At Li Chen's direction, Heavenly Pivot had long since completely remodeled the Azure Billow Immortal Abode. Although its exterior still retained its antique architectural style, it had been utterly reborn beneath the surface.
There were no living people in sight, but detection mechanisms and intelligent programs monitored their every movement. When they passed the great hall ahead of the plaza and discovered a deep valley behind it, packed with science-fiction-style buildings, buzzing rose from every direction, and dark shadows swept toward them like a swarm of locusts.
These were alien insects the size of an ordinary person's thumb, dark gold from head to tail. No one knew where they had flown out from, but in a roaring rush, they filled the sky and earth.
Their numbers were immense, and their flight was bewildering. Even with their powerful divine sense, the cultivators could not count them all at once. They could only tell that an area several miles across was packed with over a hundred million of them-an army of insects in every sense.
"Golden Fleas?"
Among the group, the sword cultivator named Luo Ji grew solemn. He seemed to recognize their origins.
"What are Golden Fleas?" someone asked through voice transmission.
Luo Ji replied, "They're a species of naturally occurring alien insect from the primordial wilderness of ancient times. They devour flesh and blood and seize people's divine souls. Even experts at the Nascent Soul realm or above would have to flee in panic before a large swarm of Golden Fleas. Ordinary cultivators were often eaten down to white bones. They're terrifyingly vicious creatures."
"Something that terrifying actually exists?" The others could not help exclaiming.
Luo Ji said, "The Ancient Cultivation World was rich in spiritual essence, and Dao essence flowed through nature itself. It was hardly surprising that it