162 Terrifying Flying Insects

Rolling the fine greyish-blue stone powder between her fingertips, Theresa watched it trickle down through the gaps in her fingers, falling back onto the "rock" surface. Almost as if by some miraculous osmosis, it reintegrated seamlessly with its kin. She continued to rub her fingers together, savoring the unique, velvety smoothness left in their wake, and marveled at the realization that a genuine treasure had been right beneath their feet all along, entirely unnoticed by anyone.

Indeed, what they were stepping upon was a precious treasure. Though they bore a striking resemblance to ordinary stone, they were anything but rock; in fact, these materials could barely even be classified as a variant of soil—they were the petrified remains and excreta of "Black-Necked Greenworms," a colonial insect-beast that had long since gone extinct on the mainland. These ferocious creatures had once played a terrifying role in history: a mere ten clans of "Black-Necked Greenworms" were enough to completely devour an entire army division.

Though they had taken advantage of the dense, treacherous rainforest terrain, such a feat of destruction was more than enough to astonish all intelligent lifeforms, especially since the completely devoured army had been a multi-species coalition comprising humans, orcs, dwarves, and elves.

That was during the rare pioneering era of the mainland's history, a time when vast territories were reclaimed and explored, and countless exotic magical beasts and plants were first introduced to the world—including the Black-Necked Greenworm.

Theresa had stumbled across records of this ancient history quite by accident while perusing ancient texts in the city of Valienda. Had she not been consumed by a curiosity that drove her to dig up a few extra related references about that era, she would never have recognized such a treasure.

The discovery immediately ignited Theresa's excitement. She pulled a large burlap sack and a small herbal trowel straight out of her spatial ring and began digging on the spot.

"Theresa, what are you doing... Huh? Why is this rock so soft?" Flora's exclamation drew Lambert's attention. He looked down and saw Theresa's cheeks slightly flushed, her eyes gleaming with excitement as she scooped the earth-like substance into the large sack with her trowel.

Each sweep of the small trowel scraped up the "soil," and with every touch, a faint trace of greenish light shimmered across the bottom of the blade, much like the static electricity generated by friction.

This inconspicuous detail did not escape Lambert's notice.

"Greenworm corpse powder?" Lambert asked in surprise.

"Yes! Greenworm corpse powder, and petrified greenworm corpse powder at that!" Theresa replied excitedly. "This is truly the greatest miracle of this trip! To think that this ruin was once inhabited by Black-Necked Greenworms—I can't even begin to imagine how they got here or how they managed to survive in an environment like this!"

Mid-sentence, Theresa suddenly remembered that she had two sturdy laborers right beside her. With that realization, she rummaged through her ring again to produce another large burlap sack and a small dagger. Handing the sack and trowel to Flora, she urged, "Come, come, help out, help out. Scoop up as much as you can. These things are absolute treasures! They can be used directly as alchemy ingredients or as cultivation soil for alchemical plants—they're priceless! Oh, by the way, Flora, didn't you say you wanted to replace your floating board? This stuff is prime material for forging one. If you bring some back, any alchemist will fight for the chance to help you forge it, and they might even throw in the materials for free!"

Theresa was crafty to the core. A single sentence struck right at Flora's weak spot, leaving her more than willing—in fact, utterly hooked—as she began eagerly helping Theresa shovel dirt.

Standing to the side, Lambert couldn't help but chuckle and shake his head. Yet, at the same time, certain phrases in Theresa's words had caught his attention.

"Theresa, can you estimate how long this greenworm corpse powder has been here?"

"A little over a hundred years, I'd say," Theresa replied offhandedly, struggling slightly to pry up the "soil" with her small dagger. "With conditions this damp, greenworm corpse powder takes about twice as long to petrify as it would under normal circumstances. Plus, those... well, let's tentatively call them water-logged pools over there—I estimate the sediment has been settling even longer. So, barring any unforeseen circumstances, there shouldn't be any living Black-Necked Greenworms left."

Hearing this, Lambert let out a noncommittal "hmph" by way of response, but his gaze had already shifted toward the orcs. Amidst their brief conversation, the orcs had formed a fan-shaped formation and advanced a third of the way across the water's surface.

The greater the urgency, the more apparent the orcs' exceptional discipline and rigorous training became. Their every move bore the hallmarks of a military operation, with their advance and tactical positioning executed with precision. Clearly, such spontaneous yet seamless teamwork was not built in a day.

The scout leading the charge suddenly halted. He neither moved forward nor looked back, simply standing stock-still without any reaction.

This abnormal situation instantly heightened everyone's vigilance. Seeing this, Li gave a subtle wave of his right hand, and the orcs immediately halted their advance. Two lupine orcs stepped out from the ranks, slowly approaching the motionless scout.

One step, two steps...

Suddenly, one of the wolf-kin noticed that the fox-kin scout's right hand twitched ever so slightly, his index and pinky fingers dipping downward by a few centimeters before freezing completely.

The wolf-kin instantly grew alert and exchanged a glance with his partner. Clearly long-time partners, the other immediately understood. They flanked the fox-kin, approaching from the left and right. When they were roughly a meter away from him, their slowly moving feet suddenly slammed down with explosive force. Springing into the air, they lunged toward the fox-kin at a speed almost too fast for the naked eye!

Mid-air, one of them reached out and pressed down on the fox-kin's shoulder, then performed a bizarre aerial pivot that propelled him backward at an even greater speed than his initial lunge, dragging the fox-kin back with him.

The other orc also lunged, but from a different angle. As he dove forward, he scattered a cloud of countless fine, greenish needles from his embrace—well, they weren't needles, but rather a signature innate defensive technique common among most orcs...

In their infancy, an orc's instincts far outstripped their intellect, leading them to romp about wildly in their beast forms. It was only when their bodies fully matured—akin to the human adolescent phase—that their beast forms would gradually transition into humanoid shapes. After this transformation, orcs could never revert to their beast forms unless they attained the pinnacle of cultivation, breaking through the innate shackles of their bloodline to seamlessly shift between human and beast forms at will.

And attaining the pinnacle of cultivation meant breaking through the ninth tier... which was practically an impossible feat.

To return to the matter at hand, this biological transformation always left behind a few "residue" traits. In the case of the wolf-kin, this was mostly wolf fur. Consequently, the very first offensive skill most wolf-kin learned was the ability to transform their fur into needles and launch them as projectiles...

Naturally, the stray fur shed during the transformation was quite precious, so they wouldn't scatter it wildly in the wind. Instead, most wolf-kin embedded specially crafted silver needles into their bracers precisely to execute this instinctive defensive technique.

The reason the wolf-kin chose to use this skill at that exact moment was its blistering speed, wide coverage, and familiarity, making it their most reliable fallback. As it turned out, that instinct was remarkably well-placed—

The greenish fine needles flew into mid-air, intercepting a swarm of tiny flying objects. The two collided with a flurry of crisp, tinkling sounds, resembling the clashing of metal!

Having successfully rescued the fox-kin, the two wolf-kin quickly retreated back into the formation. Within mere seconds, the trio turned pale, evidently shaken by the shock.

"Ambush!" Li roared the moment the tinkling sounds rang out. The orcs instantly fell back around him, executing a textbook transition into a defensive formation.

Simultaneously, Li's warning reached Theresa and her companions.

Theresa no longer cared about digging up "soil." She hastily packed up her sacks, taking the extra second to tie them securely before stuffing them back into her spatial ring—how could she possibly let go of treasure already in hand?

Lambert issued a low instruction for Flora to protect Theresa, then leaped forward, his figure vanishing in an instant.

By the time Theresa recovered her wits, Lambert had already materialized some seven or eight meters behind the orcs!

That was a distance of at least a hundred meters!

And how long had it taken Lambert? One second? Or two?

While Theresa merely marveled, Flora gazed at him with hearts in her eyes, her adoration deepening. Speed aside, Lambert had moved with such utter stealth that even Theresa, standing right beside him, had no clue how he had initiated the movement. That was true mastery.

The ensuing battle was no longer Theresa's concern. From a distance, she saw Lambert gripping a ball of cyan-blue energy. With every sweep of his hand, a sheet of icy blue frost erupted across the space, resembling a dense mass of microscopic particles packed tightly together. Those shimmering fragments of ice hung in the air for a fleeting instant before plummeting downward, striking the "water surface" with a barrage of crisp impacts.

Having recovered from their initial shock, the orcs resumed their offensive. The compact battle formation centered around Li acted like a grinding mill, slowly pushing forward. Because their killing speed wasn't quite as terrifying as Lambert's single-handed massacre, Theresa and Flora were able to catch a clear glimpse of the small creatures they were fighting.

They were flying insects roughly the size of a fist, gliding silently through the air with virtually no warning. Their bodies were a pale pink, blending in perfectly with the pale pink "velvet grass" growing across the water's surface!

Theresa could easily imagine that if these creatures flattened themselves against the velvet grass, an ordinary person would find it virtually impossible to tell them apart.

The battle ended with the retreat of the flying insects. Lambert escorted the orcs back to the edge of the "water." As the group drew closer, Theresa noticed that not only had the insects suffered heavy losses, but the orcs themselves had taken a severe beating. Aside from Li, who had been shielded in the center, every single orc was covered in dense clusters of minuscule wounds. Layer upon layer of cuts overlapped one another, yet miraculously, they bled very little.

Before the orcs could even call out, Theresa rushed forward to examine their injuries. One look, and her scalp went completely numb—

The reason there was no bleeding despite the overwhelming number of wounds was that nestled beneath those breaks in the skin was a dense layer of eggs, so microscopic they were almost invisible to the naked eye!

These bizarre flying insects actually used human and orc bodies as "mobile incubators" to host their spawn!