Chapter 386

The secret chamber for raising exotic insects was a dozen or so uneven stone rooms carved by Han Li into a wall of blue stone.

To prevent them from escaping these chambers, Han Li had set minor barriers between each room, ensuring they could not break through the walls.

In Han Li's view, even if these exotic insects ranked high, most were still young; ordinary barriers were more than enough to contain them.

But the chambers before him now had all their barriers completely gone, and every stone door was riddled with countless holes like a beehive, mostly destroyed beyond repair.

Han Li felt a chill of alarm; with a thought, Qu Hun took a large step forward and pushed open the nearest stone door.

Inside was empty—nothing at all.

Han Li exhaled softly; though he had prepared himself, he was still deeply frustrated.

He scanned the chamber once, then slightly turned his head, refocusing his gaze on the stone door.

Without a word, he walked over and crouched before the damaged door.

The door's destruction looked peculiar—covered entirely with tiny, uniformly sized holes.

But what puzzled Han Li was that the insides of these holes were not smooth at all, but rough as sandpaper—clearly not the work of any magic tool.

Han Li frowned, then slowly stood up.

He closed his eyes slowly, and his spiritual sense instantly swept across the other chambers.

All were equally empty—even the chambers housing two exotic insects ranked within the top hundred of the Exotic Insect List showed the same devastation, causing Han Li real pain.

Suddenly, his expression shifted; he opened his eyes.

A flash of cold light passed through his gaze, then he left the room and walked toward another chamber.

Another empty room—but upon entering, Han Li immediately bent down and picked up something from the blue stone floor.

He placed it in his palm and held it up for close inspection.

A tiny insect shell, the size of a bean, shimmered with brilliant silver light, as if forged from pure silver—exquisitely beautiful.

Han Li touched the shell with one finger; its surface was utterly smooth and extremely hard.

After a moment's thought, he concluded this could not be the exoskeleton of any insect he had raised.

At this, Han Li's expression turned grave; he half-closed his eyes.

Centering on these chambers, his spiritual sense began inch by inch to scour the cave dwelling.

He refused to believe he could find no trace at all.

Moments later, Han Li made an unexpected discovery in the herb garden.

Beneath a thick flowering tree hung a radiant silver sphere—definitely not an original item of the cave dwelling.

Han Li called to Qu Hun, his expression dark, and left the chamber for the herb garden.

The silver sphere was no larger than a child's head, yet its flickering, eerie silver glow was unmistakably conspicuous.

Han Li stood at the entrance of the herb garden, staring silently at the silver sphere.

He had a strange feeling he had heard of this silver object before, but could not recall where.

Yet this object was certainly closely linked to the silver insect shell.

"Insect shell!"

A flash of insight struck Han Li's mind—he seemed to remember something.

He swiftly reached into his storage pouch and pulled out a green jade slip—exactly the one recording the Spirit Insect Cultivators' insights on breeding insects.

Immersing his mind within, Han Li immediately found the relevant entry at position twelve on the Exotic Insect List.

"Shi Jin Chong: a gregarious, ferocious insect, ranked twelfth on the Exotic Insect List. It feeds on other exotic insects, excels at consuming metals and spiritual energy, is terrifyingly fierce, impervious to water and fire, prefers to cluster in spherical formations, and dwells beneath spirit trees. Can be contained by jade or wood; preyed upon by spider-type exotic insects…"

After reading the description several times, Han Li felt both shock and joy; he raised his head once more to gaze at the silver sphere.

Though all his carefully nurtured exotic insects were gone, if they were replaced by this insect ranked even higher than the "Golden-Backed Knife Mantis," he would gladly accept it.

But according to the jade slip, "Shi Jin Chong" ate almost everything except jade and wood, making capture extremely difficult.

Fortunately, he still had two "Blood Jade Spiders"; though their rank was far lower than that of the "Shi Jin Chong," they should be able to suppress it.

As the jade slip later noted, the silver "Shi Jin Chong" were newly hatched larvae, already at the upper tier of Level One; the white spiders, as demonic beasts, were vastly superior in rank.

Yet before acting, he still needed to test whether these insects were truly as formidable as the jade slip claimed.

At this thought, Qu Hun stepped forward immediately, standing before Han Li.

Blood light surged from Qu Hun's body; he raised one hand, spreading his fingers, and a vast wave of deep crimson energy shot forth, instantly enveloping the silver sphere in an impenetrable veil.

But the silver sphere remained motionless, as if lifeless.

Seeing this, Han Li rubbed his nose, slightly disappointed.

The Spirit Insect Cultivator had boasted of this insect's ferocity—why was its reaction so sluggish?

After a moment's hesitation, Han Li ordered Qu Hun to try other methods.

Qu Hun stared at the silver sphere, eyes flashing with malice; he raised his hand and cast a green spell onto the crimson veil surrounding the sphere.

Instantly, the crimson light deepened into purple, then erupted into blazing, ferocious demonic fire.

The silver sphere, scorched by the eerie demonic flame, finally changed.

Like a sculpture of packed sand, it shattered into countless specks of silver light, emitting a buzzing sound.

Han Li focused intently—each speck was a beetle-sized insect, no larger than a soybean, with a pair of visible fangs, otherwise indistinguishable from ordinary beetles, revealing no special traits.

Han Li was puzzled.

Were these not Shi Jin Chong after all? Had he mistaken them?

But after watching longer, Han Li was stunned.

Within Qu Hun's demonic fire, these beetles showed no sign of burning to ash—instead, they leapt and wriggled with astonishing vitality.

Even more unbelievable: they devoured the demonic fire at incredible speed; the purple flames vanished by nearly half in moments.

Seeing this, Han Li snapped back to himself—overjoyed.

He immediately loosened the mouth of a leather pouch at his waist; two beams of white light shot out, landing steadily on the ground—two Blood Jade Spiders, each the size of a human head.

Without hesitation, Han Li issued the command to capture them alive.

At the very moment the last remnants of demonic fire were devoured by the Shi Jin Chong, two streams of white fluid erupted from the spiders' mouths, instantly solidifying into two spider webs over a zhang in diameter, completely enclosing all the silver beetles.

These spider webs differed greatly from ordinary ones—their mesh was impossibly fine; the silver beetles trapped within could not escape through any gap.

The Shi Jin Chong sensed danger; they instantly transformed into silver arrow shapes, shooting toward the spider webs like real crossbow bolts.

"Puff! Puff!" The two white spider webs tightly wrapped the silver arrows, forming a tangled ball; inside, the Shi Jin Chong went wild, emitting piercing shrieks as they gnawed at the silk threads, clearly attempting to break free.

But the two white spiders gave them no chance; with several leaps, they reached the ball and continuously spat out streams of white fluid, quickly encasing the entire mass in a giant cocoon.

Yet Han Li knew this spider web would not hold the Shi Jin Chong long; he swiftly pulled out a jade box and stuffed the limp, sticky ball inside with three swift motions, then snapped the lid shut and tucked it into his storage pouch.

Normally, demonic beasts should be stored in specialized Spirit Beast Pouches; otherwise, ordinary Spirit Beast Pouches would suffocate living creatures due to lack of air.

But exotic insects on the Exotic Insect List were vastly different—their vitality was extraordinarily resilient; they could survive unharmed in storage pouches without breathing. Otherwise, the original Spirit Insect Cultivator would never have carried so many larvae in ordinary bottles and jars.

Of course, if one truly wished to command beasts in battle, specialized Spirit Beast Pouches were far superior—easier to summon and far more convenient for training.

Most importantly, Spirit Beast Pouches could shrink oversized demonic beasts for storage; storage pouches could not shrink living things. Thus, even exotic insects, if too large, required specialized Spirit Beast Pouches.

Han Li secured the jade box, fearing he might have missed something else, and swept his spiritual sense once more through the cave dwelling and its surroundings.

Aside from discovering a patch of densely perforated holes on the floor of the storage chamber, he found nothing else.

These small holes must be the traces left by the Shi Jin Chong burrowing underground into his cave dwelling!

With this, Han Li dared not linger; he immediately left the true and false cave dwellings, gathered the array equipment for all three arrays, and shot skyward.

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