15: Chapter 15 The Queen Mother Appears, the Situation is Critical

The wind continued to blow. Just as the shadow of a Messenger Crow skimmed over the mountain ridge, Chen Wuwang's mechanical prosthetic eye locked onto the skyline.

It wasn't an illusion.

Nor was it residual spiritual flow.

The sky looked as if it had been ripped open by something from the center; the clouds began to collapse, their color turning from white to gray, then from gray to black. That blackness wasn't the darkness of nightfall, but a living darkness that completely devoured light. It was like a constantly expanding membrane, slowly pressing down toward the airspace above the Spiritual Vein.

The ground shook slightly.

Then came a second tremor, even heavier.

Chen Wuwang didn't move. His right hand remained resting on the hilt of his dagger, but his left hand had already quietly risen, his fingertips tracing three command trajectories in the air—the most familiar interaction between him and the System.

A holographic interface surfaced silently, data cascading through his vision like a waterfall: air pressure had dropped by forty-three percent, magnetic field turbulence had exceeded safety thresholds, and space curvature showed a minor deviation.

“It's here,” he whispered, his voice so soft only he could hear.

His right eye's scanning mode switched to thermal imaging, and his field of vision was instantly dyed in a mosaic of red and blue. There were no flight units in the high altitude, no energy gathering points, and no life signals in the traditional sense.

Yet, in the Void Realm three hundred yards directly ahead, a silhouette was coalescing.

First, two arthropod-like tentacles poked out from the darkness, swaying slowly, their surfaces covered in carapace-like scales that each glinted with a cold metallic light.

Then came the torso—massive, bloated, non-humanoid, looking as if an entire mountain had been forcibly kneaded into a biological form. Finally, the head appeared.

It had no facial features.

There was only a ring-shaped fissure, resembling a replica of some ancient totem, or a vortex formed by countless mouths stacked together.

His mechanical prosthetic eye automatically calculated the scale, and when the result popped up, even he was stunned for a moment: height ninety-eight meters, with a margin of error of plus or minus two meters. The intensity of Spiritual Qi fluctuations on its body surface was more than seven times that of the Golden Core Peak, and it was still rising.

“A hundred-meter class?” He let out a cold sneer. “No wonder the Gold-Eating Insects could gnaw through the bedrock of the Spiritual Vein.”

Before his voice had even faded, a wave of spiritual fluctuations surged toward him like a tide.

It wasn't heard through the ears, nor was it captured by consciousness. The sensation was more like his entire Sea of Consciousness being soaked in a vat of boiling oil, every neuron screaming.

Countless whispers rang in his ears, dense and crowded, like ten million insects gnawing on bone simultaneously.

[Ant.]

A voice rang directly in his mind, devoid of emotion or inflection, yet carrying an unquestionable sense of oppression.

[Hand over the Egg Core.]

Chen Wuwang gritted his teeth, a layer of fine sweat seeping from his forehead. He could feel that power testing his mental defenses, drilling deeper bit by bit.

He slammed his eyes shut, dredging up memories from his days as a programmer writing code—those days when he stayed up for seventy-two consecutive hours debugging core modules. He had been on the verge of collapse then too, but he had held on. It was the same now.

He opened his eyes, and faint blood-colored spiritual runes emerged at the edges of his pupils.

“Are you the Broodmother?” he spoke, his voice steady as if he hadn't just undergone a Divine Sense impact. “Making a trip personally just for an insect egg?”

The massive shadow in the sky shuddered slightly, the ring-shaped fissure rotating slowly as if sizing him up.

[You have touched something you should not have.]

[You have awakened a sleeping calamity.]

[Return it, and you may leave an intact corpse.]

Chen Wuwang gave a mocking laugh and reached up to wipe away a trace of blood that had overflowed from the corner of his mouth due to the shock. He looked down at the rock beneath his feet, and his right hand suddenly drew the dagger from his waist, stabbing it into the ground with a backhand strike.

“Clang!”

With a crisp sound, runes spread rapidly along the blade, diffusing outward along the previously carved grooves.

A muffled thunderous roar came from underground, and glowing lines converged from all directions, forming a massive hexagonal array at the periphery of the Spiritual Vein.

The Spirit Array activated.

This wasn't an ordinary defensive Formation, but the 'Final Mode' he had spent three days laying out. Every energy-conducting line had undergone nano-scale calibration, and the Formation base went thirty yards deep underground, connecting to seven miniature Spirit-Gathering Towers.

Once activated, it could construct three layers of dynamic shields within ten seconds and automatically seal off the core area of the mining district.

But the cost was not small.

The first wave of energy backlash poured back through the dagger. Chen Wuwang's arm went numb, and his knees nearly buckled.

He gritted his teeth and held on, his left hand quickly tracing three new commands on the stone platform to forcibly lock the output frequency of the Formation's eye.

The ground began to crack, hot steam spewing from the fissures, and several pieces of rubble bounced half a foot high.

He knew this was dangerous. If not controlled properly, the Spirit Array would blow his own people away first.

But he had no choice.

The shadow overhead had completely enveloped the entire Spiritual Vein area. The wind had stopped, the birds were silent, and even the footsteps of the patrol team in the distance could no longer be heard—it wasn't that they weren't moving, but that this space had been suppressed by some higher-dimensional power, and all conventional perception was blocked.

The Broodmother's spiritual fluctuations descended again, this time no longer as whispers, but as a direct collision.

[You are but a mere mortal; how dare you steal an object of the Origin?]

[Do you think these trivial tricks can block a single thought of mine?]

Chen Wuwang didn't respond. All his attention was on maintaining the stability of the Formation. His right hand didn't dare loosen its grip on the dagger, while his left hand continued to rapidly input correction parameters into the air.

Sweat slid down his temples, making a soft “sizzle” as it dripped onto the stone platform.

He could feel the Spirit Array trembling.

Like a newly awakened beast, it wanted both to roar and feared losing control.

Finally, the third layer of the shield took shape. A pale blue wall of light rose slowly, enveloping the main entrance of the Spiritual Vein.

Simultaneously, a heavy mechanical sound came from underground—the automatic door-sealing System had begun to operate, and thick alloy gates were slowly closing from the rock walls on both sides.

Success.

At least things were stabilized for the moment.

He took a breath and looked up at the sky.

The Broodmother still hovered there, her massive body obscuring the sunlight, the shadow she cast making it seem as if night had arrived early. Her spiritual fluctuations had not weakened; instead, they became even denser, as if she intended to plow through his entire Sea of Consciousness.

“Trivial tricks?” Chen Wuwang grinned, revealing a row of white teeth, but his tone was as cold as ice. “You're right. I'm exactly the kind of person who plays with bugs.”

His left hand slammed onto the ground, and a final encrypted command was injected into the Formation base.

Buzz—!

The entire Spirit Array emitted a low resonance, and the outer runic light wall suddenly brightened, forming a ring of ripples that expanded outward. This was the highest level of response for the early warning System, meaning all hidden nodes had been activated and could switch to counterattack mode at any time.

But he knew this was just the beginning.

The Broodmother hadn't made her move yet.

She was just watching.

Assessing.

Waiting for him to show a flaw.

Chen Wuwang stood up straight, the dagger still plunged into the ground. He leaned his hands on the hilt, his gaze fixed intently on the massive shadow in the sky.

He knew what would happen next.

The insect tide would come again.

On a larger scale.

With greater speed.

There might even be new variants.

But he also understood one thing—

He could not retreat.

Not even a single step.

Behind him was Chen Xiaodao, who had just stabilized his Sword Intent.

There was Chen Tiezhu, who was still modifying the furnace.

It was the lifeblood of the entire Chen family.

He stood on the high platform of the cliff, beneath his feet was the eye of the activating Spirit Array, and above his head was the sky-blotting shadow of the Broodmother. The wind could not move the hem of his clothes, because that wind simply could not enter this sealed space.

He said only one thing.

“Come on then.”