Chapter 70

Chapter 70: Yin Qi Crystals

Shao Heng jerked in shock.

Judging by its aura, the Yin-Eroding Bug trapped in her flame prison was only at early First Realm—no different from a Human Clan cultivator who’d condensed around a hundred furnaces of power. She’d been curious about its strange race, not truly wary.

But as Ao Chuan had said, a single queen could raise an army of more than ten thousand Yin-Eroding Bugs in a short time. Tens of thousands of early First Realm cultivators attacking together—she didn’t need to imagine the outcome. Even a Second Realm Mystic Passage Realm cultivator could be ground down and killed by sheer numbers.

Shao Heng immediately urged Three-Thousand-Li Moon, burst out of the earth, and sprinted east by the map she held in her mind.

After fleeing more than 20 li, just as she started to believe she’d shaken them off, her sharpened senses caught a faint buzzing. It swelled from distant to near, thin at first, then rapidly thickening until it became an oppressive roar.

Shao Heng glanced back.

It wasn’t a handful of bugs.

It was wave after wave piled together, a blue tide sweeping toward her at terrifying speed. The sound alone battered her ears until they ached. If she hadn’t tempered her spirit sense with immortal arts earlier, the vibration might have rattled her mind into a daze.

“Why are they chasing me?” she muttered through clenched teeth. “I only caught one little bug. I haven’t even burned it to death.”

She forced the Spirit-Refining Art to circulate, keeping her thoughts clear, and cast escape techniques again and again, trying to widen the gap.

Ao Chuan coiled around her forearm. With spirit power surging through his body, his tail shot out in a blur, lashing snowy whip-shadows that snapped down on the leading edge of the swarm, buying her breathing room.

Through the Blood Pact, his thoughts came crisp and urgent.

“These Yin-Eroding Bugs are born alongside yin qi, but they prefer light and heat. They can also devour blood and essence to raise their cultivation. The queen’s racial potential is limited. In all of history, the strongest ever recorded only reached Third Realm. This one is peak First Realm.”

A pause—then a grim emphasis.

“In a fight where one bug becomes an army, even we heavenly demons avoid provoking them when our cultivation is close.”

Shao Heng pulled away with several more bursts, yet the tide swallowed the distance again, relentless and precise. She felt the lock tighten around her like an invisible thread.

They were tracking her aura.

[I was careless, thinking the underground caves were safe enough… I have to be steadier in the future.]

Her right hand flipped. The Phoenix jade ring appeared in her palm.

Earlier, when she’d hunted Jiang Yun Jiang, she’d used up the last of her stored sun radiance. In this secret realm there was no way to replenish it, which meant the Golden Crow Sun-Embracing Visualization Art was hamstrung. Shao Heng didn’t hesitate. She drew out two brown-yellow talismans, wrapped them around the jade ring, and fed them spirit power.

First-grade, high-tier talismans: Fire Meteors.

The talisman paper ignited without flame. Red spiritual light surged upward. The phoenix carved on the ring peeled away from the jade and plunged into that glow.

In the next instant, meteors rained down.

Flaming stones hammered the ground in a blazing storm. Wherever they struck, grass and trees ignited, fire spreading in rolling waves that swallowed Yin-Eroding Bugs by the hundreds, then the thousands.

Shao Heng’s gaze hardened.

“Since you won’t stop chasing,” she said, voice steady despite her racing breath, “then let’s fight.”

She’d been fleeing at full speed, but now she chose a tall tree as a pivot. Both feet hit the trunk. She used the rebound to twist her direction.

Her body flipped cleanly, without the slightest dizziness. In the same motion, she raised the Thousand-Strike Bow, drew, and loosed an arrow.

Since entering the secret realm, her cultivation had risen again. And the queen she faced was peak First Realm. There was no room for restraint.

The arrow carried no dazzling glow, yet the power packed into it was fierce. Black mist coiled around the silver-white shaft, condensing into strange, jagged patterns that crawled like living ink.

Shao Heng thrust her spirit sense through layers of writhing bodies and locked onto the queen hidden at the swarm’s heart.

The arrow vanished into the tide and was blocked by a layered bug-wall. Shao Heng’s expression didn’t change.

She detonated it.

The explosion ripped a hole through the mass. Bugs poured into the gap instantly, frantic to seal it—so Shao Heng fired again, and again, and again, repeating the same brutal tactic.

The swarm couldn’t mend fast enough. The gap didn’t close.

It widened.

The queen tried to shift positions inside the living barricade, but Shao Heng’s spirit sense held it in a deadlock. Her spirit sense could now split into four threads. She still hadn’t truly cultivated the first level of Great Expansion Spirit-Refining Art, but she’d grasped enough of its mysteries to make it bite.

Now, those four threads pinned the queen’s movements like invisible chains, forcing it to stay put and take every strike.

In a breath or two, after she’d loosed 17 arrows, Shao Heng finally carved open the swarm’s core.

The queen was exposed.

It was about three times the size of an ordinary Yin-Eroding Bug. Its rear sac bulged obscenely, heavy with potential spawn. Three pairs of mosquito-like wings shuddered and buzzed. Its black-bean eyes were unnervingly lively—and the panic in them was unmistakable.

Shao Heng’s grip tightened.

“Ao Chuan!”

Her earlier volley had drained too much spirit power. She couldn’t guarantee a single killing hit anymore.

But the moment her call went through the Blood Pact, the White Dragon in her sleeve shot out like a bolt of white lightning.

Ao Chuan’s dragon-scale powder glimmered with a soft glow, forming a suppressive aura that made it impossible for the Yin-Eroding Bugs to press in for the moment. He moved in a flash, seized the queen from the heart of the swarm with one claw, and crushed it into a spray of blood.

Leaderless, the tide instantly collapsed.

The order snapped.

The swarm scattered in every direction.

Shao Heng lifted her hand to call Ao Chuan back. She’d swallowed a pill earlier and could squeeze out enough spirit power to flee again if she needed to—

“No need to run,” Ao Chuan sent, refusing to retreat. “Yin-Eroding Bugs are dangerous because the queen breeds fast. They replace losses endlessly, and you can’t kill them all.”

His tone sharpened with satisfaction.

“But we killed the queen. Now they have no leader. I can handle them.”

Then, bright with greed, he added, “These ancient bugs grow alongside yin qi. After enough time, a kind of yin qi crystal forms inside their bodies. Wait—I’ll harvest them. We’ll split the haul later!”

He’d already checked that no one else was nearby. With the confidence of a dragon who feared nothing, he brazenly used a heavenly demon art from his own clan.

His body coiled into a strange, natural-looking shape. Then he spat out a ball of white light.

From it burst several hundred solid miniature Little Dragon.

They streaked outward, surrounding the fleeing Yin-Eroding Bugs. Then they threaded together like silk, weaving into a sphere that tightened inward, compressing and compressing until the last struggling insect was sealed inside.

In under eight minutes, the coiling dragon ball had shrunk small enough for Ao Chuan to grip in one claw.

Only then did he fly back to Shao Heng and spread his claw for her to see.

The white light dispersed.

A pile of dark-blue crystal grains floated in midair, held up by spirit power. Each grain was tiny, no larger than a sesame seed.

“This is yin qi crystal,” Ao Chuan said, eyes bright. “Aren’t you trying to draw in yin qi to refine your spirit? You can use this directly. It’s already condensed and purified by the Yin-Eroding Bugs.”

With a casual swipe, he split the floating grains into two neat piles.

“Half for you, half for me. Hehe.”

Yin qi condensed into crystals was a fairly pure form of energy. It could help Shao Heng refine her spirit, and Ao Chuan could use it to temper his body and increase his strength.

Shao Heng accepted her share and didn’t hold back her praise. “Not bad. As expected of the True Dragon clan.”

Ao Chuan puffed out his chest so hard his whole body seemed to swell. Drunk on compliments, he blurted out, half-boasting, half-promising, that he’d find even more treasures for her later.

The words barely left his mouth before something felt off.

He froze.

Shao Heng’s mouth had curved into a half-smile that made his scales itch.

Ao Chuan stared at her for a long moment, then went silent, flew back to her arm, and turned into a dragon-mark.

Shao Heng’s brows lifted. “What are you hiding for? Weren’t you just calling yourself a True Dragon Lord? Don’t tell me you’re going back on your word.”

“I’m Little Dragon,” Ao Chuan snapped. “What I said doesn’t count!”