When he saw the overwhelming swarm of insects blanketing the sky, Li Guanqi finally understood what had become of the white bones he had seen earlier...
The insects possessed razor-sharp mouthparts, and their entire bodies looked as though clad in a layer of armor.
Without hesitation, Li Guanqi spun around and fled.
Yet the speed of these creatures far exceeded his imagination!
With a slight vibration of their wings, a buzzing as faint as that of gnats and flies rang out.
Each insect turned into a streak of black, swarming toward Li Guanqi!
Their speed was actually a fraction faster than Li Guanqi's even when he pushed his movement technique to the limit!
Li Guanqi cursed inwardly, whirled around, and slashed his sword!
Activating the power of the Sword Ruins, the insects' trajectories slowed noticeably before his eyes under the ability of Illusory Form.
He raised his arm and unleashed over a hundred sword strikes in rapid succession!
Every strike contained immense immortal primal energy.
Yet...
Clang, clang, clang, clang! Clang, clang!
A flurry of sparks erupted before him as the black-and-white insects were knocked back one by one.
Li Guanqi's sword had failed to deal them any substantial damage!
At most, the strikes lightly scratched their carapaces or left faint white streaks.
"This tough?!"
Li Guanqi was astounded. With the speed and power of his strikes now, combined with his immortal primal energy, even a rank-two dharma artifact would not be able to withstand them.
Furthermore, Li Guanqi discovered to his horror that these insects were actually trying to gnaw at Red Lotus's blade!
Fortunately, after all the years he had nurtured Red Lotus, its resilience was even greater.
Even so, sparks burst in bursts from the blade, sending chills down his spine.
Like a dark cloud, the swarm enveloped Li Guanqi.
Li Guanqi erected a primal energy barrier, only to find that it could not withstand these insects at all.
In the blink of an eye, they gnawed his primal energy barrier full of gaping holes.
Li Guanqi drew Xue Ming, barely warding them off by wielding a sword in each hand!
Just then, the man from earlier appeared several hundred zhang away.
When he saw Li Guanqi, his gaze flickered. After a momentary hesitation, he sent a voice transmission.
"Cut their wings!"
Li Guanqi's eyes lit up at the words. Slashing with both blades, the tips of his swords aimed straight for the bases of the insects' wings on their backs.
Boom, boom, boom, boom!
His swords moved like an impenetrable curtain, a dazzling storm of blade light. One insect after another fell from the air and landed beside Li Guanqi.
A few breaths later, Li Guanqi had finally struck down every last insect.
Yet in doing so, his internal immortal primal energy had been drained by a full thirty percent!
Li Guanqi stood suspended in midair, panting heavily, his face slightly pale.
Looking down at the insects beneath his feet, a chill crept up his spine.
Densely packed, the insects piled atop one another and squirmed underfoot, emitting faint hisses as they crawled!
Li Guanqi raised his hand, channeling immortal primal energy to draw one of the insects into his grasp. He found that its back was white, resembling bleached bone.
A few profound markings were etched upon it, perfectly natural in origin.
Even while trapped, the insect clamped its sharp mouthparts tenaciously onto the lightning.
Li Guanqi's immortal primal energy was now no less potent than heavenly tribulation lightning.
Yet this insect actually gnawed a breach clean through the lightning cage.
Moreover, as the insect devoured his immortal primal energy, the wings on its back slowly began to regenerate.
Li Guanqi gradually exerted force with his right hand, only to discover that the creature's body was extraordinarily tough!
Even with a grip of full strength, he merely forced a wail from it and produced a few faint cracks upon its carapace.
"What terrifying insects..."
"Their carapaces are as tough as black iron, they fly blisteringly fast, and they can even devour immortal primal energy!"
When he turned to look for the man from before, the stranger was already nowhere to be seen.
"Well then, I owe him a favor."
At that moment, Pengluo poked its head out. Seeing this, Li Guanqi held the insect out for it to see.
Who would have guessed that the sight would frighten Pengluo so badly that it nearly tumbled off his shoulder.
"Ahhh!"
"An ancient remnant species—the Black Armor Bone-Eroding Bug!"
"How... how could this thing still exist?!"
Li Guanqi frowned. For the first time, he saw sheer terror in Pengluo's eyes.
"What on earth is this thing?"
Pengluo stared down at the densely swarming insects beneath their feet, taking a good while to recover its composure.
As Li Guanqi sped off in the direction where the green-robed man had vanished, Pengluo began to explain.
"The Black Armor Bone-Eroding Bug is a bloodline descendant of the ancient divine pet, the Abyssal Bone-Radiance Beetle!"
"It is said that the Abyssal Bone-Radiance Beetle vanished entirely a million years ago."
"Yet the Black Armor Bone-Eroding Bug has survived down through the ages."
"In the inherited memories of my race, the greatest reason the Abyssal Bone-Radiance Beetle was revered as a divine bug was the extraordinary ability possessed by the bone-patterned jade disk upon its back!"
Recalling the bone-like white markings on the insect's back, Li Guanqi asked in a low voice, "What kind of extraordinary ability?"
Pengluo's expression turned graver than ever before.
"Legend has it... that the bone-patterned jade disk of the Abyssal Bone-Radiance Beetle possessed the heaven-defying power to enter the river of time!"
"Furthermore, once an Abyssal Bone-Radiance Beetle reached maturity, it could gnaw through space and traverse different realms at will!"
Listening to Pengluo's words, Li Guanqi could not help swallowing hard.
"Good grief... traversing realms, entering the river of time?!"
Just as Pengluo was about to say more, Li Guanqi suddenly halted and slapped a hand over Pengluo's mouth!
Far in the distance, a thousand zhang away, there seemed to be a pitch-black cave entrance.
Several groups of cultivators had already gathered around the cavern mouth.
A sky-blotting black swarm enveloped the surrounding area of nearly a thousand zhang.
Li Guanqi's throat went dry. The swarm before him numbered at least a million strong!
From where he stood, it looked like a vast expanse of roiling black clouds swallowing heaven and earth!
Agonized screams rose and fell as corpses tumbled from the sky one after another.
Before they even hit the ground, they vanished into thin air, leaving not a trace of bone fragments or shredded flesh behind.
Meanwhile, the green-robed man who had warned Li Guanqi earlier was currently besieged in a frantic fight for his life by over a dozen black-robed figures!
Those people had employed some unknown method.
Milky-white halos coalesced around them like spiderwebs, ensnaring every Black Armor Bone-Eroding Bug that drew near.
Although the insects continued to gnaw at the milky-white threads, the halos welled forth in an endless supply.
Li Guanqi's expression turned solemn as he closed in without making a sound.
"Aaagh! Save me! Save—"
"Damn it! What kind of monster is this?! Give me a hand—"
"Run! These bugs devour immortal primal energy!"
Screams of agony and desperate shouts echoed incessantly.
The air was thick with a hovering mist of blood, and the overpowering stench of gore was sickening.
Liu Xiong slashed with his twin sabers and kicked the green-robed man flying. His gaze was sharp as a blade, his voice chillingly cold as he spoke.
"Han Sijin, today... marks your death!"
"I advise you to hand over the Void Heaven Stone sooner rather than later, and I might just send you to join your wife and daughter that much quicker."
Li Guanqi's brow furrowed tightly as he murmured under his breath,
"Liu Xiong murdered his wife and daughter?"
"The Void Heaven Stone... could it be the stone he was holding earlier?"
Chapter 1678