Chapter 617: Life-Bound Insect Gu

The Thousand-Household Village sat surrounded by the winding river below.

That river was the largest in the region, flowing from north to south, known as the Qingyi River.

At night, a few boats drifted along the river, each manned by vigilant guards keeping watch to fend off wild beasts or potential enemies trying to breach the village.

The river where Qin Sang had been swept away was a tributary upstream from the Qingyi River. It originated from deep mountain springs and eventually merged with the main river. Countless such tributaries flowed across the land.

During his drift, Qin Sang had drifted in and out of consciousness, but he still remembered the general direction.

The night was cold. Qin Sang’s physical wounds had already healed, so he could endure the chill. He let the flying yaksha unleash its full speed.

The place where he had lost his Spirit Beast Pouch was farther from the Thousand-Household Village than he had remembered. Qin Sang and the flying yaksha moved in starts and stops, traveling while searching for a suitable spirit vein to enter seclusion.

Unexpectedly, the land proved far more barren than he’d anticipated. After flying for half the night, he found only a few shallow, fragmented spirit veins, none usable.

The further he got from the Qingyi River, the fewer villages he encountered. Deep mountains and old forests stretched endlessly, devoid of human presence.

Qin Sang carefully identified the tributary he had floated down and followed the water’s course. At daybreak, he finally arrived near the spot where he had lost the Spirit Beast Pouch.

At the pool where it had happened, Qin Sang thoroughly inspected the area. The beast-hide man had been completely devoured by the Blood-Winged Ghost-Headed Wasps, with not even a trace of bone remained.

He expanded his search radius but found no sign of the Spirit Beast Pouch.

Qin Sang recalled the scene from that day.

He had been focused entirely on survival and hadn't seen where the beast-hide man had thrown the pouch before dying. If it had fallen into the river, it would’ve been swept downstream into the Qingyi River by now. There was no chance of finding it.

Fortunately, aside from the Blood-Winged Ghost-Headed Wasps, the pouch hadn’t contained any other rare insects. Otherwise, he truly would have felt the loss.

Unlike the vibrant life of that day, the mountains flanking the river were now eerily silent. No birdsong, no beast roars, not even the chirping of insects.

Such abnormal silence could only be caused by the Blood-Winged Ghost-Headed Wasps. The creatures on the mountain had likely been eaten clean.

Qin Sang leapt onto the flying yaksha’s back, preparing to track the wasps when, suddenly, he noticed a flicker of green flame-like light flash on a mountain to the west. It vanished quickly, and he vaguely heard shouting voices.

"Someone’s there?"

Qin Sang furrowed his brow and ordered the flying yaksha to take him into hiding. They silently approached the source of the disturbance.

"These monster wasps are scared of my ghostfire! Priests, use your insect gu to lure the wasps here, and I will use the fire to burn them and retrieve the hive."

Within a mountain hollow, three human figures had gathered. They restrained their presence, watching a distant cliff face.

Two Blood-Winged Ghost-Headed Wasp corpses lay near them. Judging by the burn marks, they had mostly been incinerated.

From the cliff came a constant buzzing. Above it still hovered a dense swarm of Blood-Winged Ghost-Headed Wasps, forming a dark-red cloud. A rough count suggested over two hundred still remained.

They flew in circles around the cliffside, clearly guarding something. On closer inspection, Qin Sang spotted a black, orb-like hive embedded in the cliff.

The three cultivators had no idea that someone was secretly observing them from the nearby woods.

The speaker was a pale-skinned young man dressed in black robes. An intricate glyph resembling the character "insect" was embroidered on his back with strange patterns.

Behind him stood three skeletons, their eye sockets burning with eerie green ghostfire. All their joints were bound with transparent silk threads, the other ends of which were tied to the young man’s fingers.

Qin Sang, well-versed in corpse-refining methods, recognized the technique at a glance. These three skeletons were puppets that had been refined through a basic corpse art. Unlike his flying yaksha, they had no powerful physical bodies; their core lay entirely in the ghostfire within their eyes.

This style of corpse refinement was extremely crude and matched the young man’s cultivation. He was at the twelfth stage of the Qi Refining Realm..

The two elders beside him were also at the Qi Refining Realm, one at the tenth stage, the other at the ninth.

They clearly came from the same village as their ornamentation bore similar motifs. They wore beast hides, fangs, and other primitive trinkets, though their attire differed from that of the beast-hide man who had been devoured earlier.

On their foreheads were decorations: one bore a waxing moon, the other a waning moon.

Priests of Tianyue Village?

The Witch God’s envoys from these villages had shockingly low cultivation levels. He couldn’t help but wonder about the pale young man’s background.

The two priests appeared to be at odds, ignoring each other as they chanted incantations individually. Soon, from each of their dantians, a spiritual insect shot out.

One resembled a serpent, its body covered in fiery red, finely patterned scales. Yet it had two heads and wings, and was no longer than a human finger. Its appearance was bizarre and unnatural.

The other was shaped like a beetle. Its body was slender, with wing cases as thin as cicada wings. When spread, however, they resembled sharp blades.

Qin Sang’s eyes lit up as he fixed his gaze on the two insects. He only recognized the beetle. It was named by Yuling Sect as the Divine Greatblade Beetle. It wasn’t considered a supernatural insect.

It had the potential to metamorphose only twice, but it boasted incredible speed, and its wing cases were sharp enough to rival artifacts, making it a formidable fighter.

Back when he’d seen a Jade Mantis emerge from the beast-hide man’s Qihai, he had already sensed something curious.

The insect-taming techniques used by these local cultivators were entirely different from those of Yuling Sect.

Just like the Jade Mantis, these two spiritual insects shared a strange kind of qi resonance with their masters—clearly formed through a life-bound cultivation process.

Have they refined their insects into life-bound spiritual insects?

"Go!"

At the young man’s command, the two elders sent their spiritual insects charging toward the wasp swarm.

The twin-headed, winged serpent opened its mouths mid-air, spitting two jets of flame. The Divine Greatblade Beetle also spread its wings and lashed out with bladelike strikes, drawing the swarm’s attention before both insects split up and fled in opposite directions.

Buzz...

Enraged, the Blood-Winged Ghost-Headed Wasps split into two groups and gave chase. One group followed the serpent directly toward the young man.

He curled his fingers, guiding his three skeletons forward with full confidence. As the wasps neared, he ordered the skeletons to spew forth ghostfire.

He had expected the ghostfire to burn the wasps to death instantly. But to his shock, a dense blood mist suddenly erupted from within the swarm, devouring the ghostfire in an instant. Only the outermost layer of the swarm was burned to death; the rest, unharmed, surged forward in a wave, pouncing upon them as the trio stared in horror.

"Fool," Qin Sang muttered to himself, shaking his head.

These Blood-Winged Ghost-Headed Wasps had undergone metamorphosis within the blood mist of Endless Valley. Alone, they weren’t particularly fearsome, but in swarms, they underwent a qualitative transformation.

The twin-headed serpent failed to escape in time and was surrounded by the wasps. It spewed flames wildly in retaliation.

The young man frantically pushed his ghostfire to rescue the serpent, and finally managed to retrieve it, but it was already covered in injuries, nearly stripped of combat effectiveness.

The elder wearing the waxing moon forehead ornament let out a pained howl, as if he had been wounded himself. His aura visibly weakened.

"So it really is a life-bound spiritual insect."

Qin Sang’s gaze sharpened.

When a cultivator’s life-bound artifact or astra was severely damaged, the owner would suffer backlash, just like what was happening to the old man.

Seeing the three caught in chaos, Qin Sang silently took out two oversized battle cloaks, draped one over the flying yaksha, and commanded it to attack.