the past, this efficiency was day and night—if Rod went all out, harvesting a million Souls Without Spirit a day would not be a problem.
With this, were souls still an issue?
Why hadn’t I ignited this star earlier?
It made me grind in the sewers for so long, exhaustively killing less than ten thousand a day, and I even earned the notorious title of Sewer King.
Which I couldn’t shake off.
Rod was full of regret, but there was nothing to be done about it, given the conditions of the "Star Shuttle," he couldn’t possibly have ignited it back then; even if by some fluke he had, the daily maintenance cost would have been huge—a few hundred humanity, which he simply couldn’t afford.
I must find a way to alter history in the future, to erase words like "black garbage can" and "sewer" from my record.
With this thought, Rod and the warriors returned to the lighthouse.
At that moment, the ants near the lighthouse had been completely cleared, and not a single living monster was in sight.
Monster Ash was scattered everywhere, and the tower body was full of dents and pits; the ants’ mouthparts and claws were extremely sharp, not even the bricks reinforced by Spiritual Energy were spared.
Some collectors, seeing that the battle was over, took the opportunity to clean up the battlefield and collect Monster Ash.
The lighthouse’s logistical and medical personnel were meanwhile treating the wounded and repairing the tower.
Rod received a warm welcome inside the lighthouse, everyone looked at him as if he were the fire that guarded them.
The captain was a burly man who asked with great admiration, "Sir, could you tell us your name?"
Rod reluctantly gave his name.
To his surprise, no one here recognized him, although he was already a celebrity in Trolian, clearly not everyone knew his name.
This pleased Rod, as he no longer had to bear the heavy burden of being known as the Sewer King.
The warriors brought over mushroom wine and canned beef, holding a simple celebration feast; Rod sat with them by the Residual Fire, drinking and eating meat, and quickly became familiar with them.
From the captain, Rod learned that this was Trident River Region’s seventh lighthouse, which had just been established for eleven days.
Due to the complex situation in the Trident River Region, the third Conquest Legion had crossed the river and continued to advance, while some warriors stayed behind to continue clearing the area.
They had discovered an underground entrance near the river and had planned to completely clear it out with the attitude of constructing a settlement; unexpectedly, they had stirred up a big mess.
The underground world connected by this entrance was immensely vast, inhabited by hordes of giant Demonized Ants.
This was an ancient species of monster that became even more terrifying after being eroded by the Black Fog; they lost all their biological abilities except for one.
This was an unbelievable thing; monsters, by nature, were not living beings but some kind of horrifying reflection.
In theory, they couldn’t reproduce, but this became reality in the Demonized Ants.
As long as there was enough Black Fog, they could produce more Demonized Ants.
The original Demonized Ants were known for their numbers; after corruption, they had lain dormant underground for millennia and their quantity was unfathomable.
Because they absorbed a lot of Black Fog, the concentration of Black Fog in the underground world was relatively thin, which misled the investigators at the entrance; based on past experiences, the stronger the monsters, the thicker the Black Fog.
This abnormal phenomenon led them to mistakenly believe it was a harmless space.
They rashly entered it and successfully alarmed the ant swarm.
They thought it was a small group of monsters and tried to eliminate them, but the intense battle alarmed more of the ant swarm.
The battle quickly escalated until the entire underground of Demonized Ants poured out.
Now, the entire Trident River Region was overrun with rampaging Demonized Ants, all passages were cut off, and there was a trend to spread in all directions.
The Royal City immediately issued an urgent order; several legions from the rear were rushing over, and the third Conquest Legion swiftly came to reinforce.
But the legion’s and individual’s combat prowess were not the same, their assembly and mobilization were slow; at such times, only the power of the Hall could be mobilized to support the Trident River Region, otherwise, once the ant swarm overflowed, the newly occupied territories would fall again, and the large number of logistical and production personnel who were transforming the environment had no means of resistance.
Once the ant swarm rushed in, there would be massive casualties.
This was absolutely unacceptable.
Although most of those mobilized this time were reserve members, the collective action of more than thirty people in the Hall was quite rare; combined with the strong Guardian, this indicated the extent of Royal City’s emphasis on this campaign.