NOVEL NEXT Chapter 399: The Surface of the Underworld, Eternal Night + Extreme Cold!
The Yuki-onna's methods covered the entire cave with a layer of ice frost.
The cave, already cool in temperature, had become a frozen snowy world, except for Zi Liyuan and his party, everything else had turned into ice sculptures.
The scene of countless insects swarming towards them suddenly came to a halt.
The insects charging at the front abruptly became ice sculptures, and those following behind slammed on the brakes, forcefully stopping their advance.
The tidal wave of the insect invasion, which had been so fierce, scattered in all directions in nearly an instant, retreating even faster.
Having an advantage with the map, Zi Somebody naturally saw the insects recede like a tide.
Those high-level insects, as if commanded by a leader, showed not a hint of hesitation as they fled the insect nest, racing crazily through the underground caves.
They fled as if they had encountered a catastrophe, with all the desperation they could muster.
"This isn't right; when they were killing our scouts, they were incredibly ferocious, but now that we've arrived, they've abandoned the insect nest altogether."
All the high-level insects were rapidly fleeing, leaving behind a large number of low-level insects to start destroying the cave tunnels, which was outrageous!
Indeed, they regarded Zi Liyuan and his party as cataclysmic beasts, avoiding them at all costs.
What puzzled Zi Liyuan even more was that among these high-level insects, the strongest were just two fourth-tier Epic Bosses, and there was no trace of a Legendary BOSS.
"This situation feels as if this insect nest was already abandoned, merely operating by leveraging the residual energy to continue breeding insects."
Within the 21,000-meter radius of vision, the vast insect nest covered seven huge caves, the floors of which were lined with the unique mycelium constructed by the Insect Race.
Larvae eggs, one after another, were incubated by the mycelium and grew like white cocoons on top of it.
The energy and nutrients transmitted through the mycelium were constantly infused into these cocoons, and most of them would be torn open in a very short time by the insects inside, bringing forth birth.
A few cocoons would grow larger and larger, absorbing more energy and nutrients to become much stronger insects.
Basically, the more energy and nutrients absorbed, the stronger the insect born from the cocoon.
However, insects reaching the fourth tier were extremely rare, not to mention breeding a Boss-tier insect.
At least, on the map, out of the seven huge caves and tens of thousands of insect cocoons incubated, Zi Liyuan only saw around forty-something fourth-tier cocoons, among which there were only two ordinary Boss-level insects, the rest were all common monsters.
Clearly, these insects were relying entirely on sheer numbers to produce high-tier monsters.
With tens of thousands being incubated by the mycelium at one time, less than a hundred managed to grow into fourth-tier strength.
"Without a queen's nest to incubate the larvae eggs, relying solely on mycelium makes the quality of the insects drop several grades."
In the Dragon Academy, Zi Somebody had obviously seen some information about the Insect Race.
Typically, the Insect Race incubates insects using a queen's nest to lay eggs, in conjunction with mycelium to transmit energy and nutrients for hatching, thus cultivating high-tier insect monsters.
But on the map, he did not see a single Insect Race queen's nest, only a hundred-meter-wide hole in the central cave, leading straight to the surface.
With such a situation, how could Zi Somebody not understand what was going on?
The damned insect commanders, perhaps after a failed attack on his territory, had very decisively taken their hard-built Insect Race queen's nest and strategically retreated!
They also left orders for the remaining insects to use the residual collected energy to directly breed more insects with the mycelium, at least exhausting all the stored energy!
Of course, they must have also issued commands for eradication, like showing no mercy to intruders.
As for the high-tier insects fleeing, they were definitely following the order to run if they couldn't win the battle.
After all, high-tier insects were not easy to produce; it was crucial to save as many as possible.
The insect commanders were probably scared by Zi Liyuan, knowing he would not let things go easily, so they transferred their forces at the first opportunity.
And the insects in this nest were probably bred from the residual energy stored within the mycelium.
"They ran away quickly, but I will find them eventually!"
Having been attacked, Zi Somebody was not one to suffer losses quietly.
If his power was insufficient, he would bide his time until he was stronger, then seek revenge.
But now, with his great strength, he naturally would go and seek them out as soon as possible to completely eradicate those insects.
Zi Liyuan has always believed that the only good enemy is a dead enemy!
"Kill all the insects in the nearby nests."
First, clean out the insects in this abandoned nest, then figure out a way to find those that have already run away and strategically relocated.
"Just some little insects, leave them to us."
The shrunken Orochi transformed into an afterimage and disappeared in an instant.
"There's still quite a bit of energy remaining in this mycelium; how about I absorb it and then craft some little spiders to scatter about as scouts?"
The Spider Queen did not immediately respond to Zi Somebody's command but instead eyed the mycelium within the insect nest.
"The energy transmitted by the Insect Race mycelium seems to be a very special insect-type energy, you can absorb it?"
Zi Liyuan asked doubtfully.
"Rose Spider Queen, albeit an Evil God, still has a spider's body at her core, and naturally, she can utilize the energy belonging to the Insect Race to some extent."
As one who once served as a guard to the Rose Spider Queen, who didn't start as a little spider?