Chapter 393: Stirring the Overseas Waters – Gold Devourer Beetles

Chapter 393: Stirring the Overseas Waters – Gold Devourer Beetles

The secret chamber where he had raised the strange insects was one of several dozen stone rooms of varying sizes that Han Li had carved out on a single green stone wall.

Fearing that they might escape from these chambers, Han Li had also set up some minor restrictive spells between the various stone rooms to prevent them from breaking through the walls.

In Han Li’s view, no matter how high the ranking of these strange insects was, most of them were still young. Even these ordinary restrictions should be enough to trap them.

But looking at the scene before him now, not only were the restrictions on these chambers completely gone, but every stone door was riddled with holes like a honeycomb, mostly destroyed.

Han Li felt a chill in his heart. With a thought, Qu Hun stepped forward and pushed open the nearest stone door.

It was completely empty. There was nothing inside.

Han Li let out a light breath. Although he had already prepared himself mentally, he was still extremely frustrated.

He swept his gaze across the chamber, then turned his head slightly and fixed his eyes back on the stone door.

Silently, he walked over and half-crouched before the damaged door.

The way the door had been destroyed was very peculiar. It was densely covered with small holes of uniform size.

But what puzzled Han Li was that the insides of these small holes were not very smooth—in fact, they were extremely rough. It really didn't seem like the kind of damage caused by a magical tool.

Han Li frowned and slowly stood up.

He closed his eyes and sent his spiritual sense sweeping across the remaining chambers.

The same emptiness. Even the two chambers housing strange insects ranked within the top hundred of the Strange Insect List were in the same condition. This made Han Li’s heart ache a little!

Suddenly, his expression shifted and he opened his eyes.

After a cold glint flashed in his gaze, he left the room and walked toward another chamber.

It was another empty room, but after entering, Han Li bent down without hesitation and picked something up from the green stone floor.

He placed the object in his palm and brought it close to his eyes to examine it carefully.

It was a piece of insect shell the size of a soybean, shimmering with a brilliant silver light, as if forged from pure silver—extremely beautiful.

Han Li touched the shell with a finger. Its surface was smooth and very hard.

Lowering his head in thought for a moment, he confirmed that this object was definitely not from any of the strange insects he had raised.

With that, Han Li’s expression grew serious. His eyes narrowed to slits.

Using these chambers as the center point, he began searching his cave dwelling inch by inch with his spiritual sense.

He refused to believe that he wouldn't find some kind of clue.

A moment later, Han Li made an unexpected discovery within his medicine garden.

Hanging under a certain thick tree was a glittering silver sphere—this was definitely not an original item from his cave dwelling.

With a call to Qu Hun, Han Li walked out of the secret chamber with a somber expression, heading toward the medicine garden.

The silver sphere was not large, only about the size of a child's head. But the eerie silver light it emitted was simply too eye-catching.

Standing at the entrance to the medicine garden, Han Li gazed at the silver sphere in silence.

He felt that this silver sphere seemed familiar, as if he had heard of it somewhere before, though he couldn't immediately recall where.

But this object was definitely closely related to that silver insect shell!

“Insect shell!”

A flash of inspiration struck Han Li’s mind, and he seemed to remember something.

He quickly reached into his storage pouch. A green jade slip appeared in his hand. It was the one containing the Imperial Spirit Sect cultivator's notes on raising insects.

Sinking his mind into it, Han Li immediately found the relevant content at the twelfth position on the Strange Insect List.

"Gold Devourer Beetles: a gregarious, ferocious insect. Ranked twelfth on the Strange Insect List. They delight in devouring other strange insects. Skilled at consuming the Five Metals and the spiritual qi of heaven and earth. Extremely fierce and ruthless, impervious to water and fire. They prefer to gather into spheres and inhabit the area beneath spirit trees. They can be trapped by objects made of jade or wood. Spider-type strange insects are mutually restrictive with them..."

Han Li read through this introduction several times, his heart filled with both surprise and joy! He couldn't help but look up at the silver sphere again.

Although all his carefully cultivated strange insects were gone, if he could replace them with a strange insect ranked even higher than the "Golden-Back Demon Mantis," then naturally, he would agree to it a hundred thousand times over.

However, according to the jade slip, "Gold Devourer Beetles" would devour almost anything except jade and wood, making them very difficult to capture.

But fortunately, he still had those two "Bloodjade Spiders." Although their ranking was far lower than the Gold Devourer Beetles, they should be able to restrain them.

According to the descriptions later in the jade slip, these silver Gold Devourer Beetles were likely newly hatched larvae. Simply in terms of demon beast rank, the white spiders, which had already reached the first-grade upper level, were far superior to these beetles.

But before that, he still needed to test whether these insects were really as formidable as the jade slip claimed.

With this thought, Qu Hun, who was standing behind Han Li, immediately stepped forward and stood before him.

Blood light radiated from Qu Hun's body. He raised a single hand and spread his five fingers. Immediately, a large patch of deep red blood light flew forth, instantly enveloping the silver sphere in an impenetrable seal.

But the silver sphere remained unmoving, as if it were a dead object.

Seeing this, Han Li rubbed his nose, somewhat disappointed.

That Imperial Spirit Sect cultivator had boasted about these insects so impressively—why were they reacting so sluggishly?

After hesitating for a moment, Han Li had Qu Hun begin other probing actions.

Qu Hun fixed his gaze on the silver sphere. A fierce glint flashed in his eyes. He raised his hand, and a green spell seal struck the blood light surrounding the sphere.

Immediately, the blood light gradually began to shift from red to purple. In the blink of an eye, it erupted into blazing flames, transforming into a fearsome demonic fire.

The silver sphere, scorched by the eerie demonic fire, finally began to change.

As if made of sand, it instantly scattered into countless specks of silver light, emitting a buzzing sound.

Han Li quickly focused his gaze. He saw that these specks of silver light were all flying insects the size of soybeans. Apart from having a pair of visible fangs, their appearance was exactly the same as ordinary beetles. He really couldn't see anything special about them.

Han Li was puzzled!

Could it be that these weren't Gold Devourer Beetles at all, and he had misidentified them?

But after watching a while longer, Han Li was shocked.

Because within Qu Hun's demonic fire, these beetles showed no signs of being burned to ashes. Instead, they were all extremely lively and active.

And what was even more unbelievable was that they were devouring the demonic fire at an extremely fast rate, consuming nearly half of the purple flame in the blink of an eye.

Witnessing this scene, Han Li snapped back to his senses and was overjoyed!

He immediately loosened the opening of a leather pouch at his waist. Two streaks of white light flew out from the pouch and landed steadily on the ground. They were the two "Bloodjade Spiders," each the size of a human head.

Without any hesitation, Han Li issued the command to capture them alive.

Instantly, at the very moment the last bit of demonic fire was devoured by the Gold Devourer Beetles, two streams of white liquid shot out from the mouths of the white spiders. In midair, they transformed into two spider webs over a zhang wide, enveloping all the silver beetles within them.

These two webs were vastly different from ordinary spider webs. The mesh was extremely fine, and even if the silver beetles were trapped by it, they could not slip through the gaps.

The Gold Devourer Beetles seemed to sense the danger. They immediately formed themselves into the shape of a silver arrow and shot forward like a true crossbow bolt, charging straight at the web.

With two dull thuds, the two white webs firmly wrapped around the silver arrow, forming a netted ball. The Gold Devourer Beetles inside went berserk, emitting piercing shrieks as they began to bite at the spider silk strands, showing signs of truly breaking through.

But the two white spiders didn't give them the chance. After a few leaps, they reached the netted ball and began spraying mouthful after mouthful of white liquid from their mouths. In a short time, they had wrapped the ball into a massive, soft mass.

However, Han Li also knew that this spider web probably wouldn't be able to trap these Gold Devourer Beetles for long. He quickly took out a jade box, stuffed the soft web mass into it with a few swift motions, immediately closed the lid, and stored it in his storage pouch.

Strictly speaking, one should use a specialized spirit beast pouch to contain demon beasts. Otherwise, ordinary spirit beasts would suffocate in a storage pouch due to the lack of air.

But the strange insects on the Strange Insect List were completely different. Their vitality was incredibly tenacious. They could do without breathing and remain perfectly fine inside a storage pouch. Otherwise, that Imperial Spirit Sect cultivator back then wouldn't have been able to carry so many larvae around with him in bottles and jars.

Of course, if one truly wanted to drive a beast into battle, a dedicated spirit beast pouch was the most practical. Not only was it convenient for summoning the beast, but it was also far easier for training.

Most importantly, a spirit beast pouch could shrink larger demon beasts down in size for storage. A storage pouch could not shrink living creatures for storage. So even for insect-type demon beasts, if they were too large, they could only be stored in a specialized spirit beast pouch.

Han Li stored the jade box away. Afraid that he might have missed something else, he used his spiritual sense to sweep the entire cave dwelling and its surroundings one more time.

In the end, apart from discovering a patch of densely packed small holes on the floor of the storage room, he found nothing else.

These small holes were likely traces left by the Gold Devourer Beetles burrowing up from underground into his cave dwelling!

With this in mind, Han Li didn't dare to stay in the cave dwelling any longer. He immediately left the true and false cave dwellings, retrieved the setup artifacts for the three sets of formations, and shot up into the sky.