From the details, Lin Moyu inferred that the Gold Supreme had hidden something—what exactly, he did not know. The Insect Stele was not as simple as imagined; how many things under Heaven-and-Earth can gestate Quasi-Supreme-tier battle power? By his reckoning, the Gold Supreme should already be on the verge of regaining his freedom; what follows in the Ancient Wilds will likely be quite interesting.
Now that he had become the Heaven-and-Earth Public Enemy, he couldn't tell what would happen if he returned to Chaos—yet he had to return; some matters were about due. In the Technique Domain, Undying Spirit Soldiers kept appearing, their numbers rising at a staggering pace. How high the ultimate cap would be, Lin Moyu did not know—surely not small.
He withdrew the formation and took the Heaven-Scourge Scepter in hand. "I should be able to wield a portion of your power now, right?"
"Alright," said the Primal Chaos Gem. "You can—but only a little. To wield all my power, Master would likely have to become a Transcendent."
"A little is still fine." Lin Moyu poured soul power into the Heaven-Scourge Scepter and began a second refinement. Previously he had only left his soul imprint on it—far from refinement. This time was the first true preliminary refinement; once complete, he could draw on a sliver of the scepter's power. In truth, that wasn't what he valued; he cared about certain abilities of the scepter. The five gems of the Heaven-Scourge Scepter each possessed different powers. Before, he hadn't even touched the surface—this time he might at least scratch it.
The refinement was slow; he felt his soul power seeping in bit by bit. At this rate, the preliminary refinement wouldn't finish in less than a hundred years.
The space shattered by the great battle was gradually healing. One vortex after another leading from Chaos to the Ancient Wilds slowly formed under the influence of the Heaven-and-Earth Rules. Within a thousand-li radius centered on Lin Moyu, not a single vortex formed; the rules screened him out and went around him—space itself was affected.
Lin Moyu chuckled, stepped once, and—like teleportation—crossed billions of li to stand before a vortex. Soul power surged forth, forcefully pouring into it. With his thought, it turned into a great hand and forced the vortex to reverse. Under the rules, the vortex was originally a passage from Chaos to the Ancient Wilds; he now forced it to become a passage from the Ancient Wilds to Chaos. This wholly violated the Heaven-and-Earth Rules; even a Supreme doing so would be warned, and the rules might shatter the vortex outright—success far from assured. But Lin Moyu was different: abandoned and screened out by the rules, which therefore ignored him. No rules descended here, allowing him to do this. The vortex reversed faster and faster and formed a channel.
With a smile at the corner of his mouth, he said, "This is why I say being the Heaven-and-Earth Public Enemy isn't all bad—at least others can't do this."
"Master, once you return to Chaos, enemies may be everywhere," said the Primal Chaos Gem.
"The Great Calamity has fully erupted," Lin Moyu said. "Those who come seeking death are precisely those fated to die in it. You've seen enough calamities to know how many die each time. In any Heaven-and-Earth, apart from the Heaven-and-Earth Life-Death Tribulation, any cycle of calamity means at best most living beings perish; at worst, an era is destroyed and a new era descends. A calamity targets every being within Heaven-and-Earth; none are spared."
Lin Moyu would not take the initiative to kill; he was not bloodthirsty. But for those who came to seek death, he would show no mercy.
"And the last formation—does Master plan to refine it?" asked the Primal Chaos Gem.
"Slowly," Lin Moyu smiled. "I'm not in a hurry—he should be. In the Calamity Supreme's plan, the twelve formations must have uses beyond dealing with the Dao—and those uses don't sound good to me. There's likely an internal reason the Calamity Supreme himself doesn't want to act. If so, why should I rush? No hurry—let him wait. For now, the initiative is in my hands; I'll refine when I choose."
As the vortex steadily stabilised, Lin Moyu stepped in, followed the spatial channel, and travelled from the Ancient Wilds into Chaos. The road was not short—even with a space channel, several days were needed; only, time here grew chaotic, and those days felt like an instant.
Thunder rumbled in the passage; lightning filled his sight; infinite bolts from outside slammed in. The space channel shattered with a roar, and Lin Moyu fell into the void.
"The Heaven-and-Earth Rules broke the channel," the Primal Chaos Gem answered directly. The rules regarded Lin Moyu as a public enemy—screening him from sensing them and sealing his path upward—but that didn't mean they would ignore him. On the contrary, at opportune moments they would cause him trouble. For example, when he was meddling with the vortex, they did nothing; halfway through the channel, they intervened—becoming tribulation lightning to smash it.
Lin Moyu looked around. He had entered a peculiar void—empty of all things, as if even time did not exist. Unable to sense the rules, he could not judge more precisely.
The Primal Chaos Gem's gaze swept about. "This is a spacetime interlayer. I don't know its exact position. Master can break the interlayer and re-enter the Ancient Wilds."
Lin Moyu grunted assent and was about to act when his soul caught a strange sound.
A black mass lunged in at astonishing speed. Lin Moyu stepped once, leaping ten thousand li to avoid it; as it brushed past, a buzzing rose—the wingbeat of countless insects. He had barely dodged before his soul heard another odd sound; the black mass had already wheeled and charged again.
The Undead Eye opened. Lin Moyu saw soul-flames white as snow—brimming with vitality—so numerous they shocked the eye; that black mass contained at least a million. At the same time, he saw their forms: each an insect a shade smaller than a fist, swarming into a black cluster.
Lin Moyu punched; vast fist-force swept out. The swarm blew apart; many soul-flames guttered out, but most of the insects were unaffected, passing through the force and lunging on. He fell back and struck several more punches; this time the force passed through the swarm without harm. Screened from the rules, he couldn't sense how they ignored his blows, though he had a faint guess.
"They're manipulating spacetime," said the Primal Chaos Gem.
Manipulating spacetime—Lin Moyu immediately realised he had encountered Wildshade Insects: a breed that could kill top-tier Perfect experts, and in sufficient numbers could make even Supremes retreat. The rules had broken the passage here precisely to sic the Wildshade Insects on him. As the Heaven-and-Earth Public Enemy, he was no longer merely a calamity-bearer—even Heaven-and-Earth wanted him dead.
"Wildshade Insects!" Chaos-Seed and Xiaopeng exclaimed together. It wasn't strange that Chaos-Seed recognised them—but Xiaopeng did too. Though Xiaopeng had awakened the Golden-Wing Roc bloodline and inherited some of its secret arts, he hadn't inherited much of the Roc's memory. For him to recognise the Wildshade Insects at a glance meant the Golden-Wing Roc had once clashed with them, and the encounter had etched such a deep impression it fused into the bloodline—never to be forgotten.
Wildshade Insects are a terrifying lifeform birthed by Heaven-and-Earth. Once their scale reaches a certain size, even a Supreme can only withdraw; luckily they lack true intelligence, or they would surely claim a place within Heaven-and-Earth. Ordinary attacks are useless against them; they shuttle among different spacetime layers—seeming to be here while not here. At the instant power flows through, they slip into another layer to avoid all strikes; unless Lin Moyu's blow can pierce every layer at once, he cannot harm them.
Ignoring attacks and wielding the power of spacetime, their offense is extremely strong—seemingly perfect. But nothing in Heaven-and-Earth is perfect; whether anything outside it is, Lin Moyu did not know, but within it, certainly not. Everything has two sides; the Wildshade Insects' weakness lies in the soul. From the first time Lin Moyu learned of them, he had considered how to deal with them: many methods, the simplest being the World-Scorching Fire. Their souls are weak, and that fire restrains them well. Their momentary shuttling makes instant soul-strikes useless—but sustained flames are different.
As masses of Wildshade Insects rushed in, Lin Moyu neither dodged nor retreated, letting them draw near. At the instant they struck, the World-Scorching Fire burst from his body, turning billions of li of void into a sea of flame. There were no screams; uncountable Wildshade Insects vanished in a blink, turned to ash. Lin Moyu smiled slightly. The result matched his expectations: when Wildshade Insects attack, they must enter the same spacetime as their target. That instant is the best chance to kill them—brief, but enough. Their souls are weak; the moment they touch the World-Scorching Fire, they burn to ash without exception.
One blaze killed nearly half. The survivors fled in madness, breaking apart like mist and scattering to the four directions. They threaded the sea of fire—seeming to be here while actually in another spacetime—so that even the World-Scorching Fire could not burn them.
"How long can you stay in another spacetime?" Lin Moyu said with a smile. With a thought, he vastly expanded the fire's range—ten billion li, a hundred billion, a trillion; everywhere the eye could see was sea of flame. Those that had escaped the first burning flitted through the fire at first unharmed, but soon returned to real space; in the instant they did, they were burned to ash.
As expected. Watching Wildshade Insects turn to dust, Lin Moyu confirmed his judgment: they can indeed traverse layer upon layer of spacetime, but their shuttling has limits. If spacetime has a thousand layers, after one round of shuttling they must still return to real space—their starting point. Spacetime is a loop; circle after circle, you must pass the starting point again and again—and that point was already engulfed by the World-Scorching Fire. Returning meant death. Unless they could, within a single shuttling cycle, traverse more than a trillion li, they could not escape. Unfortunately, not one could; in a blink, all were ash.
The flames faded; countless motes of black dust drifted in the void—the corpses of Wildshade Insects—shimmering with a strange sheen under the dim glow.
Lin Moyu's gaze tightened. This dust resembled the fines of a Time Essence Stone.
"They share the same origin as a Time Essence Stone," said the Primal Chaos Gem.
With a wave, Lin Moyu gathered all the dust into his palm, forming a fist-sized lump. He could not sense the rules, but he could see the dust held many impurities.
"There are many impurities in these corpses," said the Primal Chaos Gem. "With more quantity and some purification, you could refine a complete Time Essence Stone. But Master is currently excluded by the Heaven-and-Earth Rules; even with such a stone, it's of little use. A Time Essence Stone ultimately relies on rules within Heaven-and-Earth to function. Right now you can't use any rules; most things lose their effect."
Lin Moyu looked at the remains of the Wildshade Insects. "A Time Essence Stone is indeed useless to me—but perhaps I can use these bodies another way."
The Primal Chaos Gem immediately grasped his meaning. "Master wants to turn them into Undying Spirits."
"Exactly," Lin Moyu said. "Isn't it said that when Wildshade Insects are numerous, even a Supreme must retreat? If they were more numerous still and fused into a Wildshade King, wouldn't that give those fellows a headache? And if that Wildshade King served under me?"
The Primal Chaos Gem laughed. "A Wildshade King would likely reach the peak of the Supreme realm. Not enough to deal with those few—but not easy for them to kill either. It would indeed be a headache."
"That's enough," Lin Moyu said. "Then I'll make a Wildshade King."
With a thought, blazing flames rose in his palm—this time not the World-Scorching Fire, but the Undying Fire condensed by the Undying Spirit Soldiers technique. The Undying Fire enveloped the corpses; flames roared skyward; one strange, powerful aura after another emerged. Souls that had been burned to ash rapidly reassembled under some peculiar power; bodies likewise swiftly rebirthed. The technique's effect was beyond imagination: in just three minutes, the wiped-out swarm was fully revived. They hovered quietly before Lin Moyu, making not a sound; countless eyes gazed at him—a feeling like pilgrimage.
Having revived them, Lin Moyu immediately knew this swarm's number: exactly one million—they organise by the million. Wildshade Insects lack intelligence and cannot communicate, but that was fine; Lin Moyu directly read their souls to obtain the information he wanted. Wildshade Insects form swarms of one million; one hundred swarms—one hundred million—can fuse into a single Wildshade King. But the Wildshade King is not the strongest: if there are a hundred Wildshade Kings, they can fuse into a Wildshade Broodmother. The Wildshade Broodmother is the strongest of their kind—able to confront a Supreme head-on, even kill a Supreme. Such power might still be a shade below the likes of the Dao, but enough to fight the Dao outright.
Lin Moyu's plan changed. In that case—he would make a Wildshade Broodmother.