Chapter 674 367: Bottleneck (Part 2)

He thought for a moment. 'I shouldn't be bound by conventional thinking.'

The danger of a Forbidden Land stemmed mainly from irresistible forces, like naturally formed spatial rifts or the remnants of combat between ancient Great Powers. A forbidden *ground*, on the other hand, was created after the fact, usually occupied by a powerful Demon Beast clan and often located in a treacherous area.

The former couldn't be dealt with.

But a forbidden ground… 'Perhaps I can just steamroll it?'

'The vast Bihai Sect can currently gather an army of nearly ten thousand cultivators, at the very least. If we arrange the Flying Ships into an Iron Wall Array, use the Bihai Ship as the fleet's flagship, and have Core Formation Elders and Foundation Establishment Stewards in command, we might actually be able to steamroll a forbidden ground.' After some careful consideration, Lü Zhong concluded the plan had great potential.

As it happened, just such a forbidden ground existed within the Bihai Domain.

Its name was the "Forbidden Land of Skeletons."

It was situated on a plain between vast mountain ranges, at the border of the Bihai Domain and the Profound Sun Domain. The forbidden ground spanned a full ten thousand li and was occupied by a peculiar type of insect called the "Skeleton Insect." These creatures could attack intruders with Spiritual Waves. This ability, combined with the Skeleton Insects' enormous population, made the area extremely dangerous and earned it the name Forbidden Land of Skeletons.

And the "Nether Corpse Emperor Insect Juice" produced by the Skeleton Insect Swarm was exactly what Lü Zhong urgently needed.

In the past, cultivators who wanted to obtain this item could basically only rely on luck. But now, Lü Zhong planned to use an army of cultivators to forcefully steamroll the Forbidden Land of Skeletons.

That way, he would surely be able to obtain a good amount of Emperor Insect Juice.

Having made his decision, Lü Zhong issued the decree.

Star Sun True Monarch was going to level a forbidden ground!

As soon as this news broke, it sent shockwaves through the Southern Barbarian lands.

It wasn't as if cultivators or powerful factions, coveting the Spiritual Objects within forbidden grounds, hadn't organized armies to attack them before.

But the vast majority of the time, they ended in failure.

There was a reason they were called "forbidden grounds." How could they be destroyed so easily?

Because of this, many were certain that Star Sun True Monarch was doomed to fail this time. After all, the Skeleton Insects were not to be trifled with. Not only did they number in the hundreds of thousands, but the Insect Queen herself was extremely powerful. There were even records of a Nascent Soul Cultivator who had fought her and suffered a major defeat.

Amid this atmosphere of doubt, Lü Zhong personally led the army on the expedition.

...

On the Bihai Ship.

Lü Zhong sat cross-legged in a Quiet Chamber, still cultivating the Sleeve Universe Technique. He had already constructed the seventh node. It would still be a very long time before he mastered the Divine Technique.

After a while, he stopped his calculations.

Lü Zhong slowly opened his eyes and glanced at the porthole beside him. Outside, everything was a sea of purple. Countless wisps of purple smoke, spewed by the Skeleton Insects, floated between heaven and earth. This meant the fleet had entered the Forbidden Land of Skeletons.

It wouldn't be long before the fleet attracted the attention of the Skeleton Insect Swarm.

"It's about time!"

Lü Zhong rose, left the Quiet Chamber, and made his way to the deck.

Since the Bihai Sect had no shortage of Spirit Stones, the shields of the Mountain Shaking Ships had already been activated, sealing out the purple smoke. And there on the deck, which was as wide as a public square, five Core Formation Elders led by Hex Luo had been waiting for some time.

"Relay my command! Deploy the formation!"

Lü Zhong had just stepped onto the deck and glanced into the depths of the fog when he suddenly issued the order.

"Yes, sir!" an Ordering Steward responded.

At his command, the fleet immediately deployed into the Iron Wall Array.

The Iron Wall Array was a sort of jack-of-all-trades formation. Compared to the Goose Array or the Fish Scale Array, it was rigid and inflexible, but its saving grace was that it was simple to train and convenient for cultivators to exert their full strength.

In no time at all, the nearly one thousand Flying Ships of all sizes began to move.

With the Bihai Ship at the center, an iron wall slowly unfolded.

At the same time, a sound like thunder suddenly echoed from within the fog. But the cultivators quickly realized that the strange noise was not thunder, but the dense beating of wings from a massive Insect Swarm.

As the thunderous sound rapidly approached, a torrent of flying insects, like a ribbon, burst from the fog. It viciously crashed against the Iron Wall Array, and the Skeleton Insects immediately began their attack, either gnawing at the shields or activating their innate talent to release Spiritual Waves.

But before the Insect Swarm could rampage for long, a dazzling light suddenly erupted.

An Incarnation had self-destructed. Although it wasn't in the very center of the swarm, its power could not be ignored, and the blast quickly expanded into a storm of Spiritual Qi.

"Tsk, tsk. Fireworks worth three million Spirit Stones are quite a sight!" Lü Zhong sneered as he watched the massive casualties the Skeleton Insect Swarm suffered from the explosion.

'So what if they have numbers?'

'Can they stop a "nuke"?'

"Advance!"

Obeying Lü Zhong's will, the Iron Wall Array began to advance.

Slowly and steadily.

Having lost their numerical advantage, the Insect Swarm still tried to counterattack, but their efforts were like throwing an egg against a rock—they were simply smashed to pieces.

Things were developing just as planned.

The Skeleton Insect Swarm was massive, but in reality, it was completely disorganized.

Limited by food resources, the swarm had to split into smaller groups, which dispersed and weakened their power. As long as he could kill the Insect Queen in the Insect Nest with lightning speed, the remaining Skeleton Insect Swarm would become nothing more than scattered stragglers, unable to pose any real threat.

Next, Lü Zhong became a "nuke-happy maniac," continuously having his Incarnations self-destruct to inflict mass casualties on the Insect Swarm.

However, he also quickly understood that this was just the Insect Queen's "delay tactic." By sending small swarms to their deaths to hinder the fleet's advance, she was buying time to gather her main force.

'If that's the case, then I absolutely cannot let the Insect Queen get her way!'

For this battle, Lü Zhong had prepared plenty of "ammunition," bringing half of his Combat Incarnations with him. He once again ordered the fleet to advance at maximum speed.

He would use "nukes" to clear the way for a lightning raid on the Insect Nest!

...

Deep within the Forbidden Land of Skeletons stood a colossal, thousand-zhang mountain of white bone. Answering the Insect Queen's call, streams of Skeleton Insects were converging from all directions, forming a sea of insects with the mountain at its center.

As time passed, their numbers continued to climb rapidly.

"Not enough! Still not enough!"

A hysterical cry echoed from a seemingly hidden cave.

The Skeleton Insect Queen was stark naked. With a pair of insect wings folded behind her back and the jointed limbs on her sides curled up, she paced back and forth in her bedchamber. Her face, otherwise identical to that of the Human Race, was contorted with fury and venomous hatred.

She had never imagined that she would be attacked by an army of cultivators, much less one led by a cultivator as infamous as Star Sun Old Demon.

Faced with Lü Zhong's "Mysterious Means," her pride and joy, the Insect Swarm, had proven as useless as a broken sandbag, collapsing at the first touch without offering the slightest resistance.

"How could you fail to learn about something so important in advance!"

The Insect Queen's gaze shifted to a corner of the bedchamber. There stood a cage forged entirely from molten bone. It was about one zhang in size, less than a tenth of the Insect Queen's own stature.

And inside that cage stood a cultivator.

His cultivation wasn't high—only the Fake Pill Realm.

Faced with the fury of the Transformed Insect Cultivator, even this man, who prided himself on his composure and was extremely confident in his silver tongue, couldn't help but turn pale. He had never seen the Insect Queen so enraged, and he hurriedly explained:

"My Queen, I am merely at the Fake Pill Realm. Even with your help, my network of influence has only just managed to extend as far as the Insect-Controlling Sect. The Insect-Controlling Sect is just a Golden Core Sect, located on the southwestern border of the Bihai Domain. For the news to pass down through so many layers, across tens of thousands of li... for me to have learned of it half a day in advance was the absolute limit of my abilities."

"Hmph!" The Insect Queen snorted coldly.

Of course, she knew her subject had done his best.

"Then in your opinion, what should I do to get out of this?" the Insect Queen asked, as if nonchalantly.

"This..." Sweat beaded on Chen Naigu's forehead.

From what the Insect Queen had said, Star Sun True Monarch had used some unknown means to catch the Skeleton Insect Queen completely off guard. He was now advancing rapidly instead of consolidating his position at every step. As a result, even though the Insect Queen had a sea of Skeleton Insects at her disposal, she couldn't gather them around her in time.

"I believe... we can only use that thing!" Chen Naigu said in a low voice.

"Is that so," the Insect Queen's voice grew quiet.