Sage of Humanity

Chapter 222 220: Feeding

A massive underground space appeared in their field of vision, surrounded by flesh walls that flickered with the glow of spirit force, and indistinctly, a large number of the Insect Race could be seen gathering there.

It was another insect hive!

However, it wasn't within the territory of the Righteous Blood Sect, but another sect's.

When the Insect Plague arrived, every sect with a base on the Spirit Stream battlefield couldn't escape, so at this time, everyone fought their own battles, dealing with the Insect Plague within their own base's territory.

It could be said that the radiation range of every sect's base had an insect hive that needed to be dealt with.

The Righteous Blood Sect had mostly dealt with theirs, with seven hundred cultivators stationed in that underground space. Each insect that appeared met its death, earning merits in a relaxing and enjoyable manner.

The Righteous Blood Sect had secured their strategy quickly because Lu Ye had chosen a rather aggressive method, hence the high efficiency.

But the situation here was different.

This sect's cultivators chose the most standard procedure to deal with it, which was to block the passages of the insect hive and continuously lure out and slay the insects. This method wasn't efficient but was safe.

It could be said that ninety percent of the outer circle sects would choose this method, after all, not every governor could fly like Lu Ye, always ready to support anywhere, plus his strength surpassed Level 7.

It was with such confidence that Lu Ye had chosen that aggressive method, which proved very effective. Otherwise, the situation at the Righteous Blood Sect now would definitely be like the one they were seeing, not knowing how many days it would take to resolve the insect hive.

Lu Ye being able to reach here showed that the insect hive of the Righteous Blood Sect was connected to this one, a rare occurrence since most insect hives existed independently.

But such events had occurred before. According to the Fourth Senior Brother, when a certain insect hive developed to a certain extent, it would start to devour other hives to strengthen itself. The powerful hive would have insects tunnel through underground to seek out other hives' locations.

The Righteous Blood Sect hadn't dealt with the Insect Plague for many years. Every time the Insect Plague arrived, the Sect's insect hive would develop rapidly. Over the years, the nearby sects would resolve their own insect hives first before jointly dealing with the Righteous Blood Sect's, as their range would expand increasingly, inevitably affecting them.

Sometimes they even needed to request help from the inner circle or core circle sects because the situation had been dragged on for too long, leaving the outer circle sects helpless against the scale of the Insect Plague in the Righteous Blood Sect's territory.

This explained why the two hives were connected; it was because previously the insects had tunneled between them.

However, nobody expected that the Righteous Blood Sect would handle it so swiftly this time, while this sect was still slowly clearing theirs, there they had already secured a victory.

Shouts constantly came from those passageways, occasionally mixed with a scream, perhaps someone was injured.

Even blocking the entrance to lure the insects out to kill them wasn't entirely safe. If the number of insects reached a certain point, they could potentially break through the defenses, consequently causing significant casualties among the cultivators.

Lu Ye didn't know which sect this was. Presently, there were three powers bordering the territory of the Righteous Blood Sect, two from Ten Thousand Demons Ridge and one from Haotian Alliance.

According to the ten-part map, these three were arranged in a '?' shape, enclosing the Righteous Blood Sect at the center.

The three powers were Blue Waves Lodge, Sky Fiend Hall, and Phong Clan.

Among them, Blue Waves Lodge was part of the Haotian Alliance camp, located west of the Righteous Blood Sect—it too was a 9th grade sect. Sky Fiend Hall was 8th grade, located to the north of the Righteous Blood Sect. Phong Clan was a 9th grade sect, located to the east of the Righteous Blood Sect.

Lu Ye recalled the direction he came from, and after taking out the ten-part map to verify, he realized his current position was close to the Sky Fiend Hall's base.

In other words, those currently dealing with the insect race were Sky Fiend Hall's cultivators.

They had a lot of experience in dealing with Insect Plagues, so the situation at Sky Fiend Hall was relatively stable. Given enough time, they would surely eliminate the insects here completely.

Before Lu Ye arrived, the independent cultivators of Righteous Blood Sect often suffered bullying from Sky Fiend Hall and Phong Clan; if not for the neighboring Blue Waves Lodge, those independents would have had no foothold here.

From Chen Yu, Lu Ye had learned a lot, including that within the territory of the Righteous Blood Sect, there was actually a vein mine, and above that vein, a fruit orchard. Both the mine and the fruits produced in the orchard could be considered resources of the sect.

But since the Righteous Blood Sect had been unoccupied for many years, Sky Fiend Hall had dominated it, and over these many years, no one had troubled them about it.

Lu Ye had learned of this sooner, but hadn't taken any action because he had just recruited those disciples not long ago, and initiating any large-scale conflict with other sects hastily wasn't wise. At the very least, he needed to wait until the cultivators had developed some sense of belonging to the Righteous Blood Sect.

Now, it seemed like an opportunity.

After observing for a while, Lu Ye withdrew and motioned to Yiyi.

Yiyi leaned in closer.

Lu Ye quietly instructed her with a few words.

Yiyi nodded, "Understood."

Saying this, she rode on Amber and returned the way she came.

The battle between the Sky Fiend Hall cultivators and the insect race was in full swing; no one expected that a pair of eyes in the dark had already set their sights on them.

Lu Ye hadn't explored quickly on the way there due to the unclear situation in the passageways, but Yiyi had no such concerns on her return. This passageway itself was safe, showing no signs of insect presence.

Thus, just over two hours later, Yiyi returned riding on Amber, carrying a multitude of storage sacks, conservatively estimated at two to three hundred. These were all collected from the sect's cultivators.

Reuniting with Lu Ye, Yiyi also gave him a storage sack separately, "It's all here, also, Sister Hua Ci has already taken people out of the insect cave to rest as you instructed. Our hive is already starting to wither."

"Very good."

"Lu Ye, will this really work?" Yiyi clearly saw that Lu Ye was up to no good.

"Who knows, trying it out wouldn't hurt; at most, we'll just lose some insect corpses."

As he said this, Lu Ye took several storage sacks from Amber's back, tiptoed to the cave entrance, opened the storage sacks, and the insect corpses inside poured into the insect hive with a rustling sound.

There were actually members of the Insect Race here too, but because the cultivators from the Sky Fiend Hall made such a commotion on the other side, the attention of the Insect Race was drawn there, which was why Lu Ye could safely hide here.

The Insect Race was very sensitive to light and fluctuations of spirit force; as long as Lu Ye didn't make too much noise, he basically wouldn't attract the attention of the Insect Race.

A large number of insect corpses appeared suddenly, catching several unsuspecting members of the Insect Race off guard, causing them to stumble, and hissing noises arose. The few insects looked around but found nothing, though the additional insect corpses did surprise them momentarily.

Immediately afterward, many insects from all directions swarmed over, transporting those insect corpses to various parts of the hive, the vitality and energy contained within them were absorbed by the hive in a very short time, and all the insect corpses seemed as if they had been weathered for thousands of years, turning into dust.

Just as these insects finished their work, a large pile of insect corpses appeared again with a rustling sound.

The insects, clearly unaware of what was happening and lacking spiritual intelligence, would probably never guess that one day someone would kindly feed them.

Driven by instinct, many more insects came over and carried away the large amount of insect corpses.

Rustling...

One side joyful in feeding, the other side efficient in digestion, a perfect cooperation formed between them.

Fifty storage sacks emptied, a hundred storage sacks emptied, a hundred and fifty...

Lu Ye himself didn't know if his actions were effective, but if things could develop the way he expected, then things would get interesting.

While he was busy feeding the insect hive, the confrontation between the cultivators of the Sky Fiend Hall and the Insect Race gradually became fierce.

A doubtful voice came from somewhere in the cave, "Senior brother, why are there more and more insects the more we kill? There was a decreasing trend just now."

"Stop talking nonsense, just keep killing; the more you kill, the fewer there will be."

"Oh."

Initially, only cultivators at one or two cave entrances noticed this anomaly, assuming it was just a temporary phenomenon. The number of insects inside the hive was after all limited, and they could always kill them all; this had been the way every Insect Plague was handled in previous years, and this time would be no exception.

But as time passed, more and more cultivators noticed something was wrong, the insects were indeed increasing despite being killed, showing no signs of reduction, and their defensive lines were broken several times, resulting in many casualties.

Lu Ye, while feeding the insect hive, silently listened to the conversations of the Sky Fiend Hall cultivators, confirming that his idea was correct, and became even more motivated.

Having emptied all the remaining storage sacks of insect corpses into the hive, Lu Ye then took a palm-sized vitality core from the storage sack that Yiyi had specifically handed to him.

Vitality Core!

This thing was a crystal of vitality and energy, and was also the source of the insect hive's hatching of the Insect Race. For this plan, Lu Ye had even stopped the sect disciples from earning merits in advance and had Yiyi take all the vitality cores from there.

Otherwise, the insect hive over there wouldn't have withered so quickly.

Such a vitality core, who knows how many insect corpses it could replace.

Weighing the flesh core in his hand, Lu Ye casually threw it into the insect hive.

Sending you all a gift, hope you don't fail to appreciate it.

There were a total of eight vitality cores brought over from there by Yiyi, the reason there were so many was because the Righteous Blood Sect dealt with the Insect Plague too quickly, and these vitality cores hadn't had time to be consumed.

One incense stick's time later, the sounds of 'pu-chi, pu-chi' densely came from various parts of the insect hive.

Hearing this sound, Lu Ye couldn't help but feel anxious for the cultivators of the Sky Fiend Hall.

He was familiar with this sound; it was the noise of the insect hive hatching the Insect Race, and just from these dense noises, he knew that a large number of newborn insects had emerged at that moment.

He hoped the cultivators of the Sky Fiend Hall could hold on…

"Ah!" Screams came from a certain cave entrance, followed by more cries of agony.

Someone angrily shouted, "How come so many big fellows suddenly appeared?"

Others were shouting, "Hold the line, don't let them break through our defenses."

"Senior brother, help, we can't hold it here anymore!"

In the darkness, Lu Ye tossed an elixir pill into his mouth and motioned to Yiyi.

"Let's go."

The initial plan went smoothly; it was time to start the next step.