Chapter 601 - 540: Sand-tailed Scorpion, Great Terror

Chapter 601: Chapter 540: Sand-tailed Scorpion, Great Terror

"A Sand-tailed Scorpion Swarm..."

Chu Mu’s pupils contracted. His gaze snapped from left to right, taking in the vast, rolling Desert Sea once more.

At that moment, as if in response to the disturbance, the once-calm sea of sand began to churn like ocean waves as far as the eye could see.

Chu Mu’s expression instantly turned grim. With a flick of his sleeve, a sea of fire poured into the patch of sand where Wangcai was trapped. The flames raged, a scorching crimson. Faint, miserable howls could be heard for a moment, but they were quickly replaced by even more ferocious roars.

As the roars persisted, the churning of the surrounding sand grew visibly more violent.

A few sharp hisses rang out like a signal. Across the sea of sand for hundreds of yards, countless more hisses rose and fell with the dunes, all converging on their location.

Chu Mu had clearly anticipated this. With a mere thought, he followed the faint telepathic link between them and instantly locked onto Wangcai’s position.

The Fire Dragon that had been sweeping across the dunes coiled and plunged into the Desert Sea. Like several chains of flame, it wrapped around Wangcai’s Demon Body and yanked it out forcefully.

"ROAR!"

Wangcai, seemingly defiant, let out a furious roar and charged back toward the sea of sand.

"Go!"

Chu Mu slapped it back. He glanced at the churning dunes, grabbed Wangcai, and transformed into a crimson streak, shooting away at top speed. His expression was frantic, showing traces of an unspeakable fear!

He knew full well the reason for this strange phenomenon.

From what he knew, the boundless Desert Sea lay at the edge of the Southwest Countries. In the legends of this place, the most feared threat was not its various High Tier Demon Beasts, but a gregarious type of Demon Beast known as the Sand-tailed Scorpion!

In the Cultivation Immortal Realm, any gregarious Demon Beast was, by definition, incredibly troublesome.

And among all the gregarious Demon Beasts he knew of, the Sand-tailed Scorpion ranked near the very top in terms of how dangerous it was.

They were also a particularly special case among gregarious Demon Beasts.

In the Cultivation Immortal Realm, Demon Beasts lived in groups for only a few reasons. Either the beasts themselves were weak and needed to huddle together for warmth to defend against enemies and ensure their species’ survival.

Or, they were driven by bloodline instinct in a resource-rich territory that could sustain an entire Demon Beast Race.

Or, they were forcibly united under the command of a Spiritual Demon. After such a group was maintained for some time, living together would inevitably become a survival habit due to biological instinct.

There were many reasons for Demon Beasts to live in groups, but the most unique were races like the Sand-tailed Scorpions.

If they had to be described in two words, it would be... an "Insect Race!"

The entire Sand-tailed Scorpion Race was like a single, precise machine. Each Sand-tailed Scorpion was born via asexual reproduction from a Sand-tailed Scorpion Mother. It was both an individual Demon Beast and a unit under the mother’s complete control.

The Cultivation of the scorpions also depended on the Cultivation of their mother. The higher the Sand-tailed Scorpion Mother’s Cultivation, the greater the potential and the larger the number of offspring she could produce.

The problem was, there was no such thing as a low-Cultivation Sand-tailed Scorpion Mother!

Each Sand-tailed Scorpion Race was ruled by a single Sand-tailed Scorpion Mother. When a mother reached the end of her life, she would use her own body as a crucible, condensing her entire essence to birth a new one.

Through this unique birthing process, the new Sand-tailed Scorpion Mother could reach her predecessor’s Cultivation level in an incredibly short amount of time.

Passed down from one generation to the next, each Sand-tailed Scorpion Mother was the culmination of countless ages, the very embodiment of the power of all her ancestors.

Sand-tailed Scorpions preferred hot, dry environments, sustaining themselves by devouring sand, rock, and metal. The Sand-tailed Scorpion Mother, however, consumed only the pure essence of scorching flames. Given these habits, Sand-tailed Scorpions naturally dwelled in deserts.

But because of their unique methods of reproduction and inheritance, any Sand-tailed Scorpion Race that appeared could quickly become the hegemon of its territory.

Once they became hegemons, the abundant resources would cause their population to explode. When this virtuous cycle began, it was a nearly irreversible process.

This was especially true for a matriarch-controlled race like the Sand-tailed Scorpions!

Once they expanded to their limit—for instance, when all suitable desert environments were occupied—the next step was ecological transformation.

Any land they inhabited would be transformed into a Desert Sea suitable for their survival.

The strict order originating from their matriarch’s control was far beyond what the crude chaos of a Beast Tide could ever match.

It was for this very reason that, according to the records of the Cultivation Immortal Realm, the Sand-tailed Scorpions had unleashed one cataclysm after another in ancient times.

Legend had it that the boundless Desert Sea in the Southwest was the result of one such cataclysm.

However, these cataclysms never lasted for long.

After all, with their unique method of generational inheritance, it was inevitable that a Sand-tailed Scorpion Mother’s Cultivation would eventually reach the upper limit of what the Cultivation Immortal Realm could sustain.

When one’s Cultivation reached the realm’s limit, it meant the legendary... Ascension.

Once a Sand-tailed Scorpion Mother ascended, the so-called cataclysm would naturally be snuffed out at its source.

Without a mother, the decline of the Sand-tailed Scorpion Race was only a matter of time.

After all, their reproduction depended entirely on the mother.

Without her, no matter how many scorpions remained, no new ones could be born. They would become like rootless duckweed, destined for annihilation.

’But no matter what, since I’ve found Sand-tailed Scorpions here, given their nature, there’s no doubt that the surrounding hundreds, or even thousands, of miles must be their territory. And that means there has to be a Sand-tailed Scorpion Mother...’

’In a place so isolated from the world, with a lineage stretching back countless years...’

’The Sand-tailed Scorpion Mother... the Sand-tailed Scorpion Race...’

A terrifying reality was laid bare before him.

He had no time to ponder the reasons now.

There was only one thing to do: flee. He activated the Human Sword Unity Technique, and space itself seemed to warp around him. In an instant, he streaked across the sky, his crimson light blending with the scorching sun, as if the heavens themselves were on fire.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

But that streak of crimson light was like a signal. Wherever it passed, the calm sea of sand below erupted into a frenzy.

The sand surged as countless Sand-tailed Scorpions swarmed within. Their sand-yellow bodies blended perfectly with the desert, with only the cold, metallic glint of their claws and tails faintly visible amidst the churning grains.

They looked like countless stars reflected in the sea of sand—an eerie and terrifying sight!

SWISH SWISH SWISH SWISH!

With a continuous chorus of whistling sounds, the countless points of cold light dotting the dunes shot out as one, like a volley of ten thousand arrows.

A sky-blotting barrage of cold light shot up from all directions, forming a massive, inescapable net that closed in on the crimson streak in the sky.

A closer look would reveal that this barrage of cold light consisted of countless spikes, each several inches long.

The spikes were metallic, shaped like long needles. At their tips, apart from the metallic sheen, one could clearly discern a strange and bewitching hue.

Chu Mu’s expression was calm again. In that instant, the crimson blade light vanished, and he came to a sudden halt in midair. With a sweep of his sleeve, the scorching True Flame coiling around him erupted outward in all directions like a deluge from a sea of fire!

BOOM!

A heaven-shaking roar resounded as a crimson Fireball materialized high in the sky, like a miniature Great Sun. The countless whistling spikes plunged into the Fireball, but in the face of its terrifying heat, they instantly melted into droplets of liquid metal.

As the True Flame blazed, faint wisps of black smoke rose from it—the vaporized poison from the spikes.

Or, to be more precise, the virulent poison of the Sand-tailed Scorpions!

The poison’s reputation was just as infamous as that of the scorpions themselves.

The terror of the Sand-tailed Scorpions came from their mother, their vast numbers, and their rigid, machine-like discipline.

The terror of their poison, however, made their infamous name all the more dreadful.

Sand-tailed Scorpion poison could devour the Divine Soul!

Once it entered the body, it would directly attack the Divine Soul!

When tens of thousands of Sand-tailed Scorpions swarmed, their terrifying poison would blanket the area along with their attacks.

When quantity begets a qualitative change, the saying that enough ants can kill an elephant is no mere exaggeration.

Seeing the commotion grow, with the sea of sand stirring for dozens of miles in every direction, the sense of urgency in Chu Mu’s heart intensified.

He didn’t dare to linger, even though the scorpions before him were merely Tier One and Tier Two creatures that he could destroy with a casual wave of his hand.

But given their unique nature, if he delayed for even a moment, he would soon face far more than just this dense swarm.

BOOM!

With another deafening roar, the crimson Fireball hanging in the sky shattered at Chu Mu’s command!

A sea of flames swept out, a fiery crimson rain of meteors falling upon the desert. Each wisp of fire seemed capable of setting the very sand ablaze.

In just a few breaths, while the crimson glow still lingered in the sky, the several-mile-wide stretch of desert below had transformed into an ocean of fire.

The chaotic Fire Attribute Spiritual Energy masked all traces of his presence, while the surging flames annihilated every living thing caught within.

Meanwhile, a faint spatial ripple appeared in the sky as the Sky-Breaking Flying Boat materialized for an instant before vanishing.

But at that exact moment, the sea of fire below was torn asunder by a rift in the sand. A piercing shriek that struck directly at the soul erupted from the chasm, its sound waves converging as if to tear through space itself.

In the sky, still tinged with crimson, a spatial ripple spread out. The Sky-Breaking Flying Boat, having just vanished into the void, was violently ejected as if rejected by space itself. It tumbled out of the air and plunged headfirst into the sea of sand...

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