Chapter 89: Hunger Devouring (Second Update)

The Captains of the Purification Office initially thought the insects looked like a hailstorm of black and yellow, but as they drew near, their faces turned pale with horror—each was three feet long, not hailstones, but meteorites!

Boom boom boom…

They smashed into the ground, carving deep craters; many struck the Captains directly, crushing them before swarms of others scrambled up, biting and tearing—Captains screamed and died in succession!

The locusts used saw-like legs to slice the corpses, dragging off chunks to devour beside them!

“Damn it!” Yan Lao cursed, pouring all his strength into slamming down the Doghead Guillotine—countless bones shattered into glowing phosphorescence, and dozens of ancient ghosts shrieked before vanishing entirely.

Yan Lao raised the guillotine again and roared: “Who dares lurk here?!”

The Locust Witch walked down from the cliff, hands behind her back, then suddenly stopped.

Her eyes showed a flicker of wariness.

“The children’s aid is enough,” she halted midway.

Qin Ze silently cursed the old demon for being a coward, striking his drum as he drew another blade.

With a sharp slash, he knocked the arrow loose from the scorpion’s tail, and the tail spun again.

He beat the drum with the hilt, his spider-legs moving swiftly, chasing Xu Yuan without pause.

But the hilt seemed to melt, engulfing Qin Ze’s entire hand.

Even with his heavy destiny, the craftsmanship artifacts covering him were beginning to buckle.

Yet before he reached Xu Yuan, Qin Ze sensed something was wrong.

First, the Locust Witch’s countless offspring devoured all the fallen Captains, then turned on each other, biting and gnawing indiscriminately!

Hundreds surged forward and devoured Qin Ze’s two subordinates!

Some were even chewing their own legs!

Then, a fierce hunger surged through Qin Ze himself—he wanted to bite right into the drum and blade in his hands!

“What’s going on?!”

Inside the war chariot, Xu Yuan released the skin and poured water from a waterskin over it.

He carried at least two waterskins on this mission precisely because of this skin.

But with only two waterskins, the “Hunger Devouring” spell was still weak.

The locusts couldn’t withstand it, but Qin Ze and the other cultivators could still hold out.

Xu Yuan was about to find more waterskins when Qin Ze made an immediate decision: “Retreat!”

The spider-legs swiftly withdrew, then clanged back together, reforming into iron wings that lifted into the air, soaring dozens of zhang away.

Ceng Si and the others immediately followed in retreat.

Having held the upper hand, they could withdraw calmly from battle.

Qin Ze felt his objective had been achieved.

This battle had already killed over a dozen Purification Office Captains.

All the ghosts of the Ten-Thousand-Grave Pit had been slain; the Locust Witch refused to intervene herself, and her descendants were devouring each other—the situation had turned against them.

If they didn’t leave now, Fu Jingyu would arrive with the Doghead Guillotine to cut them down.

Lu Zhengyan, fighting through intense hunger, picked up his bow again, drew it fully, aimed at Qin Ze, and fired.

Pfft!

At a hundred zhang away, the arrow struck Qin Ze’s ribs.

Qin Ze staggered midair, spraying blood, yet flew off without even turning back.

Xu Yuan wrung out the skin—the “Hunger Devouring” faded.

The locusts, freed from the spell’s influence, looked around… their siblings and cousins were already half-eaten—no point wasting it, finish them all.

Xu Yuan stepped out of the war chariot, gestured to the group, and together they silently carried the mangled corpses, slowly retreating beyond the locusts’ range.

Da Fu staggered back from the side, still clutching a giant locust in his mouth.

The locust wasn’t dead yet, but couldn’t escape Da Fu’s jaws.

Xu Yuan was surprised—during the sudden battle, he hadn’t had time to check on Da Fu and didn’t know where it had hidden, but now it was still pure white, unharmed, its belly swollen, likely having eaten more than one locust.

Xu Yuan glared at it, signaling it to drop the insect.

Da Fu wasn’t disobedient—it simply couldn’t see; the locust was too big, blocking its vision as it held it in its mouth.

Only when it returned to Xu Yuan’s side did it gulp, swallowing the entire insect in one motion.

Xu Yuan saw a bulge the size of Da Fu’s own body swell along its slender neck, twitching slightly near the top before slowly sinking into its belly.

“How can you eat that?” Xu Yuan silently shook his head in disbelief.

The Locust Witch stood halfway up the mountain, her wings trembling with rage.

This time, hundreds of her descendants were lost.

To impress Qin Ze, she had sent only her first-generation offspring—each three feet long.

She no longer reproduced; each birth drained a portion of her own power.

So each of these offspring lost was irreplaceable.

It pained her deeply.

But she dared not urge her descendants to tear apart the Purification Office—this spell was too sinister; further provocation might doom all her children here.

Even the strange feared it—truly sinister.

Xu Yuan led the group past the debt-ghost forest and returned to the town’s boundaries.

Yan Lao looked at them all, nearly shedding tears.

When they entered the mountains, there were thirty Captains—now only fourteen remained, all wounded.

They recovered four corpses, all mangled, bearing marks of locust bites.

This loss was catastrophic!

Though technically a victory, the Purification Office had won a pyrrhic victory.

Fu Jingyu sighed deeply and ordered: “Burn them.”

The corpses must not be kept—especially those devoured by demons.

They would surely rise as corpses tonight.

Several lightly wounded Captains gathered firewood and burned their comrades outside the town.

Then they placed the ashes in jars, labeling each with names.

They would carry them home to deliver to their families.

The group returned to Zhao’s Leather Shop, helping each other bind wounds.

Xu Yuan and the other four went upstairs, closed the door, and Yan Lao exploded: “Who are these people? Find them—and exterminate their entire clans!”

Lu Zhengyan mused: “Could this be Chen Liangxuan’s people? But the old master ordered men to watch the county gates—no suspicious individuals entered.”

Fu Jingyu said: “Who else would oppose us besides Chen Liangxuan’s faction?”

Xu Yuan said: “It must be them! Qiao Zian colluded with the mountain’s strange entities—these people appeared and immediately joined forces with the Locust Witch—no doubt about it.”

He paused, then added: “The real question now is—how do we investigate next?”

The fake-accuser ghost that infiltrated the forest, and the dead man’s money blown into our arms by the wind—clearly the work of mountain demons.

The Locust Witch has countless offspring; once we enter the mountains, they’ll detect us and summon demons to surround and kill us.

The group fell silent—they knew nothing of Ghost Witch Mountain and had no ideas.

The only hope lay with Xu Yuan.

(End of Chapter)