For the male mantis, the final moments of his life were a paralyzing paradox of instinct and biological destiny.
Survival, the most primal urge of any sentient creature, screamed at him to fight, to flee, to deflect the scything blades of his mate. Yet, buried deep within the double helix of his genetic code was a command even stronger than self-preservation. It was a chemical compulsion that forced him to lower his guard, to suppress the urge to strike back, and to submit to the gruesome necessity of his species.
He hesitated, trembling in the space between fear and duty. The female mantis, driven by a voracious, pregnancy-induced hunger, harbored no such conflict.
It took less than ten breaths.
The violence was efficient, almost mechanical. She tore through him, consuming his essence to fuel the life growing within her. As the thick, potent energy of the male flowed into her, a transformation began. A deep, blood-red luminescence erupted from her chitinous shell. Her abdomen, already swollen, turned the color of coagulated crimson, pulsing with a terrifying vitality.
Under the shroud of this bloody light, her body began to heave, expanding and contracting in a rhythmic, grotesque dance. With every contraction, she seemed to grow, her form stretching to accommodate the legion within.
Watching from just outside the perimeter, Bai Susu frowned slightly. With a graceful flick of her jade-like finger, she expanded the Spirit Circle, widening the magical barrier to give the creature space for her labor without disturbing the delicate process.
Thirty minutes of agonizing metamorphosis passed before the female mantis settled. She had returned to her formidable size—over a meter in length—but it was her abdomen that drew the eye. It was distended to the breaking point, perfectly round and taut. Something was desperate to get out.
The rupture happened moments later.
With a wet, tearing sound, a fissure opened along her belly. It wasn't a trickle of life; it was a flood. Countless larvae, no larger than grains of rice, spilled out in a living, shifting tide. They were a translucent reddish hue, and from the second they hit the air, they were manic with energy, skittering across the floor of the Spirit Circle until the ground was entirely carpeted in writhing red life.
The mother let out one final, high-pitched keening sound—a mournful note that hung in the air—and then collapsed. The spark of life left her instantly.
"What a pity," Bai Susu sighed, her voice tinged with genuine regret. "The energy she replenished earlier simply wasn't enough. Even with the high-grade medicinal pills I fed her, and even after consuming her mate, her reserves were insufficient. She was drained dry."
She looked at the husk of the creature. "She was consumed by the very life she created. To birth them, she had to die."
Luo Zhen, standing beside her, nodded pragmatically. "It's likely a result of her confinement. She was trapped in that stone cave for an eternity with nothing to eat. The fact that she didn't starve to death decades ago is a miracle in itself."
"I suppose you're right," Bai Susu murmured. "Still, pity the mother."
Luo Zhen wrapped an arm around her shoulders, offering a comforting squeeze and murmuring soothing words. Internally, however, his thoughts were far less charitable. Good riddance, he thought coldly. The female mantis had been a mortal enemy, a threat that had nearly ended him. Her death was not a tragedy; it was a loose end tying itself up.
Bai Susu, ever the cultivator, didn't let sentiment cloud her judgment for long. She composed herself and pointed to the seething mass of red larvae contained within the barrier.
"The mother is gone, but the legacy she left is formidable," she said. "There are nearly a hundred thousand larvae in there. But the real process is just beginning. Soon, they will start killing each other."
Luo Zhen raised an eyebrow. "Cannibalism? Immediately?"
"It is the law of their existence," Bai Susu explained, her eyes fixed on the swarm. "There are too many mouths and zero resources. They are born with the knowledge that to survive, they must consume. They will slaughter and devour one another until only the strongest remain. Only those few are worthy of cultivation resources."
She turned to him, her expression serious. "You have a short window. You must plant an Essence Blood Brand and a Mental Restriction inside them now, before the culling begins in earnest. The more they eat, the stronger they get, and the harder they will be to control. If you bind them now, that control will compound as they merge."
Luo Zhen didn't hesitate.
He drew a blade and sliced a deep gash across his forearm. He didn't just let it bleed; he pushed his Demon Energy through his veins, forcing the thick, scorching essence blood to spray out in a torrent. The crimson rain fell upon the Spirit Circle, drenching the larvae.
It looked chaotic, but Luo Zhen was in perfect control. As the blood touched the insects, he willed it to seep into their tiny carapaces, forging a mystical link. The Essence Blood Brand took hold.
Immediately following the blood came the mind. Luo Zhen closed his eyes and unleashed his Spirit Sense—his consciousness expanding like an invisible net.
Placing a mental restriction was a fundamental technique he had mastered long ago, but the sheer scale of this task was daunting. He wasn't binding one beast; he was binding a hundred thousand individual minds simultaneously, and he was racing against the clock.
He went to full power, his mind diving into the swarm, stamping his will onto every tiny, frantic consciousness. Beside him, Bai Susu wove complex hand seals, casting a suppression spell that slowed the larvae's movements, buying him precious seconds.
It took thirty minutes of intense mental exertion. Sweat beaded on Luo Zhen's forehead, but he finished just as the last seal clicked into place.
"Done," he breathed.
Bai Susu dropped her hands, releasing the suppression spell. "Then let the selection begin."
As soon as the magical weight lifted, the Spirit Circle turned into a gladiatorial pit of microscopic horrors. The larvae tore into each other with savage efficiency. It was a frenzy of snapping mandibles and shattered chitin.
Half an hour later, the population had halved to fifty thousand. The survivors were noticeably larger, their movements sharper and more aggressive.
An hour later, twenty thousand remained.
Another hour, and the count dropped to ten thousand. The fighting was so ferocious that even the corpse of the mother was stripped clean and consumed, her biomass recycled into her devouring offspring.
The hours bled away as the massacre continued. It was a slow, grinding process of natural selection accelerated to a terrifying speed.
By late afternoon, the carpet of red was gone. The dust settled, revealing the victors.
From one hundred thousand, only thirty remained.
The slaughter had stopped because a stalemate had been reached. These thirty were the apex, the ones who had eaten thousands of their kin. They could no longer be called larvae; they were small mantises, each the size of a cherry. Their bodies were armored and spiked, their faces twisted into masks of ferocity, radiating a palpable, savage aura.
Yet, the moment they sensed Luo Zhen's presence, that ferocity melted away. They chittered excitedly, sensing the blood connection, and displayed an almost puppy-like affection.
Bai Susu dissolved the Spirit Circle.
Free from confinement, the thirty survivors took flight in a buzzing cloud. They didn't scatter; they swarmed Luo Zhen. They landed on his shoulders, perched on his head, and clung to the fabric of his robes over his chest. Through his Spirit Sense, he felt waves of dependence and loyalty washing over him.
Luo Zhen grinned. He was immensely satisfied. A survival rate of thirty out of a hundred thousand implied a level of quality that was terrifying. This was a super-gu ritual, a refining of life into weapons.
"Here," Bai Susu said, handing him a specialized pouch and a collection of pills. "This is a Spirit Beast Bag. And these are Spirit-Feeding Pills. They speed up growth and have a chance to awaken more of the Tai Xuan Demon Mantis bloodline."
"My thanks," Luo Zhen said. He stashed the pills and opened the bag. With a single mental command, the swarm lifted from his body and dove into the spatial pocket of the bag.
"Excellent," Luo Zhen murmured to himself, patting the pouch at his hip. "We are already mentally synced."
They were too weak to be useful in combat right now, but the potential was limitless. He would nurture them slowly.
He turned to speak to Bai Susu, but the words died in his throat.
She was trembling. The air around her was warping, her body flashing with erratic bursts of spiritual light. Her aura was oscillating wildly, like a dam about to burst.
"Susu?" Luo Zhen's voice dropped an octave. "What's happening?"
"The breakthrough," she gritted out, her voice strained. "The opportunity has arrived. The Thunder Tribulation is coming. Now."
She didn't wait. Channeling her energy, she activated the spatial magic of their sanctuary. With a flash of displacement, they were ejected from the stone space and materialized back in the real world—a desolate stretch of coastline where the red desert sands met the churning ocean.
The sky was already responding to her presence.
Whatever stealth they had possessed was gone. Above them, the heavens were bruising purple and black. Massive, rolling storm clouds gathered with supernatural speed, churning like a cauldron. Silver serpents of lightning danced through the darkness, charging the air with the smell of ozone and imminent violence.
"Get back," Bai Susu ordered, her eyes fixed on the sky. "Far back. If you stay close, the heavens will think you are helping and increase the power of the strike."
"I don't care about the lightning," Luo Zhen argued, scanning the horizon. "We are dangerously close to the deep-sea territories. The Silver Flood Dragon Clan and Daoist Qingyang are out there. A disturbance this size acts like a beacon."
"They are too busy tearing each other apart to notice me," she said, confident despite the pain. "Just guard the perimeter. Don't let anyone interfere."
CRACK.
The sky didn't wait for the conversation to finish. A blinding flash turned the world white.
A bolt of blue lightning, thick as a tree trunk, hammered down from the zenith.
"Move!" Bai Susu shouted. A blast of wind from her palm sent Luo Zhen tumbling several hundred meters away just as the hammer fell.
BOOM.
The impact shook the earth. From his vantage point, Luo Zhen watched the column of blue fire swallow Bai Susu whole.
"Susu!" he roared, instinctively surging forward.
"Wait."
The voice of the System—cool, detached, and mechanical—echoed in his mind. "I advise against intervention, Host."
Luo Zhen skidded to a halt, his eyes narrowing. Through the dissipating electrical smoke, he saw a sphere of blinding crystalline light. Inside it, Bai Susu stood with her hair whipping in the wind, holding the sky at bay.
"Why?" Luo Zhen demanded internally. "I have the Green Jade Spirit Body. I can share the burden."
"Not this time," the System analyzed. "Your Spirit Body has not been upgraded recently. It maxes out at resisting a Second Heaven Demon Emperor tribulation. The last time you tried this in the ant nest, you were nearly flayed alive. Bai Susu is facing the Third Heaven tribulation. If you step in, you will be vaporized."
"So I just watch? Can she handle this?"
"Analysis suggests: Yes," the System replied. "Her probability of success is high. In fact, she is over-prepared. Look."
Luo Zhen focused. The crystalline light surrounding Bai Susu was a perfect sphere, a ten-foot absolute territory that the lightning couldn't penetrate. She wasn't just enduring it; she was rising to meet it, floating upward into the teeth of the storm.
Five minutes later, the first wave ended. Bai Susu's aura exploded outward, doubling in intensity. She had broken through. Demon Emperor, Third Heaven.
"She did it," Luo Zhen exhaled. But as he prepared to approach, he stopped.
The clouds weren't dispersing. They were compressing.
"Why is the storm reloading?" he asked, dread creeping into his voice.
"She is not stopping," the System observed. "She is utilizing the momentum to charge directly at the Fourth Heaven."
"Are you insane?" Luo Zhen whispered, staring at the woman in the sky.
The heavens roared their disapproval. A second bolt, thicker and brighter than the first, crashed down. Bai Susu didn't flinch. Encased in her crystal armor, she flew into the strike.
For ten minutes, the world was nothing but noise and light. When the thunder faded, Bai Susu remained. Her protective sphere had shrunk from ten feet to six, chipped away by the cosmic violence, but she was unharmed.
Her power spiked again. Fourth Heaven achieved.
Yet, the sky grew darker still. The pressure in the air became heavy enough to crush rock.
"She's going for the Fifth," Luo Zhen realized, his jaw tightening. "She's trying to cross three realms in one sitting."
"She has the resources," the System noted. "Her protective light is holding. As long as there are no external interruptions, she will succeed."
External interruptions.
Luo Zhen's hand went to the hilt of the Green Blaze Saber. His eyes turned cold, scanning the churning ocean and the desolate dunes. "I'd like to see who has the death wish to disturb her now."
A minute later, the sky opened up. A bolt of lightning, the width of a water tank, descended. It was a pillar of pure destruction.
Bai Susu vanished into the light.
This time, the onslaught didn't stop. It was a continuous bombardment, a ten-minute scream of energy. Luo Zhen lost visual contact, relying entirely on his Spirit Sense to track the flickering candle of her life force within the inferno. It was wavering, but holding.
Then, he felt it.
Not the storm, but something else. Three distinct pings on his sensory radar. Malevolent, stealthy, and approaching fast from the ocean.
"Who goes there?" Luo Zhen growled.
He didn't wait for an answer. He drew his blade and slashed at the ocean. A massive arc of green saber energy tore through the air, carving a trench fifty meters long into the water, exposing the seabed.
BOOM.
The water split, revealing three figures huddled in the trench, using the waves to mask their approach toward the meditating Bai Susu.
Exposed, the three men leaped onto the wet sand. They were rugged, armored in natural plates, and radiating the aura of the mid-stage Demon King realm.
The leader dusted off his shoulder, looking at Luo Zhen with a sneer. "Hehe. Impressive saber work, brother. A little aggressive, don't you think?"
Luo Zhen's eyes flashed with the blue light of his scanning ability.
Species: Giant Crab.
Rank: Demon King, Mid-Stage.
Luo Zhen adjusted his grip on the saber. "One slash revealed you," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "The next one ends you."