Golden Light Cocoon

After confirming that no more spirit insects were emerging from the underground passage, Heavenly Insect spent about a day recovering his strength. Then, looking at the five Blood Nether Ants that had advanced into high-grade spirit insects, he knew it was time to explore the true secret of the underground space.

Of course, given the mysterious golden light that could control spirit insects, Heavenly Insect took no chances. He cast the Blood Talisman again, branding his five Blood Nether Ants anew to strengthen their connection to him and ensure that the enemy could not seize control of them and turn them against him down below.

As for the Black Nether Ants and Devouring Spirit Bees, there was nothing he could do. He would play it by ear and put them straight into the Spirit Insect Pouch if anything went wrong...

All spirit insects that entered the Spirit Insect Pouch fell into dormancy. Surely they could not crawl back out on their own then?

With everything ready, Heavenly Insect sent the Blood Nether Ants ahead with a band of Black Nether Ants to clear the way. Standing on the Earth Spirit Scorpion's back with the Blade Mantis guarding him at his side, he plunged into the underground passage, which the insect swarm had widened several times over.

Heavenly Insect remained extremely cautious throughout the journey, constantly guarding against possible danger. At the first sign of trouble, he would flee immediately. With these spirit insects covering his retreat and his own trump cards, he was confident that he had a chance of escaping alive even if he encountered a Supreme.

They entered the open underground space without incident. As they ventured deeper, Heavenly Insect realized that it was far larger than he had imagined.

He even spotted faint traces of deliberate planning. It seemed that a highly intelligent creature had specifically directed the spirit insects to excavate this space.

Like... an underground city!

Looking at the separate areas connected by enormous passages, Heavenly Insect immediately came to that conclusion.

He was not walking through an open underground cavern at all, but an underground city that had been built!

"It seems my guess was right. Whoever rules this place definitely possesses exceptional intelligence. I just don't know whether it's a human or something else..."

Just as Heavenly Insect was thinking this, the Earth Spirit Scorpion beneath his feet suddenly grew restless.

Heavenly Insect snapped out of his thoughts. Through their mental connection, he immediately understood what the Earth Spirit Scorpion meant...

"An ambush?!"

Heavenly Insect instantly went on guard at the mental message from the Earth Spirit Scorpion, turning his gaze toward the ground and stone walls less than fifty meters ahead.

Perhaps their sudden halt had alerted the creatures lying in ambush that something was wrong. The next moment, the ground and stone walls exploded, and several large spirit insects roared as they charged toward them.

Heavenly Insect soothed his two bodyguards, then ordered the Black Nether Ants and Devouring Spirit Bees forward to overwhelm the attackers and end the battle quickly.

Within just a few minutes, the spirit insects were dead. Heavenly Insect's ant and bee swarms had likewise suffered considerable losses again.

"Keep moving!"

Without hesitation, Heavenly Insect ordered his forces onward.

But before they had gone far, another identical ambush appeared...

After several such encounters, Heavenly Insect's expression had turned utterly grim as he surveyed his badly depleted swarms.

"This bastard is deliberately wearing down my forces..."

Clearly, the enemy intended to rapidly reduce the numbers of his swarms through wave after wave of ambushes.

At this rate, it would not be long before Heavenly Insect's insect swarms were completely exhausted!

Of course, this also revealed something else: the enemy probably did not have many spirit insects left under its control either. Otherwise, why bother with these sneaky little tricks? It could simply block him from both ends and grind him to death.

Taking a deep breath, Heavenly Insect's gaze gradually sharpened as he murmured, "Very well.

"You want a battle of attrition? Then let's see which of us breaks first!" At this point, Heavenly Insect certainly would not give up. Whoever held out until the end would be the winner!

"Keep moving!"

At his command, the group pressed onward.

Sure enough, things went just as Heavenly Insect had expected. The ambushes continued without end.

Until...

Heavenly Insect surveyed his remaining swarms. Almost all the Black Nether Ants were dead, fewer than a thousand Devouring Spirit Bees remained, and even two of his five high-grade Blood Nether Ants had perished!

Although Heavenly Insect had not quite run out of ammunition and provisions, his strength had been severely depleted.

The creature lurking in the shadows was suffering too. Heavenly Insect had clearly noticed the intervals between ambushes growing longer and longer, evidently because the enemy's forces were also stretched thin.

In fact, they had now traveled for a long time without encountering another ambush, as though the enemy had no troops left to send.

Yet the longer this went on, the less Heavenly Insect dared relax. He even had a faint sense that danger was drawing near.

Perhaps their next encounter would be the moment when both sides played their trump cards in a final showdown!

The sudden change came when Heavenly Insect's group turned into a broad plaza. The instant they entered, he saw a host of high-grade spirit insects already standing ready for battle-over a hundred of them!

The sight made the corner of Heavenly Insect's eye twitch. He had not expected the enemy to still be capable of assembling such a huge force.

Looks like it's time to stake my life on this...

The thought passed through his mind. Without a single word, the two insect swarms collided head-on.

There were no schemes or tricks here. There was only one word-kill!

Heavenly Insect took out his Spirit Insect Flute and raised it to his lips. A rapid, piercing melody rang out...

Every spirit insect on his side that was bathed in the flute's music immediately seemed to receive a shot of adrenaline, charging forward with blood-red eyes and fierce roars.

At that moment, their fighting strength multiplied!

The Berserk Demonic Melody was an offensive tune used by Spirit Insect Masters. Every spirit insect controlled by its demonic music would go berserk, unleashing tremendous fighting power and attacking madly until death!

This tune caused severe harm to spirit insects. Even those that survived the battle needed a long period of recuperation to recover.

Heavenly Insect rarely used moves that wounded the enemy a thousand times at the cost of eight hundred wounds to himself, but in the current situation, he had no choice.

As for its effects, they were naturally excellent.

Heavenly Insect's swarms had originally been at an overwhelming disadvantage. They lacked numbers, and the gap in grade was far too great.

But under the Berserk Demonic Melody's influence, the ferocity unleashed by those mid-grade Devouring Spirit Bees was truly astonishing. They recklessly drove venomous stingers into their enemies, an assault that even high-grade spirit insects could not withstand.

Thus, as high-grade spirit beasts fell one after another, masses of Devouring Spirit Bees also carpeted the ground.

Just as the tide seemed about to turn in Heavenly Insect's favor, the creature hidden in the shadows finally could no longer restrain itself...

A golden ripple emerged from the darkness in the depths and swept across the entire battlefield.

When that golden ripple passed over the Devouring Spirit Bees, which had been fearlessly charging the high-grade spirit beasts, they suddenly froze for a brief moment.

Snap!

A faint sound rang out from within a soul. The spiritual talisman inside one Devouring Spirit Bee shattered, then was dispersed by a streak of golden light.

The next moment, that Devouring Spirit Bee charged straight at its master, Heavenly Insect.

"This is bad!"

Heavenly Insect immediately realized something was wrong. He stopped playing his flute and slapped the Spirit Insect Pouch at his waist, preparing to put away his remaining Devouring Spirit Bees.

Even so, he was still too slow. Nearly half the Devouring Spirit Bees had already turned against him and begun charging toward him.

Heavenly Insect knitted his brows, but he did not panic. He had anticipated all of this.

After he calmly put away the remaining Devouring Spirit Bees, the Blade Mantis that had been standing beside him moved to confront the traitorous Soul Devouring Bee Swarm.

The enormous gray mantis, over two meters tall, swung its twin blades. Countless sharp slashes of blade energy instantly tore into the bee swarm.

Hiss, hiss, hiss...

There were no surprises. Those merely mid-grade Devouring Spirit Bees could not withstand the Blade Mantis's blade energy at all. Their heads were severed from their bodies in an instant.

Of course, the main reason was that there were not many of these Devouring Spirit Bees-fewer than a hundred in total. Even so, Heavenly Insect now had very little fighting strength left.

He surveyed the battlefield. Only one Blood Nether Ant remained, along with his Earth Spirit Scorpion and Blade Mantis, while the enemy still seemed to have more than twenty high-grade spirit insects.

The outcome could only be called settled!

The creature hidden in the shadows seemed to think so too. To deny Heavenly Insect any chance of escape, it directly commanded those dozens of high-grade spirit insects to launch a frenzied counterattack.

The last Blood Nether Ant bore the brunt of the assault. Without the slightest power to resist, it was crushed into a bloody pulp by the enemy swarm.

The Earth Spirit Scorpion beneath Heavenly Insect and the Blade Mantis beside him both grew restless, clearly sensing the tremendous danger as well.

Yet Heavenly Insect was extraordinarily calm.

"Looks like I can only use that move..."

He shook his head with a sigh. Unless absolutely forced to, he truly did not want to use this move for one simple reason: it inflicted far too much harm on his own body!

But now he was riding a tiger and could not dismount. If he failed to drag out the creature lurking in the depths, would everything he had sacrificed today not have been for nothing?

How could Heavenly Insect possibly accept that!

Taking a deep breath, Heavenly Insect's gaze hardened with resolve. Then he spat out a mouthful of blood essence.

This was far more than he had spent condensing the Blood Talismans earlier... and it did not stop there. Heavenly Insect watched the floating mass of blood churn in midair, then slashed across both wrists, sending great quantities of blood streaming out.

Drawn by a special force, the fresh blood flowing from Heavenly Insect's wrists did not fall to the ground. Instead, it drifted eerily toward the mass of blood essence in the air.

By now, the Earth Spirit Scorpion and Blade Mantis had charged out to hold back the insect swarm and buy Heavenly Insect the last bit of time he needed.

As more and more blood gathered, the mass in the air grew to the size of a head. Heavenly Insect, his face deathly pale from blood loss, finally smiled.

Immediately afterward, his vision went black, and he nearly fell...

Knowing this was caused by excessive blood loss, Heavenly Insect hurriedly used his spiritual energy to seal the wounds on both wrists.

Forcing himself to endure the weakness and dizziness surging through his body, he rapidly formed hand seals. Guided by his spiritual energy, the mass of blood exploded in every direction. Fine threads of blood wove an enormous net in the air, which then descended over all the spirit insects.

"Secret art: Blood Soul Array!"

This was a terrifying secret art that could forcibly control spirit insects of the same rank as its caster for a short time. Calling it a forbidden art would not have been an exaggeration.

To cast it, a Spirit Insect Master had to use their own blood essence as a catalyst and expend nearly a third of the blood in their body. The slightest mistake could cause them to die of blood loss before anything else.

After countless blood-colored threads entered their bodies, the previously frenzied insect swarm instantly quieted. Struggle appeared in their eyes as the golden light controlling them fought the blood soul threads for control.

As the golden light was about to be driven out by the blood soul threads, the creature in the shadows seemed to realize the urgency of the situation and grew anxious. It released three successive waves of golden ripples, trying to suppress the blood soul threads again.

And while those golden ripples appeared, Heavenly Insect finally caught a glimpse of the enemy's true form.

There in the darkness was actually a dark golden Light Cocoon...

The dark golden radiance on the Light Cocoon's surface brightened and dimmed with the steady rhythm of a heartbeat. Through its flickering light, faint shadows could be seen within the cocoon. It seemed that a peculiar spirit insect was gestating inside.

The sight filled Heavenly Insect with delight. It seemed he really had found the right place this time. Inside that Light Cocoon was very likely his ultimate target-the Golden Origin Heavenly Silkworm!

Moreover, judging by its appearance, this Golden Origin Heavenly Silkworm happened to be in the cocooned stage of transforming into a cicada...

This truly was a heaven-sent opportunity!

No wonder so many high-grade spirit insects were guarding the area outside. They were the defensive force the Golden Origin Heavenly Silkworm had prepared for its emergence from the cocoon as a cicada.

The Golden Origin Heavenly Silkworm was at its most vulnerable right now. Even when seeking guards, it could not choose creatures that were too powerful, because it would be unable to control them completely. If they broke free and devoured it, it would only have been courting its own death.

This stage was the absolute weakest point of the Six-Winged Golden Cicada, that ancient, ferocious insect. It was also the only chance a small fry like Heavenly Insect could possibly have of subduing it-and he had seized it!

Suppressing his wild delight, Heavenly Insect turned his attention back to the spirit insects below.

The struggle between the blood soul threads and the golden light had reached its final moment. The victor would directly determine the fates of Heavenly Insect and the Golden Origin Heavenly Silkworm.

At such a tense moment, even Heavenly Insect could not keep his palms from sweating. He stared fixedly at the spirit insects standing motionless below.

Suddenly...

Thud!

A faint sound rang out, yet in the deathly silent underground space, it was like a thunderclap.

Then Heavenly Insect saw the massive body of a Black Jade Insect crash to the ground, its life extinguished.