A Wall of Flesh and Blood Forged Between Life and Death, a Mad Blade Cleaves the Insect King in a Desperate Stand

Fourth Li wiped the rainwater from his face and bellowed in his rough, booming voice.

"Pile all the firewood at the very front!"

"Move faster! Form a semicircle! Light it!"

The hundred-odd mine slaves did not dare delay. In a frantic scramble, they seized the dead branches and fallen leaves they had painstakingly gathered from the edges of the rock walls and hurled them toward the front of the cave entrance. Many had their hands slashed bloody by thorny vines, yet none so much as groaned. Outside, the rain still poured in sheets, while the poisonous miasma was swept inward by the wind.

Several crude fire starters were quickly lit and thrown into the piles of wood.

With a muffled whoosh.

The dry wood ignited in an instant. A half-arched wall of orange-red flame surged up from the ground, sealing off the entrance to the karst cave completely. The searing heat warped the damp air, and the firelight illuminated the mud-streaked faces of these lowly laborers.

The black mass of insects outside did not know fear. They possessed only the most primal instinct to devour the fresh blood of living humans.

Thousands upon thousands of venomous thousand-legged insects, their backs bristling with reverse spikes, trampled through the muck and charged madly at the wall of fire.

Dense crackling explosions of sizzling flesh erupted outside the cave.

The foremost swarm of poisonous insects was burned until they rolled and convulsed on the spot. Their hard shells burst apart, spraying clumps of green slurry. Acrid yellow-green toxic mist billowed skyward, mixed with the stench of scorched hair. It made tears stream from their eyes and set their throats ablaze.

"Cover your mouths and noses with rags! Don't breathe it in!"

As Fourth Li shouted, he clenched the chipped butcher's knife in his