Clearing the Surroundings
Lu Heng raised his hand and made a thought.
The Blood Armor covering him trembled slightly, its surface gleaming with a dark red sheen. Blood Taisui responded to the call, and Mycelium peeled off the Blood Armor, spreading towards the completely mutated Wolf Pack.
The Mycelium burrowed into the wolf's body, beginning to devour it from the inside out. The parasites and eggs living within the flesh were rapidly decomposed as nutrients, along with the wolf's flesh. In less than a minute, more than twenty Alpha Wolf were completely devoured, leaving not even bone fragments. Only dark red, damp marks remained on the ground as the Mycelium retreated back into the Blood Armor and went dormant once more.
Lu Heng lowered his hand, and the Blood Armor on his body returned to its original dull appearance.
He turned to look at the Wolf King.
The Wolf King stood still, watching the entire process unfold. Its eyes held a complex mix of emotions: wariness, gratitude, sadness, and something else Lu Heng couldn't decipher. It stared at the dark red marks on the ground for a long time, then let out a deep, muffled growl, its voice heavy and carrying an indescribable weariness.
Then it turned around, and with the remaining few wolves that had regained their senses, it lowered its head and walked step by step into the depths of the forest.
He didn't look back.
Lu Heng watched their figures disappear behind the withered tree, remaining silent for a few seconds.
"I hope this time you've been saved and won't be parasitized again."
He said it in a low voice, his tone devoid of emotion.
This awful place! There are so many different kinds of insects. First it was the mutant insects, now it's the parasitic micro-insects. There are just too many kinds of insects in the forest; it's impossible to guard against them all.
He turned and walked back, intending to return to the Shelter first.
We need to patrol the area around the Shelter, expanding the patrol area, and clear away all places where Insect Swarm could potentially breed. Insect eggs are a hidden danger; you never know when they might hatch into new parasites.
Back at the Shelter, they began to patrol the area, and the trees on the slope immediately sensed something was wrong.
A dozen or so trees, each as thick as a bowl, stood side by side, their leaves fallen, curled, and blackened at the edges.
The tree trunk was covered with countless pinholes, and brownish, glue-like substances seeped out around the openings, which had hardened into a shell. Peeling back a piece of bark revealed layers of tunnels in the wood, teeming with short, plump, translucent white larvae with black heads. They would burrow deeper into the wood at the slightest sound.
[Name: Black-spotted Wood-boring Beetle (Insect Swarm)]
[Description: This insect feeds on the wood of living trees, its tunnels forming layers, capable of hollowing out a tree the size of a bowl within days. The adult is a small beetle, nocturnal, and attracted to light.]
Lu Heng put down the tree bark and clapped his hands.
He pressed his palm against the ground, the heat pressing into the soil through his palm. The high temperature couldn't dissipate, so it was forced forward along the tunnel—the tunnel was narrow, the air didn't circulate, and the heat could only move in one direction.
The first wave of larvae died quickly. The second wave was different—after being heated, they didn't curl up, but instead surged to the surface in layers.
They crawled toward his boots.
Lu Heng took a step back, crushing a piece of leather beneath his foot; more had already climbed onto the surface of his shoe. Its mouthparts bit into the leather, making a fine rustling sound.
Just as he was about to increase his strength, a muffled thud came up from the ground first.
It's short, low, and has a metallic, abrasive feel.
The moment the mental perception sank, the soil layer in the center of the slope exploded.
The Insect Mother didn't retreat deeper. It rushed out from another slanted passage, nearly twenty centimeters long, with a thick, shiny carapace and mouthparts that opened at an angle far greater than normal. Its leaping trajectory was calculated—it aimed straight at the hand he had pressed to the ground.
The Blood Armor moved on its own.
A dark red sheen spread from the shoulder and neck down to the forearm, and a hard membrane rose on the skin's surface. The Insect Mother's mouthparts bit into it, but not a spark flew out; only a shallow white mark was left. The next second, Mycelium burst from the surface of the Blood Armor, wrapped around the junction of its head and thorax, and burrowed inside.
The Insect Mother writhed wildly, spewing out a stream of brown liquid from her abdomen.
The liquid splashed onto the Blood Armor, and with a hiss, the dark red patch faded visibly. The eroded area revealed the skin underneath, and then the Blood Taisui instantly returned to normal.
Lu Heng's eyes turned cold.
He stopped pouring heat into the soil—the channels were already messed up, and the heat would only dissipate. Instead, he placed his hand directly on the top of the Insect Mother's head, his palm against her carapace, and pushed the heat up in one go.
This time, there was no detour. Heat seeped in from the point of contact, and the tissue beneath the carapace rapidly heated up and expanded. The Insect Mother's body stiffened, and her carapace ruptured from the inside, with body fluid seeping out through the crack. It twitched twice and then remained still.
The Mycelium completely enveloped it, and three breaths later, only a shriveled, empty shell remained on the ground.
Lu Heng crouched down, dissected the remains, and found a tiny object the size of a fingernail at the junction of the thoracic cavity and abdominal segments—semi-transparent with faint brown lines, and still warm to the touch.
Insect Crystal. Stored in space.
He looked down at his forearm. The gap in the Blood Armor hadn't closed, and the dark red edges were still slowly shrinking back. The Blood Taisui had eaten little and vomited a lot this time, and couldn't make up for it.
The soil on the slope was still collapsing, revealing a downward-sloping hole, so dark that the bottom could not be seen. The main nest was even deeper, too deep to reach in with one's hand, and unable to receive any warmth.
Lu Heng raised his hand and made a thought.
The surface of the Blood Armor glowed with a dark red sheen, and Mycelium emerged, burrowing down into the hole.
A series of muffled, continuous cracking sounds came from underground, as if something was collapsing layer by layer deep within. A few breaths later, the Mycelium retreated, bringing with it a pile of grayish-white debris and remaining eggs. The soil layer completely collapsed, and a treasure chest covered with insect wax rolled out of the mud.
Pry it open, and you'll find three complete carapace pieces and a small bottle of insecticidal acid that has solidified into a paste.
He took out the insecticidal acid separately, glanced at it, and then put the cap back on. It was the same kind of thing that had been used on the Blood Armor earlier.
The smell from behind the bushes wafted into my nose from a distance—a sour, rotten sweetness mixed with rotten fruit and excrement.
A layer of grayish-green substance covered the wet mud, densely packed and slowly wriggling. Maggots, about the length of a thumb, with a slippery liquid film on their bodies, huddled on the rotting plants and animal remains, turning the grass and leaves in their wake black and soft, directly into mud.
[Name: Rot-pouch Fly (maggots)]
[Description: Feeds on humus, animal carcasses, and wounds in living organisms. It secretes digestive juices to liquefy tissue before sucking it up. It reproduces extremely quickly; hundreds can hatch from a single carcass within two days. Adults can fly, have a wide range of movement, and are easily dispersed by air currents.]
Lu Heng didn't rush to do anything. He first squatted down, grabbed a handful of wet mud, kneaded it, and then pressed his entire palm onto the muddy ground.
The heat traveled down from the palm of my hand. The mud was wet and conducted heat much better than soil. The heat spread out along the mud layer, like a red-hot iron plate rising from the ground.
The mucus boiled, and the entire grayish-green substance churned. The outer ring exploded, and the liquefied tissue mixed with digestive juices was pushed up by the heat, spraying a cloud of mist over us.
Lu Heng held his arm across his face. The Blood Armor blocked most of it, but a few drops still splashed up, hissing, and the dark red patch on his shoulder thinned further. He didn't stop; he used his spiritual power to press the outer ring back into the mud, and increased the temperature of his palm.
The sour, putrid smell was masked by the acrid odor. A cracked, black crust remained on the muddy ground.
Two minutes later, a buzzing sound came from above.
A dozen or so adult insects, about the size of flies, hovered overhead, their compound eyes red and their abdomens swollen. They didn't swoop down, but instead circled at a height that the heat curtain couldn't reach, their wings flapping faster and faster.
Then the grayish-green dust settled down.
The dust had no effect on the Blood Armor, but when Lu Heng inhaled half a mouthful, his fingertips immediately began to go numb, the sensation spreading up his right hand, and his breathing became shallow and rapid.
Paralytic toxin.
He knelt down on one knee, supporting himself with his left hand, and forcefully gathered his mental energy. When the fine thorn pierced it, it was off-center by an inch. The first adult insect was only knocked off balance, not killed. It fell onto the mud shell, struggled, and flew up again, pouncing towards his face.
A Mycelium shot out from the Blood Armor, shredding it in mid-air.
The rest was easy. Lu Heng slowly lifted his hand from the ground, letting the heat rise up and thoroughly heat the air around him. The buzzing stopped, and the insect corpses fell down with a crackling sound.
He knelt there for more than ten seconds to recover, waiting for the numbness in his fingertips to subside before standing up and picking them up one by one.
Upon finding the fifth one, my fingers paused—it was harder than the others. Prying it open, I found a grain-sized, grayish-white crystal embedded in its chest cavity, with little luster.
After picking up the rest, there were three in total.
The muddy ground collapsed in the center, revealing a deep hole filled with sticky mucus, so thick that you couldn't put your hand inside.
Lu Heng raised his hand, and the Mycelium on the Blood Armor extended again, sliding down the cave wall.
A few seconds later, the Mycelium dragged up a treasure chest covered in slime. Inside was a roll of cloth wrapped with insect silk and a small bag of phosphorus powder.
He swayed slightly as he stood up.
Looking back from the high ground surrounding the Shelter, two areas within an 800-meter radius have been cleared.
Two Insect Crystal, two treasure chests, and a pile of miscellaneous materials.
Lu Heng Wristband away and went into the Shelter.
As he sat down, he remembered something—the two nests of insects, one eating wood and the other eating carrion, had completely opposite habits and should have been far apart.
But they are all on the 100-meter line.
And they are all new nests.
He stared at the bottle of insecticidal acid on the table for a while, then pushed it away.
We need to expand it again tomorrow.