Chapter 178: Insect Human

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Translated by Frog in the Well

Read more at Nineheavens.org
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Regarding the surprise attack that flew in from among the swarm of insects, Jin So-myeong, who had sliced the neck of the attacker, frowned.

It was because he checked the opponent’s appearance and found it was a strange race he had never seen before.

A head with pincer jaws and antennae like a hornet or an ant spun in the air before dropping to the ground with a thud.

‘An insect human?’

He did not know what they called themselves, but at the very least, it looked that way to Jin So-myeong.

At that moment when he was grasping the attacker’s identity,

the headless torso began to move on its own.

As many as four arms targeted his temples, dantian, heart, and even the lungs between his ribs simultaneously.

Did cutting off the head have no effect? Although it was unexpected, he did not just take it lying down.

Rumble…!

Planting a micro-sized Yin-Yang Great Hand Seal into the opponent’s chest, he used the repulsive force to widen the distance.

On top of this, one more thing.

He covertly infiltrated a streak of Five Elements Divine Thunder and scorched its heart.

Judging by the heavy sensation of impact, it definitely landed.

However…

“Hah.”

At the cross-section of the neck where the sword swept past, the flesh wriggled, and the severed head regenerated rapidly.

As it even shook its limbs violently, the flesh charred black by the lightning Qi dropped off in patters, and new flesh grew.

‘An undying body?’

Head and heart.

To revive even after disposing of two fatal vitals, it was a tremendous regenerative power.

Could it be that the head and heart are not vitals for that strange race?

Leaving his doubts behind, he first retrieved the mobile dharma treasure, the Black Night Flying Carriage, into his sub-space.

At that moment when he was observing the opponent and finding out information,

“A fairly strong specimen for a human. It will be worth hunting.”

A clear voice was heard from the regenerated head.

Clicking its pincer jaws and snickering, it was without doubt a sentient creature.

“Kihaha!”

As if provoking him, it greedily licked Jin So-myeong’s blood smeared on its fingernails, then hesitated.

Chewing a few times, it frowned to a degree that even Jin So-myeong, who was of a different race, could tell.

“What is this? It’s not that good.”

Who it was speaking to was revealed soon.

“No way. Specimens that strong among humans are uncommon, so how could it not taste good?”

It was because an identical-looking creature appeared from among the buzzing swarm of insects and tilted its head.

‘…There was one more.’

Frankly, it was surprising.

It was a stealth ability powerful enough that even Jin So-myeong, who possessed sensitive senses, found it difficult to notice.

“I am not joking. It is not just at a tasteless level, it is the worst.”

The insect human, who spat out the blood it was chewing, spoke as if clicking its tongue.

“By all accounts, that human bastard seems to have grown up luckily while possessing terrible aptitude.”

“Its innate spiritual root must have been garbage as well, merely having been forcibly upgraded.”

“A pity. It would have been nice if it were a human with a Spirit Body.”

“Let’s just kill it roughly and go hunt other humans.”

“Yes.”

The fellows, who seemed ready to pounce at any moment, acted completely to the contrary instead.

Retreating in an instant, they spread the wings characteristic of insects.

They had penetrated among the swarm of insects covering the sky to hide their presence.

Jin So-myeong, who had been recovering his internal injuries as much as possible while they spoke, frowned.

‘Their stealth ability alone is amazing.’

Grasping their locations was not as easy as he thought.

The hundreds of thousands of insects surrounding the vicinity vibrated their wings as if they had been waiting, and a noise loud enough to cause a headache obstructed his senses.

A faint killing intent was felt, but he could not know the exact direction.

He tried focusing his senses, but it was the same.

‘Is my spiritual power about twenty percent remaining?’

Jin So-myeong, who was assessing the spiritual power on the verge of depletion, cast the Lightning Insight Spell-Breaking Eye.

He had judged that he must end it quickly even if he overexerted himself.

The moment lightning settled in his black pupils,

the insects that were acting wildly flew orderly and gathered in various parts of the sky, turning like beads.

Crack-crack-crack!

Simultaneously with the sound of something crumbling, they became sharp spearheads and aimed at this side.

It was a sight as if the insects had been melted and refined into weapons.

Swish!

Thousands of green spears generated in an instant drew dazzling trajectories.

They rushed in simultaneously from all directions.

Though they were spears made of insects that were wiped out just by roughly scattering lightning Qi, he did not let down his guard.

He swung the sword while generating wind with the Wind Transformation Body Force.

Ting!

Right before the sword and spearhead collided, he minutely rotated his wrist to alter the flow of force.

Since he did not have much remaining spiritual power, he had to use the minimum amount of force.

Smoothly to the point that almost no noise arose, he succeeded in deflecting all thousands of spears along with the wind generated by the Wind Transformation Body Force.

“Oh. A marvelous skill.”

“Is it because they are a race without innate authority? Their control over force is quite something.”

Evaluations that he could not tell were praise or ridicule were heard, but he did not care.

If one’s emotions were shaken by the enemy’s words, even what could be done would not work.

He focused solely on maintaining composure and how to navigate through the situation.

At that brief moment when the iron spears deflected in all directions drew parabolas and returned,

Pajik!

He converted most of the spiritual power remaining in his dantian into lightning Qi.

Simultaneously with finding the locations of the fellows hiding among the swarm of insects with the Lightning Insight Spell-Breaking Eye,

Chwak!

he became a streak of lightning and cleaved the void.

Cleaving vertically the fellow that belatedly tried to retreat as if reacting to the Lightning Escape Art,

he blew away with a roundhouse kick the other fellow trying to pierce with its nails in counterattack.

Before the fellow that bounced off like a cannonball and crashed into the ground regained its senses, he used that brief moment to swing the sword again.

To finish off the vertically cleaved fellow for certain, he sliced it into hundreds of pieces without mercy.

‘Let’s see if you can revive even like this.’

Scraping his remaining spiritual power, he even scattered the Five Elements Divine Thunder.

Burning away the sliced flesh fragments, he took out recovery pills from his sub-space and swallowed them.

At that moment when he was replenishing spiritual power to his dantian that had hit bottom,

Thud!

The insects surrounding the vicinity exploded and fell down in showers.

‘…Dying suddenly?’

Countless insects he had not even touched died off.

It was not one or two, but thousands that burst miserably while making popping sounds.

The doubt about the bizarre phenomenon was also brief.

The flesh fragments he had shattered just now gathered into a single point and began to regenerate rapidly.

Watching the absurd sight, he realized.

‘Was it regenerating by sacrificing the surrounding insects?’

Indeed, it was a regenerative ability powerful enough to be hard to believe if there was no price.

Jin So-myeong, who quickly assessed the situation, kicked the void.

Slash!

He swung the sword at the rapidly regenerating lump of flesh.

He cleaved and crushed it, then burned it with lightning.

“Kyaha! How dare human scum!”

Until the other fellow that had crashed into the ground rushed in while shrieking,

he killed them easily dozens of times more.

The insect corpses that fell in patters piled up like a mountain.

Just how many died in a short time less than a few seconds, the sky that had been packed with insects grew bright.

Almost more than half disappeared.

‘Phew.’

It was fortunate that it was effective, but his entire body screamed.

His body was already messed up from spreading the Blood Wings, and repeating the consumption of spiritual power as soon as it recovered gave him dizziness.

‘Still, if I do a little more…’

At that moment when he gripped his sword while forcing his vision, which kept trying to distort, to be clear,

“Awaken!”

At the cry of the fellow blown away by the kick, the entire desert trembled.

And,

the sand on the ground.

No, grains smaller than sesame seeds split, and larvae resembling caterpillars crawled out.

“…?”

They grew rapidly in the blink of an eye, and wings even sprouted.

Weeeeeeeng!

The sky, which was already dark, was dyed black again.

“Haha.”

A hollow laugh escaped naturally.

Looking now, each and every grain he had thought was sand was an egg.

He realized that in the first place, this was not a desert, but a hatchery for insects.

After a moment’s calculation, he made a clean judgment.

That now was the time to retreat.

To kill those fellows, it seemed he would have to wage a truly long-term war, but unfortunately, his physical condition was the worst.

If so, where should he go?

Pulling out the Black Night Flying Carriage and pouring in extreme-grade spirit stones, he selected one of the escape plans flashing through his mind.

Boom!

The carriage that had transformed into an escape light turned direction.

It went back toward the oasis, the direction he had just departed from.

“Where do you think you are fleeing!”

The buzzing wingbeat sound characteristic of insects followed.

Ignoring it, he focused on digesting recovery pills.

To escape the current situation, he had to recover spiritual power as much as possible.

Had he flown for barely a minute?

At the edge of his Divine Sense, a welcome face was visible.

The old man he had clashed with once at the oasis.

The nameless old man presumed to belong to the Mok Clan was flying this way along with his puppet army.

‘As expected, he was pursuing me.’

Since it went according to predictions, what he had to do was self-evident.

“Fellow Daoist!”

The two syllables he shouted while wearing a pleased expression.

That was enough.

For the pursuing insect humans to perceive the old man and Jin So-myeong as on the same side.

Simultaneously with the hesitating old man pulling out a thousand more puppets,

Jin So-myeong, who retrieved the Black Night Flying Carriage, kicked the void.

Stopping his flight, he dashed backward toward the insect humans and swung the Starlight Afterimage Sword.

“Arrogant. Does anything change just because there are two of you?”

The fellow who snorted drew its fingernails long like longswords and lunged, but Jin So-myeong’s goal was elsewhere in the first place.

Tjjeong!

The moment the sword and claws collided,

An illusion looking exactly like Jin So-myeong appeared from the Starlight Afterimage Sword and scattered in all directions.

It was not only that.

The clones popping out from the void joined among the illusions and fled in all directions, breaking through the insects’ dragnet.

“…Clones?”

“Something is unique.”

Was it because Jin So-myeong himself, who possessed the most powerful aura, remained in place?

The insect humans did not pursue the clones.

They merely tried to kill him by pouring spells from a distance.

At that time.

Jin So-myeong waved his hand to the old man of the Mok Clan as if treating a friend and spoke in a cheerful tone.

“Fellow Daoist. I will recover as fast as possible and return, so please hold out until then.”

“And… you bastards, just wait and see.”

Leaving a warning that only a third-rate villain would make toward the insect humans,

he swapped places with one of his Blood Spirit Clones located furthest away.

The main body and clone exchanged in a single instant.

Jin So-myeong’s face grew expressionless, and his aura declined sharply.

“…!”

They probably realized something had gone wrong, but it was already too late.

The remaining Blood Spirit Clone also vanished like smoke with a swish.

Now, what remained on the battlefield was…

only Mok Sa-heon and the Insect-Armor Race, who had pursued Jin So-myeong to this place.

*

Meanwhile, Jin So-myeong, who escaped from the battlefield through his clone, rapidly scanned the surrounding terrain.

It was still too early to call it safe.

While burning away the insects rushing at him with buzzing noises using his lightning Qi, he contemplated where to go.

‘The oasis? No, that is not a safe place either.’

The anglerfish-like monster hiding its body below the water surface was not an ordinary existence either.

It was strong enough that he would have been caught helplessly if he had not used the Blood Wings.

Crunch!

Rolling his mind while processing the incessantly flying insects, he lowered his gaze.

‘Should I go underground?’

Although he knew it was not normal sand but insect eggs, wouldn’t it still be better than the sky covered by fully grown insects?

Puh-wuk!

Condensing his Sword Gang into an awl shape, he dug into the ground.

He intended to descend as deeply as possible, but this sandy desert…

no, this heap of insect eggs was deep beyond imagination.

Even space was twisted here and there, making him reluctant to move blindly.

‘It’s fine. This level is enough.’

At any rate, places with high density and many obstacles like underground are hard to inspect with Divine Sense.

Although what was in the surroundings was eggs rather than sand, it obstructed Divine Sense detection all the same.

Satisfied at an appropriate depth, he swung his sword to create an underground cave.

“Phew…”

Taking a deep breath, he cast the Myriad Flows Restoration divine ability.

The words telling them to wait and see were not a joke.

He intended to return as soon as he recovered and slice up the insect humans.

At that moment when he was connecting his meridians one by one, which were on the verge of being severed strand by strand from overexertion,

Wing-wing!

A vibration sound that made him feel good just by hearing it, completely different from the wingbeats of insects, pierced his ears.

“Mu-geuk?”

Mu-geuk, who had been assisting the battle while dwelling in the Starlight Afterimage Sword, popped out in the appearance of a shining cotton candy and visited the Secret Realm of the Mind.

He held a worn-out sword fragment, which Jin So-myeong had obtained by chance during his Golden Core days but had given as a present since he could not grasp its identity, and which Mu-geuk usually held in his arms like a pillow, and shook it.

Why is he suddenly acting like this?

At that moment when doubts welled up,

Wooong!

A faint vibration rang out from the sword fragment Mu-geuk was holding.

Mu-geuk, who shook the sword fragment here and there, headed toward one side of the underground cave, and the vibration grew stronger the closer they got in that direction.

‘…Is it resonating?’

It was a sight as if guiding him somewhere.

Jin So-myeong, who was contemplating with narrowed eyes, brushed himself off and stood up.

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