Chapter 674 — Sick

"What's all this? How did you also provoke the Zerg Queen? Add the Realm King and the Cosmos Overlord... Why does it feel like you're even better at courting trouble than I am?" Shi Li said.

The Empress said, "We're about evenly matched, but you're weaker, so you're less likely to draw their attention."

"Moreover, the Zerg Mother Nest is the Zerg's cosmos. Over there, insect-type resources are immeasurably abundant. Your insect-type beast companions might be able to obtain cosmos-level opportunities there."

"..." Shi Jin took a deep breath. "Fine, I'll go. But if there's danger..."

"I know. I'll save you and bring you back."

"Deal."

............

Shi Jin knew that exploring an epoch ruin would never go smoothly. Right now his head was spinning, and he had no idea what was going on.

According to the Empress, if he entered the Zerg Mother Nest directly from the Cosmic Sea, he would inevitably be noticed. So the Empress had used special means to teleport Shi Jin over directly.

Where exactly he would appear, how exactly to determine his location, how exactly to find the third transmigrator—all of that would depend on Shi Jin's own abilities.

However, the Empress claimed she would try her best to teleport Shi Jin near the third transmigrator. Through the traces of the epoch ruin, she had already locked onto the approximate location of the third transmigrator.

"If the other party is a reincarnated transmigrator, then with my power combined with Can Baobao's and Qi's, we should be able to identify them."

Just as Wa Shen and the Realm King had been able to see through his identity back then, if the other party's strength after reincarnation wasn't very high, Shi Jin felt he should be able to see through them as well. After all, his attainments in time and space were no longer low.

It was just that what Shi Jin most wanted to know right now was where the Empress—this Jia Qi—had teleported him to. Why was it so dark here? Shi Jin was quite sure he had felt himself land steadily.

"Holy shit."

Yet at the time, Jin's state was stable, his spiritual power extending outward. When he tried to confirm where he was, he was struck dumb on the spot.

This deathly still, lifeless environment around him...

And then Shi Qi caught sight of a young girl kneeling not far away, burning incense and praying for something, and his face went dark at once.

"Ancestors above, please watch over Father, keep him from being eaten." The girl's voice sent Shi Qi's thoughts racing.

How had the Empress teleported him into someone's tomb relic?

If this went badly, he might even be taken for a tomb robber!

After his spiritual power swept over the surrounding corpses of humans and insect-beasts, a chill ran down Shi Shuo's spine.

"Grandmother Nie's ass," Shi Shuo cursed under his breath. He was certain now: the Empress had teleported him into the earth, and he was buried alive.

"And there's a seal too—unbelievable."

Shi Jin tore straight through the seal.

Rumble, rumble.

At the same moment, the ground split open, and the entire tomb relic shook violently.

The next instant, the girl praying before the tomb snapped her eyes wide, staring in disbelief at the cracked relic and the youth clambering up out of the earth.

The youth was about fifteen or sixteen, with long hair and a handsome face, dressed in coarse cloth. It was Shi Jin—or more precisely, Shi Jin the beast as he had looked at fifteen or sixteen.

Upon arriving somewhere dangerous, Shi Jin naturally used his body-control talent to alter his form, taking on the appearance of his past life.

"You—you you you..." The girl who had just been making offerings to her ancestors was now in a total panic at the sight of someone bursting corpse-like from the tomb below.

Shi Jin, by contrast, was calm. He looked at her and said, "You must be a disciple of the Sacred Ground of the Butterfly Transformation."

The girl, close in age to Shi Ying's current appearance, heard Shi Ying's question, gulped, and nodded.

"I am..."

"Could it be—could it really be—" she said. "Xuan Yi Sect, you actually heard my prayer and rose from the dead??"

Shi Jin's face darkened again. "What kind of talk is that? I was never dead to begin with."

Though this place was a tomb, it was still a relic, and within a relic, nothing could be hidden from Shi Jin.

He had already listened to the voice of history and learned where this place was.

This was the tomb relic of a super beast-taming power called the Sacred Ground of the Butterfly Transformation. Buried here were the Xuan Yi Sect of the Sacred Ground and their companion beasts, dating back hundreds of thousands of years.

The reason for the seal was that those buried here were all mighty—the weakest at the god level—and were prone to breeding evil spirits and malevolent wraiths.

Shi Jin waved a hand, re-applying a seal over the tomb, then looked at the tender yet noble-spirited girl. "You may take me for your Xuan Yi Sect. I died and was reborn, and have been in secluded cultivation, sleeping here for a very long time. I have no idea what the outside world is like now."

"Tell me about it."

As soon as Shi Jin finished speaking, the girl burst out with a loud "Waaah!"

"Xuan Yi Sect, please save my father! He—he's about to be eaten!"

"Cry one more time and I'll eat you first," Shi Jin said, frowning.

Her expression instantly tensed, and she did not dare cry again.

"What's going on?" Though Shi Jin looked young, in this transcendent cosmos it was hardly strange to wear a youthful face while living millions of years. Seeing Shi Jin climb up from the bottom of the tomb, the girl already believed him to be the Xuan Yi Sect of the Sacred Ground of the Butterfly Transformation.

"Xuan Yi Sect, you've been in seclusion so long you may not know."

"A hundred and twenty thousand years ago, our world was invaded by a race called the 'Crimson Ants.' After invading our world, they demanded that every hundred years we offer up one god-level human and ten ninth-rank humans as food sacrifices—only then could our world remain peaceful."

"This century, one of the chosen sacrifices is my father."

"Crimson Ants." Hearing that familiar name, Shi Jin understood everything at once. On Planet Realm King, he had fought a Crimson Ant that had joined the 177th Army of the Cosmos Overlord Legion.

Crimson Ants—one of the thirteen noble insect races of the Otherbug Mother Nest, feeders on humans. So the Empress had teleported him into Crimson Ant territory? This beast-taming continent—though its human race was strong, it seemed to be nothing more than a food warehouse for the Crimson Ants.

PS: Starting today, I'm back to one update a day; I'll write the wrap-up a bit more slowly.

Also, the updates from my two days off will be made up and counted as owed chapters.

I owe 27 chapters for monthly votes; 20.5 have been repaid, leaving 6.5.

Counting the leave-of-absence chapters, 8.5 remain owed. Of those, the 40k+ votes came as a bonus from a large donation by Yi Meng Weila, who specified a side story starring Gem Cat, so the main text still has 4.5 owed chapters orz.

Not much left. These will drop randomly to be repaid before the story finishes; I'll try to pay them back at climactic, important plot points, which avoids breaking chapters and keeps the writing smooth without rushing the pace.

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