323: The Last Supper

Returning to Stone House No. 7 in Bing Seven, Su Ming began to take stock of his belongings.

military merit tokens, identity jade plaques, foundation establishment pills, miscellaneous items scavenged from the Ghost Market, and those few Jade Slips recording Formation insights... he sorted all the items and packed them neatly into his Storage Pouch.

Once he finished, the room felt empty.

Su Ming pushed open the stone window.

The snow had stopped at some point, and a few sparse, cold stars even peeked through the night sky.

Iron Wall Pass was unusually quiet tonight. The continuous beacon towers in the distance burned silently, as if even the restless Yao Beasts knew a hero was about to depart and could not bear to disturb him.

It was a near-peaceful silence, full of a sense of consolation.

Looking at the distant lights, Su Ming no longer felt his usual tension or calculation; only a calm sense of achievement remained.

"This year was worth it."

He closed the window, shutting out the external chill.

His gaze swept across the corner of the table, where a small bottle still sat.

Su Ming picked up the bottle and gave it a gentle shake.

"There is still some void powder left."

He asked in his Sea of Consciousness, "Master, since there is nothing else to do tonight, why not use it now? Although the source essence here is thin, we should not let it go to waste."

...No lamps were lit in the room; the only faint light came from the Formation Plate slowly operating in the center of the stone table.

Su Ming's wrist hovered. The special spiritual ink on the tip of his brush, mixed with void stone powder, was still wet. Following his rhythmic breathing, it landed extremely slowly on the core node of the Formation Plate.

This was the final stroke.

As the brush tip lifted, a cryptic, deep blue glow flashed across the surface of the Formation Plate before vanishing, leaving behind ripples in space that were nearly invisible to the naked eye.

Su Ming let out a long sigh of relief, put down the talisman brush, and rubbed his aching brow.

"Master, this is the last time at Iron Wall Pass."

As Su Ming spoke, he skillfully formed hand seals, converting his Ruoshui Spiritual Power into the softest of guiding threads and probing into the Formation's core. "Although the ley lines here have been drained by the great Formation and the source essence is as thin as dishwater, it can still stabilize your soul body a bit. Consider it... a late-night snack before we leave."

"Having something to eat is already good enough; do not be so picky."

In his Sea of Consciousness, Lin Yu's voice sounded lazy, carrying a sense of ease like someone about to be released from prison. "The void source essence in this godforsaken place may be bland and taste like rust, but at least there is plenty of it. Hurry up and start it. After this meal, we can hit the road."

"Master, 'hitting the road' is an unlucky phrase."

Su Ming chuckled and lightly tapped the edge of the Formation Plate.

Hum.

The compact Formation known as the "Lesser Void Spirit Guiding Formation" emitted a low, almost inaudible hum.

There were no world-shaking phenomena, and even the surrounding air was not disturbed much.

Only the small patch of space above the Formation Plate looked as if an invisible hand had gently crumpled a corner.

Countless gossamer-thin strands of void source essence were drawn out, flowing continuously into the ancient xuantian ring through Su Ming's fingertips.

Lin Yu let out a satisfied sigh, and the patterns on the ring's surface lit up with a warm glow.

At the same time, an extremely weak but exceptionally pure and unique "spatial ripple" followed the Formation's Foundation. It ignored the stone house's Foundation, the layers of defensive Formation patterns, and even the permafrost and rock layers. Like a drop of water seeping into a sponge, it rippled silently toward the depths of the earth... three thousand meters beneath the Bing Battalion area.

There was no light or wind here, only the suffocating pressure of the earth and the continuous, tide-like rustling caused by the friction of some arthropods.

This was an ocean of dark gold.

Countless Rock Marrow Demon Earthworms with hard carapaces and hideous mouthparts, along with mutated dark-gold beetles, were in a state of eerie silence. They were not frantically gnawing at the rock layers as usual, but were lurking silently in the darkness like an army ready for battle.

At the very core of this insect sea was a spherical nest built by countless worker insects using saliva and mineral slag.

In the center of the nest, a unique individual floated quietly.

It was too small.

Compared to the giant earthworms outside, which were several meters long, it was only the size of a human fist.

Its entire body was a dull yet warm dark gold, without any of the stench or sliminess of a biological creature. Instead, it glinted with a cold metallic luster, as if it were the purest Essence of Geng-gold solidified after being smelted thousands of times in a fire.

On its mirror-smooth carapace, complex silver-gray patterns grew naturally, slowly and constantly shifting.

It had no compound eyes.

The front of its head consisted of two smooth, curved plates of armor, with a black crystal resembling solidified amber embedded in the middle.

This crystal was pure and deep, devoid of any emotional fluctuations, containing only absolute logic and coldness.

It was the absolute center of this dark-gold ocean, a silent brain.

Hum—

A spatial ripple so faint it could almost be ignored passed through the thick rock layers and lightly brushed against the nest.

It was the ripple generated by Su Ming's Lesser Void Spirit Guiding Formation.

This ripple meant nothing to the other insects; it could not even make their antennae twitch.

But the dark-gold individual floating in the center of the nest moved at that very instant.

Its three pairs of long, slender antennae, which had been hanging down, suddenly lifted.

The tips of the antennae vibrated gently with an extremely regular rhythm.

Its black crystal turned slightly, its gaze piercing through three thousand meters of rock and darkness to lock precisely onto the coordinates of the ripple's source directly above.

No anger, no hunger, no killing intent.

The surrounding insect swarm, surging like a tide, seemed to receive a silent command at this moment.

The originally chaotic friction sounds vanished.

A hair-raising dead silence spread through the depths of the earth.

The silver-gray patterns on the dark-gold individual's head suddenly brightened, and it gently retracted its antennae.

In the next instant.

The dark-gold ocean, which had been in a state of silence, boiled over.