“Today’s really been strange—not a single spirit beast insect anywhere?”
Qin Sang stood with her hands on her hips beside a pile of mutant insect corpses, letting out a sigh. Xu Lin was busy dismantling the insect bodies nearby. Seeing her like this, he smiled and said, “If there aren’t any, there aren’t any. Maybe we’re just unlucky. Or maybe they’re all gathered near the stone gate.”
Too many people hoping to contract spirit beast insects had crowded around the stone gate. It wasn’t surprising that they weren’t finding any here.
Qin Sang was just venting a little. She pulled a knife from her space and was about to help, but Xu Lin stopped her.
“There’s no need for you to do this kind of work. Just keep watch for me.”
With that, Xu Lin went back to work, occasionally cutting off some tender insect meat and tossing it to Little Gold, who was wandering nearby.
Little Gold had eaten its fill today—but its stomach always seemed to have room for more. Every time Xu Lin tossed it a piece of insect meat, the little guy would swallow it down. Even Qin Sang found it a bit baffling.
If it weren’t a spirit beast rather than an ordinary Blue Star creature, it would definitely get fat from eating like that.
Qin Sang’s mind wandered off in all sorts of directions. Suddenly, she crouched down and called Little Gold over.
Hearing its contractor’s summons, Little Gold abandoned the insect meat and scurried over eagerly.
“Little Gold, do you have any relatives or friends in the Yellow Earth Secret Realm? Maybe we could invite them over for a visit?”
Despite the grand name “Golden Ant,” it was still an insect at the end of the day. And insects came in colonies. Even if the species was rare and not as plentiful as cockroaches, there had to be at least a few dozen of them.
Little Gold was so taken aback by the absurd suggestion that its two antennae twitched wildly, nearly tying themselves in knots.
Seeing that, Qin Sang gave an awkward laugh and changed the subject: “If you don’t have relatives, what about any acquaintances? Look at Uncle Xu Lin—he’s been working hard all day without finding anything, and he’s even been feeding you all that delicious insect meat…”
The foodie Little Gold actually paused and fell into deep thought at that.
Meanwhile, Little Grass Seed, who had been clinging quietly behind Qin Sang’s ear, could no longer contain itself. It quickly called out in Qin Sang’s mind: “Sang Sang, Sang Sang—I’ll go help find them!”
Hearing Little Grass Seed’s voice, Qin Sang replied silently: “Aren’t you afraid of being eaten out there?”
Though Little Grass Seed was a mutant dandelion, it had absolutely no offensive capabilities. Previously, it had relied on its stealth to evade first-evolution mutant insects. But against second-evolution insects, it wasn’t so confident—especially last time, when it had nearly been swallowed whole by a second-evolution cabbage worm.
After that, the little thing had stayed obediently hidden on Qin Sang’s person, never daring to go near insect corpses without her explicit permission.
Today, despite all the mutant insects they’d killed, the little grass seed had remained perfectly still the entire time.
Little Gold seemed to have overheard the grass seed’s words and gestured at it with its limbs in a rather provocative manner.
“Hey, no fighting, you two.”
These two little ones—Little Gold was already contracted, while Little Grass Seed hadn’t undergone its second evolution yet and hadn’t signed a contract with Qin Sang. Whenever they bickered, they’d both start buzzing in Qin Sang’s head, using her brain as their battleground.
So, seeing signs of an impending quarrel, Qin Sang quickly stepped in.
“How about this—each of you goes out to look for spirit beast insects. If you find any, come back and let me know…”
Neither of them was particularly thrilled with the idea, so Qin Sang had to coax them a bit more, promising a few things here and there, before finally settling them down.
At the same time, she thought to herself: just two potential spirit beasts—and one of them wasn’t even contracted yet—yet managing their relationship was already a major challenge. According to the inherited memories she’d received from Little Gold, the number of spirit beasts one human could contract varied, depending on the person’s own energy capacity.
Qin Sang felt she was quite capable. She’d surely be able to contract plenty of spirit beasts in the future. Figuring out how to maintain harmony among them would definitely be a whole other skill set!
Headache…
Xu Lin noticed her odd expression and asked what was wrong.
Qin Sang didn’t hide anything and briefly explained her plan in a few sentences.
Hearing this, Xu Lin was deeply moved and said, “Then count me in for the gifts for the two little ones too.”
Qin Sang: “I definitely won’t hold back with you…”
After settling that, Qin Sang carefully plucked Little Grass Seed from her hair and placed it in her palm, ready to let it fly off on its own.
Little Gold, meanwhile, was already digging its feet into the ground, poised to sprint the moment Qin Sang gave the word.
But that command never came.
Just as Qin Sang was about to tell them to go, the entire world’s energy field shifted in an instant.
It was a familiar shift. She and Xu Lin looked up at the sky in unison.
Countless others did the same. Across the entire planet, the more powerful spatial ability users were, the more keenly they felt this energy fluctuation.
And at the Academy of Sciences, the detection instruments had registered the change the very first moment it occurred.
Instantly, the alarms in all five major safety zones blared to life.
Qin Sang and Xu Lin, out in the suburbs, heard the sirens as well. Both of them let out small sighs of relief—it seemed the government had also detected the impending crisis.
But even as they breathed easier, Qin Sang had already sent a message to her parents, telling them to take cover.
The interstellar Zerg were about to strike again. All combat personnel were to mobilize, while non-combatants were to immediately take shelter in underground bunkers.
Their village’s shelter was essentially the basement of the village office building.
Qin Sang didn’t need to give her parents many instructions. They’d been through enough by now—their family had developed its own set of protocols.
—
“Little Gold, Little Grass Seed—looks like you won’t be earning that extra treat after all.”
Qin Sang was still in good enough spirits to joke with the two little ones.
Little Gold had already shifted into attack mode. As for the timid Little Grass Seed, it had burrowed straight back into Qin Sang’s hair and activated its abilities—stealth and danger avoidance.
At the same time, countless heads began emerging from the black fissures in the sky. They looked utterly malevolent, with blood-red eyes. Even from the vast distance between sky and ground, anyone who saw them couldn’t help but shudder involuntarily.
Qin Sang’s eyes widened as she reached out and grabbed Xu Lin’s arm. His expression was equally grim.
Because they could see those insect heads pushing their way out of the fissures—and they kept coming, and coming. As more and more of their bodies emerged, growing longer and longer, it became clear that these insects were a different species from the last wave.
The previous ones had somewhat resembled rhinoceros beetles. These, on the other hand, looked far more like centipedes.
The brown or black kind—segmented, multi-legged, with two antennae at the head—that gave a gritty crunch when crushed, and left behind a foul stench.
Centipedes. A type of insect that Qin Sang had found utterly revolting as a child. In her ignorant youth, she’d once seen one in a crack in the wall at home and tried to pry it out with her fingers. The smell that followed… just thinking about it brought back childhood nightmares.
She’d smelled plenty of foul odors since then, but the stench of a crushed centipede was something that made her skin crawl.
Just as she thought she couldn’t be more disgusted, an even more nauseating scene unfolded.
Against the blue sky and black fissures, countless long, segmented insects writhed and struggled as they crawled out. Their many legs squirmed in unison. The more of their bodies that emerged, the more violently they twisted.
Looking up from the ground, it was like watching a demonic dance in midair.
Meanwhile, this scene was being broadcast simultaneously to countless phones—and displayed at the global disaster response conference.
Yes, ever since the insect calamity began, nations, regions, and armed forces across the world had come to realize that when facing an alien species, they needed to share information. And so, cooperation was born.
However, in previous insect swarms, humanity had managed to hold on, and the conference hadn’t seemed especially critical. But the last wave of interstellar Zerg had hit—and Huaguo, thanks to the stone gate, had suffered the fewest losses, while other countries and regions had lost many lives.
And suddenly, the importance of this conference skyrocketed.
Now, with the emergence of these centipede-like insects, the attendees were engaged in intense debate.
Some argued for immediate use of thermal weapons to strike precisely at the insects struggling to emerge from the fissures.
Some argued that the immediate priority should be evacuating everyone to underground bunkers to preserve their strength.
Others went straight to pointing fingers, demanding that Huaguo quickly bring out all the insects from the stone gate to resist the bugs about to descend from the sky.
And then there were the clever ones, waving their hands and calling for international cooperation to build spaceships—for a spontaneous getaway into the cosmos.
None of these representatives, of course, came up with any truly good suggestions.
The general public, naturally, knew nothing of these behind-the-scenes debates.
But watching the increasingly long insects writhing in the livestream footage, fear gripped them all.
Of course, there were also those brave enough to say their goodbyes to their families—people who readied their weapons, absorbed as much energy from their cores as possible, and prepared for a final stand.
As for Qin Sang and Xu Lin, they were already battle-ready. The only issue was that Qin Sang found this wave of interstellar Zerg utterly revolting—a bit too hard on the eyes. She decided that before they could fully emerge from the fissures, she’d kill as many as she could.
She wasn’t holding back anymore.
Pulling out her Dragon-Howl Bow from her space, she aimed at the disgusting centipede-like insect dangling overhead, seemingly ready to drop at any moment—and let an arrow fly.
The arrow pierced straight through the insect’s head and knocked out its energy core.
Without its core, the centipede died.
And this time, “died” was quite literal in every sense of the word. The insect that had been writhing and struggling just a moment ago suddenly went completely still. Its exposed half-body stiffened for an instant, then hung limp in midair—half trapped in the fissure, half dangling in the sky. From a distance, it really did look like it was hanging there.
Xu Lin, seeing this, pulled out a new weapon from his space—not some mythical artifact, but a newly developed laser cannon.
It didn’t look like much, but it was packed with all kinds of high-tech features—positioning systems, launch systems, stabilization systems, and more. Xu Lin didn’t understand the technical details, but he knew its range was long and its firepower devastating.
The ammunition was laser shells.
The only downside was that each shot was a one-time use. And they were expensive—about 2,000 points per shot. Not something an ordinary person could afford to fire off casually.
But Xu Lin didn’t care about points at that moment. He aimed at another writhing insect overhead and fired.
His aim was decent—it wasn’t a direct headshot, but he managed to blow a hole straight through its neck.
And then the insect’s head came crashing down from the sky.
Along with it, a burst of black, disgusting viscera rained down.
Fortunately, it wasn’t corrosive.
Qin Sang pulled Xu Lin out of the way and let out a sigh of relief.
Xu Lin couldn’t help but feel a bit embarrassed by the mess he’d made. How come Sang Sang had looked so cool, while his shot had ended up so clumsy?
Their actions were broadcast live to countless households—and also witnessed by the still-bickering conference attendees.
Immediately, some started grumbling that Qin Sang’s weapons were suspicious, while others began probing about Xu Lin’s laser cannon.
But the majority voted in favor of the armed strike proposed by Huaguo’s representative, despite the outcome not being made public.
Ten minutes later, however, countless laser weapons opened fire on the insects in the sky.
Not just in Huaguo—people across the globe had organized their resistance.
Long before the weapons were fired, Qin Sang and Xu Lin had received a retreat order through the survival app.
They didn’t pull back far, though—the insects were everywhere in the sky, and there was nowhere to run. Worried about getting caught in the fallout of insect guts, the two found a building and took shelter inside.
Once inside, they located the basement and hunkered down.
Outside, the battle had only just begun.
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