Chapter 3311: Almost Everything

There was a pause, and then Great Elder Shan Gu let out a long breath. "The Verdant Sages seem to know everything that the other insects experience. They are incomprehensible creatures—it’s almost as if a pair of eyes were watching us from the very beginning, examining every move we made, all to eventually create a being to counter us at every step. That is what a Verdant Sage is.

"It knows everything and can use the abilities of all of the insects, but what's even more terrifying is..."

Great Elder Shan Gu stared intently at Lu Yin as a terrible fear appeared in the old man’s eyes. "Its learning ability."

Lu Yin was startled. "Learning ability?"

Shan Gu’s voice turned grave. "Verdant Sages possess the most exceptional comprehension I have ever encountered. In our megaverse, everything that our human civilizations had mastered, the Verdant Sage could also master. There were no exceptions. No matter how difficult the battle technique or the cultivation method was, the Verdant Sages could learn them all. There was nothing that they couldn’t master. Its learning ability is absolutely terrifying.

"What’s most frightening is that, before they reveal themselves, you can't identify them. If a Verdant Sage takes on the form of an insect, they will look exactly like any other insect. No one can tell that a seemingly unremarkable bug is actually a Verdant Sage, not unless it exposes its abilities. If they assume a human form, they will appear to be one of the most extraordinary geniuses in human history, a cultivator of unparalleled talent.

"To be honest, Lord Lu, there was a time when I suspected that you were a Verdant Sage."

Lu Yin was shocked, and he stared at Great Elder Shan Gu. "You're joking, right? Are the Verdant Sages really that powerful?"

The Great Elder sighed heavily. "In our megaverse, many incredible people were born, and some of our legendary ancestors even traversed the River of Aeons in order to join that final battle. At that time, we killed every last Verdant Sage. However, do you know what our success cost us, Lord Lu?"

He looked up at the stars. "Almost every parallel universe.

"Almost every person.

"Almost every peak powerhouse."

Great Elder Shan Gu looked back down at Lu Yin. "Let’s take the results of that battle and apply them to this Tianyuan Megaverse. In that case, aside from you and your Heavens Sect, there would be almost no humans left anywhere else in the entire megaverse. That includes the Three Realms and Six Daos, the Three Suns and Six Rulers, the Outer Eight Paths, your Origin Progenitor, Mister Mu, and all of Aeternus. Everything would disappear.

"Even so, we were grateful for our victory in that final battle. A lot of luck was involved in our success."

The shock in Lu Yin's eyes caused Great Elder Shan Gu to smile. Finally, he was seeing what he had hoped to find: fear and wariness of the Nests.

"Our gravest mistake during the war against the Nests was not eliminating the insects as soon as possible." He picked up the jade-colored orb, his voice growing solemn. "Each Nest can produce a Verdant Sage, and all Verdant Sages have the potential to become an unmatched peak powerhouse. No, they don’t have the potential—such an outcome is practically inevitable. Their starting point is already incredibly high, and we never saw just how far they could reach.

"I actually suspect that the invincible being we spoke of was the first Verdant Sage. She called herself Immortal Lord."

Lu Yin stared at the jade-colored orb. This new information he was hearing from the Great Elder was reforming his understanding of the world. While he already knew that humans were not the strongest creatures in the megaverse, throughout the ages, they had still risen to the peak on two different occasions. At the moment, Lu Yin believed that he had surpassed the previous eras. He was confident that he could gather enough forces in the current megaverse to stave off the Spirit Nidus in battle.

But who could have predicted that, even before the Spirit Nidus arrived, the Nests would appear?

Lu Yin picked up the jade-colored orb, his thoughts causing his eyes to flicker.

"Are those nine different insects that you mentioned all there is to the Nest?"

The Great Elder revealed a bitter smile as he shook his head. "If that were all, then the countless minds in our megaverse wouldn’t have been rendered completely helpless. Things like the Thousand Shards’ torment and the Lithic Drakes’ calamities would have never happened. The problem is that the insects within the Nests can change."

Lu Yin was taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"Once there are a certain number of the insects, they will mutate. They might evolve into incredibly powerful insects, or they might become weaker. It’s impossible to say for sure. The nine types of insects that I mentioned are just the ones that we encountered the most frequently. There are many other, even stranger types. There were so many that we weren’t even able to name them all. Still, all of them come from the Nests and are incredibly troublesome," Shan Gu explained.

Lu Yin's expression fell as he became silent.

He had still not even seen the Spirit Nidus’s full power, but it was already clear that the Nests were an enormous threat, as well as an extremely troublesome one.

While it was possible to deal with the insects themselves, the fact that they could mutate made them much more of a complication. Finally, there were the Verdant Sages, which were the most difficult insects to handle. They were creatures with no fixed form while also possessing a peerless comprehension, let alone the fact that there could be many of them; just the thought gave him a headache.

After a long period of silence, Shan Gu spoke again. "Lord Lu, the threat that the Nests pose to all civilizations is hopeless. Our megaverse is just an example. I can’t say how many insects are currently in this megaverse, or how many places might have already been devoured by them, but we absolutely cannot allow the Nests to spread. You might be considering using these Nests against the Spirit Nidus. However, I must say that doing so will bring about an unimaginable disaster to humanity itself."

Lu Yin had indeed been considering redirecting the threat of the Nests towards the Spirit Nidus. He could not allow the Tianyuan Megaverse to exhaust itself while fighting off the Nests, only to have the Spirit Nidus swoop in and seize the advantage.

Such thinking was perfectly natural, and it was no surprise that Great Elder Shan Gu had immediately surmised Lu Yin’s thoughts.

"Why not? We’ll eliminate the Nests here in our megaverse as much as possible, but will leave a few for the Spirit Nidus. Is that so wrong?" Lu Yin asked.

Great Elder Shan Gu spoke with deadly seriousness, "Even just one Nest—if mishandled—could lead to future disaster. These are Nests that we’re talking about, and the number of insects that each one can produce is limitless. No one knows how many Nests what one Nest might give rise to, or how many Verdant Sages each can spawn. Every last Verdant Sage is extremely dangerous, and if it ends up drawing that Immortal Lord here, it would be a disaster for the Tianyuan Megaverse."

"But our megaverse is already about to be invaded by a terrible enemy," Lu Yin countered, reminded of Wang Wen’s analogy: another fisherman had arrived.

Shan Gu froze. He met Lu Yin’s eyes for a moment, but eventually looked away, visibly exhausted. "I can’t change your mind, Lord Lu, but I will warn you. Once you’ve seen an entire universe filled with these insects, you’ll never want to see such a thing again, no matter what."

With that, the Great Elder turned to leave.

As he left, he looked older than ever.

He had thought that his people had escaped the threat of the Nests, but upon learning that it had returned, that old sense of deadening despair returned to him. This was something that only he could truly understand.

"Lord Lu, I’m sorry," Shan Gu apologized, still with his back to Lu Yin.

Lu Yin sighed with a shrug. "I should be the one apologizing to you."

Why had the Nests arrived in the Tianyuan Megaverse? Their arrival was certainly not related to the Lost Clan, or else the Nests would have appeared much earlier. Recently, when people who had found Nests were captured by the Heavens Sect, it had been discovered that several of the people had found their Nests at around the same time. Everything had started just over seven years ago. That was the same time as when the final battle had been fought at the Immemorial Citadel.

At that time, Lu Yin and his companions had been trapped in the Second Scourge, which had forced them to ask the Lost Clan to prematurely trigger their Shangsan Festival so that Lu Yin could attract a card that broke True God's Dominion. At that moment, everyone present had felt a chilling presence arrive. That chill had likely been the arrival of the Nests, as it had probably entered the Tianyuan Megaverse at that time.

Who could be blamed? Lu Yin had been the one to lure out the card, which had subsequently attracted that chilling presence. Presumably, that presence belonged to the invincible being from the Nests’ megaverse. However, if Lu Yin had done things differently, humanity would have already lost the battle at the Immemorial Citadel, and they would have had no future.

No one could be blamed. It was simply fate. There was no way to avoid that which was meant to occur.

After Great Elder Shan Gu left, Lu Yin shared what he had learned about the Nests with the Three Realms and Six Daos, the Three Suns and Six Rulers, as well as with Wang Wen and several others.

At that moment, everyone was left shaken, yet again.

They were already suffering from the pressure of the Spirit Nidus’s impending invasion, and now they were suddenly being introduced to the threat of the Nests.

Lord Xu felt like he was on the verge of a breakdown. Enemies and more enemies. There had never been a shortage of enemies, but where had all of these new enemies come from? On top of that, each seemed to be more monstrous than the last.

In contrast, Mu Shen remained calm. Recently, he had been thinking more and more about Ancient God, and Mu Shen realized that he had wronged Ancient God.

The truth was that Mu Shen could not be blamed for his actions, as no one had anticipated Ancient God’s actions.

Both Progenitor Ku and Lu Tianyi also remained rather calm. People could only live one life, and ultimately, everyone would die. All that anyone could do was accomplish as much as possible while they were alive so that they would have no regrets when they died.

Chu Yi and the others felt more conflicted than most. From their perspective, if their megaverse had not declined with the fall of the Heavens Sect and had developed continuously throughout the ages, just how glorious would their megaverse have become? The Spirit Nidus would not dare to provoke them, and the Nests would not pose a terrifying threat either. In fact, it was even possible that the Nests would have never entered the Tianyuan Megaverse at all.

It was all fate.

Soon, the Heavens Sect released an announcement: anyone who discovered a Nest was required to report it immediately. No one was allowed to hide the Nests. There was only one way to deal with the Nests: destroy them. They had to be merciless and thorough.

Lu Yin had been tempted to use the Nests against the Spirit Nidus, but he had ultimately heeded Great Elder Shan Gu’s advice. The Nests were uncontrollable, and he feared being burned while trying to play with fire.

At the same time, another announcement was released: the locations of where each Nest had been found or where they had appeared also needed to be reported. Anyone who kept such information secret would be executed without mercy.

The second announcement initially seemed pointless. After all, if a Nest had been found but not destroyed, someone must have fled with it, so what was the point of reporting where the Nest had been found? However, the listed rewards were so lavish that countless people became motivated to search for the Nests.

Bang!

Lu Yin struck a jade-colored orb with a palm, shattering it into powder. There was nothing inside.

"We need to eliminate all of these Nests as quickly as possible, or else the consequences will be unimaginable."

...

A vessel flew through outer space at a steady pace. Suddenly, a violent explosion erupted in a corner of the ship, and a figure shot away. There was a flash of light that streaked by, and a figure was split in two.

Inside the ruined spacecraft, a woman in luxurious robes rose to her feet. She was surrounded by fluttering jade butterflies. She showed an alluring smile. "You want to kill me? Keep dreaming."

With that, the jade butterflies moved under her feet, and they carried her out into space.

Far away, golden lights appeared, and they drew the woman's attention.

She turned to look at the lights, and her face grew pale. "Not good! That’s the Heavens Corps! That light is their visualization method of the ancient characters."

She waved a hand, and the jade butterflies tore the void open so that she could try to flee. However, as she did so, beams of light appeared in all directions, and they knocked her out of the void. If she tried to return to the void, she would be attacked.

The beams were from Money Bombs, each of which had a power level of 500,000. As for the woman, she was only a Cruiser.