Chapter 70: Exploring the Insect Cavern [Please Keep Reading!]

Lu Chen piloted the armored suit, gripping a crimson lightsaber, slicing through the boundless darkness and the bodies of countless locusts.

He pressed forward against the insect tide, walking alone through the pitch-black valley, entrusting his back entirely to Ellie and Gloria.

Ellie suppressed her fear, placing her palm in the control slot before the ship’s console. Through the ship’s amplification, she remotely controlled the insect swarm, directing their flight with her beast-taming powers.

This made Lu Chen’s passage through the swarm increasingly effortless.

Soon, piloting the armor, Lu Chen discovered several underground entrances in the valley.

He selected the most spacious one and plunged inside.

At the same time, countless flying locusts followed behind his armor, emitting a constant rustling chorus, none daring to advance, abandoning their earlier ferocity when attacking the ship.

Perhaps, though, the swarm intended to block his route.

Lu Chen activated the armor’s radar, scanning the depths of the cavern.

Surprisingly, he detected a certain degree of mechanical response.

“Could it be… the insect race can pilot starships too?”

Inside the cavern, the path quickly split into three narrow corridors.

Lu Chen chose the central one without hesitation.

To walk upright in the armor, he had to stoop—but Lu Chen’s stubborn nature refused to bend.

He adopted a posture akin to a superhero in flight, navigating automatically through the winding tunnel.

Soon, the armor reached a vast, empty chamber.

Lu Chen stopped upright, and after checking his position, found himself at the central heart of the mountain, the hardest place to escape from.

The atmosphere was strangely eerie, yet oddly normal—so normal it didn’t feel like an insect lair at all.

Fortunately, the Hazard Guide still offered no warning.

Lu Chen switched on the searchlight mounted on his chest.

It was then he saw, right before him, a rusted, antiquated three-winged battle cruiser, skewered at an angle into the earth!

Its hull was partially damaged, parts heavily corroded; the engine, though intact, was far too old, filled with insect eggs and decayed beyond value.

On the ship’s side, the missile bay bore a gaping wound, as if pierced by a massive sword, and within it, he detected nuclear radiation…

Item identification revealed:

[A crashed, out-of-control level forty small battle cruiser, from the Empire a thousand years ago. The nuclear warhead was pierced and leaked, causing widespread nuclear radiation, contaminating the insect lair.]

“How odd… a thousand years ago, humanoid wars had mostly ended, the Pangu Corridor had just formed, and interstellar exploration was far less popular than now. For a level forty Imperial cruiser—not unless on a reckless expedition—it shouldn’t have fallen to these locust swarms. Why did it crash so easily? Could there have been combat locusts strong enough to pierce a level forty warship’s hull?”

Lu Chen was deeply curious.

He glanced around—the insect swarm seemed to block every possible exit, yet none dared approach.

There was no hazard warning.

Lu Chen piloted his armor to the top of the ship.

The cavern’s air, faintly corrosive, had eroded the ship’s materials into ruin. Even the engine held no recovery value…

“So, the treasure map’s target isn’t the ship?”

Lu Chen easily tore open a breach in the ship’s roof and entered the cramped cockpit.

He proceeded to dismantle the intelligent control module from the console.

The control rune on its surface was corroded, but identification showed the internal memory chip was intact.

Lu Chen stowed the memory chip and climbed out of the ship.

He connected the chip to his wristband decoder, attempting to read any surviving data.

Since there was no treasure aboard, Lu Chen focused instead on the ship’s flight log, seeking clues about the treasure.

Decoded flight logs revealed:

This vessel was an early model Imperial Seawolf-class.

Its captain, Alexei, was an outstanding pilot and armor knight, but suffered discrimination in the military due to his half-insect heritage.

“Alexei?”

Lu Chen suddenly recalled: Wasn’t this the Federation lieutenant mentioned in the Interstellar Anglers’ Guild’s guide, the one who rescued the White-Bearded Whale from the Imperial lab?

How did he become an Imperial warship captain?

He read further.

The crew believed Alexei only became captain due to the Empire’s recent conciliatory policies, seeking alliances with various humanoid tribes to form a tiered federation.

Even after his record-breaking appointment, the crew refused to obey his commands, forming a temporary ship committee to undermine Alexei’s authority, relegating him to piloting duties.

Strangely, this decision was endorsed by fleet superiors, citing that insectfolk intelligence might not suit the tangled interstellar environment of the Pangu Corridor, and in emergencies, they might fail to make the right decisions.

Despite this, Alexei dutifully focused on his piloting work.

One day, as the ship passed through the North Sae planetary belt, the crew spotted a migrating band of interstellar locusts.

The temporary committee deliberately provoked Alexei, ordering him to deviate from the established route and exterminate the locusts.

Alexei refused, citing the urgency of their mission and the fact that the locusts posed no threat to humans.

Lu Chen hurriedly unlocked the ship’s mission—astonishingly, it was to find a planet suitable for large-scale breeding of the White-Bearded Whale!

Just then—

Suddenly!

A dense swarm of locusts surged into the chamber, blocking Lu Chen’s armor searchlight and emitting a rhythmic rustling, severely jamming the armor’s radar.

A shadowy figure crept slowly toward Lu Chen from behind…

Luckily, Lu Chen’s resonant divine sense had anticipated this.

An ambush was impossible!

Moreover, this was an ambush not flagged by the Hazard Guide.

This meant—no danger.

Lu Chen spun around unexpectedly, wielding his lightsaber, and cleaved the shadow’s head clean off with a single blow.

A metallic clang echoed as the massive mech head crashed to the ground.

A swarm of grotesque, half-human, half-insect monsters crawled out from the neck of the armor.

What were these abominations?

Lu Chen’s mind reeled, scalp tingling at the sight.

The creatures’ faces and legs were human, their bodies locust-like, their wing bones still bearing human arms—hybrids of man and locust.

Countless little monsters crawled out from the severed neck of the armor, unnerving to the point of testing Lu Chen’s psychological limits.

Lu Chen mused that, had he known, he would have added a disgust warning to his interface, to avoid seeing such things.

Fortunately, with his mastery of universal resonance, he quickly adapted to both trypophobia and the uncanny valley effect.

He studied the armor before him.

The decapitated armor was a crude, haphazardly assembled combat suit, its parts scavenged from various ship relics, its engine even a petroleum-burning internal combustion motor…

“Could this be insect technology? But no, wasn’t it an Imperial combat suit from the warship?”

As Lu Chen pondered, in a moment of distraction, seven or eight giant combat locusts sprang at his armor from behind.

It was a clumsy ambush, but combined with the swarming locusts filling the cavern, it proved effective.

These mantis-like, bone-reinforced combat locusts slashed with sharp claw-blades, secreting corrosive fluid along their edges, hacking at the armor’s back.

Fortunately, they were only level twenty; even in ambush, it was hard for them to damage a level thirty combat suit.

The effect wasn’t much different from repeated hacks with a bargain knife…

Still, with corrosive fluid in play, Lu Chen couldn’t ignore them. He turned, reluctantly activating his laser cannon.

He fired at the giant combat locusts one by one, precisely targeting their heads, avoiding blood splatter and further corrosive spray.

Just then, a thunderous explosion sounded behind him!

A high-explosive armor-piercing shell struck his back, detonating instantly and blasting the armor across the chamber, slamming it hard against the cavern wall.

Stunned by another ambush, Lu Chen reeled, only his momentary universal resonance dissipating the force. He couldn’t help but question:

Where’s my hazard warning?

Could it be…

I’ve grown stronger?

————

Finished early, posting ahead. Next chapter tomorrow morning.