Chapter 963: Lady Lady Jia You

"Hm?"

Jiang Ding's divine sense swept through the gaps, and he let out a soft sound of surprise.

His body flashed, and he arrived inside Bai Zu Canghai Tianjun's demon palace.

It was dark and damp here, pitch-black, the air thick with waves of a foul, fishy stench, and tunnels of every kind snaked off in all directions, burrowing into who-knew-where.

From this one could see that although Bai Zu Canghai Tianjun had cultivated to Hua Shen Qi, he still retained a great many beastly instincts, and had not, like the Ice Phoenix clan, accumulated much that could be called "civilization"—neither the demon race's immortal-path civilization nor the human race's. His way of doing things was the same.

At the very center of the demon palace, Jiang Ding discovered the corpse of a Jin Jia centipede.

This Jin Jia centipede was only a few hundred meters long, likewise of an aberrant bloodline, no worse than Bai Zu Canghai Tianjun's own, and carried the aura of a quasi-fifth-tier being.

Her chest had likewise been torn open with a great hole, her heart and brain devoured by the Hundred-Poison Golden-Silk Gu parasitizing within her.

"Her,"

Yes, she was a female centipede, and should have been Bai Zu Canghai Tianjun's wife.

However, from the look of things now, the title "wife" was probably just a label the world used; in Bai Zu Canghai Tianjun's eyes, she was perhaps nothing more than a mating partner.

A wisp of faint divine will appeared in this Jin Jia centipede's abdomen.

Jiang Ding casually sliced once.

The centipede's corpse was split open, its stomach split open as well, revealing within it a centipede egg slick with gastric juices and venom, its surface woven with golden and green patterns, a breath of life within it, and clinging to it a wisp of faint, tender divine will.

"Tushan… Tushan Canghai Tianjun?"

This wisp of divine will asked softly.

The voice was very gentle, carrying no hatred, no earth-shattering grievance, no wrong that would make snow fly in June.

"It is indeed I."

Jiang Ding nodded and said, "Lady Lady Jia You, this one has come to pay a visit to Daoist Friend Baizu, yet I see no trace of him. Might Lady know where Daoist Friend Baizu has gone?"

"Haha…"

"How would this one know such a thing."

Lady Lady Jia You laughed at herself: "Friend Baizu, though a Canghai Tianjun, is like the lowest sort of centipede—cold and cruel. Even his own offspring are materials for his Gu refinement, devoured at whim. How would he ever tell me, his foundation for survival?"

"Even I was killed by him, giving birth to a Hundred-Poison Golden-Silk Gu with the potential to advance to fifth tier."

She sighed.

"Enough. Among our demon race, it has always been the strong devouring the weak, the strong honored as lord. My prattling on here is useless too. The weak die, and that is as it should be."

"Lady Lady Jia You sees things clearly."

Jiang Ding praised her once, and decided to let her divine will live a little longer.

Yes, if she hadn't already died, Jiang Ding had planned to beat her to death.

This Lady Lady Jia You, for all that she looked

soft and frail, was in truth a ruthless and vicious sort. Her Jin Jia centipede body, when unfurled, was impervious to blade and spear, untouched by water and fire, hard to wound even with magic treasures. In a single day's outing, devouring several hundred thousand demons and humans was nothing to her. In the Southern Border she was a centipede whose infamy surpassed even Bai Zu Canghai Tianjun's.

Bai Zu Canghai Tianjun, fond of using humans and demons to refine Gu, had little interest in crude, direct devouring.

"See things clearly? It is nothing more than the strong devouring the weak."

"If my strength had been enough, I would long ago have devoured Friend Baizu, and then devoured you as well, Canghai Tianjun."

Lady Lady Jia You laughed at herself.

She was silent for a long while, then her divine will pointed at the great egg beneath her, covered in golden-green patterns: "This is my son, named Jiajin. His talent surpasses mine, surpasses Friend Baizu's by far. I spent a great deal of effort, and with some luck besides, to preserve him and keep him from Friend Baizu's poisonous hand."

"If you are so inclined, you may take him as a spirit pet, set a divine-sense restriction upon him, and use him as a servant, or to guard your mountain gate—he would be a great aid either way."

"Please set your mind at ease. Jiajin is too small; he may not even have developed a divine soul yet."

Lady Lady Jia You tenderly stroked the great egg, and said with melancholy: "He will bear you no grudge, for right now he knows nothing of the outside world. And even if he did…"

"Among our centipede clan, only the mother has feelings for her children. Males—and even children toward their mother, and children toward one another—rarely have any feeling at all. Devouring each other is commonplace. For thousands upon thousands of generations, centipedes have lived this way."

"If raised properly, he may yet add another late-Soul Transformation aid to your side, or even higher."

"Is that so?"

Jiang Ding gave no opinion.

He showed no delight, unlike other cultivation practitioners who chanced upon an aberrant young beast.

For him, humans were the best subordinates—same script, same kind. With the passage of time, the growth of population, and the expansion of territory, heaven-blessed prodigies would be born among them as well.

Such people—would their value to be cultivated really be less than some centipede picked up from who-knows-where?

As for a rebellious streak, insufficient loyalty—suppression would suffice.

If someone is stronger than you, why should they serve you? Isn't that only natural?

Absolute loyalty represents absolute weakness, and is utterly worthless.

"You are not tempted?"

Lady Lady Jia You sighed, misunderstanding something, and her voice gradually lowered: "Indeed, he may be Friend Baizu's contingency. I could not possibly have hidden it from him—he is a Canghai Tianjun. It is indeed possible."

"Then… decide for yourself…"

Her voice grew ever fainter, and at last scattered with the wind, leaving not a trace behind—she had spent the last of her strength.

In the belly of the several-hundred-meter-long Jin Jia centipede, a great golden-green egg glimmered with light, resting upon its mother's corpse and the last remnant of will that had poured out all its strength.

Jiang Ding gazed at this scene and thought for a long

while.

With a wave of his hand, the great egg fell into his palm, and his divine sense and sword intent poured into it, examining it carefully.

"No lingering divine will, no contingency—just a pure aberrant centipede egg."

"Bai Zu Canghai Tianjun deliberately spared him, and even, to put my mind at ease, slew his mother, without offering any explanation."

Jiang Ding thought it over, then sighed softly: "It seems no matter how heartless a male, no matter how powerful, he is still swayed by the instinct of genes to reproduce, wanting to pass his bloodline on."

"This is the instinct that plagues us males our whole lives."

Jiang Ding placed the centipede egg in the demon palace afterward, preparing to let the cultivators from Master Tushan Master Tushan Zhongting who would arrive later handle it.

Yes, he would not kill the last bloodline of Bai Zu Canghai Tianjun.

The demon race of the Six-Tailed Fox Clan, the demon race of the Jin Chi Wang Zu, and various other demon races—as long as they did not eat people, he let them go, so as to add diversity to the human immortal dao civilization and preserve the precious wealth of the natural world.

Now, a mere centipede egg that had not even given birth to a soul yet, naturally there was no reason to kill it and cut the grass and dig out the roots.

As for raising it into a spirit pet?

His talent was not enough, far from enough, it would only be a drag.

By the time this centipede egg grew up, his strength should have already surpassed Soul Transformation, or he would be dead, fallen among the myriad strange dangers of the Cultivation World, and there would be no need for anything.

Jiang Ding's divine sense and sword intent carefully scanned the surroundings.

Very fortunately, most of the array bases of the Myriad Poison Sect's Myriad Gu Myriad Poison Array were still intact; only the accumulated gu poison and gu worms of many years had been lost. As long as a little over ten billion was spent, it could be modified into an array that barely reached the fifth rank, sparing the need to bleed more spirit stones to purchase an entirely new array.