Chapter 1895
Chapter 1895
The bugs formed by the dust particles had grown rather large in number. Breathing in a single time would cause hundreds of millions of dust particles to enter one’s body, let alone the particles that entered through pores or hair follicles in the form of fog. After the Prime Tower was shattered, the powder bugs flooded into their bodies and hid within their veins, absorbing nutrients to grow. In almost no time at all, the largest ones were already visible to the naked eye. It probably wouldn't take too much time for them to reach the size of the worms that had been in Granny Yuan Long's body.
Tianming finally felt the fear of being infested with bonegnaw ants. For now, the powder bugs weren’t causing any pain, but they could easily consume him from within. Lan Huang and the rest were no different. The sheer size of the two-headed dragons' mouths easily sucked in countless dust particles with a single breath. The powder bugs were so terrifying because of their small size.
"What can we do? Will I be eaten clean by these bugs?!" Lan Huang spun around in a panic. When asked what it was doing, it said it was trying to make the bugs within it dizzy by spinning.
Even now, Xian Xian was still asking Ying Huo what dishes would be served. Normally, trees should be more afraid of insects invading their bodies, yet Xian Xian seemed to be reacting better than Lan Huang. The reason was that the Radix World Tree's dry and stiff body wasn’t attractive to the voidheart worm in the least.
Even so, Tianming was still quite surprised by Xian Xian's reaction. It reminded him of his battle with the ghoul kings at the Flameyellow Continent. Ghoul King Xue Yi and Ghoul King Si Yi both had broodmother-type lifebound beasts, yet Xian Xian had the perfect counter to them: the pollen from the Evernight Rose. They were just as fine as dust particles! If the powder bugs wanted to cause any real damage, they would have to grow, and if they did, the pollen from the Evernight Rose would work on them.
"The Evernight Curse is an ability that uses the Evernight Rose's pollen. It's effective against opponents whose souls are weak. Using it, we can identify whether the voidheart worm doesn't have a main body like Yin Chen, or whether it's a broodmother-type cosmic wildbeast with countless children!"
The child spawns of a broodmother-type beast were discrete beings that had no consciousness of their own. That even applied to broodmother-type lifebound beasts, let alone masterless cosmic wildbeasts. The reason the Evernight Curse wouldn't work on Yin Chen was that all of Yin Chen's bodies were practically identical, with none of them the master or slave. But if the Evernight Curse worked on the voidheart worm, it meant there was a main body somewhere, and all of the cloudy fog and powder it gave off were child spawns. Tianming chose to believe that Yin Chen was unique, as it was a Primordial Chaos Beast.
"Hmph! Time for me to shine!" As Xian Xian and Yin Chen hadn't evolved into a sovereign beast yet, unlike their siblings, they hadn't had a chance to perform for a long time. Xian Xian bloomed the dark rose on its body and swayed, scattering fine pollen all over the place. "Tortoise Bro, take a deep breath!"
"Alright!" Lan Huang was dizzily stumbling around from all the spinning. It stabilized itself and breathed in from two heads. "Whooaaa... that was refreshing!" It was as if it had taken a cold shower just as its skin was itching.
"Take a look at this!" Meow Meow turned into its Regal Chaosfiend form and huffed the Evernight Rose pollen with a look of delight. "See me? In me, the tiger sniffs the rose!" [1]
Tianming’s lifebound beasts always had a jovial mood, even as death was staring them in the face. Despite knowing they were infested by insects, they acted as if a simple scratch would be enough to get rid of them.
"Hey, buzz off! I haven't taken a whiff yet! Oh Little Sis, give Chicken Bro here a whiff!" Ying Huo felt the itch in itself and was starting to lose it. It had already tried forcing the powder bugs out by raising its body temperature. That had worked, somewhat, but it couldn't resist after seeing how high Lan Huang and Meow Meow were as they inhaled the pollen.
"Chicken Bro, let go! Male and female beasts shouldn't be that intimate!" Xian Xian cried, wanting to beat the bird up.
"Nonsense! You're a tree! Since when did you have a sex?"
"Are you looking down on women? Women make up half the world! Everyone has a mom! Without one, how would you even be born?!" Xian Xian snapped, shutting Ying Huo up, though it managed to take a whiff before speeding off.
Seeing their pleasant expressions, Tianming knew that the pollen was working and killing the powder bugs. He could also feel the pollen in his bloodstream infusing into the growing bugs. They were many in number, but individually weak, and they quickly died as the pollen spread. Not to mention, all of them had the blood of Primordial Chaos Beasts, which was naturally resistant to corruption. The powder bugs were easily wiped out with a little bit of help from the pollen.
"Looks like the ones inside of us are taken care of." It had looked simple, but that was because Tianming just so happened to have a way to deal with the powder bugs. Most people would be helpless to deal with the powder-fine bugs that could easily infest them and grow within them. While the Sky Palace members weren't weak—some of them had even rivaled the dreamless celestial emperor in strength—they had still fallen for this trick of the voidheart worm.
The fact that the Evernight Rose's pollen affected the powder bugs meant that it also had a main body, no matter how impressive it was. It was a cosmic wildbeast, after all, and wasn't comparable to Yin Chen in the least. All of the powder bugs were merely its child spawn.
Apart from that, there was another proof that it was a broodmother-type beast. The white giant formed from powder bugs actually began turning black when a wave of pollen washed over it, a sign that the pollen was invading it! Tianming saw the giant stop in its tracks, its 'face' contorting and twitching before it exploded, sending him and his beasts flying.
"What in the world?!" Countless powder bugs shrieked at the same time, producing a mind-numbing sound. The cloudy fog before them wildly swirled, as if the world itself was ending.
"Even though you're a cosmic wildbeast, the king of insects in the Mysterium Cluster, my immature lifebound beasts were still able to school you!"
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The voidheart worm was terrifying, thanks to its innate abilities, but the Primordial Chaos Beasts also had impressive abilities. Thankfully, the sun emperor didn't have anything to counter the voidheart worm, while Tianming's lifebound beasts didn't really have to fear it at all.
"It'll be far easier to deal with if it has a main body. That means it isn't really unkillable. We just need to find the main body and kill that." Tianming and the rest stabilized themselves in the storm.
"But where could it be?" Ying Huo asked. The broodmother-type beasts they had encountered before had obvious main bodies, while the voidheart worm's didn't show up, leading Tianming to think that it was similar to Yin Chen. Not to mention, while the pollen was working on its child spawns, there were still far too many of them. Wave after wave of powdery child spawn still posed quite a bit of annoyance to Tianming and the rest.
"I will... look for... its main... body body!" Yin Chen had long felt frustrated about another insect stealing its thunder. Many of its bodies crawled out of Tianming's lifebound space, turning into a flow of metal. Some of them were immediately swept up by the storm, but Yin Chen let it happen and didn't resist. Perhaps that could also help it find the worm’s main body.
"Let us hold on and wait." Tianming and the rest surrounded Xian Xian to protect it while it used its Evernight Curse and Trisoul Fiendsong, encompassing the entire Sky Palace Formation. The voidheart worm tried gathering its child spawn once more, only to be constantly disrupted by Xian Xian's abilities. The constructs collapsed before they could fully form, making it unable to deal with Tianming and the rest. Xian Xian alone was able to curb it so much.
In the air, stunning beauties eventually formed. "You’re all the most delicious looking pieces of meat I’ve ever seen. Don't struggle too much. You’re in my territory, and I’ll eventually consume you whole!"
The beauties didn't get to speak much before they were shattered by Xian Xian's abilities. However, Tianming noticed that the number of child spawns within the formation didn't seem to be impacted much, despite so many being killed. It seemed like the main body of the voidheart worm was still birthing more and more of them.
1. This is a reference to Siegfried Sassoon's poem titled "In Me, Past, Present, Future Meet". It can be interpreted to mean that even a powerful and imposing tiger can appreciate the elegant, delicate rose, i.e., people are complex beings and may have unexpected sides to them. ☜