"Total defeat."

Miss Ship's Officer raised her hand, signaling to him.

The air in the forest was thick with the pungent smell of gunpowder. Fang Hong waved his hand, and over ten Clockwork Fairies buzzed around to his back, spinning as they returned, one by one, to hang on the hooks there.

He walked out, with Luo Hao still following behind him asking, "Wait, how can you control thirteen Clockwork Fairies?"

Fang Hong looked back at him, his tone a bit strange, "Is there a problem?"

Luo Hao was momentarily stunned. Isn't this a problem? He tried hard to not appear uninformed and wisely changed the topic, "No, the question is how can your Clockwork Fairies attack?"

"That's a new design."

"Designed by you?"

"Not really, it was designed by an Artisan Master who is a Dwarf."

So it's a special blueprint, Luo Hao stopped, blinking his small eyes.

Fang Hong walked to the corpse, crouched down, and pulled out a short sword from underneath. The sword was ordinary, B-level quality, with a Counterweight Hammer embedded with an illusion alchemy stone. Fang Hong checked and found it was a 'Mimicry' Alchemy Array, which allows the sword's holder to blend with the surroundings when staying still.

Unfortunately, its original owner was knocked into the swamp by a Blood Marsh Dragonfly at the start of the combat, without a chance to use this ability. Fang Hong called for Parker and tossed the short sword over, "Your new toy."

Parker ran over happily, picked up the sword, and sheathed it—the sword sheath had been empty since his sword was lost last time. But he still had to mutter, "I don't owe you for this."

"Yes, yes, it's from the team."

"It should be."

Fang Hong shook his head, too lazy to pay attention to the guy.

He continued to check, a backpack had fallen beside the corpse, and the giant spider glands inside hadn't all fallen out but at least more than half had. The Dragonfire Guild placed the giant spider glands in crystal containers, each about the size of a fist, with seven or eight rolling on the ground.

Seven people, each dropping at least five glands, totaling over forty glands as spoils of this battle, effectively wiping out a spider nest, without expending much effort.

The spoils of war also included a pair of gloves, which Nightingale dropped—two pieces of equipment dropped by seven people, a far higher drop rate than usual. Fang Hong couldn't help but think that the Dragonfire Guild members certainly didn't choose to resurrect in Lady Roman's Holy Sanctuary.

But whether it was out of inability or unwillingness, there was more to it. Fang Hong had suspected additional tactics in their resurrection strategies, and this further confirmed his thoughts.

The gloves, however, Elisa didn't want. Our Miss Nightingale frowned beautifully at the gloves, shaking her head, indicating the gloves were maintained too poorly and were too dirty. Besides, she compared them to her gloves—crafted by Fang Hong, and found them not much inferior.

Fang Hong also looked at the gloves and had to agree; they looked like they'd been soaked in oil. Not even Elisa wanted them, and neither did he. So he tossed them to Gita, for her to pass to Tianlan. Once cleaned, they could be sold, adding to the team's income.

Gita wrinkled her little face as she packed away the dirty gloves.

As for the other items, they were given to Luo Hao to carry. After all, Iron Guards have high load-bearing, and since he was of a lower level, he would be of little use in the upcoming combats.

Luo Hao carried a backpack of spoils, noticing this for the first time and feeling somewhat unaccustomed. In the past, within the team, besides Yuwen Yu, he was the absolute main force—soon he realized it was due to his low level and regained some confidence.

Cleaning up the battlefield didn't take much time.

After storing the spoils, Fang Hong also released the Clockwork Fairies to search for the other two teams.

Generally speaking, resurrection would leave a brief gap. However, he didn't expect the opponent to be unaware of anomalies, after all, the reduction in numbers could be directly seen on the squad list—but a reduction only indicates the presence of enemies, not who they are, where they are, how many, or at what level, within that few-minute gap.

In an information vacuum, people usually make two choices.

One is to seek the truth, and the other is to adopt a conservative strategy, avoiding the unknown.

Soon, Fang Hong could see through the Clockwork Fairies' vision that the remaining members on the other side seemed to have dispersed, clearly indicating that in the face of unknown information, the Dragonfire Guild had eventually chosen the second route.

This is understandable—

Presumably, because their previous actions were too clean and efficient, it led the opponents to misjudge their strength, forcing them to opt for more cautious measures. This way, for Fang Hong and his team, the trouble was that with the Seven Seas Travel Group's manpower shortage, it was not enough to hold back all the opponents.

But the advantage was that the risk was significantly reduced.

If the opponent fought desperately, they might have had a chance to win.

Fang Hong felt a sense of regret but also a breath of relief. As a Commander, minimizing his team's risk seemed a reasonable choice. He lifted his Wind Goggles and decisively led the group through the forest towards a smaller Dragonfire Guild team.

The second battle was slightly more challenging than the first, given the opponent's preconceived wariness.

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