Chapter 81.3

Editor: Kat

Proofreader: Junyans

The rock, or ore, lining this hole contained extremely strong radiation. Humans exposed to strong radiation would quickly feel dizzy, nauseous, and even vomit in severe cases. Wei Xun had a nosebleed because his body was too weak. Even if he was possessed by the fox fairy, it did not cure the diseases that he originally suffered from.

The sense of crisis was like a shadow looming over Wei Xun, but not a particularly strong threat. The current radiation intensity was not lethal to him. The color of the surrounding stone walls reminded Wei Xun of what IV-1 had said about the black stone jade skull in the belly of the aquatic reptile. It was likely to have been carved from a material with strong radiation, and the color of the black stone jade skull was much richer and more magnificent than the current stone wall.

Perhaps this was the same kind of stone as the black stone jade skull, but of a lower quality and lower radiation level. Perhaps this invisible and traceless radiation could kill humans, and in the eyes of the ancients, it was a terrifying evil spirit.

Wei Xun thought for a while and took out the gold-plated silver-inlaid skull. However, the invincible skull didn’t work this time.

The only thing that could rival the devil was the gusin’s human skin thangka……

Could the thangka protect him against radiation? What about the human skin thangka that had been specially treated?

Wei Xun made a very crazy move——he wiped away the nosebleed. Then, he firmly covered his face with a mask, goggles, and a neck warmer, put up the hood on his windbreaker, tugged his collar up, and pulled the zipper all the way to the very top.

After that, he fixed the human skin thangka to his head, like a turban a man from Dubai would wear, and the four sides of the thangka fell naturally to the sides of his head.

Wei Xun doesn’t know if it was his misconception, but his dizziness and nausea had indeed been relieved a lot. He sped up and let the young fox swallow all the radiation ores that he dug out so that he could take them away. Maybe they would be useful in the future?

He continued to move forward. In addition to the triangular piles of gravel, Wei Xun also saw many “eggs.” The eggs were placed in the rubble, and looked/appeared like white pearls. Perhaps these stones had not fallen to the ground due to the earthquake, but had been deliberately bitten by the Insects of Evil and used to incubate their eggs.

The young fox ate all the rubble, but did not swallow the eggs. It wasn’t because it couldn’t hold living things in its belly. It told Wei Xun that the eggs were all dead and there was no life in them.

Wearing a pair of gloves, Wei Xun picked up an egg to observe it, and found that it was hard on the outside. The round ball glowed, and the exterior was like a pearl’s luster. This egg was indeed dead, and at the top of it, there was a small hole that was almost invisible.

The essence in the egg had been completely sucked dry.

Wei Xun: ……

He seemed to understand what the golden mosquito had done to arouse the resentment of the entire swarm of Insects of Evil.

“Buzz, buzz, buzz——”

As if the golden mosquito was aware of his arrival, it was excited and buzzed happily. No one knew if it was because it had absorbed the essence of these eggs or whether it was due to the effects of the radiation, but the golden mosquito could convey more information now.

Although the Insects of Evil look like caterpillars, their anatomy were closer to those of bees. Those triangular piles of gravel were like the royal platform for cultivating new queen bees. The closer one was to the royal platform, the higher the radiation level of the special ores around the area, and the higher the possibility that the hatched egg would become the mother of the swarm. Eggs hatched elsewhere could only hatch ordinary Insects of Evil.

The golden mosquito was very sneaky. After it had found the mother of the swarm among the Insects of Evil, it had not controlled it immediately. Instead, it had found all the other royal platforms and destroyed all the eggs that were qualified to hatch into a mother of the swarm. Then, it had controlled the only female insect in the whole swarm.

In this way, as soon as Wei Xun arrived, after subduing the female insect, the entire community of Insects of Evil would be completely under his control.

‘Well done,’ Wei Xun praised, ‘But the radiation inside is too strong, and I can’t get through.’

According to the golden mosquito, the area where the royal platform was had the highest level of radiation. The amount of radiation was comparable to that in the black stone jade skull. If Wei Xun could mutate, he might be able to enter that area, but he was an ordinary person now. If he really went there, he would become like IV-1 and cut a sorry state.

The golden mosquito spent a lot of effort to understand what “radiation” meant. Then, it was dumbfounded.

The golden mosquito couldn’t leave because halfway through sucking blood from the mother of the swarm, the mother of the swarm had somehow discovered its existence. She had been so angry that it had directly restrained the golden mosquito. Given the golden mosquito’s weak and small body, it could not defeat the mother of the swarm. However, because it had managed to suck a little blood from the mother of the swarm, the mother of the swarm had not killed it. Currently, Xiaojin was “imprisoned.”

What the golden mosquito had thought was that Wei Xun could come over and use a drop of blood to subdue the mother of the swarm. This way, it could be rescued.

The mother of the swarm had discovered the golden mosquito sucking its blood?

Wei Xun was now more interested in this female insect.

And even if he couldn’t go in, he still has a way to “capture” the female insect.

He took out a small sealed mithril syringe from the young fox, which could perfectly seal all kinds of poisonous, demonic, and various other types of blood. Wei Xun had already drawn a few tubes of his blood in advance and carried them around with him.

This tube of blood was blood from the site of the butterfly tattoo. Wei Xun simply pushed the syringe and when a drop of blood appeared on the tip of the needle, he felt a commotion among the surrounding Insects of Evil.

The Insects of Evil had not gone far. The mother of the swarm’s royal platform was supposed to be the most heavily guarded place, and the strongest male insects and soldier insects gathered here. Under the temptation of this drop of blood, all the Insects of Evil were eager to prey on it. Finally, three of the strongest and most powerful black insects crawled in front of Wei Xun.

Their body sizes were three times larger than the ordinary Insects of Evil. Compared to the Insects of Evil who had been attracted by the blood of the Tibetan in the cave before, the leading ones were similar to soldier insects covered with a shiny obsidian carapace. And in contrast to the other Insects of Evil, these three male insects appeared more special.

Their front bodies were completely different from a caterpillar. They had triangular heads, two serrated blade-like forelimbs, and they were covered with a shiny black carapace, which made them look a little like mantises. Only the back half of their bodies were covered with the black fur that a caterpillar had.

These Insects of Evil were male, and could only be hatched from a lightly irradiated rock pile, and were specially designed to mate and breed with a female insect.

It might be because they were exposed to strong radiation for a long time, so although they were obviously the same species of Insects of Evil, they had mutated into a different but stable form. Perhaps after a longer time, they might become a completely different insect species from the ordinary Insects of Evil.

Unlike the group of ignorant insects who only had simple emotions of fear, Wei Xun could feel that the insects were much more expressive than the other Insects of Evil. However, these emotions were still rather “simple” to Wei Xun.

Thirst.

They desperately longed for that drop of blood, but even if they longed for it, they didn’t dare to snatch it. All they could do was just “wait” in a daze.

“Here.”

Wei Xun let the drop of blood fall, but in fact he felt that he could use ordinary blood. After all, a drop of ordinary blood could make three maggots “evolve” and produce their own consciousness. They were still part of Wu Laoliu, so they could be regarded as an abyssal type of insect. However, for the Insects of Evil, even if they mutated due to radiation and became special, they were just insects.

It was just that these swarms were too large, and they might be an important tool for exploring the ruins of Xiangxiong in the near future. Wei Xun wanted to know whether the blood at the butterfly tattoo also mutated normal insects, so he was sufficiently generous with it.

The three male insects rushed to the blood like they had gone insane, and then divided the drop of blood. However, the blood wasn’t evenly divided, and the strongest one consumed most of the drop, while the remaining two got about a quarter of the drop. Wei Xun did not interfere. This could be considered to be “natural selection.”

After drinking the blood, they immediately began to turn into cocoons on the spot. The cocoon shells were oval, opaque, and had dull surfaces, like ordinary stone eggs. It wasn’t a long time before the cocoons broke open. In a minute’s time, the largest cocoon started to move.

It split open at the top, and a pair of luminous black forelimbs ripped apart the hard stone eggshell as easily as a hot knife cutting through butter. A huge male insect crawled out of the cocoon.

Compared with the appearance of the four maggots, which basically had not changed much after sucking the blood, the appearance of the male insect now could be seen as a metamorphosis. It was almost as long as an average human’s palm, with two thick and sharp knife-like arms tucked in front of it like a praying mantis, with a thin waist, an agile abdomen, and the tip of its tail slightly raised, while its back was covered with translucent membranous wings.

The whole insect appeared very clean and appeared to have been carved from black jade. When it did not move, it looked like an exquisite jade carving. Only the eyes on both sides of its triangular head were green, like two emeralds.

The other two males also emerged from their cocoons one after another. They were not as dark as the first male. One of them had a pearly white abdomen and hind limbs, while the other was almost completely pearly white, with only its back and membranous wings being black, like it was wearing a tuxedo.

The blacker its body, the stronger the insect.

Wei Xun commanded them mentally, and these three jade-carved male insects flew into his hands obediently. They meekly put away their forelimbs and let Wei Xun watch them in order, from left to right, showing a sense of closeness to Wei Xun. They were no longer Insects of Evil but had transformed into inferior demonic insects. From now on, they would no longer obey the queen Insect of Evil’s orders, and would only obey Wei Xun.

Their emotions were less expressive than Xiaojin’s, and they only possessed emotions instinctive to them. Wei Xun could perceive “mutation” from what they were trying to express.

His blood could indeed make them mutate, and even control the direction of their mutation. For example, the Insects of Evil already had an evolutionary mutation direction. They were mutating towards becoming more hairy, until they became a highly toxic fluffy thorn ball.

But maybe it was Wei Xun’s resistance to the black hairs on the insects, but they did not choose this direction of mutation. Instead, they lost the black hairs on their bodies and gave up their toxicity, instead gaining a harder exterior and sharper forelimbs.

Their forelimbs could even cut fissures in black stone, and were stronger and sharper than sabers.

‘Tangliang one. two, and three.’

No matter what kind of insects they were, Wei Xun only named them according to their appearance. ‘Go, bring the mother of the swarm to me.’

Males could mate with females, which meant that they, like the females, were highly resistant to intense radiation. These orders were given directly by Wei Xun with his consciousness. He didn’t speak. The absolutely dark environment was the best shield, as the audience wouldn’t know what happened to him here.

Soon, the three mantis brothers came back with the female insect.

At first glance, Wei Xun thought that they were carrying an imperial green emerald.

If it was said that the mutated male insect looked like a handicraft made of polished black jade, the female insect looked like a natural, magnificent, and transparent jadeite without the slightest flaw.

Its whole body was green in color, and its head and body were relatively light, slightly transparent, and was a very clean light green. Closer to its abdomen, it became more emerald green in color. Its body really appeared like green jade, extremely clean-cut and beautiful. The blood that flowed out was emerald green, like drops of jade beads.

Yes, most of the abdomen of the female insect was torn apart, and it was on its last breath. The three mantis brothers were very violent when they brought it out. The place where the female insect was located was a naturally formed gourd-shaped pit, which was full of ores with a high radiation level.

After living in a cave for thousands of years, the Insects of Evil had evolved to match the characteristics of their living environment. There was only one female insect in the entire swarm. Once the female insect died, the eggs on the royal platform would hatch. After being fed by the worker insects to adulthood, the new generation of female insects would fight in front of the royal platform. The final winner could head to that pit and reach sexual maturity under the strong radiation.

However, this pit had a large interior but a small opening, with the entrance only the size of a baby’s fist. An immature female insect could still enter normally, but when it was fully mature, its huge abdomen prevented it from leaving the pit. It could only stay in the pit and get fed by the worker insects, mate, and lay eggs until its death.

The three mantis brothers, who completely obeyed Wei Xun’s orders, rudely tore off most of its abdomen in order to bring the female insect out.

Wei Xun only learnt this information after he fed blood to the female insect to capture it.

After all, it looked like this female insect was about to die!

Wei Xun had different expectations for the female insect as opposed to the three mantis brothers. The female insect was the key to controlling the swarm that made up hundreds of millions of Insects of Evil. Wei Xun directly fed it five drops of blood, and he almost ran out of his stock because of this.

After drinking the blood, the mother of the swarm quickly formed a fist-sized green cocoon. It looked like a jade ball with a halo on its surface, which was extremely beautiful. The rescued Xiaojin buzzed and danced around the ball, and Wei Xun could faintly sense a trace of fear from its emotions.

Wei Xun was also looking forward to how these five drops of blood could mutate the mother of the swarm.

Unlike the three mantis brothers who’d hatched quickly, Wei Xun waited for half an hour this time before the “emerald jade ball” split open from the top.

At the same time, the Travel Services’ prompt sounded in Wei Xun’s mind.

[Beep, congratulations on triggering a dark blue title task!]

The author has something to say:

I’ll resume the extra updates on the day after tomorrow, mua, mua!

*The lyrics are from Monster (Album Version), a super nice song, I personally think it is a very suitable song for tour guides!