Chapter 387: Gold-Devouring Insects

The chamber for feeding the strange insects was a series of dozens of stone rooms of varying sizes that Han Li had carved into a bluestone wall. To prevent them from escaping these chambers, Han Li had set up minor restrictions between the rooms, making it impossible for them to break through the walls.

In Han Li’s view, no matter how high these strange insects ranked, most of them were still young, and even ordinary restrictions would be enough to contain them. However, the restrictions in these chambers had completely vanished, and all the stone doors were riddled with holes like honeycombs, almost completely destroyed.

Han Li was somewhat alarmed. With a thought, Qu Hun took a large step forward and pushed open the nearest stone door. Inside was empty, with nothing at all.

Han Li let out a soft sigh. Although he had mentally prepared himself, he was still extremely frustrated.

He scanned the chamber once, then turned his head slightly and fixed his gaze back on the stone door. Without a word, he walked over and crouched halfway in front of the damaged door.

The way the stone door was destroyed was very peculiar, covered in densely packed holes of uniform size. What puzzled Han Li was that the insides of these holes were not smooth but extremely rough, unlike anything that could have been caused by a magical instrument or similar object.

Han Li frowned and slowly stood up.

He closed his eyes, and his spiritual sense instantly swept through the other chambers. They were all equally empty, even the chambers housing two types of strange insects ranked within the top hundred of the Strange Insect Ranking. This pained Han Li greatly!

Suddenly, his expression shifted. He opened his eyes, a cold glint flashing within them, then left the room and headed toward another chamber.

It was another empty room, but upon entering, Han Li bent down without hesitation and picked up an object from the bluestone floor.

He placed the object in his palm and brought it close for a careful look. It was a piece of insect shell the size of a bean, shimmering with a silvery light as if made of pure silver, extremely beautiful. Han Li touched the shell with a finger and found its surface incredibly smooth and very hard.

After pondering for a moment, he was certain this was not the shell of any strange insect he had raised.

With this realization, Han Li’s expression turned serious, and he narrowed his eyes slightly.

Centering his spiritual sense around these chambers, he began searching every inch of the cave abode. He refused to believe he wouldn’t find some clue.

A short while later, Han Li made an unexpected discovery in the medicine garden. Hanging under a thick, sturdy flower tree was a shimmering silver sphere—definitely not an original feature of the cave abode.

Han Li called Qu Hun and, with a gloomy expression, left the chamber and headed toward the medicine garden.

The silver sphere wasn’t very large, only about the size of a child’s head, but its eerie, shimmering silver light was incredibly eye-catching.

Han Li stood at the entrance of the medicine garden, staring intently at the silver sphere without speaking. He felt as though he had heard of this silver sphere somewhere before but couldn’t recall it at the moment. However, it was certainly connected to that silver insect shell!

“Insect shell!” A flash of inspiration struck Han Li’s mind. It seemed he had remembered something.

He quickly reached into his storage pouch and pulled out a green jade slip—the very one that recorded the insect-raising insights of the Spirit Control Sect cultivator.

Sinking his consciousness into it, Han Li immediately found the relevant content under the twelfth position on the Strange Insect Ranking.

Gold Devouring Insects, also known as ferocious insects, rank twelfth on the Strange Insect Ranking. They are voracious predators that feast on other exotic insects and excel at consuming metals as well as the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Extremely fierce in nature, they are impervious to both water and fire. These insects tend to gather in spherical clusters and reside beneath spiritual trees. They can be trapped using jade or wood and are naturally restrained by spider-type exotic insects…

After reading this introduction several times, Han Li felt both shocked and delighted. He couldn’t help but look up at the silver sphere again.

Although his carefully cultivated strange insects were all gone, if they were replaced by these insects ranked even higher than the “Gold-backed Mantis,” he would be more than willing.

However, according to the jade slip, aside from jade and wood, the Gold Devouring Insects would eat almost anything, making them very difficult to capture. Fortunately, he still had two “Blood Jade Spiders.” Although their ranking was far below the Gold Devouring Insects, they should be able to restrain them.

According to the later description in the jade slip, silver Gold Devouring Insects should be larvae that had not long hatched. The white spiders, already at the upper first grade in terms of demon beast levels, were much higher in rank than these Gold Devouring Insects.

But before that, he still needed to test whether these insects were truly as formidable as described in the jade slip.

With this thought, Qu Hun immediately strode forward and stood in front of him.

A bloody light emanated from Qu Hun’s body as he raised a hand and spread his fingers. A large swath of deep red blood radiance shot out, instantly enveloping the silver sphere so tightly that not even wind or rain could penetrate. Yet, the silver sphere remained motionless, as if it were an inanimate object.

Seeing this, Han Li rubbed his nose, feeling somewhat disappointed. The Spirit Beast Sect cultivator had boasted so much about these insects, so why were they so sluggish?

After hesitating for a moment, Han Li had Qu Hun attempt other probing actions.

Qu Hun stared at the silver sphere, a fierce glint flashing in his eyes. He raised his hand and cast a green incantation seal into the crimson glow enveloping the sphere. Instantly, the blood-red radiance shifted from red to purple and abruptly erupted into raging flames, transforming into an immensely powerful demonic fire.

Under the scorching demonic fire, the silver sphere finally began to change. As if made of sand, it instantly disintegrated into points of silver light, emitting a buzzing sound.

Han Li focused intently and saw that each point of silver light was a flying insect the size of a soybean. Aside from a pair of visible fangs, their appearance was no different from ordinary beetles, showing no special characteristics.

Han Li was puzzled! Could it be that these weren’t Gold Devouring Insects? Had he mistaken them?

But after watching a while longer, Han Li was astonished.

Amid Qu Hun’s demonic flames, these beetles showed no signs of being burned to ashes. Instead, they were extremely lively. Even more unbelievable was that they were devouring the demonic fire at an astonishing speed. In the blink of an eye, a small portion of the purple flames had vanished.

Seeing this, Han Li, coming back to his senses, was ecstatic!

He immediately loosened the opening of a leather pouch at his waist. Two white lights flew out from the pouch and landed steadily on the ground—they were the two “Blood Jade Spiders,” each the size of a head.

Without hesitation, Han Li issued the command to capture them alive.

Instantly, as the last bit of demonic fire was devoured by the Gold Devouring Insects, two streams of white, sticky liquid shot out from the mouths of the white spiders. Mid-air, they transformed into two spider webs over a zhang in diameter, enveloping all the silver-armored insects.

These two spider webs were very different from ordinary ones, with extremely small mesh holes. The silver beetles, trapped within, couldn’t escape through the gaps.

The Gold Devouring Insects seemed to sense danger. They immediately formed into silver arrow shapes and shot toward the spider webs like real crossbow bolts.

With two soft “puff” sounds, the two white spider webs tightly wrapped around the silver arrows, forming web balls. The Gold Devouring Insects inside went into a frenzy, emitting piercing shrieks as they began biting through the strands of silk, seemingly intent on breaking free.

But the two white spiders gave them no chance. They continuously spat mouthfuls of white liquid, and in moments, the insects were encased in a huge ball.

However, Han Li knew that these spider webs probably wouldn’t hold the Gold Devouring Insects for long. He hurriedly took out a jade box from his person, forcefully stuffed the soft web ball into it, then immediately closed the lid and stored it in his storage pouch.

It should be noted that demon beasts should ideally be stored in special spirit beast pouches. Otherwise, ordinary spirit beasts would suffocate in a storage pouch due to lack of air.

However, the strange insects on the Strange Insect Ranking were quite unique. Their vitality was incredibly tenacious, and they could survive unharmed inside a storage pouch without needing to breathe. Otherwise, the Spirit Beast Sect cultivator wouldn’t have carried so many larvae in various jars and bottles.

Of course, if one truly wanted to command spirit beasts in battle, a dedicated spirit beast pouch was most suitable. Not only was it convenient for summoning spirit beasts, but it also made training them easier.

Most importantly, a spirit beast pouch could shrink overly large demon beasts for storage, something a storage pouch couldn’t do with living creatures. So, even for insect-type demon beasts, if they grew too large, a dedicated spirit beast pouch would be necessary.

After storing the jade box, Han Li, afraid he might have missed something else, used his spiritual sense to search the cave abode and its vicinity once more. Aside from discovering a patch of densely packed holes on the floor of the storage room, he found nothing else.

These small holes were likely traces left by the Gold Devouring Insects burrowing up from underground into his cave abode!

With this realization, Han Li didn’t dare stay in the cave abode any longer. He immediately left the true and false cave abodes, collected the formation tools of the three sets of formation arrays, and soared into the sky.