488: Chapter 488 Activating the Parasite

Zerg World, deep underground.

Gu Mother sat cross-legged on top of a giant insect cocoon.

She had a humanoid form, her skin a nearly translucent grayish-white, with dark purple veins faintly visible beneath, pulsing as they moved.

Long hair hung down to her waist, and from time to time, a few fingernail-sized larvae would crawl out of her hair, scuttle a few steps, and then retreat back inside.

Countless threads of Spiritual Qi, as thin as hair, extended from her spine and burrowed into the ground, connecting to every single insect in the Zerg World.

The life and death of every single insect were transmitted back to her perception through these threads, without the slightest error.

At this moment, those threads of Spiritual Qi were snapping in large swathes.

It had been less than six hours since daybreak, and already more than half of the outer Swarm had been wiped out by Su Mingyuan's steel troops.

The final, lingering traces of Spiritual Qi perception transmitted from the breaking points were filled with fire, roaring, and something she had never seen before—steel Puppets made of metal.

These Puppets could not only run and jump, but they could also use all sorts of weapons.

The more Gu Mother watched from her hiding spot in the back, the more alarmed she became.

Just then, Gu Mother opened her eyes.

"It seems these Mortals intend to play for real; they aren't just here to scout the path."

She made this judgment in her heart.

Those scouting the path wouldn't flip the table the moment they arrived.

Gu Mother extended a finger and lightly traced it through the air in front of her.

A layer of dark purple mucus seeped from the surface of the insect cocoon, and within the mucus, a blurry image emerged—the very things that had been transmitted over these past few months by the few parasites she had buried within the human camp.

A few months ago, when the two sides first encountered each other and had a few minor skirmishes, she had taken advantage of the chaos to bury a few chess pieces in the opponent's camp.

The information transmitted back then was fragmented, and she hadn't paid much attention to most of it.

But there was one word she had remembered until now.

"Nuclear weapon."

The perception of the parasites was intermittent, and whenever she heard humans mention these two words, they were usually followed by a string of numerical terms she didn't understand.

"So-and-so billion tons," "so-and-so yield," "comparable to gods."

She didn't understand the numbers, but she understood the tone.

When humans spoke these two words, they were filled with fear.

Even they themselves were afraid.

"Nuclear weapon."

Gu Mother went over the word in her mind again, still finding it awkward.

In the tens of thousands of years of the cultivation world, she had seen plenty of ways to kill.

Flying Swords, Talismans, Formations, pill poisons—which of these hadn't taken hundreds or thousands of years to master?

But the words "nuclear weapon" sounded unrelated to the cultivation world; they sounded more like... weapons crafted by Mortals.

This was the part she couldn't wrap her head around.

How could things crafted by Mortals be comparable to gods?

She pieced together the images transmitted by the parasites, one by one.

Iron vehicles spitting fire, iron birds suspended in the sky, and finally that flash of fire that burned the sky white.

And the white light that fought Daoist Wan Shi.

It was this white light that had utterly obliterated Daoist Wan Shi.

She knew exactly what kind of figure Daoist Wan Shi was.

As a Soul Transformation Cultivator who had fallen into the Lower Realm just like her, she knew her own cultivation would have to yield to his by three points.

If not for the Evil Bone Skeleton, she wouldn't have dared to provoke Daoist Wan Shi back then.

And yet, such a ruthless character had vanished just like that.

Even his Nascent Soul hadn't been able to escape; he had been blasted by that white light until not even slag remained.

Thinking of this, the dark purple veins beneath the grayish-white skin on Gu Mother's body contracted uncontrollably.

That was fear.

She had lived for nearly four hundred years, and the last time she felt this way was during her Heavenly Tribulation.

She could withstand a single explosion of white light.

But the opponent could unleash thousands or tens of thousands of them with a wave of their hand, completely erasing a Soul Transformation Cultivator, body and soul.

That was what was truly deadly.

What was even more deadly was the people using these things.

Gu Mother scoured everything the parasites had transmitted, and she couldn't find a single trace of Spiritual Qi circulation on those people.

And yet, this group of Mortals, who didn't even possess Spiritual Qi, held in their hands things capable of obliterating a Soul Transformation Cultivator.

"How can a Mortal body command such things?"

She couldn't understand it.

For tens of thousands of years in the cultivation world, power and cultivation level had been tied together.

You reached a certain level, and you had the corresponding abilities—not the slightest deviation.

A piece of trash without even Spiritual Qi should be an ant to be slaughtered at will; that was the natural order of things.

But this group of Mortals had shattered that rule.

They had no cultivation, yet they possessed power.

It was like a three-year-old child holding a divine weapon capable of slaying a great Cultivator.

The child was weak enough to be pushed over, but that divine weapon was undeniably powerful.

Thinking of this, the lingering awkwardness in Gu Mother's heart finally settled.

Gu Mother never liked to force herself to think about things she couldn't understand.

She shifted her line of thought and began to calculate more practical matters.

She couldn't win a frontal assault.

Her Physical Body couldn't compare to the firepower of those iron lumps, and no matter how numerous the Swarm was, they couldn't withstand the opponent's tireless offensive.

Therefore.

A head-on collision was a dead end.

Gu Mother's Divine Sense slowly withdrew and settled upon herself.

She thought of one thing.

The lives of all the insects in the Zerg World were tied to her.

If her lifeline were severed, hundreds of millions of insects would instantly become headless, scattered sand; they wouldn't even be able to tell north from south, and they wouldn't last half a day before killing each other off completely.

She was the lifeline of the Zerg.

Then, what about the humans?

A cold light flashed in Gu Mother's eyes.

Such a group of Mortals, capable of unleashing power on the level of a Golden Core, capable of opening doors between different worlds, capable of commanding tens of thousands of iron Puppets—there had to be someone behind the scenes calling the shots.

The Swarm has a lifeline, and so do the humans.

As long as she captured the one giving the orders, this war would no longer need to be fought.

She thought a little further.

How was that door connecting to the other world opened?

What exactly was that nuclear weapon that Mortals could use?

These secrets were all locked away in the mind of that core figure.

Capture him, force him to speak.

On a small scale, she could grasp the method of the teleportation Formation and borrow the door to go to other worlds in the future.

On a grand scale, holding such a hostage, the entire Great Xia would have to look at her expression.

At that time, it wouldn't be impossible to negotiate for them to hand over a few nuclear weapons.

She even thought further—if she truly grasped how to create those nuclear weapons, she could return to the Upper Realm with this great weapon of mass destruction; what glory that would be.

Those old fogies who had targeted her back then would likely be kneeling and begging for her forgiveness by then.

The more Gu Mother thought about it, the brighter the light in her eyes became.

This was her only path to survival, and the only card she had to turn the tables.

"I must find the person first."

She reached out and pressed her fingers onto the Spiritual Qi threads on her spine, her ten fingers clenching suddenly.

An invisible command flowed through the Spiritual Qi threads and poured into every parasite buried in the human camp.

"Wake up, my children."

The corners of her mouth slowly spread, revealing a row of dense, fine teeth.

"Find that person for me."