Chapter 457: The Mountain-Piercing Beast

Almost all the remaining residents in the city took part in this war. Pompeii had four gates, and following his earlier plan, Lin Xu divided the people into four groups. Half stayed at the east gate, as that was the direction from which the magical beasts were coming. The other half was further divided into three groups to guard the remaining three gates.

The east gate, facing directly the direction of the beast horde, undoubtedly bore the greatest pressure—this was obvious to everyone, and no one objected. With Lin Xu’s division, even temporary residents like Ye Feng didn’t know which side to take. Lin Xu had considered these people before, but after all, they were just passing through Pompeii. With such a crisis looming, it would be unreasonable to give them orders. Moreover, most temporary residents had left after learning of the approaching beast horde. Those who remained, including Ye Feng and about a dozen others, numbered less than fifty. In Lin Xu’s view, such a small group couldn’t make much of a difference on the battlefield—even if some of them could defeat Lin Hong, their individual strength was still negligible.

Lin Hong looked at Ye Feng and the others with fear. After being thoroughly defeated by Xiao Bei, he was well aware of the gap between himself and these people. During the fight, he had sensed that Xiao Bei wasn’t very strong, yet he still lost—without any doubt at all. The “soul freezing” technique was terrifying; if the opponent wanted to kill him, he might have died countless times already. Though he had now been freed from the freezing state and regained his body, the sight of Ye Feng and his group still sent chills down his spine. He even faintly felt that if Ye Feng’s group were placed on that battlefield, the entire magical beast army might be wiped out. He didn’t know why he had such thoughts, but they suddenly popped into his mind—so absurd that even he found it ridiculous.

Of course, Ye Feng had no idea what was going on in Lin Hong’s thick head. His group was still discussing how to participate in the war.

“Boss, judging by their attitude, it seems we don’t have a place here,” Bernard said gloomily. After finally finding a chance to show off, he found his group isolated.

“If they keep fighting like this, if we charge into the beast horde, we might get accidentally hurt by them,” Long Yue said, looking at the backs of Lin Xu’s group.

“It’s the safest approach for them,” Ye Feng replied without much comment. “Let’s watch the battle first!”

Faced with the situation, Ye Feng chose to watch from the side.
“But…” Long Yue wanted to say more, but was pulled back by Zhenzhu.
“Let them struggle first. Interfering now will only cause trouble. Once they’ve had their fill of trouble, then we’ll act,” Zhenzhu saw the situation very clearly.
“Can’t we just attack directly to eliminate these magical beasts?” Zhuge Ling’er still couldn’t understand.
“They don’t know our strength, and we had conflicts with them a few days ago. There’s no trust between us. If we attack now, they’ll think we’re just trying to show off. But if we wait until they suffer setbacks and then act, it will be like helping them in need—that’s the difference,” Long Tian explained.
“Don’t worry. I’ve already assessed the overall strength of that beast herd. If everyone maintains their normal performance in the Refining Realm, it will take at most three hours to deal with these magical beasts,” Ye Feng finally revealed why he was so confident. He had already analyzed their strength the moment he saw them.
“But there seem to be so many of these magical beasts…” Zhuge Ling’er expressed her concern.
“No matter how many there are, their average strength is only at the level of gods. There are only two at the level of Imperial Gods leading them, and less than twenty at the level of Supreme Gods. Still, the total number is close to a million—this isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Ye Feng said. As soon as he saw such a large herd, he thought of the two mother insects still training in the Refining Realm.
For mother insects to lay eggs, they need not only a large amount of energy but also plenty of materials. Ye Feng had given almost all his previous loot—various ores and crafting materials—to those two mother insects. He also took advantage of the facilities in the Virtual Realm to acquire a large number of corpses of semi-god-level magical beasts.
It should be noted that semi-god-level items also belong to the Third Realm, the Heavenly Realm. Ye Feng had three free opportunities to obtain them each day, with no limit on the quantity.
It was precisely because they were only semi-god-level corpses that the two mother insects could produce a high volume of offspring, though those offspring were also only at the semi-god level. That’s why Ye Feng sent them to the Refining Realm to raise their levels.

Hundreds of years have passed in the outside world, while within the Refining Realm, time accelerates by a thousand times—meaning hundreds of thousands of years have elapsed. Those sub-bug creatures at the semi-god level have now grown to become god-level beings. The original hundreds of thousands of god-level bugs have further evolved into emperor god level, with nearly twenty of them even reaching the level of divine emperor and evolving into female bugs. The original two female bugs now possess the strength of peak divine emperor level, just one step away from reaching the level of ancestral god.

During this process, Ye Feng finally realized the terrifying nature of the insect race. Over hundreds of thousands of years, those two female bugs produced hundreds of billions of eggs. In fact, the hatching rate was almost 100% because they had no natural enemies in the Refining Realm. Yet, only tens of millions of them reached the god level due to mutual consumption. This practice of devouring each other led to survival of the fittest—only the strong could survive, while the rest were eaten. Ye Feng did not approve of this behavior of consuming their own kind. But the female bugs argued that if one couldn’t become strong, they would become nourishment for the strong—a timeless rule of the insect race, through which they evolved generation after generation.

Thus, while struggling against the harsh environment of the Refining Realm, these sub-bugs also had to fight against their own kind. With a survival rate of only one in a thousand when the population was in the tens of millions compared to hundreds of billions, it showed just how harsh this rule was. However, this also made these insect warriors stronger. In just hundreds of thousands of years, beings at the semi-god level evolved into god level. At such a level, there was no need to kill each other, so their evolution slowed down. This is why those sub-bugs that were already at the god level took hundreds of thousands of years to advance by just one level. Only those less than twenty with extraordinary talent managed to reach the level of divine emperor—actually nineteen in total: ten were bees and nine were ants.

Ye Feng naturally paid close attention to those that reached the divine emperor level. Remembering the effects of the Perfect Gene drug before, he chose one as a subject for experimentation, injecting the perfect genes directly into its body. As a result, that ant mutated and successfully evolved into an ant queen. Then, Ye Feng turned the remaining eighteen into female bugs as well. The process went exceptionally smoothly, with no side effects at all. This made Ye Feng wonder if this drug could work on all living creatures.

However, these nineteen female worms were somewhat similar in appearance to the two that Xiao Lan had modified before, but not exactly the same, and completely different from the normally plump female worms. In terms of appearance, these nineteen female worms were a hundred times more terrifying than the Xenomorphs in Earth’s movies—truly insectoid weapons equipped with deadly weapons all over their bodies.

This time, with the beast horde attacking, Ye Feng didn’t plan to use his own insect army, as that would be too shocking. Instead, his focus was on the corpses of these magical beasts. Millions of such corpses meant that the nineteen second-generation female worms would have plenty to do. As for the two first-generation female worms, Ye Feng intended to let them focus on reaching the level of Ancestral Gods, so they could serve as even better reinforcements in the future.

“Oh, I forgot to mention—once we reach the battlefield, collect all of these magical beast corpses for me.” Ye Feng’s lips curled into a slight smile. After this battle, there would likely be an additional million Ancestral God-level insect soldiers.

“Boss, do you want to collect the magical beast cores to sell for money?” Bernard beside him’s eyes sparkled.

“No, I’m preparing to build an insect army. The female worms need a large amount of corpses as raw material to lay eggs.” Hearing this, the others fell silent.

They had encountered those insects in the Refining Realm and witnessed their hunting process. Their consensus was that this race was simply too extraordinary—fast progression, fierce combat styles, terrifying combat awareness, perfect teamwork, and physical strength comparable to that of martial cultivators. They were truly the most favored creations of the Creator.

“It’s best not to use the insect army unless absolutely necessary,” Long Tian said with a serious expression.

“I know that. After all, insects are also a type of magical beast. If this gets out, I’ll become the target of everyone’s wrath. If stronger beings at the Ancestral God level or above come to hunt me, my chances of survival would be slim. So I won’t use this card lightly.” Ye Feng nodded in agreement. “Actually, they probably won’t think too much about us stealing the corpses. At most, they’ll see us as greedy guys who do this for the materials and cores on the beasts. If they misunderstand, let them.”

“It’s one thing if they think you’re greedy, but why do we have to lose our reputation too?” Qing Lang muttered quietly.

“Because your speed in killing monsters after forming a formation isn’t slower than mine. If you ignore those corpses, my final harvest of magical beast corpses will be at least one-third less.” Ye Feng’s gaze made Qing Lang feel uneasy.

“Alright…” The green wolf ultimately didn’t dare to object anymore.
“One storage ring per person. Throw the corpses inside, and once the battlefield is cleared, just give the rings to me so I can take care of them. Then the rings will be yours,” Ye Feng said as he distributed empty storage rings to each person—all of which were previous spoils of war.
“Damn it, there are mountain-piercing beasts!” As the war began, Xi Men Chun beside Lin Xu shouted.
Ye Feng and the others immediately turned to look in the direction of the sound.