"You two are hungry, right? Want something to eat?"
Wu Ling did not take their small hostility to heart. They were children. Their tempers came quickly and went quickly. They were also the easiest to coax.
He took carefully cooked food from his storage soul tool. The aroma seemed to hook their appetites. The two large insects immediately stopped whining. They stared at Wu Ling pitifully with eager eyes, making soft little cries that sounded almost like begging.
Wu Ling snapped his fingers. The Dragon Frame set the two beetles down, and Wu Ling placed a serving of food in front of each of them.
The two large insects wriggled forward slowly. With perfect tacit understanding, they opened their mouths at the same time and bit into the food together.
Squeak, squeak.
Not long afterward, each large insect cried once. Wu Ling felt something touch both of his legs. When he looked down, the scene was rather funny. The two insects that had been angrily puffing themselves up a moment ago were now rubbing against his left and right legs, their pale golden eyes full of ingratiating delight.
Wu Ling bent down carefully and touched the two large insects. Their bodies were as soft as cotton, warm and smooth to the touch. It felt extremely pleasant.
They seemed to enjoy being touched as well. Their small eyes even closed in pleasure. After that, Wu Ling picked them up, one in each hand.
They were not light. Each weighed more than one hundred kilograms. Of course, that amount of weight was nothing to Wu Ling.
He simply brushed the dust off their bodies, found a clean place, had Crimson Spirit start a fire, and sat down. Then he began the process of building affection with the two little creatures.
These two should be the last two Golden-Armored Forbidden Insects in this world. Ordinary Golden-Armored Forbidden Insects wore golden armor and looked extremely imposing. These two were obviously different. They belonged to a mutated variety, and they were twins as well, which made them even more precious.
Although the two large insects looked big, they were clearly still in their larval stage. Their intelligence was limited, and they could not yet speak human language.
When they encountered a threat, they directly launched an attack. But because of that, they were also easier to coax.
Beside the fire, Wu Ling held the two Golden-Armored Forbidden Insects while feeding them and trying to communicate with them, learning more about them in the process.
Although they were still larvae, they already possessed a certain level of intelligence. Even if they could not speak, they could communicate through spirit. Once they entered the growth stage, they would immediately be able to transform into human form.
Generally speaking, tenth-rank magical beasts in the Qin Emperor universe were somewhat similar to certain high-level hundred-thousand-year Soul Beasts in Soul Land. They did not need to become fully mature before they could transform at will.
That was why tenth-rank magical beasts were called divine beasts in the Qin Emperor world. It was also one of the important differences between a tenth-rank growth-type divine beast and a ninth-rank magical beast.
The two Golden-Armored Forbidden Insects in Wu Ling's arms were enjoying their food with great satisfaction. They let Wu Ling stroke their smooth, soft bodies and occasionally hummed, clearly very comfortable.
After feeding the two little creatures until they were full, Wu Ling began trying to communicate more deeply.
He did not use spiritual power to probe them. Instead, he used Spirit Power to massage one of them carefully.
Calling it a massage was not quite accurate. It was more like using a special technique to guide and loosen the energy inside the body. Whenever Wu Ling had free time, he would ask Rose to massage him this way, and he had learned a few techniques himself.
His fingers gently scratched the belly of one Golden-Armored Forbidden Insect. The plump little creature melted into a heap. It extended two soft limbs that looked like feelers, waved them rapidly a few times, and made pleased humming sounds. Its head and tail swayed, and its pale golden eyes filled with bliss.
When the other Golden-Armored Forbidden Insect saw that, it seemed curious about Wu Ling's technique. It crawled over and voluntarily exposed its belly. Naturally, Wu Ling placed his hands on it as well.
Before long, that one also looked completely comfortable, gently shaking its soft, elastic, chubby body.
"This is... Noxis's memory..."
Wu Ling suddenly sensed movement inside the Dragon Frame. With a thought, he guided it using Spirit Power. A crystal ball appeared. It was the crystal ball containing the final memories and consciousness of the Sacred Giant Dragon Noxis. Perhaps because of some resonance, it released an image.
In the snow and ice of the Far Northern Wilderness, two golden figures appeared among cold rocks. Their bodies trembled, not from cold, but from fear.
They were two giant insects five meters long, each covered in dazzling golden armor. Their round bodies looked almost simple and harmless, but their large golden eyes were filled with panic.
One of the golden insects had an especially large belly. Beyond fear, its eyes also showed pain.
A clear dragon roar rang through the sky. A giant dragon appeared in midair. Its whole body released milky-white radiance. White scales covered it entirely, and rainbow-like elemental light spread around its not-especially-huge body.
Its dragon eyes, filled with excitement and cruelty, locked tightly on the two golden insects below. Massive energy had already begun gathering around its body.
"Remnants of the golden-armored line. Today is the day your race is exterminated."
This was the scene of the Sacred Giant Dragon Noxis destroying the Golden-Armored Forbidden Insect race. The two five-meter Golden-Armored Forbidden Insects were the parents of the two little creatures before Wu Ling.
In that battle, their parents died, but they also inflicted certain injuries on Noxis, forcing him to heal as soon as possible. Because of that, he failed to discover the golden egg that had been secretly left behind.
After long years passed, during a thunderclap, two mutated Golden-Armored Forbidden Insects carrying gold and silver light patterns on their bodies were born from that single egg. They looked very similar, but deep within their pupils, one carried gold while the other carried silver. There was still a difference between them.
Perhaps this memory of Noxis resonated with the Golden-Armored Forbidden Insects. Or perhaps they understood that Wu Ling had avenged their parents.
When Wu Ling reached out again to stroke them, the two Golden-Armored Forbidden Insects opened their mouths at the same time and bit his left and right arms.
Wu Ling had roughly guessed what was happening. He quickly withdrew the protective Spirit Power around his body, allowing them to bite into both arms successfully. His blood flowed into the almost translucent bodies of the two Golden-Armored Forbidden Insects at a visibly rapid speed.
Gold and silver light spread through every part of their bodies at once. With a flash, the light followed Wu Ling's arms and sank into his body.
Two clearly visible streams of gold and silver light climbed along his arms from left and right, entering his brain. Two intense spiritual imprints fused tightly with his spiritual power.
Wu Ling's spiritual imprint split into three. Two weaker imprints entered his left and right arms respectively, forming a strange triangular balance with the main imprint in his brain.
When the gold and silver light faded, everything returned to normal. The wounds on Wu Ling's arms had vanished. In their place, gold and silver patterns appeared on his arms.
This was the Blood Contract, the most domineering of the three ancient contracts of the Qin Emperor universe. Once signed, it was equivalent to becoming an eternal servant who could never rebel. Under normal circumstances, almost no creature would sign it voluntarily.
But Wu Ling's situation with the two Golden-Armored Forbidden Insects was special.
On one hand, they were still young and easy to coax.
The other key factor was that Wu Ling had destroyed the Sacred Giant Dragon Noxis. Noxis had killed their parents, and before they were even born, the imprint of their consciousness had already been filled with intense hatred for him.
After learning that Wu Ling had avenged them, the two little creatures chose to repay him with the Blood Contract out of their deepest gratitude.
"This went surprisingly smoothly. Since I have subdued you two, there is no longer much point in staying in the Far Northern Wilderness."
"I would like to help the Dragon God King's side, but that is still a remnant god-level existence. Going there rashly is not safe. I will wait for a better opportunity in the future... Hm. Nothing else to do, then. It is time to leave."
Beside the warm fire, Wu Ling looked at the clear night sky and gently stroked the two Golden-Armored Forbidden Insects with both hands.
He sat quietly through the night, then chose to leave. He left the Far Northern Wilderness, and he left Longinus Continent.