74: The storage ring conceals hidden treasures, the master perishes, and the insect king awakens.
Zhang Sheng, having recovered his senses, felt a lingering fear.
If he hadn't cultivated the Mysterious Spider Thought Binding Method, Rodi might have truly succeeded in his Possession.
Now that Rodi was dead, the Spirit-Sealing Barrier was also lifted.
The space shifted. Zhang Sheng found himself back at his original position.
He saw Rodi's corpse naturally falling toward the lake below.
Zhang Sheng quickly cast the Object Manipulation Art, controlling the corpse and moving it in front of him.
His weapon, a Spiritual Artifact long saber, also flew into Zhang Sheng's hand.
Under the inspection of his Divine Sense, Rodi's corpse had no aura of life remaining, but Zhang Sheng noticed that the ring on his middle finger seemed to be a special Spiritual Artifact.
The ring flew into Zhang Sheng's hand, and a Fireball Technique burned Rodi's corpse to ashes.
Zhang Sheng tried to inject his Divine Sense into the ring; inside the ring was actually a vast space.
The space was incredibly vast, spanning a full kilometer in radius.
So that was it; he had previously wondered where Rodi had pulled the Spiritual Artifact long saber from.
This ring must be the storage ring mentioned in the common knowledge of cultivation.
He hadn't expected such a massive windfall from killing Rodi on this trip.
There weren't many things inside: about a million Spirit Pearls, over a hundred Rank One Spiritual Artifacts, five large oval bombs, and two blue Jade Slips.
The most precious were likely these two blue Jade Slips; with a thought from Zhang Sheng, the two jade plaques appeared in his hand.
These items occupied only a corner of the storage ring.
As for the large oval bombs, they were likely nuclear bombs; this stuff was of no value to him and could only be brought back to the Dean.
Even according to the common knowledge of cultivation recorded in the Jade Slips, storage rings were extremely rare, and their value far exceeded Spiritual Artifacts of the same rank.
Zhang Sheng put the ring on his index finger; unexpectedly, the ring merged with his skin on its own, and no outsider could detect it at all except for himself.
It seemed the ring had revealed its true form only because Rodi died and it lost its attachment.
Although Rodi was dead, Zhang Sheng clearly remembered that Rodi possessed a Beast Taming Talent.
Throughout the entire battle, he hadn't seen Rodi summon a single tamed beast.
Now that Rodi was dead, according to the experience of other Awakened with Beast Taming Talents, once an Awakened dies, their tamed beasts—even if still alive—become no different from ordinary Yao Beasts.
What Zhang Sheng didn't realize was that Rodi understood even a Divine Breath Realm Beast was of little use and would have been pointless in his battle against Zhang Sheng.
Moreover, the only Divine Breath Realm creature among his Spirit Beasts was a worm.
Consequently, Rodi had simply left this worm at the entrance of the Secret Realm.
If Zhang Sheng had escaped from him, the Demon Insect lying in ambush at the Secret Realm's entrance might have been able to catch him off guard.
However, Rodi had considered Zhang Sheng's escape but had not anticipated his own death in battle.
At this very moment,
After the Demon Insect at the Secret Realm entrance sensed its master's death, the memories hidden deep within its Soul slowly surfaced.
Those were its original memories, memories from before its civilization perished.
"Has that damned fool finally died? This lord is free!" The Demon Insect moved its head around.
What Rodi had devoured was merely an SS-rank Beast Taming Talent Awakened; even if the master died, the tamed beast would not die with them, but instead gained freedom.
Without Rodi's restrictions, as a Divine Breath Realm Beast, it quickly recovered its proper consciousness.
The memories located deep within its Soul were being slowly activated.
"Is the name of this newborn civilization Earth?"
"Since that existence is willing to give us a chance at rebirth, how could we give it up?"
It twisted its body and spat out a white larva.
This white larva was extremely small, like a sesame seed, with transparent wings; it moved quickly and silently, and there wasn't the slightest fluctuation of spiritual power.
If one observed the larva's head with a magnifying glass, they would find it resembled a drill.
The larva flew out from the ground toward the back of a Secret Realm guard's head.
Its drill-like head bored directly into the back of the guard's brain.
While releasing a paralyzing toxin, the larva instantly took control of the guard's brain.
This little bug had a famous name in the Monster Civilization—Spirit-Entrapping Worm.
And the true identity of the Demon Insect Rodi had contracted was the Parasitic God Insect Emperor.
Having controlled a Secret Realm guard, the Parasitic God Insect Emperor left from underground.
For the revival of the Monster Civilization, it still had much to do.
On Zhang Sheng's side, after dealing with Rodi, there was naturally no reason to let the Divine Breath Realm Beasts in the Secret Realm off.
Under the reflection of his powerful Divine Sense, everything within a ten-kilometer radius had nowhere to hide.
His spirit wings vibrated, and Zhang Sheng flew a high-speed circuit around the Secret Realm. He gained two more blue Jade Slips and a Rank Two Low Grade Spiritual Artifact spear, which were stored into his storage ring.
The spiritual power within ordinary Divine Breath Realm Beasts in the Secret Realm now was only in the range of 100,000 to 1,000,000; they had no intelligence and simple attack methods, making them no match for Zhang Sheng.
As for the Qi Sea Realm, he didn't kill a single one. Items from the Qi Sea Realm were now of little use to Zhang Sheng.
The moment he stepped out of the Secret Realm,
Zhang Sheng's gaze lingered on a guard.
"Water Binding!"
Water appeared out of thin air, completely trapping the guard.
Zhang Sheng's Spirit Eye saw a small wisp of turbid spiritual power in his head.
"Bastard! What are you doing?" The other guards immediately surrounded him.
Zhang Sheng didn't say much; instead, he used his Divine Sense to forcibly invade the brain, wanting to see exactly what that wisp of spiritual power was!
A worm!
The Spirit-Entrapping Worm had already grown to the size of a grain of rice.
The moment it came into contact with Zhang Sheng's Divine Sense, the Parasitic God Insect Emperor, thousands of miles away, realized it had been exposed.
Immediately, the Spirit-Entrapping Worm in the guard's mind turned into bloody water!
However, at that moment, the guard also lost his aura of life. To outsiders, it looked as if Zhang Sheng had used a Spell to kill the guard.
"This guard was parasitized by a Yao Beast; I'm taking him away!"
Zhang Sheng ignored these Russian guards and directly put the corpse into his storage ring.
The man was dead, and Zhang Sheng couldn't explain it at all, so he could only take the corpse.
Then, he turned into an afterimage and left,
instantly breaking the speed of sound. The other guards could only watch helplessly as Zhang Sheng "murdered" and left.
Fortunately, Zhang Sheng still looked like a middle-aged man at this moment.
In the end, the matter was left unsettled.
These Russian guards couldn't judge whether Zhang Sheng's words were true or false, nor could they prove what Zhang Sheng had done.
"The methods of this Demon Insect are similar to Castro's situation, but there are differences!"
"But I can be sure it's definitely related to Rodi's contracted beast."
During the flight, Zhang Sheng took out the guard's corpse; on the surface, this Russian guard looked like he was asleep.
Unfortunately, the Demon Insect had turned into bloody water and mixed with the guard's blood, making it impossible to obtain any useful information.
Zhang Sheng had no choice but to release a fireball and burn the corpse to ashes.
The journey back was exceptionally relaxed.
It was now late at night on August 13th. Zhang Sheng looked up at the starry sky, where stars were twinkling.
Two moons rode side by side, though one of them was azure blue.
The appearance of Apocalypse Star had brought about drastic changes to everything.
Talents! Secret Realms! Yao Beasts! Cultivation civilization!
Some people thrived in this disaster, while countless others perished.
As soon as Zhang Sheng left the Secret Realm, he informed Dean Hou Wu and the others about killing Rodi and invited everyone to his home as guests.
He also asked his parents to prepare more ingredients to entertain the guests.
Upon hearing the news, everyone's hanging hearts finally settled.