Translator: AnubisTL
Truth be told, with Chen Jiang's current strength, he could handle most threats. After all, he had single-handedly brought down a small city of the mechanical race. In most situations, he could simply unleash a barrage from his turrets to resolve the issue.
Yet his ingrained caution made it difficult for him to feel complacent. Though he couldn't pinpoint the exact cause of his unease, the lingering sense of foreboding compelled him to retreat immediately.
Scar Dog, sitting in the passenger seat, frowned slightly as he watched the scenery blur past. He scanned for any signs of unusual activity, admitting to himself that the commotion strongly resembled an impending mutated beast attack.
Yet they saw no mutated beasts.
Less than five minutes after they left their original location...
BOOM!!!
A deafening explosion erupted behind them!
Chen Jiang and Scar Dog simultaneously glanced into the rearview mirror, their eyes widening at the sight behind them.
The wasteland they had just left had collapsed like an ice cream cake with its center scooped out, leaving a gaping crater in its wake!
It was as if the Eternal Great Emperor had struck them with a single punch, leaving an astonishingly large crater where they had stood.
The crater engulfed roughly half of City 18.
A cloud of dust erupted, soaring nearly ten meters into the air.
In the next instant—
Nearly half a million flying insects burst from the ground, their wings fluttering frantically as they pierced through the dust and swarmed into the sky, darkening the sun like an impending storm.
The droning buzz of their collective wings reverberated across the wasteland, a chilling sound that made the heart tremble.
As the swarm surged from the earth, it split into two massive streams without hesitation.
One stream charged toward the corpses of the nearly hundred thousand who had been tricked into surrendering, while the other surged into City 18.
None of the insects approached Chen Jiang and his companion.
Perhaps the swarm considered them insignificant, being only two individuals. Or perhaps Chen Jiang's distance made pursuit impractical, or the insects simply couldn't be bothered to chase them.
Scar Dog's face turned as dark as pig liver as he stared at the hundreds of thousands of flying insects that nearly blotted out the sky. He finally understood the source of the eerie, high-frequency vibrations—it was the rhythmic flapping of wings by this swarm of insects.
A moment later—
"Ugh!"
Scar Dog couldn't help but retch dryly, his face twisted in disgust. He growled angrily, "Fucking disgusting! This is the first time I've ever been nauseated by bugs!"
Chen Jiang kept his foot on the accelerator, but his eyes narrowed as he glanced in the rearview mirror, observing the insects.
Just as Scar Dog had said, these creatures were truly repulsive.
The insects were quite large, each measuring about 80 to 90 centimeters long—roughly the size of a small human child.
Their faces featured compound eyes typical of insects, along with three-lobed mouths adapted for gnawing.
Yet their bodies were humanoid, complete with arms, torsos, and legs.
Milky-white, four-lobed wings sprouted from either side of their arms, while behind their legs was a layered, oval structure resembling a cicada pupa.
The overall effect was like a grotesque fusion of a human and a moth.
These creatures were unlike any insects they had ever seen.
Even their sheer size dwarfed that of ordinary insects!
If hundreds of thousands of these creatures were to appear on Blue Star during peacetime, the planet would immediately sound a global alarm, and multiple nations would launch nuclear strikes.
The distance between them and the swarm of flying insects wasn't short.
As for why they could see the insect so clearly in the rearview mirror, it was because...
One of the insects, having just emerged from the ground, flew in the wrong direction in its dazed state. It landed directly in front of their vehicle and, seemingly exhausted, plummeted heavily onto the rear of their car.
Looking in the rearview mirror, they could clearly see the insect's entire form!
After driving for another thirty minutes, until City 18 and the swarm of flying insects were completely out of sight, Chen Jiang braked gently and parked the vehicle beneath a rocky outcrop that rose three or four meters above the wilderness. He and Scar Dog jumped out simultaneously, guns in hand, and walked to the back of the car.
"Ugh!"
The moment Scar Dog saw the insect, he couldn't help but retch again, his face contorted with fury.
The insect's arms and legs were pale and tender, but its grotesquely enlarged insectoid head evoked an overwhelming sense of revulsion.
"I can't take it anymore, Brother Jiang!" Scar Dog roared, his face contorted with rage. He gripped his shotgun, single-handedly loaded it, and raised the barrel to his shoulder, aiming at the flying insect's head from two meters away.
"You know, Brother Jiang, I'm terrified of bugs more than anything."
"I thought the grotesquely oversized insects in the south of Blue Star were the worst nightmares I'd ever face."
"But this... this is beyond anything I could have imagined!"
"I declare that from now on, the southern bugs are the gentlest creatures on Earth!"
Chen Jiang narrowed his eyes, studying the flying insect before him. It was about eighty to ninety centimeters long—certainly not small.
It couldn't speak, or perhaps it communicated in its own racial language.
A high-pitched, wireless-like buzzing filled the air, likely the insect's attempts at communication, but Chen Jiang couldn't understand it.
The creature flapped its wings frantically, yet for some reason, it couldn't take flight.
To be honest, this bug was truly disgusting.
The question was whether it was a mutated beast or an alien race.
Chen Jiang recalled seeing a race called the Insect Race on the race kill rankings, but he couldn't be sure if this creature belonged to that group.
Still, there was only one way to find out.
Chen Jiang retreated slightly, pulled out his homemade pistol from his chest pocket, aimed at the insect's head, and gently squeezed the trigger.
Bang!
The gunshot rang out, and the insect's head shattered instantly. Its body twitched a few times before stiffening into stillness. Green fluid oozed from the shattered skull.
[Ding! Congratulations, Player Chen Jiang, for killing an insect race player.]
[Since the human and insect races are not at war, this kill only grants 0.1 merit points.]
"An insect race player, huh?" Chen Jiang frowned slightly. His turret seemed largely ineffective against this insect.
So far, his turret had armor-piercing bullets, making it highly effective against structures, armor, and defensive installations.
But against the hundreds of thousands of flying insects, it felt like overkill—like using a cannon to swat mosquitoes.
Against the insect race, his turret was like facing its natural predator.
He couldn't even establish a fire net capable of covering all the insects.
Unless...
After a moment's thought, Chen Jiang nodded and pulled an item from his chest pocket.
(End of the Chapter)
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