The Insect Queen
There are three more moving creatures at the bottom of the valley.
Two insects rolled in the pile of dead bodies, their scales cracked, struggling to escape. The slowest one, its left arm hanging limply, turned and tried to retreat deeper into the pile of eggs.
Lu Heng didn't give them time to rearrange their formation.
He took a step forward, pressed the muzzle of his gun down, and pulled the trigger the instant he turned around.
The shot blast struck from the side, embedding itself in the seam between its waist and back armor. The entire piece of armor was ripped open, the contents collapsed, and it collapsed forward on its knees, never to rise again.
The two eggs in the pile heard the noise and just propped themselves up halfway.
The second shot. The third shot.
One was knocked back, the red glow in the horizontal seam extinguished. The other's armor plates split even wider; it struggled a couple of times, then lay still.
The sound echoed twice in the valley before dissipating.
The valley floor fell silent.
The Insect Swarm had long been devoured by the Blood Taisui, leaving only a layer of dark red Mycelium crawling along the eggshells, wrapping up and dragging the dark brown eggs one by one into the ground. Heat rose again from the dried-up spring, and white mist hung low over the valley.
Five corpses.
It was larger than the five in the wasteland, with thicker armor plates, and the red in the seams had not yet faded.
Lu Heng dragged them over one by one and put them into his Wristband.
Then he stood at the mouth of the valley, looking at the cave in front of him.
The cave entrance was half-hidden below the valley wall, covered by insect eggs and dead moss, and the inside was pitch black. The wind blew out from inside, carrying a sweet, fishy smell mixed with the sulfurous fumes from the Geothermal.
He took a deep breath, reached into his pocket, and pulled out the few Soul Crystal.
These are all we have.
He loaded each bullet into the magazine one by one, listening to the metallic clanging, and mentally calculated how many were left. He stopped calculating after that—the answer wouldn't change anyway.
There aren't many left.
He picked up the Kiss of Nightmare and went into the cave.
He hadn't gone in twenty steps when he sensed something was wrong.
It's too long.
This is not the depth a nest should be. The cave walls are hard rock layers, gnawed out little by little by something, the surface layer by layer, as if it has been scraped. A fork in the path appears every now and then, some sloping upwards, some sinking downwards, then they come together again after a dozen or so steps, then split and come together again.
As I walked, I even lost my sense of direction.
"It looks just like an anthill."
He stopped and looked back at the way he had come. It was pitch black, and he couldn't see anything.
Fortunately, there's the Blood Taisui.
He lowered his mental energy slightly, and the Mycelium underground immediately extended inward, emerging from the rock crevices, as thin as hair, spreading a very pale dark red on the cave wall. The Mycelium probed forward, branching when it encountered a fork in the road and retreating when it encountered a dead end, trying one branch after another.
Lu Heng followed.
Later on, he simply stopped finding his way. He stood still, waiting for the Mycelium to figure things out before taking another step.
The path itself is also a layer of security, he thought. Anyone who comes in will get lost, only this thing can recognize its own nest.
The Mycelium extend longer and longer, but the speed of their growth slows down.
At a certain point, it suddenly stopped moving.
Immediately afterwards, a message traveled back along the Mycelium.
Found it.
It's the one at the bottom. His aura is very deep, similar to his original level, or even closer to that line.
Lu Heng stood still for two seconds.
"Depend on."
Another one that's about to advance to the Gold Tier.
As soon as he had a thought, the Mycelium on the ground simultaneously contracted, curling back along the rock wall, shrinking back to his feet, and climbing up his legs, his back, and his shoulders inch by inch, reforming into that dark red armor.
The moment the Blood Armor closed,
Lu Heng gripped his gun tightly and continued walking down.
The road began to slope downhill, the gradient becoming increasingly steep. The sweetness in the air was cloyingly heavy, and a dark brown secretion began to appear on the rock face, layer upon layer, making it slightly soft to step on.
The view ahead opened up.
The cave ceiling rises, and below is a large flat area with a shallow pit in the middle. The pit is covered with a thick, translucent gel that is still emitting a slight amount of heat.
Something was lying on the gelatinous surface.
Lu Heng didn't recognize what it was at first glance.
It was enormous. The entire body resembled a sac stretched to its limit, with the abdomen making up ninety percent of its length. It was a dark reddish-black color, with layers upon layers of armor plates stretched so thin that the seams were almost invisible, revealing the slow, wriggling shadows beneath. The small section at the front was the true torso—so thin it was completely disproportionate to the abdomen at the back. The six legs lay limply on the gelatinous substance, two of which were broken off, their cut surfaces shriveled and dry. The head was small, its mouthparts opening and closing slowly, one stroke at a time, spitting out the gelatinous substance.
It can't move.
It wasn't that she didn't want to move, it was that she simply couldn't. Her entire body weight was pressed on that layer of gelatinous substance, and even moving an inch required her to rely on her thin front legs to inch forward.
Behind it, along the pit wall, were countless eggs. New ones kept being squeezed out from its tail end, wet and soft, rolling down one by one into the pit, where they were held up by the gelatinous substance. The old ones had hardened, dark brown, and covered the entire pit, piling up all the way to the top of the hole.
Lu Heng stood there, gun barrel hanging down, watching for a long time.
"Depend on."
He thought it would be another tough battle.
The result was a child who could only give birth.
The Blood Armor undulated slightly on its back, but no hostility was transmitted back—the thing below didn't even have the intention to attack; it was just there, constantly squeezing things out.
Lu Heng took two steps forward, stopped, and slowly raised the muzzle of his gun.
But he didn't pull the trigger.
He looked down at the translucent gelatinous substance beneath his feet, and the more he looked, the more something seemed off.
He used the barrel of his gun to pry open the surface.
No liquid came out of the pricked area, only small, white, soft things, smaller than a fingernail, covered with a layer of mucus, deformed from being squeezed, and still moving slightly.
Lu Heng pulled the gun barrel back and moved to the side.
Same.
Let's choose another place.
It's still the same.
He straightened up and looked around the shallow pit.
That's not glue. There's no glue at all. That whole translucent thing is made up of tiny, densely packed eggs, with mucus mixed together, which only makes it look like a layer of glue from a distance.
The dark brown hard shells on the pit wall—those things he thought were "old eggs"—he hadn't seen clearly before, but now, looking closer, he could see that each one had a crack on it.
A neat, open tear from the inside.
Lu Heng slowly raised his head and looked at the Insect Queen.
Her tail was still pushing outwards, rolling down one by one into the pit and sinking. Her mouthparts opened and closed slowly, one stroke at a time.
Lu Heng suddenly understood.
Those five in the valley were the last fighting force. They're dead, and the guardian of the eggs is gone. She didn't know, or even if she did, it wouldn't matter—she couldn't stop, she could only keep giving birth, keep filling this pit.
Lu Heng stood there, gun barrel hanging down, watching for a long time.
"Depend on."
He thought it would be another tough battle.
The result was a child who could only give birth.