Yang Ze glared at Li Feng. "As if you do!"

Li Feng laughed. "I actually did pick up some information from the other cultivators. There are an incredible number of bug swarms in the region, all of different species. Over time, as the swarms fight each other for dominance and devour each other, the strongest bugs will evolve into bug monarchs."

"Like raising gu?" Yang Ze asked.

Li Feng nodded. "More or less."

"So what good are these bug monarchs?"

"What would you do if you were injured in this virtual realm?" Li Feng countered.

Yang Ze thought for a moment. "I snuck into the fifth-realm cultivators' territory and overheard that the herbs that grow here can be used to treat injuries of the spirit and soul."

Li Feng said, "The bug monarch can be used in the same way, and is even more effective."

"What, can it revive people from the dead?" Yang Ze exclaimed.

"Not quite—but it can heal injuries and prevent you from taking more."

Yang Ze frowned. "How?"

"Allegedly, you can consume it to obtain mental protection that serves almost like an extra life. Even if you're killed in this world, no damage will be done to your physical body. Apparently, consuming bug emperors can even spark a mental evolution and confer great benefits."

"How do you prepare it?" Zhang Lie asked.

"You should have it, Captain," Li Feng said.

Zhang Lie shook his head. "I don't need it. The two of you should split it."

Yang Ze looked into the distance. "Hold on. We don't have to decide who gets it just yet. It seems like there's a commotion up ahead. Why don't we check it out? They might be fighting over a bug emperor—or perhaps it's another bug monarch."Zhang Lie frowned. "Shouldn't Fang Yi be our priority?"

Yang Ze replied, "Fang Yi isn't going to die just yet, whereas these bug monarchs could prove particularly valuable to the team at large. Furthermore, what if Fang Yi's in the melee up ahead?"

It was true that the queen's hive soulshard was pointing right ahead. Zhang Lie nodded in agreement.

The three cultivators charged forward as an avian lifeform swooped down toward them. Its wings shone with umbral light, and it glimmered as though it were made of metal. A fierce aura surrounded it; its wings were strong enough to crush mountains.

Zhang Lie raised his head to see the atavistic lifeform swooping down at him, but wasn't particularly concerned. He stood still and waited for the lifeform to approach.

Zhang Lie unleashed his dragonturtle transformation.

The image of a dragonturtle manifested behind Zhang Lie, and his water-attuned genetic energy turned heavy, sluggish, and a dark yellow color. Ripples of genetic energy spread out all around him like mud.

Zhang Lie's gaze was clear, and his black hair floated in the wind.

The mountains rumbled; the ground shook. The avian swooped down with incredible strength, but its target hadn't moved at all.

Furthermore, it had been mired in a domain of genetic energy that made it feel as though it had been trapped in a swamp. It was unable to escape. Even breathing was difficult. It had been restrained and much of its cultivation sealed.

The avian was shaken. It was the apex predator in the lands around, and could kill any manner of beast or lifeform with impunity. How had it been trapped?

Zhang Lie reached out and held it up by the neck. "You want to eat me?"

The black avian's feathers stood on end as it whined, its eyes full of fear. This cultivator, whoever it was, was the most frightening creature it had ever seen.

Zhang Lie glanced askance at it, then tossed it into the air. "Stay away from me."

The black avian fled, rushing to put as much distance as it could between it and Zhang Lie.

Zhang Lie flashed away, moving hundreds of meters in an instant and vanishing from the mountain.

Along the way, a golden giant appeared, thirty meters tall, with thick golden fur around its body. It roared in fury, a stone club in its hands. It swung the weapon down toward Zhang Lie, who raised his head. He reached out and stopped the stone club, which had to be over twenty meters long, and prevented it from budging at all.

The golden giant was taken aback. How did this puny lifeform possess so much strength?

The next moment, Zhang Lie vanished from sight and appeared right before the giant's eyes. He picked him up and tossed him out.The golden giant smashed into a mountain, causing boulders to rumble and fall. It paled. Only after an extreme amount of time did it finally catch its breath and flee like a terrified rabbit.

The three cultivators continued onward to a mountain range with five mountains giving off radiant light. Several of the mountains had been destroyed, leaving only their bases behind.

There were all manner of shattered weaponry on the ground, along with large pits.

The energy within the pits hadn't dissipated entirely. It remained within the pits like boiling water; an ordinary cultivator who fell inside would be vaporized instantly, leaving nothing but ash behind. Although there were no corpses around the mountains, it wasn't hard to visualize how terrible the initial fighting had to be.

Even before drawing near, they could sense shockwaves coming from afar, along with more massive and frightening explosions of energy.

Zhang Lie's eyes widened. "I sense Fang Yi's aura!"

A bubble of temporal power spread out as the entire world turned gray. Everything that the bubble touched was sealed in stasis.

Zhang Lie's trio broke through the stasis and looked at each other in excitement.

Yang Ze himself was surprised that his blind guess had worked out.

Following the bubble of temporal power came the familiar sound of a keening dragon and howling tiger.

Wind and storm combined and crackled at the tip of Fang Yi's spear, imbuing it with sharpness and penetrating strength beyond measure.

Fang Yi compressed that energy again and again, until even the space around the spear started getting sucked in. The tip of the spear punched through space as though it were nothing more than paper.

The combination of elemental, temporal, and spatial energy at the tip of the spear multiplied the strength of Fang Yi's attack beyond what should have been possible.

Chaotic energy swirled over the spear.

Fang Yi combined [Born of Lightning, Swallowed by the Wind], [Tiger's Howl, Dragon's Bellow], and [Heaven's Judgment]—elements, time, space, and chaotic energy.All these sources of energy were stacked together, like buff after buff.

A dragon of purple lightning and tiger of green wind, shielded by a barrier of time and shrouded by black spatial energy, slowly began to manifest. Storm winds were sucked into the mix.

Wind and storm combined with space and time, a whole new combination.

A spatial rift began to form where Fang Yi was standing, but the frozen world prevented it from breaking out immediately.

The energy of chaos, which had the ability to destroy anything, spun amidst the howling winds.