River waters wound around Qianhu Stockade.
This was the largest river in the vicinity, flowing from north to south, known as the Qingyi River.
At night, several boats drifted on the Qingyi River, carrying skilled fighters who kept watch to prevent wild beasts or enemies from encroaching upon Qianhu Stockade.
The river Qin Sang had drifted down was an upstream tributary of the Qingyi River. Originating in deep mountain ravines, it ultimately emptied into the Qingyi River, and such tributaries were countless.
During his drift, Qin Sang had slipped in and out of consciousness, yet he still remembered the general direction.
The late-night dew was heavy and cold, but with his physical body's wounds already healed, he could easily endure it, so he let the Flying Yaksha fly at full speed.
The place where he had lost the spirit beast bag was further from Qianhu Stockade than he remembered. Qin Sang and the Flying Yaksha traveled in fits and starts, searching in all directions along the way for a spirit vein suitable for secluded cultivation.
Unexpectedly, this region was far more barren than Qin Sang had imagined. After journeying so far over the course of most of the night, he had only managed to find a few puny, nascent spirit veins that were entirely inadequate for use.
Once away from the Qingyi River, stockades grew increasingly sparse, giving way to deep, ancient forests without a trace of human presence.
Discerning his bearings with care, Qin Sang located the stream he had floated down and flew along the course of the river. By early morning, he finally arrived near the spot where the spirit beast bag had been lost.
Reaching that pool of water, Qin Sang inspected it closely. The hide-clad man had been devoured entirely by the Blood-Winged Ghosthead Bees, leaving not even a crumb of bone behind.
Widening his search area, he found no sign of the spirit beast bag.
Qin Sang recalled the scene from that day.
He had been focused entirely on fleeing for his life and had not seen where the hide-clad man cast the spirit beast bag before dying. If it had fallen into the river, it had surely been washed into the Qingyi River as well, making it impossible to find.
Fortunately, aside from the Blood-Winged Ghosthead Bees, there were no other exotic insects in the spirit beast bag, or else Qin Sang would truly have felt the sting of loss for quite some time.
Unlike that vibrant day, the mountains on both sides of the river were now utterly silent. Not a single bird's chirp or beast's roar could be heard—there was not even the hum of an insect.
Such an abnormal state of affairs was certainly the work of the Blood-Winged Ghosthead Bees; every living creature on the mountain had been devoured clean.
Qin Sang leaped onto the Flying Yaksha's back. Just as he was about to track down the Blood-Winged Ghosthead Bees, a green spark of light resembling fireworks suddenly flared up on a mountain to the west. It flashed and vanished in an instant, accompanied by faint shouts carried through the air.
*Someone's there?*
Frowning slightly, Qin Sang commanded the Flying Yaksha to slip into the shadows with him, quietly creeping closer.
"These strange bees are afraid of my ghostfire! Priests, use your insect gu to lure them down. I will summon fire to incinerate them and take the hive."
In a mountain hollow, three figures had gathered, concealing their auras as they watched a distant cliff.
Beside them lay the corpses of two Blood-Winged Ghosthead Bees; judging by the marks on the bodies, they had mostly been burned to death.
At that moment, buzzing droned incessantly on the cliff face. A large swarm of Blood-Winged Ghosthead Bees was still circling in the air, forming a vast cloud of blood. At a rough estimate, more than two hundred remained.
They hovered around the cliff as though guarding something. Looking closely, one could see a black, ball-like hive clinging to the rock face.
The three failed to notice someone watching them from the woods not far away.
The speaker was a pale-skinned young man.
He wore a black robe, its back embroidered with peculiar patterns that formed the character for "Insect."
Behind him stood three white-bone skeletons. Pale green ghostfire flickered in their eye sockets, and transparent silk threads were tied to all their joints, the other ends wound around the young man's fingers.
Qin Sang was intimately familiar with the corpse dao and saw through it at a glance: these three skeletons were bone puppets refined through a corpse dao secret technique. Unlike the Flying Yaksha, they lacked powerful fleshly bodies; their core lay entirely in the ghostfire within their eyes.
This method of corpse refinement was rather crude, matching the young man's cultivation at the twelfth layer of the Qi Refinement stage.
The two old men beside him were also Qi Refinement cultivators.
One was at the tenth layer of Qi Refinement, while the other was merely at the ninth.
They appeared to hail from the same stockade, as the patterns on their bodies were very similar. Both wore odd ornaments made of beast hides and teeth, though their style differed from that of the hide-clad man who had perished in the swarm.
On their forehead ornaments, one bore a waxing crescent moon and the other a waning crescent.
*Could they be priests from Tianyue Stockade?* Qin Sang wondered inwardly.
The Shamanic God envoys of these stockades possessed pitifully low cultivations. He wondered what background that young man had.
The two priests seemed to be on poor terms. Ignoring one another, each chanted incantations to themselves, and a spirit insect soon flew out from each of their dantians.
One had the shape of a snake, covered in fine, fiery-red scales, yet it possessed two wings and two heads. Barely as long as a human finger, it appeared extraordinarily eerie.
The other was a beetle with a slender body. Its elytral carapace was as thin as a cicada's wing, yet when unfurled, it was as sharp as a blade.
Qin Sang's spirits rose, and he focused his gaze on the two spirit insects. He recognized only the beetle, named the Broadsword Divine Beetle by the Yuling Sect; it did not count as an exotic insect.
It possessed the potential for only two metamorphoses, but its speed was exceptionally swift, and its carapace was as sharp as a magic tool, granting it decent combat strength.
Back then, when he saw the jade mantis fly out from the hide-clad man's sea of qi, he had already grown curious.
The insect-taming arts used by cultivators here belonged to a completely different system from that of the Yuling Sect.
Just like that jade mantis, both of these spirit insects shared a peculiar connection of vital qi with their masters—a vital qi clearly forged through shared cultivation of life and soul.
*Could they have refined these spirit insects into natal spirit insects?*
"Go!"
Obeying the young man's command, the two elders directed their spirit insects and charged toward the swarm.
The two-winged, two-headed strange snake opened its mouths midair and spat out two plumes of flame. The Broadsword Divine Beetle also spread its wings, casting several blade-like wing shadows to draw the swarm's attention before fleeing in opposite directions.
*Buzz...*
Enraged, the Blood-Winged Ghosthead Bees split into two groups to give chase. One group was lured toward the young man by the strange snake.
Hooking his fingers to manipulate the three skeletons, the young man stepped forward with full confidence. As soon as the Blood-Winged Ghosthead Bees arrived, he commanded the skeletons to spew ghostfire.
He had assumed the Blood-Winged Ghosthead Bees would perish the moment they were burned. Unexpectedly, a cloud of blood mist suddenly surged from the swarm, devouring the ghostfire instead. Only an outer ring of bees was burned to death; the rest lunged forward before the three men's stunned gazes.
*What an idiot,*
Qin Sang shook his head secretly.
The Blood-Winged Ghosthead Bees had undergone their metamorphosis within the blood mist of Wuya Valley. A lone bee was nothing to fear, but once gathered in a swarm, a qualitative transformation occurred.
Unable to escape in time, the strange snake was surrounded on all sides by the Blood-Winged Ghosthead Bees, frantically spitting fire in retaliation.
The young man hurriedly urged the ghostfire forward again, finally rescuing the strange snake, but it was already riddled with wounds and had nearly lost all fighting capacity.
The elder wearing the waxing crescent forehead ornament let out a sorrowful howl, as though he himself were the one injured, and his aura weakened noticeably.
*They truly are natal spirit insects nurtured with their very lives!*
Qin Sang's eyes narrowed slightly.
When a cultivator's life-bound magic tool or magic treasure suffered severe damage, the backlash would strike the master—a reaction strikingly similar to this elder's.
Seeing the three men thrown into panic, Qin Sang retrieved two large cloaks, draped one over the Flying Yaksha, and commanded it to strike.
Chapter 617