“Village chief, let us go out and fight!”
In the basement of the village office, after watching the battle unfold outside, a number of villagers surrounded the village chief, each one pleading to join the fight.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Get back here!”
“Exactly! Fighting isn’t for you young folks. Sit back down and wait for victory.”
Not everyone was filled with burning passion. Most of those urging restraint were the family members of those volunteering. The village chief didn’t pay much attention to either side—after all, their village was made up of ordinary people with no military training. Sending them out now would just be feeding the enemy.
“Everyone, calm down.”
The village chief quieted the commotion. Then he looked at Qin’s father and mother. “Has Sang Sang said anything about when she might come back?”
Both of them shook their heads. “She just told us to hide and not go out to get ourselves killed.”
Hearing that, the village chief nodded approvingly. His gaze swept over the group of volunteers—the village’s young people, its remaining fighting force. After so many attacks, twelve of their young folk had already died. The ones left couldn’t afford to be lost too.
The village chief decided he would be the villain. He wouldn’t let these young people go to battle.
And he wasn’t alone in that—their parents felt the same way.
With the chief’s persuasion and their families’ opposition, the young people reluctantly sat back down, deflated.
Qin’s father and mother breathed a sigh of relief. Thankfully, no interstellar bugs had fallen into their village yet.
If they did, Qin’s father knew that since he had contracted a plant taming beast, he’d have no choice but to go up himself—though he had zero confidence in actually defeating an interstellar bug.
Just as his thoughts started spiraling, he and his wife noticed they’d been added to a group chat.
Not just the two of them—everyone in the village between the ages of 40 and 60 was gradually pulled in by the village chief.
They were all in the same place, and when they realized what was happening, they exchanged bewildered looks.
But the bombshell the village chief dropped next made quite a few of them tremble.
Because all he did was send one message in the group.
“We are all citizens of Hua Country. Our nation is in crisis. Our abilities may be limited, but we still need to step up. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I plan to go up to the surface myself soon and stand guard.”
After the chief sent that, the group fell into complete silence.
Seeing this, Qin’s father thought about the current state of the battle—it wasn’t going well for humanity. Almost all of the combat drones had been shot down by the interstellar multi-legged bugs. Without that advantage, humans were left to fight the bugs hand-to-hand.
He also knew there was no hiding from this. Hadn’t they seen those damned multi-legged bugs overhead, nearly breaking free from the fissures? Their wretched heads kept sweeping past above, making his heart race with fear. If they just hid without anyone coming to help, it was only a matter of dying sooner or later.
“Count me in…” Qin’s father typed in the group, continuing the chain.
Qin’s mother followed right after. They both understood how dire this situation was.
With the three of them leading the way, others slowly signed up too.
Meanwhile, back in the basement, the village’s young people were complaining about how strict their parents were being—completely unaware that their fathers and mothers had chosen to pick up weapons and stand in front of them to protect them. If they were going to die, they’d die before their children did.
This kind of agonizing decision was playing out among ordinary people all across the country.
As for the combat personnel, they didn’t have so many pros and cons to weigh. They received their orders, left their final words for their families, and marched off without hesitation.
Qin Sang didn’t pay attention to the stories behind the battle. She just kept fighting—and the bugs seemed to keep coming without end.
She and Xu Lin had been fighting their way toward the stone gate. Along the way, they began running into official personnel who hadn’t evacuated or had redeployed. They joined forces and continued advancing toward the stone gate in silent understanding.
The reason they chose this direction was simple: everyone secretly harbored the hope that the taming bugs from beyond the stone gate would come out soon. Faster. Even faster. Otherwise, so many more people would die.
And while they kept fighting, more interstellar multi-legged bugs broke free from the fissures overhead.
Then another wave of battle erupted.
This kind of endless, cyclical combat was utterly suffocating.
If Qin Sang didn’t have an unshakable will and overwhelming combat power, she might have given up in despair long ago.
“Should I send Little Gold to the Loess Secret Realm to see what’s going on?”
Last time the interstellar bugs appeared, the taming bugs from the Loess Secret Realm had come out to fight fairly quickly. But today, they’d been fighting for so long, and there was still no sign of movement from that side.
Hearing this, Xu Lin shook his head firmly. “No one’s reported anything unusual about the stone gate. If something really did happen inside the Loess Secret Realm, sending Little Gold over wouldn’t help anyway. And if the stone gate disappears, it might not even be able to come back.”
That made sense. But Qin Sang loosed an arrow at a giant mutant spider, saving five or six people who were about to be skewered.
She silently recalled her arrow, flicked off the black sludge, and sighed again.
In the past, fire and electric nets could still be used against smaller bugs. But now that the second-evolution bugs were massive in size, those two methods consumed far too many resources.
As for the interstellar multi-legged bugs that had just fallen? Qin Sang sighed and loosed another arrow at one’s head.
Perhaps it was because the fighters gathered here were all relatively formidable.
The moment Qin Sang’s arrow struck that interstellar multi-legged bug’s head, a series of roars echoed from deep within the fissures in the sky. The sound was immensely intimidating—even through the spatial rift, Qin Sang could hear it clearly, and she understood all too well that the roar was directed at her.
Before she could react, she sensed countless bugs surging toward them from all directions. Among them, the number of interstellar multi-legged bugs—radiating violent, abundant energy—was staggering.
Qin Sang sighed again. She knew she had drawn the boss’s aggro. But there was no way she could just stand by and watch people die.
She looked around and realized they were now less than five hundred meters from the stone gate. The people gathered nearby were all official combat personnel.
“Everyone, rally up! Each squad, stay on high alert! A lot of big ones are coming!” Qin Sang pulled a megaphone out of her space and shouted at the crowd.
The moment she finished, the official combatants’ radio channels also received orders from above: interstellar bugs and mutant bugs in the vicinity were converging on the stone gate. They needed to be prepared to evacuate at any moment.
Some officials had even considered waiting for the bugs to cluster together and then dropping a tactical nuke to end it all.
Qin Sang had no idea anyone was thinking along those lines. If she had, she would have just laughed dryly.
And when countless bugs—led by interstellar multi-legged bugs—surrounded and attacked them, all they could do was keep fighting. But due to the gap in strength and numbers, humans began to suffer casualties. Some lost limbs. But because everyone here was a seasoned veteran, no one had lost their life—yet.
But if they had to endure another round like that, half the people here would be dead.
Maybe it was the power of prayer. Or maybe the interstellar bugs had simply grown too arrogant.
Either way, just as Qin Sang was racking her brain for a way out, the long-silent stone gate stirred once more.
It was the same special energy field, the same flickering light from the stone gate. And then—wave after wave of taming bugs of all varieties made their dazzling entrance!
Xiao Ma was an eight-year veteran. He had volunteered for this battle and was prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. But he never expected to be caught in such an insane bug tide—so many that they nearly drowned him.
All he could do was fight, fight, and fight some more. Then he got hurt. One of his fingers flew clean off.
Ignoring the pain, he took down the second-evolution mantis that had chopped off his finger. But he didn’t even get a chance to catch his breath—another mutant mantis came at him.
Finally, he couldn’t hold on any longer. As the sharp scythe blade was about to slice into him, Xiao Ma pulled out a grenade and prepared to pull the pin.
But then—in the next second—it was as if he’d witnessed a miracle.
Countless taming bugs poured out of the stone gate and flew toward every kind of bug in sight.
They were bugs too, and they buzzed as they flew—but in that moment, Xiao Ma felt nothing but warmth toward them.
Similar scenes unfolded one after another across the country.
With these waves of reinforcements from the interstellar bugs, the tide of battle finally began to shift.
But the bug boss on the other side of the fissure wasn’t about to let things go smoothly. Another roar rang out, and the last batch of bugs still clinging to the sky dropped down and surged toward the stone gate.
The battle entered its white-hot phase.
But this time, Qin Sang strangely felt no anxiety. Because those taming bugs were incredibly powerful—they showed no mercy toward either the interstellar bugs or the mutant bugs.
So she shifted her focus to the people around her, ready to finish off any bug that slipped through or cover any gap, doing everything she could to keep more people alive.
As she paid closer attention, she noticed that every single person fighting desperately had a taming bug nearby—including Xu Lin, and including many familiar faces she recognized among the fierce fighters.
This…
Seeing this, Qin Sang froze for a moment. A thought surfaced in her mind, but it seemed a bit too far-fetched.
Regardless, with the taming bugs joining the fight, humanity truly had hope of victory once again.
Xiao Ma had no idea what was happening on Qin Sang’s end. He was also near the stone gate, surrounded by his colleagues and friends. When his finger was cut off, someone had covered him. And a three-meter-long mutant dragonfly had helped him out too.
Xiao Ma felt incredibly lucky. With a roar, he signaled the dragonfly over, and together they charged at an interstellar multi-legged bug heading their way.
Many others had similar experiences. People fought like mad, and the taming bugs fought like mad too. The two sides coordinated seamlessly, achieving results that were greater than the sum of their parts.
Another hour passed. All bugs within a one-kilometer radius—including the interstellar multi-legged ones—were completely wiped out. There were casualties, but it was far better than the first wave.
But no sooner had they finished one wave than another arrived from the distance. This time, however, with the taming bugs by their side, people were no longer so afraid.
The battle raged from day to night and back to day again—a full week of nonstop fighting.
After that week, all interstellar multi-legged bugs that had fallen through the fissures were finally eliminated. At least within the country. Overseas, they were powerless to help for now—they had more urgent matters to attend to.
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