A mouth that could swallow five or six bug soldiers opened, its rows of fangs, each the size of half his body, making Lasi tremble with fear. He was afraid that in the next second, he would be casually tossed into this inferno that still held the black blood of Fielder's heart, and be ground to dust by those sharp fangs.
But Lasi was wrong. This cruel demon not only did not smash him to pieces and swallow him, but instead treated him with great courtesy. "You are right, you should go and inform them first. I am a polite Flame Demon, how could I do something as rude as coming uninvited."
Li Xi, who had transformed into a Flame Demon, then placed Lasi on the ground, even thoughtfully smoothing out the wrinkles on Lasi's body with his finger where he had been grabbed.
"Go, I will wait here for your news."
Lasi didn't know how he left. His legs seemed to have a life of their own, moving without his brain's command, and not slowly at that.
A polite Flame Demon?
Then what were the screams from the demon army behind him?
He just let him go?
Was it possible that his assumption that the demon was also after the great Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs was false?
Was he truly helping them out of goodwill?
At this moment, Lasi was confused.
Lasi was still heading towards the Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs' location, while Li Xi revealed a wicked smile as he watched Leander, who had stumbled out of the abyss teleportation gate from the small plane.
With no more vampires, Li Xi refined all seven Flame Demons into blood essence using a refinement magic array and stored them in his spatial ring. By this time, Lasi had also reached the Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs' location.
It was an unadorned underground cave. If Lasi hadn't entered from here and gone underground, Li Xi would never have discovered it.
Deep within the cave, covered in soft silken threads, a large silkworm, entirely golden, was sleeping soundly on a bed woven from silk. Its entire body was soft, its interior seeming to be filled with golden jelly, trembling rhythmically with each inhale and exhale. Without limbs, its facial features were invisible even in sleep.
Yet, this seemingly defenseless creature possessed an aura of nobility. Especially with every breath, golden silken threads within its golden gelatinous flesh would sway. This was divine power formed from the long-term worship of its bug soldiers. This divine power flowed outwards with its breathing, filling the entire cave with fresh and sweet air. Any living being that breathed the air in the cave would calm down. This was especially true for abyssal life; prolonged residence here would surely purify their hearts of slaughter and madness.
To find such a benevolent evil god living in the Abyss, so starkly contrasting with its surroundings, was a miracle of life.
There were no bug soldiers guarding the area. As soon as Lasi entered, he prostrated himself on the ground. "Great Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs, the abyss invasion this time has been repelled, but there is a matter that requires your decision."
Hearing Lasi's voice, the large silkworm opened two small black bean-like eyes from beneath its skin, filled with golden wrinkles. It looked at Lasi in front of it with a bewildered expression. After a while, its gaze cleared, and it said with considerable pain, "Oh, it's Lasi. Have those winged blood races come again for my blood?"
Hearing the Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs' words, Lasi's heart ached. Those vampires had repeatedly helped them repel the twenty-fifth level of the Abyss invasion, but each time they demanded a large amount of vital blood from their great Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs as payment. This blood was rich in divine power, the highest quality blood that vampires most desired, almost godblood.
Lasi remembered that in the depths of his inherited memories, their great Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs' original body was as large as two of him. Now, the Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs' body was only half his size, a reduction of three times. This was the price of forcefully releasing precious vital blood multiple times.
"Great Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs, this time it's not vampires, it's a Flame Demon," Lasi recounted everything that had happened today in the briefest terms. The weak could only waver between various extreme powers, with no end in sight.
"He wishes to see me?"
"Yes." Lasi's face was pained, because whoever saw their Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs would develop a desire to possess her. The vampires were like that back then, and now it was this even stronger Flame Demon.
"Then let him come," the Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs wriggled a few times, shifting to a more comfortable position, clearly having accepted everything. "It's not as if life from other planes hasn't come before, but they were all taken by those vampires. Since he could defeat the vampires, we cannot hide."
Within its two black bean-like eyes, a wisdom uncharacteristic of an abyssal creature surprisingly emerged. "Weakness is our original sin. Go, it is something we will have to face sooner or later."
But before Lasi could rise, a pair of giant hands reached into the cave from above. These hands tore open the cave like tearing a piece of parchment, and with falling soil, they ripped it open from both sides, revealing the cave.
Lasi looked up in horror, seeing a familiar single eye peering at them from the torn gap.
"Heh heh, a very clever evil god. Your compliance will make our conversation much easier."
Lasi was enraged. He knew he had been used, and he stood in front of the evil god silkworm. "Lord Richer, don't you think stalking is beneath your status?"
Li Xi ignored Lasi's anger. Such a declaration from an insect was too weak and powerless to him.
Li Xi's gaze was fixed on the golden evil god silkworm, or the so-called Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs.
The abundant divine power emanating from this silkworm was quite good, pleasing Li Xi greatly. It was far superior to the evil god giant octopus from last time, truly worthy of an evil god possessing a small plane.
However, the paleness beneath its golden skin clearly indicated over-exertion. Combining this with their previous conversation, Li Xi wanted to kill all the vampires. They had treated this easily bullied evil god as a free extractor of godblood. It was obvious they had colluded with the demons on the other side of the abyss teleportation gate to put on a show, taking advantage of the evil god silkworm's vital blood. If Li Xi had arrived even a few decades later, this evil god silkworm would have been drained dry, becoming a mummified silkworm. Their methods were truly insidious.
The Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs also observed the Flame Demon that Lasi had spoken of with fear through the torn opening. On the surface, this Flame Demon exuded an overwhelming aura of evil, but it did not possess much killing intent.
The Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs understood. It said to Lasi, who stood protectively in front of it, "Go. There are still things outside that require your attention. I will entertain him."
Lasi hesitated. He was simply too weak. "I... he... you..."
"Go, I can handle it," the Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs said reassuringly.
"Then, if you need anything, be sure to call us." Lasi prepared for a desperate struggle.
"Alright."
Lasi left. Li Xi, with continued interest, continued to observe this evil god and asked, "Are you so confident that I won't kill you to harvest your divine power?"
"You have no killing intent, and you don't seem like a native abyssal creature. If I'm not mistaken, you are from another race." The silkworm, with its unusual wisdom for an abyssal creature, saw through Li Xi's disguise.
"Hahaha, no wonder you can rule a small plane in the Abyss. Your wisdom has changed my perception of evil gods." Li Xi's body moved slightly, his twenty-meter-tall form beginning to shrink. He took out a complete set of clothes from his spatial ring and put them on, revealing a masked, one-eyed human in the cave.
The silkworm showed no surprise. "So you are a human from the main world. Many have come to my small plane before, but they were all taken by those vampires. You are the first human I have personally seen."
According to the tasks posted in the underground mercenary world, quite a few high-level mercenaries should have visited. Hearing the silkworm's words now, their fates were obvious.
Those were rare high-level professionals. If several of them disappeared without a trace in the main world, it would certainly have caused some concern. However, if they went missing due to the failure of an abyss mission, it was perfectly normal, and no one would investigate the details. After all, the Abyss was known as the most dangerous place, and nothing that happened there would be unexpected.
The vampires, using the Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs' territory as their base, captured these high-level professionals and then used their bloodline awakening to turn these humans into vampires. On one hand, this gained the Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs' favor, and on the other hand, it expanded their population. These humans who dared to take on missions to hunt evil gods, after being turned into vampires, would be at least of the Count rank. Looking at it this way, the vampires' methods of exploiting others were truly unscrupulous.
"Respected Mother of Ten Thousand Bugs, I am not deceiving you. I have not come to hunt you for divine power, but to sign a life-and-death contract with you, to share life and death together in the future, and to face enemies together."
The silkworm's two black bean-like eyes remained unfathomable. "If you want to sign a life-and-death contract with me, then all our possessions will be shared without reservation. I have a small plane and countless bug soldiers. What do you have?"
"Strength," Li Xi said with great confidence, "strength sufficient to protect you and all life on this plane."
The evil god silkworm shook its head. "It's not that I don't believe you, but I don't see the strength in you to protect me and this plane."
A chuckle could be heard from beneath Li Xi's mask. "How about this: soon a powerful lifeform will arrive. I will defeat him, and I can even close the abyss teleportation gate. If I accomplish these, you will sign a life-and-death contract with me."
The silkworm blinked. "If I am not mistaken, the one who will arrive is the vampire prince Theodore. It was he who forced me to sign a defensive contract with my vital blood. For years I dared not resist, and I know his wicked intentions clearly. It was only because I couldn't defeat him that I had to agree. After all, if I resisted, I would have died then, but by not resisting, I could survive for some time. If you can defeat him, or even kill him, I will agree to sign a life-and-death contract with you."
The silkworm's tone shifted abruptly after saying this. "But if you lose, not only will I not help you, but I will also join forces with them to deal with you, in order to continue surviving."
At this moment, a vampire with golden trim on its bat wings appeared at the abyss teleportation gate, followed by the Duke of Vampire Leander who had just escaped.
Leander's body was covered in wounds that he hadn't had time to treat, and his bat wings looked like sails that had been through a great storm, tattered and likely to break at any moment.
He hated that detestable Flame Demon Richer to the core. He and four vampire Counts had attacked together to escape, but only he had gotten out. The remaining four vampires had left not even a single hair behind.
"Your Highness Prince, you must avenge them," Leander said through gritted teeth.
Theodore let out a cold snort from his nostrils. "Waste. If you had held them back while Fielder was attacking, things wouldn't have turned out like this. Hurry up and finish dealing with things here, I still need to report this to the Ancestor."
Theodore's blood-red eyes scanned the entire Moonlit Plains. It looked no different from his last visit, except for the slightly increased number of demons.
Theodore looked at the demons below, who were howling at him. His face turned ashen. "Too much time has passed, they have forgotten the fear of being dominated by my blood race. Today, I will make them remember who the true masters of this plane are."
Theodore spread his arms, and a red spherical egg-shaped barrier emanated from him. Ten meters, twenty meters, fifty meters... it stopped at three hundred meters.
A circular barrier with a radius of three hundred meters centered on him was enough to encompass over a thousand demons. These demons, not knowing what it was, continued to attack with their weapons, but their attacks had no effect on this spherical barrier.
Theodore snorted coldly. The thousand demons within the barrier exploded in unison, their internal blood vessels bursting from countless small openings. All their black blood flew out, dissipating like black mist within the red spherical barrier.
Theodore flicked his hand, and the red circular barrier dissipated. The black mist lost its buoyancy and scattered on the ground. At the same time, the thousand demons whose bodies had been drained of blood lay on the ground without any sign of struggle.
In the dense, black mass of hundreds of thousands of demons packed together, a section suddenly disappeared. The number of demons, a little over a thousand, was not many, but the sight of them being so neatly slaughtered simultaneously without any resistance sent a shockwave through the chaotic nerves of every demon.
This was the Blood Control Domain, unique to an eighth-level Blood Race Prince. Theodore could control the blood of all life within his domain. What he had just done was a simple demonstration of its use, taking the lives of over a thousand demons at once, regardless of whether they were low-level imps or fifth-level horned demons, all without any ability to resist.
Domain users were perversely powerful!
Just as the entire battlefield was silenced by the overwhelming power of this Blood Race Prince, a cold voice echoed from afar, "Everyone, get out of the way."
A giant figure, twenty meters tall, covered in golden-yellow lava-like patterns, with strength and defiance as his trademarks, appeared. With just a simple utterance, the demons present immediately became agitated again, as if their backbone had returned. They roared at the two vampires in the sky, fiercely expressing their anger.
It was as if at any moment this voice would command them to attack, and these demons would fill the entire spherical barrier space!