Sage of Humanity

The battle had been raging since it began, as any fluctuation of spirit force here would attract the Insect Race, with only the number in question varying.

Unless one could eliminate all the bugs within the insect hive in one go.

But that was clearly unrealistic.

In the midst of fierce combat, Lu Ye pushed into the hive under the cover provided by He Xiying, took a quick look around, and was forced back by the overwhelming number of bugs.

It was a vast underground space, conservatively estimated to be even larger than the plaza in front of Heaven's Augury Hall in the garrison, too dark for Lu Ye to see clearly.

Everywhere he looked was covered with odd flesh walls, the walls studded densely with flesh sacs bulging out, constantly birthing Insect Race members.

This was the insect hive!

The entire hive felt like the stomach of a living creature, nurturing an enormously potent life force, the source that enabled the rapid proliferation of the Insect Race.

As the fourth senior brother had said, the Insect Race was a peculiar existence; once hatched, they would devour everything with life force and energy. A small part of these would make the bugs stronger, while the rest fed back to the hive, which then used the energy to spawn even more powerful members.

There was an extremely close connection between the hive and the Insect Race, mutually beneficial to each other. Some had calculated that even with just one such insect hive, if unchecked, in just ten years, the entire Spirit Stream battlefield would be destroyed, and the Insect Race would become the overlords here.

No one dared to imagine how strong the Insect Race, nurtured by the life force and energy of the entire Spirit Stream battlefield, would become.

Of course, such a scenario would never occur; every outbreak of the Insect Plague was suppressed with full force by the big sects and then eradicated at the early stages.

By now, the Righteous Blood Sect had almost completed the clearing of the periphery. Without sufficient numbers of the Insect Race collecting life force and energy, the scale of the Insect Plague was essentially contained. There must still be plenty of life force and energy stored in the insect hive, and what the Righteous Blood Sect needed to do was to kill as many of the Insect Race as possible.

As long as they waited for all the life force and energy in the Insect Plague to be depleted, they would win this battle.

This was the standard procedure for dealing with the Insect Plague at the big sects' garrisons, having accumulated experience over countless years.

There would certainly be casualties in this process, even the big sects in the Core Circle couldn't avoid it. The Insect Race there were not so easily killed; Lu Ye had encountered a type in the Mirage Realm that could merge with their surroundings, almost to the point of invisibility, striking silently and lethally.

Such was the Insect Race in the Core Circle! The sects in the outer circle didn't have to deal with this, clearly a result of Heaven's Augury's modulation—Heaven's Augury wouldn't let the sects in the outer circle suddenly face such catastrophic disasters.

But if the insect hive were allowed to develop, such bugs would certainly appear.

One particular point of caution was to never let the Insect Race get their hands on the bodies of cultivators; once they obtained the bodies of cultivators, the insect hive would grow significantly, and the resulting Insect Race would become much stronger.

Currently, the Righteous Blood Sect only had one passage that led to the location of the insect hive, and with Lu Ye stationed there, holding it became virtually no issue.

What remained was to wait until the other passages also reached the insect hive. This way, the periphery would be completely worry-free, allowing for the concentration of forces on the hive.

Considering the varied pace in different areas, Lu Ye instructed Chen Yu and Yiyi to leave and assist elsewhere.

He would stay and guard this place.

Before long, he was left alone here.

But he was not idle, provocatively using weapon control again and again to lure out insects from the hive and kill them.

He didn't dare to recklessly rush in; the hive housed too many bugs, and Lu Ye even sensed a hint of threat in that dark depth—in other words, there were definitely bugs inside that could threaten his life.

Soon, the passage was clogged with the bodies of dead bugs. At first, Lu Ye still attempted to clean up, but as his slaughter continued and the numbers grew too great, he couldn't keep up.

He quickly sensed something was amiss because the more bugs he killed, the less the number of bodies seemed to change.

On closer inspection, he found that some bugs were actually transporting bodies back into the hive, which made him both angry and amused.

Without any other choice, he had to repeatedly use his storage sack to transport the bodies away and then return to the killing.

Half a day later, several passages had been breached, and a complete map of the underground was drawn. From the sole entrance of the insect cave, through various forks, it converged on the hive, leaving only nine passages.

During this time, many were injured and over a dozen died, including an entire squad who had the misfortune of encountering a Level 7 Insect Race.

With the current average cultivation of the Righteous Blood Sect, only a few teams with a Level 6 cultivator could deal with a Level 7 Insect Race, and most other squads would meet their end if they encountered one.

Now that passages were breached from all sides, the situation became clear; as long as the Righteous Blood Sect could block off the nine passages, they would fully control the situation.

This was not a simple task, as each passage was only so large, scarcely allowing two or three people to fight side by side. With nearly seven hundred cultivators from the Righteous Blood Sect, if they all crowded at the passages, only a few could confront the Insect Race head-on—others could only provide support from behind…

The right strategy was to break into the hive, creating an area at each passage where dozens could fight, leveraging the advantage of having more people.

What concerned Lu Ye were the dangers lurking in the darkness. If he wasn't mistaken, there were definitely Level 8 Insect Race members there.

If not handled carefully, the Righteous Blood Sect would surely suffer tremendous losses.

One or two Level 8 bugs on their own were not something he needed to worry much about, the concern was if there were many of them. Enjoy more content from My Virtual Library Empire

The Insect Plague was known as a natural disaster because many cultivators perished every time it arrived. This wasn't something that could be avoided by mere strength— even a powerful person like Li Baxian could die if not cautious in handling the Insect Plague.

The only good news for Lu Ye at the moment is that the Insect Race is very sensitive to the fluctuations of spirit force and to light sources, with the more powerful members of the Insect Race being even more so.

Perhaps this could be used to do something...

In front of the nine passageways, the sound of fierce battle was incessant, but because the holes were not large, the intensity of the fight was also not strong. Cultivators exchanged places in turns, supporting the defense.

Lu Ye lifted his hand and tapped on his battlefield marking, sending out messages with identical content: "Confirm status!"

Quickly, replies came in.

Yiyi: "Ready."

Chen Yu: "All set."

He Xiying: "Fifth Brother, if I die, you must have Sixth Sister bury me, or I won't rest in peace."

Zhu Wenbo: "Ready here, just waiting for Fifth Brother's command."

Yinn Haoran: "Ready at any time."

Luo Qisheng. "In good shape."

Guk Yang: "People are in place."

Kong Niu: "Good!"

Good, there were no issues with anyone.

The individuals who replied, except for Kong Niu who was at the Level 5 realm, the rest were at least Level 6. With each of them in charge, alongside several dozen cultivators securing a battlefield close to the passageways, there should be no major problem, as the pressure would be distributed evenly due to attacks coming from nine directions simultaneously.

As for Kong Niu's side, Lu Ye had increased the manpower; their group had the most number of cultivators, nearly a hundred.

Of course, this was an ideal situation. Once the battle truly began, there would certainly be unexpected events, and Lu Ye himself was there to respond to all kinds of emergencies.

"I am a healing cultivator, Lu Ye. Shouldn't I be treating the wounded at the back?"

The gentle voice of Hua Ci sounded from behind.

Just before, Lu Ye had called Hua Ci over. He was not unaware of her fear of insects. Previously, in the Chess Sea, she had slapped a mechanical spider onto Lu Ye's face, and that was merely an artificial creation. Now facing the Insect Plague, just the thought of it was enough to make Hua Ci's heart crawl and her body uneasy.

The insects she feared were actually only of two types: those without legs and those with many legs.

But there was no other way. All nine passageways needed someone to guard them, and even counting Yiyi and Kong Niu, there were only eight people.

The foundations of the Righteous Blood Sect were still too thin.

Left with no choice, he had to call Hua Ci over. Although she was a healing cultivator, she still had a Level 6 cultivation. It wouldn't be a problem for her to take charge of a passageway, but in such an environment, it would be difficult for her to utilize her unique mushroom-growing method.

Lu Ye turned his head to look at her, their eyes meeting.

"Be strong!"

Hua Ci: "?"

"It's starting!"

Lu Ye turned around, and as he stooped, he laid his hand on the hilt of his blade. With a boom, an air wave swept through, and like an arrow released from its bow, he lunged forward. The blade light flickered, and several members of the Insect Race blocking the passageway were cut into pieces.

"Kill!" With a ferocious roar, one cultivator after another followed Lu Ye into the insect hive. In a moment, the already restless hive completely boiled over, and a huge throng of the Insect Race surged forward. In the darkness, all that could be heard were the soft sounds of creeping, and all that could be seen were the ferocious Insect Race.

The cultivators with higher cultivation levels stood at the front, forming a semicircle with their backs to the passageway. Those with lower cultivation levels stood in the back, with the glow of magic and Spirit Talismans beginning to shine brightly, striking down members of the Insect Race along their attack path.

Almost simultaneously, as Lu Ye made his move, the cultivators at the other eight passageways also charged in, the situation mirroring the one here, with the higher-level cultivators at the forefront.

A grand battle thus began.

During the fight, someone shouted a reminder: "Quick, collect the insect corpses, whether injured or low-cultivation. Don't let the hive absorb them."

The reason for collecting insect corpses during battle was out of necessity; the insect hive is a peculiar place. It could use the spawned Insect Race to collect vitality and energy, then give birth to even more members of the Insect Race.

The flesh wall inside the hive, meanwhile, had a very strong ability to absorb both vitality and energy.

If the corpses of the slain Insect Race weren't quickly collected, the vitality and energy contained within them would be absorbed by the omnipresent flesh walls within a very short time.

When Lu Ye was alone defending this place earlier, he discovered members of the Insect Race moving the bodies. Their intention was to increase the vitality and energy of the hive.