The Temptation of the Mother Locust [Please keep reading!]

Lu Chen ventured deeper into the insect den while connecting to the Leonin’s external cameras to observe the battle outside.

A few minutes earlier.

The battle outside was still raging fiercely.

Even with Ellie’s exceptional beast-taming talent, she couldn’t gain the upper hand against the swarm-mind of the mother locust. Exhausted, she stubbornly held her ground...

Gloria had no choice but to jump from the ship and slash at the insects with her sword.

It was as if the story had returned to the True Spirit Continent’s War of Demon-Taming.

Fortunately, after Lu Chen dealt with the Blue Warrior Armor, the beast tide attacking the ship swiftly retreated, withdrawing into the cave to protect the mother locust.

Ellie collapsed into unconsciousness from exhaustion.

Gloria carried her back to the ship, fed her a healing pill, and took her to rest.

The ship had only suffered severe energy depletion; the defensive array and hull remained intact.

Ellie really was reliable!

Lu Chen thought as much.

Inside the cave, the dense insect swarm besieged Lu Chen’s armor from all sides, attempting to surround and crush him.

Lu Chen fired a cannon blast at the cave’s dome, causing earth and stone to collapse and block his retreat.

With only one path forward, things became simpler; he used the palm-mounted laser cannon to clear the way ahead.

In the increasingly narrow passages, the swarm’s advantage was diminished.

Before long, a faint blue glow appeared ahead.

The swarm vanished.

The tunnel plunged steeply downward.

Lu Chen dropped from above, landing in a vast cavern.

His armor flipped in midair, landing with finesse.

He looked around—it was a massive, drum-shaped birthing chamber.

The ground was covered with sparkling blue insect eggs and broken shells, casting a ghostly light throughout the cavern.

In a corner was a crude workshop for assembling spirit machinery, clearly still in use...

If Lu Chen guessed correctly, this was the assembly area constructed by Alexei, which his grandson still used.

Of course, his grandson had just been killed.

At the center of the blue eggs lay a massive amethyst-glass crystal bed.

Upon it reclined a naked locust-woman.

Good heavens...

Lu Chen was momentarily transfixed.

Her body stretched five meters long, half-human, half-insect—voluptuous and pale, resembling a gigantic silkworm.

Four long, snow-white legs, even longer than Gloria’s, and six pairs of full, swollen egg pouches—Lu Chen estimated each one was three times the size of Gloria’s.

Her features were those of a human woman.

But behind her, diaphanous wings like white gauze fluttered, sensitive antennae extended from her head, and a tail...

Most striking of all was the ovipositor at her tail, writhing and oozing fluids, leaving a vivid impression.

It was somewhat repulsive, yet impossible to look away.

No wonder Alexei, that insect-man, had fused with her.

Even Lu Chen, a human, was dazed.

Fortunately, he quickly regained his senses.

“So it’s the mother locust releasing reproductive pheromones, disrupting my senses, even casting some illusion... I knew it—there’s no way my tastes could be at fault!”

He muttered, rubbing his eyes.

He looked again at the mother locust—her human form was gone.

Only an aged, bloated, chrysalis-like queen remained.

Sheltered by thousands of locusts, she curled up, barely clinging to life, her age unmistakable.

All around, human skulls were piled high.

In more hidden corners, heaps of human bones and heads, even partially devoured fresh corpses...

On the other side, the crude stone workshop was cluttered with disassembled parts from adventure ships and combat armor.

“So, Alexei has completely allied with the locusts, luring and killing humans with traps.”

Thank goodness Lu Chen had made it to the deepest part of the cave!

Though the mother locust was level forty, her lifespan had exceeded what her cultivation allowed; she could barely stay alive, let alone fight or even move.

Knowing she was no match for Lu Chen, she feigned pity, intensifying her illusions and releasing more pheromones.

Lu Chen wrinkled his nose.

The pheromones, though insectoid, didn’t strongly affect a pure-blooded human.

Still, Lu Chen felt his mind slipping, even beginning to find the mother locust attractive again.

Snapping back to reality, he summoned a blaze of scarlet flames and decisively drew his lightsaber.

He expected a desperate last stand from the swarm, but they suddenly abandoned all resistance.

At the brink of despair, the mother locust uttered a garbled human speech through her mandibles.

“Kill... Quell... Krell…”

You can speak human language?

Lu Chen thought, recognizing the clumsy, twisted accent must have been learned from Alexei.

The question was:

“Who is Krell? Why do you want her dead?”

The mother locust hissed more, but it was no longer intelligible.

Without another word, Lu Chen drove his lightsaber through the mother locust’s enormous skull.

He had intended to capture her alive, but her time was up, and her size made her impossible to transport, so he had no choice.

He followed with a second slash, cutting open her abdomen and draining all blood, fluids, and eggs.

This would dry out her body, allowing it to be rolled up for storage—saving ship space and preventing her fluids from corroding the hull.

Blood, fluids, and eggs poured across the floor, forcing Lu Chen to switch on his flight engine and hover.

Meanwhile—

With the mother locust’s death, the swarm wailed in grief, throwing themselves against the cavern walls in a heroic mass suicide.

Their inky blue blood, splattered across the stone, formed a vague picture.

It showed a colossal queen, a black hole for a heart, pinions of stardust, and stars scattered across her hemispherical body...

Lu Chen could not put into words her vastness.

He suddenly recalled a legend: after a large-scale swarm’s suicidal sacrifice, the queen of the nomadic insect race would be summoned!

Compared to the images he’d seen online of the Zerg Queen, this was more indistinct, but infinitely more awe-inspiring.

Lu Chen felt a surge of excitement.

He waited a while.

But nothing happened.

It seemed, then, that either the star locusts’ bloodline was too diluted, or the Zerg Queen had long since been slain by humans.

Next came the spoils of war!

The dried, rolled corpse of the mother locust.

The dried, rolled corpses of twelve giant battle locusts.

A selection of ordinary locust bodies, all above level twenty.

And the thousand-year-old Blue God Armor’s engine...

Lu Chen brought all these spoils back to the Leonin.

The remaining scraps of armor, locust carcasses, and ship debris held no value for him.

Since the mother locust couldn’t be captured alive, the greatest use for the locust bodies was as whale bait.

He intended to take his fishing talent to the Mist Sea Star!

...

When Lu Chen returned to the ship, Ellie was awake, deeply remorseful for failing to repel the swarm.

He patted her head affectionately.

“Ellie, you did wonderfully. Without you, the ship would never have lasted until I slew the Blue God Armor. Even if I’d killed the mother locust and gotten the whale bait, I’d never have made it out of here alone.”

Then, the Leonin rose from the pitch-black valley, setting course for the Mist Sea Star.

Lu Chen took a cold shower to ensure not a molecule of pheromone remained on or in his body.

Afterwards, he sat at the leisure table, sipping tea and recounting his adventure in the insect den to Ellie and Gloria.

Gloria, arms folded, eyed him skeptically.

“I don’t believe you were completely immune to the locust-woman’s allure. There must be all sorts of complicated, mysterious things you’re not telling us...”

“Foolish girl, do you know anything about biology? I’m human—how could I be affected by insect pheromones?”

Lu Chen rebuked her righteously.

He sipped his tea, activated his wristband display, and reconnected to Alexei’s ship memory, continuing the log that had been interrupted by the ambush.

There were still many mysteries to unravel: Alexei’s fall, the white whale, Krell’s identity...

“If you’re so interested in insect videos, let me show you something exciting!”

———

Editor’s notice: The book will be officially launched at midnight tonight!

Though this novel made it to the Sanjiang recommendations, I didn’t expect the next strong push would require PK. Subscription numbers are critical... I can’t just wish for happiness anymore; I have to ask for subscriptions!