353: Chapter 353 The Final Chapter of the Illusion: The Insect Emperor Descends!

As the First Prince's voice fell, the scene silently shifted, transforming into another space.

Warm yellow lights filled the entire breeding room, and rows of shelves held Scarab Beetles in different stages of growth, each with an independent transparent compartment.

In the center of the room, on a platform, rested a translucent crystal box.

The box was lined with dark velvet, and in the center of the velvet lay a dark red insect egg the size of a pigeon's egg.

This was the last insect egg that could be found in the Royal Court, and it carried the hopes of everyone.

The Royal Court's breeder followed custom and applied secret arts to the insect egg.

That same night, the first crack appeared on the surface of the insect egg.

The next day, a dark red larva broke out of its shell and successfully grew into an adult.

Weeks passed, and this Scarab Beetle did not die; it was living well.

Its body color was as deep as blood agate, its six limbs were thick and sturdy, and its elytra were intact.

The ministers, upon receiving the news, accompanied the ruler to the breeding room.

Dozens of people gathered around the crystal box, looking at the adult insect, their faces full of joy.

The scene flickered gently.

Lin Xiao instinctively narrowed his eyes slightly, and when he opened them again, the four of them were already standing in a closed space with a ceiling height of several dozen meters.

The glass lamps on the dome had long since gone out, but the luminescent stones embedded in the surrounding walls still emitted a faint, deep blue glow.

In the center of the space stood a hexagonal wall, built from grey-black stone the same color as the bedrock, with no carvings or decorations on its surface, only rough chisel marks.

Inside the wall was a vertical pit, the edges of which were cut extremely neatly, and its size was so large that it occupied almost the entire floor of the space.

There was not a shred of light in the pit; the glow from the luminescent stones on the surrounding walls was swallowed up completely as soon as it reached the edge of the pit.

Standing next to the edge of the pit, one could even feel a very faint downward airflow.

It was as if something was breathing slowly in the depths.

"This is the Ancient Well of Wishes."

Yimu's voice echoed in the desolate forbidden area.

She did not approach the wall of the well, but stood more than ten meters away, a look of sadness flowing in her eyes.

According to the original plan, the adult dark red Scarab Beetle was placed into a specially made sensory-shielding jewelry box and mixed in with a large amount of gold and silver jewelry.

Under the witness of the Heze ruler and a group of high-ranking nobles, the young Yimu, who did not yet have a brand on her forehead, was escorted out of death row by guards and walked to the well in heavy shackles.

The shackles were unlocked.

The young Yimu took the box filled with gold and silver jewelry from the minister and threw it, along with other treasures, into the bottomless darkness.

Then, closing her eyes, under the gaze of the royals, she whispered a wish:

"May the Heze Kingdom's fortune flourish, and may we obtain endless wealth and resources..."

As the sound of the wish fell, a brilliance burst forth from the mouth of the well.

Immediately after, a large amount of gold and silver artifacts gushed out from the deep pit.

The young Yimu could not stay for long.

After doing everything she had to do, she was roughly escorted by the guards, put back into heavy shackles, and sent back to the dark and damp dungeon.

The ministers swarmed forward and opened all the marked jewelry boxes.

Just as planned, curled up in every box was an intact and living adult Scarab Beetle.

However, the color had changed from dark red to grey-black.

The ministers carefully collected the original dark red adult and respectfully delivered it into the hands of the ruler.

Then, they put all the remaining grey-black Scarab Beetles into cages and sent them to the surface overnight.

As a group of court guards carried the cages past Lin Xiao, the scene shifted back to the surface.

The river had dried up completely, and the riverbed was covered with deep cracks.

The people, who had previously survived the insect plague and the great famine and had just climbed back from the line of death, were standing in front of a new batch of insect cages.

Those who came down from the sky never asked if they were willing.

Under threats and inducements, the people began to raise Scarab Beetles again.

They extracted the last bit of usable resources from this increasingly desertified land.

The roots of drought-resistant shrubs, powder ground from withered tree bark, and even the last remaining wet mud on the dried riverbed were shoveled into the enclosures...

However, after only a few days, this batch of grey-black Scarab Beetles completely lost control.

These insects that crawled out of the bronze tripods did not eat plant roots at all, nor were they satisfied with any feed they were given.

They frantically devoured everything around them.

The enclosures were torn from the inside, and the grey-black Insect Swarm, under the cover of night, flooded into the nearest village.

In just one night, a town with a population of two thousand was cleared out.

Not even a speck of bone residue could be seen.

In less than a few days, hundreds of thousands of innocent people, who had not yet recovered their vitality, became ghosts under the mouths of the insects.

The scene began to shift uncontrollably.

Everything happening in the sky and on the ground flashed before Lin Xiao and his group.

The surviving people fought back, using farm tools, crushed stones, and everything they could pick up to fight for their lives against the surging Insect Swarm.

But those grey-black Scarab Beetles felt no fear and no pain; they only lunged forward, devouring every living thing in their path.

Meanwhile, the original dark red Scarab Beetle left in the Emperor's sleeping quarters began to evolve.

The more Scarab Beetles that died on the ground, the faster it evolved.

It seemed as if there was some secret connection between them.

A few days later, the surviving people on the ground, rallied by the call of a certain leader, gathered together.

Led by the leader, the people broke into the Qitian Temple and used the portal to launch a massive attack on the Imperial Palace.

In their hands, besides crudely made swords, they had self-made magic element stones.

Although the quality was not as good as the magic element stones made by the Royal Court, the power was not to be underestimated.

The battle line advanced from the Qitian Temple toward the center of the Royal Court, and plumes of smoke from the war rose into the sky from all directions.

The moment the people invaded the Imperial Palace, the Heze Royal Family issued two orders:

Seal all Qitian Temple portals to prevent more civilians from flooding in from the ground.

At the same time, initiate a large-scale destructive strike on the ground.

Lin Xiao's gaze passed over the burning palace walls and the collapsing spire of the Qitian Temple, landing on the ground further away.

Looking down from the edge of the Imperial Palace, he could clearly see the land ten thousand meters below, torn apart by the flames of war.

magic element stones fell from the clouds like a rainstorm, each one carrying a blindingly white light that was impossible to look at directly.

The light smashed into the ground, blasting out circular shockwaves that kept overlapping and spreading across the surface.

The firelight surged outward in layer after layer.

It swallowed up towns, fields, and dead forests completely.

Those people who had not yet managed to pass through the portal looked up at the light falling from the sky.

Some people were still running toward the portal, while others simply knelt on the ground, motionless.

The continuous explosions allowed the Heze Royal Court, ten thousand meters in the sky, to clearly feel the tremors coming from beneath their feet.

However, the royal nobles of the Royal Court discovered that those insects did not die from the earth-shattering attack.

One Scarab Beetle perished in the flames, but a new egg sac was born in the ashes.

One begat two, two begat four...

Grey-black figures surged out, layer by layer, from the still-leaping flames.

The number was greater and denser than before.

Just as the royal nobles of the Royal Court were thinking of countermeasures, the dome of the ruler's sleeping quarters was pierced from the inside by a giant dark red insect.

Accompanied by a deafening screech, Lin Xiao immediately turned his head to look.

He saw that the original dark red Scarab Beetle had entered an irreversible state of evolution.

Its body kept expanding, growing larger and larger.

From the size of a palm, it became the size of a calf, and in the blink of an eye, it filled the large room.

Subsequently, it burst through the ceiling and crushed the entire sleeping pavilion.

Wooden beams snapped, stone walls collapsed, and glazed tiles slid off the edge of the roof, shattering into pieces.

Finally, this insect slowly crawled out from the tallest building in the center of the Royal Court.

Its size had expanded to the point where it could no longer be measured by the scale of the Imperial Palace.

When its elytra unfolded, they blocked the starlight above the dome.

Every flap made the rubble within a hundred meters around it jump violently on the ground.

Its six thick insect limbs stepped on the stone bricks of the inner court, sinking half an inch with every step and leaving clear indentations in the ruins.

The fully mutated Insect Emperor stood before everyone just like that.

Accompanied by screams of horror, panic quickly began to spread.

Many royal nobles, under the protection of guards, took transport pods to flee the towering Imperial Palace built in the clouds.

The Sikong Xuanye, taking a group of veteran officials, evacuated first.

Yimu, who was being escorted to another transport pod, also caught Lin Xiao's eye.

Before he could think, grey-black Scarab Beetles suddenly began to swarm into the edge of his vision.

The Insect Swarm poured in from every corridor, every crack, and every broken window in the Imperial Palace.

The buzzing sound of elytra rubbing together and the crisp sound of legs tapping on stone bricks intertwined, with a density so high that the air began to vibrate.

The four of them were surrounded by a large number of Scarab Beetles, and the ones closest to them had even opened their mouthparts.

Jiang Wanwan immediately activated her suit's domain and asked, "Lin Xiao, didn't you say this was a mental illusion? Why can these Scarab Beetles see us?"

Lin Xiao was about to answer, but all the Scarab Beetles suddenly scattered at the same time.

The surrounding scene transformed into ruins at the same instant.

The burning palace walls and the palace staff screaming and fleeing had all disappeared.

Only the ruins, identical to those in reality, remained: charred floor tiles, fallen pillars, and large patches of dark stains congealed from burning.

Meanwhile, a dark golden Scarab Beetle, as huge as a mountain, stood at the edge of that huge pit in front.

It is the Insect Emperor!

Its elytra slowly retracted, its six insect limbs stepped steadily on the grey-black bedrock, and its head shell lowered slightly.

Other than that, it made no attacking movements.

It only turned its huge compound eyes toward the four people in front, observing them curiously.