Star Odyssey

Chapter 3954: Insect Lord

Yu Jing and the others exchanged glances, but Lord Ting Chao did not hesitate to order everyone to retreat. Soon, everyone had withdrawn, and the universe fell completely silent.

Lu Yin released his inner universe, and his Karmic Dao enveloped Shan Lie. This was the second time that Lu Yin was doing this, but his goal was no longer to directly view the bug’s past through karma. In addition to karma, he also had the power of Word Manifestation, but there was also another option with karma; Lu Yin could weave karma.

In his inner universe, the light of the Investiture of the Gods connected to his Wordless Heavenly Book, and one scene after another started to appear on it. With a casual wave of his hand, Lu Yin used the power of karma. While doing that, he used his words as a brush and the world as his canvas, moving reality with his will and causing people to act according to his intent. Shan Lie’s eyes grew vacant as Lu Yin’s hand descended.

As the humanoid insect watched Lu Yin’s palm descend, his mind nearly collapsed. He did not want to die. He wanted to send back what he had learned about the Lost Clan. He did not want to die.

The stronger one’s desire to survive was, the more easily their mind would collapse.

The hand fell, only to suddenly stop when it was just half a finger’s breadth from Shan Lie. At that moment, karma entered the Investiture of the Gods, and Lu Yin’s voice reached Shan Lie’s ears. “We won this war...”

Shan Lie’s eyes lost all focus, and scenes appeared in his mind. The war was fought, and he destroyed the humans. He was invincible and unstoppable. Longevity Stele suppressed all their opponents, and an endless horde of insects flooded the universe. At the same time, Shan Lie found the Lost Clan and saw their Primeval card. Everything could be obtained. The Nest civilization had won the war.

“Tell me, how did we win?” Lu Yin’s voice reached the bug’s ears again, and Shan Lie answered without hesitation, revealing everything that he knew, regardless of whether it was a part of the planned strategy or merely imagined battles.

Both real strategies and fantasy were based on the Nest civilization’s actual abilities that Shan Lie was familiar with, which meant that everything that he shared was a real possibility. Lu Yin’s goal was to understand why Shan Lie believed that the insects could win the war. After all, that reality would mean that humanity had lost.

Shan Lie eagerly shared everything, though Lu Yin’s karma was continuously being consumed.

Afar, Yu Jing and the others could barely make out Lu Yin’s back. They could not understand what he was doing, and they could only wait for him to finish.

Jue Huang and Ye Ge focused on recovering from their injuries. Simply surviving had been a stroke of luck for them both.

Jue Rou pursed her lips as she stared off into space, worry written on her face. Mr. Lu was not invincible. She had just seen him cough up blood.

She was currently thinking of some words that she had read in her family’s ancient records: no civilization would be easily destroyed. People had believed the Allsense Megaverse to be easy to defeat, and yet the Fifth Night Pillar had needed to bring Mr. Lu there to rescue the first wave. This time, they were facing the Nest civilization, though they had also faced other foreign civilizations in the past.

Civilizations represented the will of the creatures that formed it, and that represented infinite possibilities.

Humanity was far from being invincible.

At this moment, Jue Rou was growing.

A short while later, Lu Yin threw Shan Lie into the Champions' Stage Purgatory to increase his own karma. At the same time, he confiscated the Lost Clan’s card that the insect had carried.

That card was called Rampart, and its trap imitated the Third Rampart’s universe to create the ultimate defense.

This effect was amply demonstrated when Shan Lie had used Rampart to block the Heaven and Earth as One spirit treasure formation, which was an incredibly powerful attack. Still, such defenses were meaningless before Lu Yin. Word Manifestation meant that Lu Yin had not even needed to overcome Rampart’s defenses in order to crush Shan Lie.

At the moment, all of the new information that Lu Yin had learned from Shan Lie was weighing heavily on his mind.

The Nest civilization’s only Immortal was their Immortal Lord, but so what? Could humanity really defeat the bugs?

Shan Lie and every bug with him were nothing more than the first wave of insects. Their sole purpose was to test the Nine Odysseys Megaverse’s power. The real attack would come with the second wave.

The Nest civilization consisted of a truly endless swarm of bugs, including a great number of Verdant Sages, many of which were like Shan Lie and possessed the strength of a peak Dukkhan. Above those powerhouses were the four Insect Lords, titled as such because the Immortal Lord claimed that they possessed the greatest combat power possible beneath the Immortal realm. So far, not a single one of the four Insect Lords had appeared in the Nine Odysseys Megaverse.

For the victory that Shan Lie envisioned, the four Insect Lords had arrived with the second wave and had served as the vanguard during the assault on the Spirit Nidus. With those four powerhouses present, humanity had stood no chance of victory.

The four Insect Lords were called Chang, Unbroken Time, Shan Xiao, and Luo Chan.

From what Shan Lie knew, Chang was a terrifying creature with enough strength to destroy an entire universe. No creature in the entire history of the Nest civilization had ever surpassed Chang’s physical might. Even the Immortal Lord had said that, beneath the Immortal realm, no creature could possibly surpass Chang.

In the scenes that Shan Lie had envisioned, he had repeatedly stated something with fervent belief: on the day that Chang appeared and tore the universe apart, the power it revealed would send humanity plunging into an abyss of despair. That Insect Lord’s power was enough to overturn everything and shatter humanity’s spirit. Chang alone would be the final straw that determined victory and defeat.

Unbroken Time was a strange creature. Its body was a cosmic clock, with a sun and moon serving as the clock hands. It was a being that controlled time.

No being had ever survived an encounter with Unbroken Time, not even once. Throughout the Nest civilization’s endless wars, Unbroken Time had remained the ultimate master of the power of time. In every war, the strongest opponents were left to it, but Unbroken Time had never lost.

In the victory that Shan Lie envisioned, Lu Yin had been killed by Unbroken Time.

Shan Xiao, like Shan Lie, had been born in the Third Rampart. She looked like a human, having the appearance of a beautiful girl with thick, curly golden hair, and she always wore a princess dress. However, that girl was the one who had taken the power of the Lost Clan’s greatest expert, Di Xia. That power was predicated on the concept that all was beneath the wielder and that none could meet their gaze. That had allowed Shan Xiao to instantly surpass all the other Verdant Sages and become one of the four Insect Lords.

Even before Shan Lie got lost in the illusion of victory, Lu Yin had already known of Shan Xiao.

Also, Lu Yin had seen Shan Xiao while searching through Shan Lie’s past with karma.

Shan Xiao was regarded as the greatest traitor during the Lost Clan’s war against the insects. Without her, the Lost Clan would have initiated the final battle even sooner. Of course, they still would have lost to the Immortal Lord, but their civilization’s destruction would have occurred much sooner.

Shan Xiao could be considered a true member of the Lost Clan; after spawning, she had left the Nest civilization and been adopted by the emperor.

She had been the emperor’s adopted daughter, which had led to her becoming the Lost Clan’s most hated adversary.

The last Insect Lord was Luo Chan, and that creature was also the primary reason why Lu Yin felt that it would be extremely difficult for humanity to win the war.

In Shan Lie’s imagined scenario, Luo Chan had played the largest role.

Lu Yin had already been wondering how the Nest civilization’s forces had managed to split apart and target four locations so far apart in such a short amount of time. The battlefields were so far apart that even using the green lotus leaves would take years of traveling.

Despite the distance, the Nest civilization’s forces had arrived swiftly.

The answer to that question was Luo Chan.

Luo Chan was an oddity in the cosmos. According to Shan Lie’s understanding of the Insect Lord, it somehow transcended all biological understanding. It existed beyond karma, the River of Aeons, and even the concept of space. This was because Luo Chan could instantly teleport anywhere in the infinite Aevum Inch.

It was an extremely terrifying ability, and it was even beyond the abilities of Immortals, and yet that was precisely what Luo Chan was capable of doing.

They could even grant other creatures the ability to move through space, allowing them to freely roam within a certain range, so long as Luo Chan’s aura was left behind.

This was the explanation for the four-way assault on the Spirit Nidus, as well as why Shan Lie believed that it was impossible for humanity to ever achieve victory.

When Luo Chan arrived, one could easily imagine that the insects’ positions would constantly shift and move. Anywhere that humanity had strong defenses, the insects would simply move elsewhere. Humans would not have any time to react. The horde of insects would be able to simply bypass humanity’s defenses entirely and directly attack the Spirit Nidus or the Nine Odysseys Megaverse. With that, not even the Immortals would be able to arrive in time.

On top of that, Luo Chan could arrive at any moment.

It felt as if the Nest civilization had spread across the entire cosmos. How was humanity supposed to fight against that?

They would always be confronting empty air.

No matter how humans defended their homes, it would be impossible to block the insects at all parts of the Nine Odysseys Megaverse. Even a single opening could become a breakthrough point for the Nest civilization’s invasion.

Lu Yin was strong, but he could not defend an entire megaverse. When Luo Chan appeared, they could simply take all the insects away, and Lu Yin would never be able to catch up. Even if he did, with a great deal of effort, the insects could simply leave again. It would be nothing more than a game to them.

This was the power of the Nest civilization’s four Insect Lords. Even though none of them were Immortals, they still put immense pressure on Lu Yin. Even if the Nine Odysseys Megaverse had more Immortals and the Immortal Lord was absent, a human victory still seemed unlikely.

The Nest civilization was simply too unique. The various insects possessed too many strange abilities, an unmatched reproduction rate, as well as the ability to constantly evolve. With one or two more Immortals, they would absolutely be qualified to be a fishing civilization.

No, the Nest civilization did not merely fish for other civilizations—they openly hunted for them.

Master Qing Cao’s thinking was much too simplistic. He wanted to use the Tianyuan as a shield to block the Nest civilization, but that was simply ridiculous. Luring the Nest civilization over would not only put the Tianyuan in danger, but also the entire human race.

The key detail was that Greater Sancte Green Lotus and the other Immortals were all absent.

Lu Yin considered himself unmatched beneath the Immortal realm. He would not be afraid against any one of the four Insect Lords on their own, as he believed that none of them could defeat him. However, this was all-out war, not a one-on-one duel.

Luo Chan was far too important in a war. Just that insect alone was nearly enough to decide the survival or destruction of an entire civilization.

Lu Yin also had no confidence in a prolonged battle.

Only an Immortal might be able to manage that.

Even so, the Nest civilization had fought countless wars in the past. It was almost certain that they had faced Immortals before, so they would naturally be on guard.

The pressure that Lu Yin felt seemed crushing, and suddenly, outer space appeared to be even darker than before.

Even with his back to everyone else, people could see Lu Yin struggling with something.

No one disturbed him, and they all waited quietly.

Soon, Lu Yin gathered Lord Ting Chao, Jue Ling, Yu Jing, and a few other Ortusers and Dukkhans over. He shared all that he had learned about the Nest civilization.

People were appalled, and they struggled to believe that the Nest civilization was as powerful as Lu Yin claimed.

Even just Shan Lie had been able to disregard attacks from Jue Ling and Yu Jing, both of whom were peak Dukkhans. He had even blocked Heaven and Earth as One, which had been one of the Skyveil Megaverse’s most powerful spirit treasure formations. Everyone had assumed that Shan Lie was second only to the Immortal Lord within the Nest civilization, only to learn that there were the four Insect Lords who far surpassed Shan Lie.

In particular, people could not believe that a being like Luo Chan existed.

People knew that the cosmos was vast and seemingly endless, filled with many wondrous lifeforms. Even so, they could not believe that there was a creature that exceeded all understanding.

The existence of such a creature was simply too unreasonable.

Lu Yin spoke in a deep voice, “I know that you don’t believe it, and honestly, if I hadn’t used karma to investigate it, I wouldn’t either. Even so, it remains true.”

Jue Ling’s eyes flickered. Wait, is that out in the open now? He just openly admitted to comprehending karma.

Yu Jing and the others showed no surprise at all. With the passing of time, the fact that Lu Yin had comprehended karma had spread among the top-tier cultivators. All that was missing had been his own admission.

Hearing him openly state that he could wield karma did not surprise anyone. They felt an indescribable sense of shock, though it might also be either envy or jealousy.