Chapter 85: The Supreme Insect and Calamity
Su Xiao walked through the secret passage, with only Baha flying behind him. Earlier, in the grand cathedral, Su Xiao had lightly kicked Bubu Wang to make it track someone—that person was Kingsley.
It wasn't that Su Xiao had precognition. When Baha pulled down the statue and the corpse of Hao Huo, the second-in-command of the Eclipse Organization, appeared, Su Xiao had already sensed something was wrong.
Hao Huo's status within the Eclipse Organization was equivalent to that of Sili in the Execution Agency—the type who couldn't serve as leader for long, but if the leader died unexpectedly, they could hold things together for a while.
Hao Huo died here, yet no commotion had stirred outside. This was highly unusual.
With this thought, Su Xiao exited the secret passage and returned to the blood-stenched grand cathedral. Inside, there were a total of 15 allied members. Aside from the four members of the Mad Dog Squad, the rest were mid-level members of the Execution Agency.
At this moment, Bubu Wang was monitoring Kingsley, Amu was outside the main door of the cathedral, Tide Hunter was on the rooftop across the street, and Ge Zewu was at a high vantage point two kilometers away.
"Boss, can't teleport out."
Baha spoke in a low voice, meaning that the spatial teleportation ability couldn't get them out of this cathedral.
This wasn't surprising. Kingsley had been parasitized by the Supreme Insect, and everything now was a trap. Although it was a trap, this was exactly what Su Xiao wanted to see. He was more worried that Kingsley would do nothing—that would be the most troublesome.
Setting a trap here, with the ultimate goal of ambushing Su Xiao, would inevitably lead to war between the Execution Agency and the Eclipse in Kodu.
What Su Xiao feared more was that Kingsley would do nothing, insist that the Supreme Insect had been eliminated, and then order the Eclipse members to withdraw from Kodu and return to Jiaman City in the Southern Continent.
If the situation developed in that direction, it would become extremely tricky. The Supreme Insect, on the basis of controlling Kingsley, would also take control of the entire Eclipse Organization.
In fact, the Supreme Insect had tried this just now. After successfully controlling Kingsley, it approached Hao Huo and gave him orders.
With just a few words, Hao Huo sensed something was wrong with Kingsley. Unfortunately, Hao Huo was a combat powerhouse, relatively weak in strategy, and not good at acting, so the Supreme Insect realized the situation was unfavorable.
The Supreme Insect immediately took Hao Huo into the secret passage. Although Hao Huo sensed something was off, he couldn't be sure. More importantly, inside that secret passage, he detected a familiar aura.
Hao Huo died, died in that secret passage. Given his strength, though far from a match for the Supreme Insect, he should have at least caused a significant commotion during the fight. But Hao Huo didn't dare. Kingsley's wife and children were in the secret chamber at the end of the passage. Before his death, he always remembered a sentence spoken long ago.
'Oh? Your whole family died at the hands of enemies? If you have nowhere to go, come to me. It's not a glorious job—just 'night watch.' We are the Eclipse, and there's another group called the Execution Agency. Don't let our unremarkable work fool you; the competition among peers is fierce.'
This was a sentence Hao Huo could never forget. When he was at his lowest, about to end his own life, Kingsley had said this to him.
After dealing with Hao Huo, the Supreme Insect tried again to interpret Kingsley's memories. This process was difficult and yielded little result. Kingsley's willpower was too strong, but the Supreme Insect gleaned some key information—for example, that Hao Huo was not a strategist.
Upon learning this crucial information, the Supreme Insect realized the situation wasn't simple. When it had controlled Emperor Taiyatu in the past, there were no such issues. As long as it gave orders, those ministers wouldn't have the slightest suspicion.
Emperor Taiyatu was a tyrant, while Kingsley was a spiritual leader. The former ruled through tyranny, the latter led the organization through personal ability and charisma—completely different concepts.
The Supreme Insect estimated that if it continued to impersonate Kingsley and tried to control the Eclipse Organization, people from Ring 1 to Ring 5 would likely see through it. This made the Supreme Insect realize one thing: as times changed, people's hearts had become more complex.
At that moment, the Supreme Insect faced a choice: kill Kingsley to eliminate the threat, or continue occupying Kingsley's body and fully parasitize him. In the end, the Supreme Insect chose the latter.
If the Supreme Insect's compatibility when parasitizing Emperor Taiyatu was 32%, then parasitizing Atos Baiken was about 57%. With Kingsley, the compatibility reached over 98.6%. The Supreme Insect estimated that if it completely annihilated Kingsley's consciousness and fully occupied this body, it could even undergo a species-level transformation and re-evolve into a perfect form.
If that happened, the Supreme Insect could begin its hunt. Its hunting process consisted of three steps: first, massively split off offspring, then give some of them commands, letting these intelligent offspring parasitize the rulers of the world they were in, thus triggering wars between nations.
Once war began, large numbers of corpses would appear on both sides. The Supreme Insect would have its offspring control the corpse disposal departments, using the bodies to cultivate more offspring.
When the offspring reached a certain number, it would order all its offspring to swarm out and attack densely populated cities. With the front lines fighting and the rear under attack, within just a few hours, the number of Supreme Insect offspring would reach a level that native lifeforms couldn't resist.
At that point, the Supreme Insect would order its offspring to flatten this world, devour all living creatures, then plants, and finally all organic matter.
After completing all this, the Supreme Insect would recall 95% of its offspring. These offspring would cluster together, generating high temperatures, their bodies evaporating, leaving behind extracted life energy crystals. This was what the Supreme Insect wanted. Absorbing these life crystals would allow it to evolve, grow stronger, and continuously break through the limits of life.
Did it end there? No. Each time, the Supreme Insect would leave 5% of its offspring to search for resources across the world. In the end, it could mine an entire planet until it was riddled with holes. The obtained core resources would be used to build a 'cross-world teleportation array.'
After that, the Supreme Insect would use this teleportation array to lock onto a world and teleport there alone. The world it had ravaged would be left scarred—water resources depleted, the core dug through. From a distance, it would look like a giant hornet's nest, eventually shattering from the massive impact generated by the 'cross-world teleportation array.'
Where the Supreme Insect passed, not even grass grew? No, that description was too mild. Where the Supreme Insect had been, there would be a chaotic gravity zone, with highly compressed rock spheres and core gold spheres floating about. A chaotic force field would stretch space, making it impossible to imagine that this had once been a vibrant world where billions of lives had dwelled.
This led Su Xiao to a thought: what would happen if the Supreme Insect and an Ancient God were in the same world? Would they clash?
Of course, if that happened, the natives of that world would be crying snot and tears. One brought physical destruction, the other spiritual destruction—a double whammy that no one could withstand.
Su Xiao surveyed the situation inside the cathedral. Eleven mid-level Execution Agency members were already stationed by the windows and doors. The four members of the Mad Dog Squad stood before him.
"Commander, this is a bit bad this time."
Skinny Monkey Sili reached into his clothes and scratched his lower back, still wearing that lazy expression.
"If I die here, does it count as dying in the line of duty?"
Silver Dog didn't really care about this. He was asking on behalf of the squad's Stitched Man Emosen. Stitched Man Emosen was about three meters tall, covered in stitching marks. Logically, someone like that would end up alone for life, but Stitched Man Emosen had a wife and six lovers, totaling 16 children—7 boys and 9 girls.
This made Skinny Monkey Sili feel deeply wounded. He was still single, and his crush Emily still didn't fancy him.
"You two, be serious."
The last member of the Mad Dog Squad, Carolina, spoke. She pulled off her black robe, used a hair tie to tie her black hair into a single ponytail. She was now only wearing a black vest, no longer hiding her voluptuous figure. The outlines of muscles could be seen on her arms, and on her right upper arm was tattooed a black holy cross, below it the Gate of Hell's Descent. These ominous tattoos were taboo for ordinary people, but Carolina, a member of the Mad Dog Squad, didn't care. She dealt with death every day.
The four members of the Mad Dog Squad stood before Su Xiao, some leaning forward, some half-crouching, and one even on all fours.
Su Xiao drew the long blade from his waist. In the current situation, Su Xiao had two choices. One was to pretend he knew nothing. If he did that, the Supreme Insect parasitizing Kingsley would likely not act rashly. For them, returning to the Southern Continent as soon as possible was the better option.
The second choice was to immediately engage the Supreme Insect in battle. In this regard, Su Xiao wasn't afraid. The Eclipse members were indeed surrounding them, but the Execution Agency members weren't just decorations either. At worst, it would be a full-on brawl.
Bang!
The cathedral door was kicked to pieces. Ring 8 Wazwo entered first. Vaguely, it could be seen that within his pupils, there seemed to be a golden thread-like insect shadow swimming in a circular pattern.
"Mr. White Night, have you found anything new?"
Ring 8 Wazwo spoke with a stiff expression. As soon as he finished speaking, Sili raised his gun barrel. He had long been annoyed by this guy who hid in the distance during battles. Once, this guy's blood thorn had come straight for his rear end. That was truly a flower ruined, a rear end wounded. Sili had spent nearly a month lying on his stomach in bed.
As the saying goes, when enemies meet, their eyes blaze with hatred. Sili raised his hand and fired.
Bang!
Sparks and metal fragments flew. Caught off guard, Ring 8 Wazwo was blasted backward by the shot. After all, he was a long-range supernatural archer, yet he dared to face the melee brute Sili head-on—that was somewhat foolish.
Having blasted Ring 8 Wazwo back with one shot, Sili felt immense satisfaction. He mimicked Baha's tone and said, "MD, who gave you the courage?"