Before Securing the Interior, First Repel External Threats, Centipede Gu (Early Month, Please Vote, Two-in-One)

The gu chamber was dim, incense drifting through the air.

Inside the semi-transparent Glass Jars, gu insects crawled. Snakes, bugs, rats, and ants all coexisted; jointed limbs, scales, carapaces, and glass scraped and collided, making a constant rustling sound. At this moment, without exception, they all clung tightly to the jars, gazing enviously at the Blue-armored Centipede atop the table as it ate with abandon.

Crack, crack, crack.

Its mouthparts opened and closed around the fist-sized, lustrous Water-element Great Pill. Awei devoured it in huge bites, the scales on its body growing ever brighter, sleek with oil.

Haoche!

Cannot Move had put down roots in the plantation, unmoving as a mountain; Fat Catfish was glib-tongued and honey-mouthed; Little Mirage Dragon fawned over the mistress of the house, taking a roundabout route to save the nation; Round Head had gathered a crowd beneath it, sharp and capable; Fist supported the Fat faction, gladly acting as a lackey.

Little Mirage Dragon in particular—ever since Fat Worm had turned into a White Dragon and learned to fly—it had run errands before and behind, relying on its ancestors' lingering prestige to bully the weak and flatter the strong, tyrannize men and women, thieve and whore, wallow in pools of wine and forests of meat...

Little did it know that before Little Mirage Dragon came along, it had been the first personal guard beneath the deity, the first attendant, the first loyal minister!

Ten years of drinking ice could not cool its hot blood. At last, this heaven-sent wealth had fallen to Awei.

It still remembered how it got its name.

"You're so mighty, so I'll call you Awei."

All the hard work it had put in today was not to prove how remarkable it was, but to tell those little brats that whatever it