Chapter 493: Side Story: A Messy Situation
A new day dawned on the Glittering Forest, the wild forest that was the home of the mantis queen. A row of human cultivators, bound and gagged, were carried along the mossy forest floor by a procession of blood-red ants the size of wolves. Several other species of insects flitted about, keeping a close eye on their precious haul.
The convoy eventually arrived before a massive, ancient tree. The entire forest gave way to a solitary behemoth, its branches covering the sky in all directions. The ants kept going until they had climbed up the trunk to a wide platform made of bark as wide as a city square.
A gray, metallic mass dropped down from the canopy above. With a flicker of its massive wings, the beast landed with barely a sound. Its bulbous head and shiny black eyes gleamed with power and sharpness.
The ants all quivered as if in the presence of their master and quickly unloaded their humans in neat rows. Once done, they all scurried down the tree, except for one ant which was twice as large as the rest.
"Red Skull One, only so little prey this time?" The gray beast spoke, its voice infused with harsh clacking sounds from its mandibles.
The ant shook its head and made a series of hisses and clicks.
"Bah!" The gray beast spat angrily, "I need more food! Mama needs more food! How do you expect mama to ever recover if you keep bringing back so little?"
The ant hissed and clicked with greater urgency as if trying to appease its master.
"Fine… I better see double the number of heads next time. You can leave now."
The ant leader nodded and scurried away.
The gray beast glanced down at the unconscious human prey. They were all male and at the lower levels of the Spirit Initiate Realm, naked and bound by sticky ant spit. The beast gnashed its mandibles in frustration. It wasn't enough, it was far from enough.
It stowed away its massive bladed claws and picked up two humans with its smaller, secondary appendages. It then flew into the air, past several branches, before landing next to a large hole in the trunk.
A small, translucent mantis about a meter tall sat at the entrance. Its exoskeleton was clear like glass and its innards were visible. The strange beast glanced at the new arrival and nodded.
"Little Gray, send them in." It said simply.
Little Gray, the gray mantis beast that was four times the size of its partner, obeyed and threw the two humans inside. It then sat down next to the smaller mantis and glanced around anxiously.
"White Deng, how is mama?" Little Gray asked.
Their mother, Queen Sundew, was inside the lair within the tree.
White Deng, the translucent mantis, shook its head, "She still hasn't awakened. Her instincts are still good and she will eat. But she will eat anything so I can't even get close enough to examine her wounds. It's been like this for months; I have no idea how long it will take."
Its human speech was much more fluent, showing its seniority as well as strength as an origin beast.
Little Gray clacked noisily, "What should we do? We are so weak. Spike Head and Green Giant won't come home either!"
The other mantis shook its wings in anger, "Are those two idiots still fighting?"
Little Gray nodded.
"Bah, useless!" White Deng spat, "You'd think that gaining the ability to speak would give them some common sense but no! How can they still fight at a time like this, and over something so trivial!"
"We should ask the fat toad and weird monkey for help." Little Gray said.
White Deng sighed like an old man, "It's useless. They won't help us. They are too busy trying to recover from their own losses. King Huo Tu lost three Spirit Lords even before the battle. I still don't know what happened there but the toad is surely furious about it. How can they help us when they still haven't been able to resolve that situation?"
"And as for the monkeys, they are in complete turmoil. Can you believe General Song actually betrayed King Wu? From what I heard; many monkeys lost their lives to their king's anger. The monkey mountain has been completely upended but King Wu still hasn't been able to find a satisfactory answer. They will be useless for a while longer."
Little Gray clacked its mandibles, "So many strange things. Could there be some trickery going on? Could it be the demons of the east?"
White Deng extended an arm and patted its compatriot, "Your intelligence has improved greatly. That is what I have thought of also. Too many strange things have happened one after another. There is certainly something going on, I'm sure of it. But I can't say if it is our enemies to the east or to the west."
"Has to be demons!" Little Gray said.
"Could be humans too. You have to consider all possibilities instead of going to your gut instinct. For example, that sword immortal we fought at the human city, the one who betrayed his own allies... he is much more vicious than any demon I have ever fought. He could certainly be the one behind all these incidents."
Little Gray went silent, pondering the issue. The two of them sat together, waiting for something to happen just like they had done every day for many months.
Suddenly, there was a surge of verdant spiritual energy which swept out of the hole in the tree. This was followed by two human screams which were quickly silenced.
"Mama!" Little Gray jumped up, shouting excitedly.
It tried rushing inside but was pulled back by White Deng, "Don't be stupid. She's just feeding in her sleep. If you go in, she will rip your head off."
"Oh…"
"Don't worry, mama will recover eventually. Her life force is the strongest amongst the Spirit Kings. She will get better. You just have to keep her fed. If the ants can't find enough food, you just have to go out yourself."
"Alright!" Little Gray said and flew away to grab more humans.
---
A long white later, after both immortal mantises had left the ancient tree, a small black bee popped into existence from its hiding place and flew away. It zig-zagged its way past the hordes of insects that guarded the mantis lair and arrived at a pre-determined location atop a common pine tree.
It crawled inside a small crevasse in the bark and entered its nest which was teeming with other black bees. The new arrival was among the largest and was quickly surrounded by the other bees. The big bee buzzed its wings and began a lengthy, intricate dance where it meandered around in circles.
Eventually, everything the void bee had seen and heard had been translated and observed by the shadow anchor that resided in the nest, giving Chen Wentian some interesting new information about the situation of the three beast kings, something he was always keeping an eye out on.
Jasmine would soon become a Spirit King and he was also making good progress. Her final revenge against the Beast God Sanctum was just around the corner. Thus, two of the immortal mantises fighting each other was great news. He loved chaos and conflict. For his enemies to be already fighting each other was the perfect messy situation.
It meant more souls to harvest, more soul power to advance his cultivation, one step closer to a breakthrough.
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