It seemed as though Shionel Confederation was unable to get a break from shocking news surrounding the Shionel Dungeon time and time again.
Even prior to the first appearance of the Voider, things had been exciting and riveting, but that was because the Shionel Dungeon was still a brand-new novelty. Even the slightest bit of new news was extremely interesting.
After a while, things cooled down as a bit of a routine entered the nation with the dungeon. It was hard remaining as extremely excited with the same stuff happening for the eleventh time in a row.
Things had changed with the arrival of the Voider who made things exciting once more, with the various surprises and astonishing feats that they achieved.
The latest shock, however, didn't seem to have anything to do with them. Many reports came in reporting of a flood of ants that assaulted many Martial Squires.
Adventurer after adventurer began narrating tales of how they were trying to explore new routes before giant people-sized monster ants came their way and attacked them. Reports indicated that each individual ant was not much, but together they were a menace, an overwhelming majority of Martial Squires simply chose to not engage with the monsters unprepared and promptly retreated away.
Many of the newer adventurers had arrived with the latest wave of incoming Martial Squires into the nation, they were completely overwhelmed by the ants, and many parties went missing or were confirmed dead.
The country was shocked at the news of the many Martial Artists reporting the same nightmarish scene over and over. Many began speculating what happened, looking into the information available.
"It has to be a new floor!"
"But monsters don't leave their floors in such numbers, that doesn't make any sense."
"Maybe the monsters of the deeper floors are capable of leaving their floor and attacking those that get too close."
"If that was the case, then we would have seen that before!"
Many of the laymen and civilians who were simply interested in new gossip and news that the Shionel Dungeon produced had no idea what it was, but the same could not be said for relevant experts, as well as those with greater ability to gather and access information.
"The initial encounters occurred at the extreme east of the Dungeon," Chairman Deacon murmured in his office as he scoured through the many documents scattered on his table containing analyses and reports of all kinds surrounding the recent event. "On top of that, the location of the encounters began spreading out in all directions after the initial encounters. This… This resembles expansion or migration. There must be a dungeon floor somewhere deep in the far Eastern side of the dungeon. The ants must have emerged from there for whatever reason and begun migrating outwards."
His eyes twinkled as he realized that, yet there was also a glint of suspicion. He was definitely going to look into that floor no matter what. However, he feared being the victim of the Voider's designs once more. He could tolerate losing the prize of the sixteenth floor to the Voider due to the juicy information he learned about the Voider, but he could not allow it to happen again.
What if the Voider aimed to steal his prize from him once more? If that were the case then he would have no choice but to take it as it came. He could not let suspicions of the Voider's interference get in the way of finding and clearing the dungeon while plundering all the esoteric ore deposits.
"This time I have a stronger army of explorers," He narrowed his eyes. "Just you dare show yourself. You got by last time, this time we'll get you."
One of the reasons he was tolerant of the loss suffered last time was that he had developed a better solution. Squire Harens fiasco had shown him that the Voider operated with stealth, somehow, most likely one or more Martial Art techniques. Furthermore, the technique could be disrupted with a wide-area attack of enough magnitude of power.
This caused him to develop a new set of positional strategic and tactical measures that would make them most equipped to deal with the Voider if he ever did appear. What he was hoping for was that Voider would appear, and he would nail him with a similar wide-area attack that would disrupt his stealth technique, which would cause the Martial Squires especially positioned to employ wide-scale barricading techniques to restrict their movement.
In that time, the Voider would be bombarded with multiple grade-ten Martial Squires in close range.
In his estimation, even if the Voider was a truly veteran-grade-ten Martial Squire, he did not think he would be able to escape this trap.
He even partially hoped that the Voider would dare to appear and try to steal his plunder again, even if it was risky. It presented him with a chance to capture the pesky rat for once!
"Oh, the things I'm going to do to you if I ever get my hands on you," An expression of murderous rage appeared on his face.
First, he would extract all of the Voider's secrets. It was a fact that his methods were extraordinarily successful, and if Chairman Deacon managed to harness them, then his success would grow to become titanic.
After that, he would kill the Voider painfully.
He sighed, shaking his head. His hatred for the Voider had grown as time passed. To the point that sometimes he would indulge in it too much.
"Catch him first, then we can focus on all of that," He muttered before getting to work.
He immediately intended to arrange for an expedition into the far eastern side of the Shionel Dungeon that would allow him to gain access to a fresh source of esoteric ore deposits. He desperately needed supplies, otherwise, he would definitely begin losing some of the gains he made from the Shionel Dungeon, that was for sure.