Star Odyssey

Speaking of this, Great Elder Shan Gu sighed. "Hu Liu suffered the pain inflicted by a Thousand Shards. He felt the need to tear off every inch of his skin and dig into his flesh to relieve his torment."

Lu Yin raised an eyebrow. This sounded like a big problem. Pain?

"My Lost Clan has very few records concerning the Jade Warden or the Sentinel Waltz, so most of my people are unaware of them. But the Thousand Shards is different. The memory of that creature has been seared into us, and there are special records dedicated to them. Once a Thousand Shards appears, it has to be killed before it can fly, or else it will force you to experience a pain that you will never be able to forget."

Lu Yin looked at Shan Gu. "Did a lot of the people in your megaverse endure that pain?"

The old man stared at Lu Yin. "All of us endured it. There were no exceptions."

Lu Yin's expression changed. "How is that possible?"

"The greatest advantage of these insects is their numbers. When the Thousand Shards flies, even the heavens weep. When there are enough of them to fill a universe, some of them are always flying. Pain became a daily reality in our megaverse. If a comparison were made, you would find that my people have a much greater pain tolerance than the people of this Tianyuan Megaverse. In fact, there is no comparison.

"Every moment of every day, someone would kill themselves to escape the pain. The Tianyuan Megaverse has a truly countless number of people, right? Our megaverse was not like that. We didn’t have nearly as large of a population.

"Because of Thousand Shards, the population of our entire megaverse experienced true agony."

If everyone in the Tianyuan Megaverse, every single living creature, were to experience such pain, would the megaverse even have a future?

The Spirit Nidus alone had put the Tianyuan Megaverse under a great deal of pressure, but even if they lost, at worst, everyone in the Tianyuan Megaverse would die together. On the other hand, the Nests were something entirely different. There was a feeling that could not be described with words. There was a primal urge to completely eradicate this enemy.

"Next is the Lithic Drake. They are enormous insects that can grow up to a hundred meters tall. They look like beetles with large antennae, and they are extremely powerful. They’re skilled at flying in formations that look like dragons, and they wreak throughout outer space. Their favorite activity is shattering planets. When 10,000 Lithic Drakes work together, they can be as strong as a peak powerhouse, and their destructive power is unmatched.

"Like I already said, the greatest advantage of these insects is their numbers. Lithic Drakes are no exception to that. Despite their already large size, they can also appear in limitless hordes. They destroy parallel universes, one after another, shattering star after star. When this happened, we called it the Lithic Drake Calamity.

"Every type of insect will become a calamity once there are enough of them. Even if they don’t purposely destroy a universe, their sheer numbers will disrupt ecosystems. That’s not even taking into account the ones that are directly destructive.

"After the Lithic Drakes are the Septastar Blade. These bugs resemble swords, though they have spots on their backs like a ladybug’s. They move so fast that not even Semi-Progenitors can follow their movements. Only Progenitors can see through such speed. The combination of their shape and speed means that their attacks are as powerful as a peak powerhouse sword user. One Septastar Blade equals one sword slash, and when a swarm of these bugs appear, they are like an uncontrolled storm of sword attacks from multiple peak powerhouses. They can destroy absolutely everything."

Great Elder Shan Gu had spent many years in the Tianyuan Megaverse, and his fear of the Nests had faded over time. At this moment, all of those memories were rushing back.

Images of the Septastar Blade appeared in Lu Yin’s mind. He saw an infinite swarm of sword strikes from a Progenitor filling a universe. Such destruction would rival a Lithic Drake Calamity, but for powerhouses, the Septastar Blade would be an even greater threat.

"After the Septastar Blade is the Sky Orchid. This insect resembles a leaf with two heads. They behave like plants, and they can completely envelop a planet. They devour everything, not just energy like the Jade Warden, but literally everything. When these creatures are done, only the Hollow will remain. These insects can reproduce and survive in the Hollow before they eventually spread out from there to consume more planets and stars."

Lu Yin's expression changed. Were there really insects that could live and even reproduce in the Hollow before re-emerging? How was that even possible?

"The Sky Orchids are still not the most terrifying of the nine insects. Everything they devour is passed along to the next insect, the Ghost Orchid. The Sky Orchids serve as the Ghost Orchids’ energy converters. A Ghost Orchid can jump through the void to travel through space. They will latch onto living creatures' faces and consume them, along with the rest of their flesh. The more energy a Ghost Orchid receives from the Sky Orchids, the stronger it becomes. In our megaverse, the Ghost Orchids consumed many powerful cultivators, which incited widespread panic. No one ever knew where the bugs might appear next.

"The Hollow is their playground, but for us, not only is it impossible to live there, but it’s also hard to even monitor. Fortunately, Boundless can travel through the Hollow. Our megaverse never developed such a vessel, so our only way to combat the Sky Orchids and the Ghost Orchids was to have powerhouses constantly travel through the Hollow, which severely drained their energy and strength.

"The Hollow spans the entire megaverse, which means that people had to be constantly moving through it, eliminating the Sky Orchids and Ghost Orchids whenever they appeared. Without that, no one would know when or where the bugs might emerge."

Lu Yin rubbed his head. The Jade Warden and Sentinel Waltz were at least manageable. The pain that the Thousand Shards produced would be a disaster for the entire megaverse, but they would at least not affect true powerhouses much. The most powerful of cultivators possessed extraordinary willpower, and they would not be easily overwhelmed by pain. After all, even Hu Liu had managed to endure the pain.

The first three kinds of insects would pose the greatest threat to ordinary cultivators.

The Lithic Drakes and Septastar Blades could potentially cause the most damage to the environment or to entire universes.

In contrast, the Sky Orchids and the Ghost Orchids threatened peak powerhouses, as the bugs would relentlessly drain their energy and strength. More than that, the bugs would be incredibly difficult to defend against.

Various strategies for dealing with the insects flashed through Lu Yin’s mind.

"Next is the Scrollbane Centipede-" Great Elder Shan Gu suddenly stopped speaking, pausing to glance rather deliberately towards Tuo Lin’s courtyard.

The courtyard was piled high with books. Sage Yajna had sacrificed his life to restore Tuo Lin to normal, but even then, Tuo Lin had continued to bury himself in reading, and he was fully absorbed in his research.

"The Scrollbane Centipede is a centipede that lives in two dimensions."

Lu Yin was surprised. "They live in two dimensions?"

Great Elder Shan Gu nodded. "Yes, two dimensions. Any flat surface will work, but they especially like texts, books, and paintings. They reproduce, live, and kill within such surfaces. It can even slaughter other creatures through these flat surfaces, and their victims are reduced to fragments, much like torn pictures or shattered images."

Lu Yin's pupils contracted. "So it destroys inheritances."

Great Elder Shan Gu took a deep breath before meeting Lu Yin’s eyes. "Yes, it destroys inheritances.

"When our Lost Clan fled our native megaverse, all we brought with us were some of our cards. There was absolutely nothing else. Our most ancient records contain only short mentions of these matters, which is why Hu Liu and the others were ignorant of the Nests. We didn’t dare to bring too many flat surfaces with us, as the more we brought, the higher the chances of the Scrollbane Centipedes appearing. As for the rest of the human civilizations’ inheritances from our megaverse, they were all destroyed long ago.

"During the final battle, either the Nests or humanity would be driven to extinction. Before that decisive battle, we humans destroyed nearly all of our inheritances to safeguard against the Scrollbane Centipedes. Even with those precautions, the Scrollbane Centipedes still emerged, from walls, floors—everywhere.

"The Scrollbane Centipedes were meant to sever humanity’s inheritance. They are the most malicious of the bugs."

Lu Yin’s face fell. The Nests’ strategy was eerily similar to the rudimentary strategy that he had developed to deal with the Spirit Nidus. The Spirit Nidus cultivated successive generations of elite cultivators by using a single cultivation method that included their Spirit Ignition and Spirit Rebirth before training them to master specific sequence particles. Lu Yin’s plan was to create more and more peak powerhouses and then employ a sacrificial strategy to crush the Spirit Nidus’s next generation of elites, forcing their megaverse to act cautiously.

The Nests took things even further, as they did not allow humans to preserve any sort of written inheritance.

This was a strategy that deliberately targeted developed civilizations.

No matter how desperate humanity became, there would always be a chance for resurgence because of their inheritances. As long as there were inheritances, there would be a civilization, and where there was civilization, there would also be morality and spirit.

Why had Burial Garden remained behind even though the Heavens Sect had been destroyed so many years ago? When the Daosource Sect had been destroyed, Boundless had been left behind. These things had happened because humanity understood that inheritances were greater than any other treasure. Only inheritances could allow a civilization to rise again. Inheritances were the crystallization of countless minds—they were the proof of an era.

The Nests included insects with the sole purpose of destroying humanity’s inheritances, which openly showed their intent to annihilate all civilizations.

Shan Gu recalled, “Before the Scrollbane Centipedes appeared, there was an intense war between humanity and the Nests, but things had not reached the point where humanity had been forced to fully unite. Even after we suffered the Thousand Shards’ torment, the Lithic Drakes’ calamities, and the Ghost Orchids’ attacks, the various human civilizations didn’t truly unite. The political state of our megaverse was similar to how, here in your Tianyuan Megaverse, the Sixverse Association could have allied with your Origin Universe to fight against Aeternus, but they instead chose to keep their distance.

"In fact, they even attacked your Origin Universe to suppress its progress. Only when the six Scourges were exposed did humanity truly unite."

Lu Yin understood what the Great Elder was getting at. If Aeternus had only been as strong as the First Scourge, it would not have been nearly so easy to unite the megaverse. Only against an overwhelmingly strong enemy would growth and unity be forced.

"The appearance of the Scrollbane Centipedes was intended to destroy all human inheritances. That was when the Nests revealed their ambitions and every human civilization in our megaverse was forced to come together. There was no choice but to acknowledge the Nests as our nemesis. This marked the beginning of our true war for survival. It was a bloody war that included all of humanity."

After a pause, Shan Gu looked down at the orb again. "The ninth type of insect, the final one, is called Verdant Sage."

Lu Yin’s expression grew solemn. The last insect had to be the most formidable in the Nest.

"Verdant Sage?"

Shan Gu nodded, his eyes showing fear, hatred, as well as disbelief. "The Verdant Sage is a combination of the other eight insects. They have no fixed form, not even any fixed abilities. They have nothing, and yet they have everything."

While staring at the orb, the Great Elder seemed uncertain of his own words. "We’ve encountered monstrous, terrifying versions of the Verdant Sage that possessed the abilities of all the other insects. We’ve also encountered a human-shaped Verdant Sage. She was so breathtakingly beautiful that she should have never existed. She was perfectly human, not an insect. I don’t know how to explain it, but Verdant Sages seem to appear to rise to the demands of the circumstances. They countered whatever may have thwarted the other eight types of insects. No matter how we managed to counter the other bugs, we always failed whenever we faced a Verdant Sage."

OMA's Thoughts

Translated By: OMA

Edited By: Neshi/Nyxnox

TLC'ed By: OMA

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