Chapter 4: Entanglement (Part 1)

The continuous buzzing sound puzzled Yao Zebusong. He looked into the distance. A faint dark shadow appeared on the horizon and was moving rapidly toward him. Being extremely powerful, he wasn’t afraid at all. After observing for a while with no clear vision, he simply flew over.

Halfway there, Yao Zebusong saw what it was—a large swarm of mutated black-spotted mosquitoes. He also clearly saw a altar ahead, glowing with magical runes, fleeing swiftly ahead. He immediately summoned his altar, still wondering: Who could that be, being chased by those mosquitoes?

Halechi was nearly desperate. The swarm of black-spotted mosquitoes pursued him relentlessly for days, never giving up, and their numbers kept increasing. At first, he had the confidence to fight them, but now he didn’t even dare look back. His only thought was: Run, run as fast as possible.

When Halechi saw who was approaching, he was overjoyed and shouted, “Elder, help me!”

The two altars flew side by side toward the distance. Yao Zebusong asked smilingly, “How did you attract so many mosquitoes? There are at least hundreds of thousands… Did you take something good from them?”

Halechi cried out in frustration, “How could that be… I don’t understand either. These mosquitoes… damn it, they won’t let go!”

Yao Zebusong flew into a rage and cursed, “Damn you! Fuck you!”

Halechi was stunned. He asked in confusion, “Why are you cursing me?”

Yao Zebusong snapped, “You cursed me first!”

Halechi protested bitterly, “I didn’t! I didn’t curse you!”

Yao Zebusong roared, “Idiot! You still want to deny it? Tell me… damn you, Yao Zebusong! Did I do something to provoke you?”

Halechi was on the verge of crying. He explained, “That’s not what I meant. I meant… the mosquitoes won’t let go…” Realizing he’d said the wrong thing, he flew to the left, repeating, “Damn it… I… I didn’t curse you…” He was completely confused and filled with resentment: Why did this guy have to be named something like “damnit, they won’t let go”?!

Yao Zebusong’s face turned blue as he shouted, “You called me a mosquito! I’ll kill you!”

Halechi was truly about to cry. Instead of finding rescuers, he’d encountered an enemy far stronger than himself. Wasn’t this seeking death? As he fled desperately, he kept shouting, “That’s not what I meant! It’s not… Who made you give yourself such a name… You really gonna kill me…?”

Boom!

Yao Zebusong also knew it was a misunderstanding, but he was still furious. How dare this guy question his name? He simply slashed at him, causing him to scream in pain.
Halechi might not be good at other things, but his flying speed was extremely fast—even faster than Yao Zebusong’s, especially when he fled frantically, using his soul power for teleportation. For a while, Yao Zebusong couldn’t keep up with him.
There were two altars, one in front of the other, with countless black-spotted mosquitoes following behind. Poor Halechi was pursued not only by mosquitoes but also by Yao Zebusong—trapped in a hopeless situation.
As the two chased each other, any creature on the ground suffered greatly. Gradually, a swarm of fleeing beasts and insects formed, with all kinds of creatures desperately trying to escape. Hundreds of thousands of black-spotted mosquitoes—something no creature dared confront, not even the desert’s dominant creature, the Shaso Dragon. Even those hundreds of meters long Shaso Dragons were fleeing in panic.
Yao Zebusong shouted, “Stop fucking right there!”
Halechi retorted angrily, “I’ll stop only if I’m sick! Damn you, Yao Zebusong, will you ever stop?” He ignored everything and just kept cursing.
Yao Zebusong snapped, “Fine, you still dare to curse! I’ll kill you!”
While cursing, Halechi pushed the altar with all his might, moving at speeds comparable to lightning and disappearing in an instant. Unfortunately, the black-spotted mosquitoes were fast too, and Yao Zebusong was even faster, chasing after him. Halechi was desperate; he roared incessantly, lamenting in his heart, “Who the hell have I offended… Not only am I being bitten by mosquitoes, but there’s also this even more terrifying Yao Zebusong… Damn it!”
Yao Zebusong was also enraged. At first it was just a slip of the tongue, but now Halechi dared to openly insult his senior, so he really decided to go all out.
The situation became increasingly chaotic. The swarm of black-spotted mosquitoes grew larger again, forcing Halechi to change his direction of escape. He had no choice—another group of mosquitoes appeared right ahead, just as numerous as those behind him, wiping out every creature on the ground, including more than a dozen Shaso Dragons, none of which escaped.
Even Yao Zebusong began to feel uneasy. There were too many mosquitoes—almost a million. He knew that despite his strength, it was impossible to eliminate such a large number of them. If they fought head-on, both sides would likely suffer heavy losses.

At this point, Yao Zebusong also felt a bit regretful. He shouldn’t have bullied Halechi like that; otherwise, if the two had joined forces, things would have been much better. But it was impossible for him to be the first to speak and ease the tension—how could he easily give up the face of a senior expert?

Although he remained silent, Yao Zebusong stopped attacking Halechi as well. He knew very well what was urgent and what wasn’t. Without mentioning anything else, if he angered Halechi and forced him to fight desperately, that would be a huge problem. It wasn’t that he was afraid of losing to Halechi, but rather that fighting him would inevitably mean getting surrounded by the swarm of Black Spotted Mosquitoes—that was the real danger.

……

Guo Shier and the Old Hero were excitedly collecting Earth Fiends beneath a huge sand dune. There was enough Earth Fiend here to form three Earth Fiend Beads. He said with a smile, “I didn’t expect the Earth Fiends here to be scattered. There are almost Earth Fiends gathered beneath every large sand dune. Hehe, luckily we found them early. If we hadn’t discovered them until we left, it would have been frustrating.”

The Old Hero said, “Yes, it’s a strange place. The Earth Fiends are scattered everywhere, so we can only collect them little by little. Well, it’s still much better than not finding any at all.”

Guo Shier said, “It’s said there are many Earth Fiends, but I’ve never had the luck to find large clusters of them. Hehe, this time we’re lucky. Even if we can’t collect many, we’ve at least found some.”

The Old Hero curled his lips and said, “You’ve extorted quite a few Earth Fiend Beads.”

Guo Shier giggled and said, “It’s barely enough. It’s not as scarce as Water Fiend Beads and Wood Fiend Beads. Thankfully, this time we found enough Wood Fiends. Hehe, it seems there must be plenty of Water Fiends on the upper continent. We can go look for them there later.” As they chatted, they collected the remaining Earth Fiends. Since they weren’t enough to form beads, they were put directly into the Soul Calming Cauldron.

The Old Hero said, “The little bit of Earth Fiend left is enough for ants to build nests.”

Guo Shier nodded and said, “These Earth Fiends can cause ants to mutate… Hehe, next time, if we add some Gold Fiends or something, maybe we’ll get quite a few mutated ants.”

The Old Hero asked, “Do you plan to control the mutated ants?”

Guo Shier said, “Hmm, it’s actually not difficult. As long as we have sufficient materials and enough food, the ants will mutate or transform quickly. Anyway, since they’re in the Soul Calming Cauldron, I can experiment with them at will. If it doesn’t work, I can just feed them to the Spirit Beasts—no waste.”

The Old Hero laughed and said, “Poor ants.”

Guo Shier smiled as he took off and said, “I just saw another large sand dune not far away. Hehe, I think we might be able to find some Earth Fiends there.”
Elder Shuai replied, “Hmm, I saw that sand dune too. It’s twice as big as this one.”
The two flew toward the giant sand dune, laughing, which was a thousand meters high and shaped like a semicircle. Below its opening floated a golden-yellow mist of Earth Fiends. Guo Shier exclaimed happily, “Sure enough! Haha!” This mist contained far more Earth Fiends than the previous sand dune, and Guo Shier estimated that at least six to seven Earth Fiend Beads could be formed from it.
Collecting them bit by bit, Guo Shier didn’t even know where he had ended up. He simply chose directions based on the presence of particularly tall sand dunes—any large sand dune was a place worth going to. A few days later, he was delighted to find that he had already gathered hundreds of Earth Fiend Beads, far more than those he had obtained through extortion.
That day, Guo Shier sat on the altar and said, “Elder Shuai, if we keep searching slowly like this, we can gather plenty of Earth Fiend Beads—enough for our needs. I didn’t expect there to be so many Earth Fiends here…”
Elder Shuai sighed and said, “It’s just that they’re too scattered. We don’t have much time to collect them. I guess we’ll have to wait until we’ve explored the ninth continent before we can come back and collect what we need slowly.”
Just as Guo Shier was about to speak, he suddenly heard a faint buzzing sound. He asked, “What’s making that noise? Elder Shuai, do you hear it?”
Elder Shuai didn’t have ears at all. He casually cast a spell and was startled. “Strange… so many… so many tiny souls. I don’t know what kind of mutated rune worms they are, but their numbers are enormous…” With his soul senses, which were far more sensitive than ears, he could detect them.
Guo Shier slammed the altar forcefully and immediately took Elder Shuai high into the air to look into the distance.
The first things they saw were two streams of rune light, followed by what appeared to be mutated rune worms like dark clouds—only they were too small to see clearly. Guo Shier exclaimed in surprise, “There are professionals here?” He hadn’t expected to encounter acquaintances. It wasn’t surprising, though—by now, he hadn’t even realized he had strayed from his original path, so it was normal to meet someone familiar.

Guo Shier has the Soul-Stabilizing Cauldron, so he’s not afraid of large numbers of mutated Symbol Worms. Among their group, aside from Li Ran and Qi Wu Zhen who aren’t afraid of the worm swarms, only Guo Shier is somewhat indifferent. The others can’t deal with large numbers of mutated Symbol Worms; if they get surrounded, it will be troublesome. They won’t die, but it will be hard to get free.
The handsome old man said, “Let’s go take a look and see what it is…” Before he could finish speaking, Guo Shier activated the altar and flew toward the swarm.
In just a few dozen seconds, Guo Shier saw clearly and couldn’t help but shout, “Halechi…” He immediately spotted Halechi on the altar, clearly seeing his miserable state. Behind him was Yao Zebusong. How did these two end up together? And why did they attract such a large group of mutated Symbol Worms?