Chapter 217: Be Strong

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The battle has been ceaseless since it began. As long as there are spiritual energy fluctuations in this area, the insectoids will be attracted, with only their numbers varying.

This would only stop if all insectoids within the nest could be eradicated at once.

However, that is clearly unrealistic.

During the intense fighting, Lu Ye, covered by He Xiyin, charged into the insectoid nest. After a quick glance, he was forced back by the overwhelming number of insectoids.

It was a vast underground space, conservatively estimated to be larger than the plaza in front of the Heavenly Secret Hall at their outpost. The environment was too dark for Lu Ye to see clearly.

As far as the eye could see, the entire area was covered in a strange flesh wall. Numerous bulging sacs protruded from these walls, with insectoids constantly breaking out of them.

This was the insectoid nest!

The entire nest felt like the stomach of a living creature, brimming with immense vitality. This vitality was the source of the insectoids' rapid reproduction.

According to Fourth Senior Brother, insectoids are a very special existence. Once hatched, they consume everything with vitality and energy. A small portion of this vitality and energy makes the insectoids themselves stronger, while the rest is fed back to the nest. The nest then uses this feedback to breed more and more powerful individuals.

There is an extremely close connection between the insectoid nest and the insectoids; they complement each other. Someone once calculated that even if just one such nest were left unchecked, the entire Spirit Stream Battlefield would be destroyed in just ten years, and the insectoids would become its masters.

No one dared imagine how powerful insectoids, nurtured by the combined vitality and energy of the entire Spirit Stream Battlefield, would become.

Of course, such a scenario would never be allowed to happen. Each time an insectoid tide erupts, major sects fully suppress it, eradicating it in its infancy.

Currently, the Crimson Blood Sect has largely completed the outer perimeter clearance. Without a sufficient number of insectoids to gather vitality and energy, the scale of the insectoid tide has been effectively contained. Although the nest undoubtedly still stores a lot of vitality and energy, the Crimson Blood Sect's task is to kill as many insectoids as possible. Once all vitality and energy in the nest are depleted, the battle will be won.

This is also the standard procedure for major sect outposts dealing with insectoid tides. Over countless years, sects have gained extensive experience in confronting them.

Casualties are inevitable during this process; even the major sects in the core region cannot avoid them. The insectoids in the core region are not so easily killed. Lu Ye once encountered a type of insectoid in the Mirage Realm that could blend into its surroundings, achieving near invisibility. They attacked silently, and their sudden assault was always a fatal blow.

Such insectoids exist in the core region! Fortunately, sects in the outer region do not encounter them. This is clearly a result of Heavenly Secret's regulation, which prevents outer region sects from suddenly facing such a devastating disaster.

However, if the insectoid nest were allowed to develop unchecked, such insectoids would certainly emerge.

One crucial point to note is that insectoids must never be allowed to obtain cultivators' corpses. If they do, the nest will grow significantly, and the insectoids it breeds will become even stronger.

Currently, the Crimson Blood Sect has only one tunnel leading to the insectoid nest. With Lu Ye stationed here, holding this position is largely not an issue.

The next step is to wait for the other tunnels to also reach the nest. Once that happens, the outer perimeter will be completely secure, and forces can be concentrated on the nest itself.

Considering that some areas were progressing faster than others, Lu Ye instructed Chen Yu and Yi Yi to leave and provide support wherever needed.

He remained at his post.

Soon, he was left alone.

He wasn't idle, though. He repeatedly provoked the insectoids within the nest with his artifacts, luring them out to kill them.

He dared not rush in; the sheer number of insectoids inside was too great. Lu Ye even sensed a faint threat from the deep darkness, indicating that there were definitely insectoids capable of endangering his life.

Soon, the tunnel was clogged with insectoid corpses. Initially, Lu Ye cleared them, but as his slaughter continued, the numbers became too overwhelming to manage.

He quickly noticed something was amiss because, despite killing more and more insectoids, the pile of corpses didn't seem to change much.

Upon closer observation, he realized that some insectoids were actually transporting corpses back into the nest. This discovery left him chuckling in exasperation.

There was nothing he could do but repeatedly use his storage bag to move the corpses far away, then return to battle.

Half a day later, more tunnels were excavated, and a complete map of the underground area was drawn. From the single entrance of the insectoid cavern, through various branching paths, all eventually converged at the nest, leaving only nine main tunnels.

During this time, many were injured, and over a dozen died, including an entire squad that unluckily encountered a Level 7 insectoid.

Given the Crimson Blood Sect's current average cultivation level, only a few teams with Level 6 cultivators could handle Level 7 insectoids; other teams encountering them were almost certainly doomed.

Now that the tunnels had been opened, the situation was clear. As long as the Crimson Blood Sect could seal off all nine tunnel entrances, they could completely control the situation.

This was no simple task. The tunnel entrances were only so wide, allowing at most two or three people to fight side-by-side. With nearly seven hundred cultivators in the Crimson Blood Sect, if everyone just blocked the entrances, only a handful would ever directly engage the insectoids, while the rest would merely provide support from behind.

Therefore, the correct approach was to charge into the nest and carve out combat areas large enough for dozens of people at each tunnel entrance. This way, the advantage of numerical superiority could be leveraged.

What concerned Lu Ye was the hidden danger in the darkness. If he wasn't mistaken, there were definitely Level 8 insectoids in there.

If not handled properly, it would inevitably lead to significant losses for the Crimson Blood Sect.

He didn't worry too much about one or two individual Level 8 insectoids, but he feared a large number of them.

Insectoid tides are called natural disasters because many cultivators die each time they occur. This is not something that strength alone can prevent; even powerhouses like Li Baxian would die if they were not careful when dealing with an insectoid tide.

For Lu Ye, the only good news at the moment was that insectoids were highly sensitive to spiritual energy fluctuations and light, with stronger insectoids being even more so.

Perhaps this could be exploited for some purpose...

In front of the nine tunnel entrances, the sounds of intense battle were constant. However, due to the limited size of the openings, the intensity of the fighting was not severe, and cultivators could rotate in and out, managing to hold their ground.

Lu Ye raised his hand and tapped his battle imprint, sending out a series of identical messages: "Confirm status!"

Soon, replies came in.

Yi Yi: "Ready."

Chen Yu: "All set."

He Xiyin: "Fifth Senior Brother, if I die, please make sure Sixth Senior Sister buries me. Otherwise, I won't rest in peace."

Zhu Wenbo: "We're ready anytime, just waiting for Fifth Senior Brother's command."

Yin Haoran: "Ready anytime."

Luo Qisheng: "Status is good."

Gu Yang: "Personnel in place."

Kong Niu: "Good!"

Excellent, everyone was ready.

Among those who replied, except for Kong Niu, who was at Level 5, the others were at least Level 6. With each of them in command, supported by dozens of cultivators, establishing a battlefront near the tunnel entrance would not be a problem. Since attacks would be launched simultaneously from nine directions, the pressure would also be evenly distributed.

For Kong Niu's team, Lu Ye increased the manpower; they had the most cultivators, about a hundred.

Of course, this was only the ideal scenario. Once the battle truly began, unexpected situations were bound to arise, and Lu Ye himself was there to handle such contingencies.

"But Lu Ye, I'm a healing cultivator. Shouldn't I be healing the wounded from the back?"

Hua Ci's gentle voice sounded from behind him.

Just moments before, Lu Ye had called Hua Ci over. He knew she was afraid of insectoids; earlier in the Chess Sea, she had slapped a mechanical spider onto Lu Ye's face, and that was just a construct. Now, facing an insectoid tide, the thought alone made Hua Ci's hair stand on end and filled her with unease.

She was actually only afraid of two types of insectoids: those with no legs and those with too many legs.

But there was no alternative; all nine tunnels needed to be held. Even including Yi Yi and Kong Niu, Lu Ye only had eight people available.

The Crimson Blood Sect's foundation was still too weak.

With no other choice, he had to call Hua Ci over. Though she was a healing cultivator, she was at least Level 6, capable of holding a tunnel. However, in this environment, it would be difficult for her to utilize her unique mushroom-growing technique.

Lu Ye turned to look at her, their eyes meeting.

"Be strong!"

Hua Ci: "?"

"Let's go!"

Lu Ye turned around, lowered his stance, and pressed his hand to his saber hilt. With a roar, a wave of energy swept out, and he shot forward like an arrow from a bow. As his saber flashed, several insectoids blocking the tunnel entrance were cut into pieces.

"Kill!" A furious roar erupted, and cultivators followed Lu Ye into the insectoid nest. Instantly, the already restless nest erupted into a frenzy. A massive tide of insectoids surged towards them, the darkness filled with rustling crawling sounds, and all that could be seen were hideous insectoids.

Higher-cultivation cultivators formed a semicircle with their backs to the tunnel entrance, blocking the front. Lower-cultivation cultivators stood behind, their spells and spirit talismans beginning to glow, felling insectoids as they charged forward.

Almost simultaneously with Lu Ye's move, cultivators at the other eight tunnel entrances also charged in, mirroring the situation here, with stronger cultivators at the very front.

Thus, a great battle began.

During the battle, someone shouted a reminder: "Quick, those who are injured or have lower cultivation, collect the insectoid corpses! Don't let the nest absorb them."

The reason for collecting insectoid corpses during battle was out of sheer necessity. The insectoid nest is a peculiar place; it can use the hatched insectoids to collect vitality and energy, which then fuels the breeding of even more insectoids.

Moreover, the flesh walls inside the nest have a powerful ability to absorb vitality and energy.

If the slain insectoid corpses were not collected quickly, the vitality and energy contained within them would be absorbed by the ubiquitous flesh walls in a very short time.

Earlier, when Lu Ye was guarding the tunnel alone, he had discovered that insectoids were transporting corpses. Their purpose in doing so was to increase the nest's vitality and energy.