Astral Pet Store

Chapter 1240 The Nest

Hardly had the Void Bug been released when it sniffed all over as if having caught a whiff of something.

"Do you feel the aura of your partners? Can you locate the nest?" asked Su Ping telepathically.

The Void Bug turned around and looked at Su Ping. It nodded and then scratched its head with its scary forearms, before it pointed at one of the channels.

Su Ping understood what it meant. He said, "Lead the way."

The Void Bug was clearly excited; it quickly crawled forward. Su Ping asked Greeny to shrink a bit and follow him. He then summoned the Dark Dragon Hound, which was still disoriented. He then hopped on its back; his intention was very obvious.

The Dark Dragon Hound realized what he wanted. It mumbled, but still followed the Void Bug with delight.

Su Ping saw bones on the ground further down the channel; they had been picked clean. They belonged to humans and beasts. Su Ping shook his head; they must have belonged to the Ascendants from other forces.

All of a sudden, he remembered the local forces of the Mayhem Star Zone that Lian Qi had mentioned.

He didn't remember seeing any of the seven major forces in that place.

Did those people not know where the core is?

Su Ping's eyes glittered, feeling that something was off.

However, he didn't really know what to do about it, so he simply continued on his way toward the stomach, using the directions suggested by his watch. The laws are gradually dispersing in this area, probably due to the universe's crack. Did this ancient corpse drift from outside of the universe, or is it here to block the fissure? Su Ping pondered while riding the Dark Dragon Hound's back.

The Void Bug and Greeny were scouting ahead; they soon reported that they had encountered enemies.

The enemies had already been finished off by the time he arrived. There were a few beasts on the ground; their Ascendant laws were suppressed and their souls had perished.

Su Ping allowed his pet snake to gorge itself out and absorb all those beasts, noticing how hungry it was.

Greeny had a good appetite and a great digestion ability. It could swallow everything; the more it ate, the faster it would evolve.

The Void Bug kept on leading the way.

The beasts they encountered were all crushed with Greeny's help. The Void Bug easily annihilated Star Lord beasts, while those of Ascendant State were scared off or killed by Greeny. Su Ping was nigh unstoppable; that is, unless he met a Celestial being.

Su Ping encountered other Ascendants soon after; they were exploring the ancient corpse and fighting off beasts.

He simply ignored them and passed by. He believed that he was being generous enough by not kicking them from their back.

Indeed, they were all humans and he should offer help, but everyone was hunting for treasure; it would be your own fault if you died.

The Ascendant cultivators were dumbfounded by the sight of a Star Lord swaggering by, but they simply ignored him in the end. A Star Lord was useless in their eyes, and couldn't even become a distraction. Using Su Ping wouldn't even count as a distraction, as he would be killed off quickly and the monsters would attack them again.

So, the passerby went his merry way, and the fighters kept fighting. No words were exchanged.

Su Ping continued and traversed thousands of kilometers. His perception range was limited due to the special interferences inside the body; his laws and Dao Patterns were suppressed in a way too. Su Ping encountered a couple of beast waves along the way; the beasts weren't massive, but their power was still comparable to a few Ascendants.

"Huh?"

Battle noises resounded further ahead.

Su Ping sensed the Void Bug's excitement through their bond. He patted the Dark Dragon Hound's head and rushed toward a certain direction.

A group of white and silver Void Bugs were attacking several men in a channel.

The men were struggling to resist while surrounded by the worms. There were also a few human-shaped eggs covered in mucus, stuck to the wall like bumps. Still, one could feel a faint trace of vitality in them.

Besides the people sealed inside those eggs, there were five Ascendant cultivators making a desperate stand to repel the insects surrounding them.

A nest? I think it's a little bit too shabby, though…

Su Ping looked around and felt disappointed. There weren't many insects; only eight of them were golden and the rest were silver. Further away, he saw white insects that were even smaller, with a Star State cultivation. They were extremely weak; it was a miracle for them to be alive.

Su Ping waved a hand and asked Greeny to take care of them.

He also ordered the Void Bug to tame those insects and locate the nest through them; he wanted to find out where they were from.

Whoosh!

Greeny dashed out after receiving Su Ping's order. Even though it had shrunk, it was still enormous while moving inside the channel. Its agility wasn't impeded, as it quickly dashed over to where the insects were located.

The unfortunate five were rather astonished to see Greeny arrive; they wondered whose ultimate pet it was and why it was so powerful.

They looked around, and quickly noticed Su Ping riding the Dark Dragon Hound; Su Ping's level baffled them. Some of them recognized him, and quickly spoke about it with the others, clearly shocked.

With faces belying conflicting emotions, one of them thanked Su Ping from a distance. Then, all five escaped and moved to the other side of the channel.

Even though Su Ping was famous, he was just a Star Lord in their eyes. Owning an Ascendant pet was unbelievable for other Star Lords, but it wasn't too shocking for a universe-famous genius like Su Ping.

However, it was impossible for him to win just by having an Ascendant pet.

So, none of them tried to befriend him; they simply took the chance to leave as quickly as possible while Su Ping held the enemies back.

Su Ping figured out what they were thinking as they left in haste. He shook his head, but didn't consider it a big deal; he had already seen how treacherous humans could be. He waved a hand and plucked the human-shaped eggs from the wall. He removed the mucus that contained corruptive laws, and many pale people fell out.

They were of different genders. Their armor had been corrupted; some were entirely naked and their skins were on the verge of decay. Some had high-quality armor, but it was dim and rusty, about to slip off.

All of them seemed to have just awakened from a dream. Their faces showed horror once they noticed the battle around them. They made their getaway by rushing through places where there were fewer insects.

They didn't even bother to bat an eye at Su Ping who had just saved their lives.

He didn't really care. He had helped them only because he wanted to; there was no other reason for it.

Greeny's battle had almost reached an end as the others escaped.

The eight golden Void Bugs were defeated by Greeny's siege and whipping.x Some of them had broken shells, severed wings, and some had even lost half of their bodies. Their missing parts couldn't be regrown because of the snake's secret techniques.

The Void Bug stepped up after Greeny won the battle. It tamed the insects and exchanged information.

That was just one of the worms' temporary barracks, as well as one of the factories to deliver food to the nest.

Just as I thought, there's a large scale of unusual insects here. However… Su Ping put on a smile. According to what the Void Bug learned, even though the nest here was large, the queen wasn't a Celestial; it was at the top of the Ascendant State at best!

I'll be able to help Master without moving a finger if I can subdue these worms and have them attack the Heavenly Devil Alliance. After all, this war was partly caused by me… Su Ping thought.

The Void Bugs had a strict hierarchical system. Su Ping had long discovered that all the battle worms served the queen and they belonged to different classes. Those of lower classes couldn't defy those of higher standing.

Still, that arrangement didn't really apply to Su Ping's Void Bug.

It was already much stronger than before and its consciousness had awakened after having traveled across many cultivation sites and seen the mythical creatures, both in the Chaotic Realm of the Undead and the age of chaos. It no longer saw things with the eyes of a simple grunt, nor was it beholden to hierarchy.

Strength was king. The pressure induced by hierarchy meant nothing. The Void Bug was at the moment leveraging a powerful pressure with seven small worlds. The aura of the seventh world was especially making it even more ferocious. The eight golden worms were rather scared.

Once the Void Bugs were subdued, Su Ping asked them to lead the way to the nest.

The noises of their legs rubbing against the ground kept echoing. The Dark Dragon Hound followed them, like a shepherd dog driving them.

Half a day later—Su Ping reached the stomach of the ancient corpse. That was the place where the Void Bugs nest was located. Their operations branched out from there to all limbs and internal organs.

Su Ping displayed the map made by scanning the ancient corpse. There was a basin in the stomach, which was very likely the nest.

The ancient sword piercing the heart is invisible when seeing from outside; it can only be seen inside. The heart is intact on the surface. Su Ping glanced at the region where the heart was. He didn't know what was going on with his senior brothers; maybe another battle had started. He had experienced three blasts on his way over.

Each blast was caused by the heartbeats.

They also contained the aura infused by the sword. Fortunately, they were now further away and the blast effect was dampened by walls of flesh; even normal Ascendants would have resisted.

Once reaching the stomach area the blast was negligible; there was no need to resist. Only a tremor could be felt.

10

Su Ping saw the remains of many beasts in the stomach walls. Many damaged exploration robots were there too; some were humanoid, while others had bizarre looks. All of them were broken, covered by smelly mucus.

The worms didn't feed on metal, and thus the robots had been abandoned.

The walls were full of sticky webs, Su Ping encountered worms of a smaller scale the moment he arrived, but the worms led by Greeny crushed them in a flash.

The numbers of his team grew. There were already twenty-six golden worms, which equated to twenty-six Ascendant cultivators. They would definitely be a powerful force in the outside world!

Many five-star forces in the universe only had that many Ascendants.

Six-star forces were the top organizations, such as the Loulan family.

As for seven-star forces—which were the most powerful of all—they were the dynasties established by Celestials.

They encountered more worms as they moved. There were fewer Ascendants there, as they seemed to have been scared off by the dangerous environment. The organizations who had sent Ascendant cultivators over were generally weak; not many teams were as strong as Su Ping's, which was mainly formed by Heavenly Lords.

It wouldn't be bad if the rest of the teams could include ten Ascendant cultivators.

Hiss, hiss!

The worms they found were bigger as they approached the nest. Some channels were full of larvae, including some with a Fate realm. They could only stay with the bigger worms, as none of them dared to move on their own.

The larvae were eating the mucus left by their parents, which contained nutrition elements. The bigger worms ate the walls of flesh, causing tiny holes.

That ancient corpse had existed for billions of years, and yet it was unable to resist the bites of those Void Bugs.

Greeny led the worms to fight as they moved forward. The worms they were meeting seemed to have been informed of their intrusion; they didn't meet as many later on. Once they reached the depths of the stomach, Su Ping saw a creepy picture in a spacious place.

It looked like an enormous organ with countless tunnels stretching out like a spider web. Countless worms were crawling about. At the very center was a lump that shivered like a heart. There was a dent in said heart, where the enormous queen was found!

The queen was ten times bigger than the golden worms. It was purely golden, with yellow and brown flesh on its lower half. Underneath was a high platform full of worms.

The eggs laid by the queen slipped down from the high platform, perpetuating the species.

Great. It's not a Celestial yet.

Su Ping looked from a distance, and found that the queen's level wasn't as high. Such news brought relief.

"Hiss, hiss!"

There was an astronomical number of insects; it seemed that all the worms roaming outside had been mobilized to defend the queen. There were more than two hundred golden worms!