Chapter 320: 329 The Chirping of Summer

Following a crisp, synchronized cracking sound, countless green summer cicadas, having just shed their pupal skins, appeared in the woods in an instant.

In a normal summer, these cicadas are only the size of a finger; though ugly, they mostly hide among the leaves, causing only a bit of annoyance when they emit their sharp, grating chirps, and occasionally becoming a snack for mischievous children.

But when the volume of these chirping hemipteran insects is magnified a hundredfold, that ugliness is magnified by far more than a hundred times.

Tang Zhao had seen Heavenly Demons and Fierce Beasts before, which were various animals that had undergone alienation; a considerable portion of them were ugly and disgusting, but they were, after all, abnormal monsters. Who would have known that these insects, without any alienation or pollution, would be so terrifying simply by being magnified?

"Zhi—"

Countless chirps, sounding like metal rubbing against metal, rang out. The sound pierced the ears and drilled into the heart; each chirp was like a bugle call for a charge, and the ugly, giant cicadas rushed out, blotting out the sky and covering the earth.

Three or five rushed toward Tang Zhao, four or five toward Chi Deputy Envoy, and more moved in swarms to charge upward, toward Xing Ji in the sky.

"Monsters are coming!"

When those cicadas were just quietly staring at Tang Zhao with their compound eyes, he had felt a chill in his heart, but now that they were truly charging, turning into black shadows rushing toward him, they were not so terrifying after all.

Watch the sword—

Tang Zhao swept his sword horizontally, the Sword Qi turning into light, cutting across like a line.

This was not any Sword Technique, but a direct sweep using Sword Essence. The Sword Essence fused with Sword Intent, naturally turning into a stream of light.

The light-like Sword Qi swept past; a portion touched the giant cicadas' hard bodies and could not cut through, dissipating directly, while another streak of Sword Light swept across their thin wings, cutting them clean off. Half-severed wings fluttered into the air, and the large cicada bodies plummeted from the sky.

A flaw!

Tang Zhao breathed a sigh of relief, simultaneously using the momentum to lift his body, rapidly dodging a sneak attack from a cicada behind him.

These cicadas had hard bodies and fast speeds; they could withstand Sword Qi head-on, and also...

Bang—

Tang Zhao saw from afar that Chi Deputy Envoy was knocked flying backward by a cicada head-on, nearly falling into the sea of fire, but he quickly flew back and continued to fight with his sword, clearly not having suffered any heavy injuries.

Great strength.

But the weakness was also obvious.

Those wings were thin and transparent, clearly granting the cicadas unparalleled speed, but they were extremely fragile.

This fragility was not relative, but absolute.

Tang Zhao's Sword Light just now was not strong; because of the "light" attribute, the Sword Qi was extremely fast and agile, not sharp. Its intensity depended entirely on the energy density Tang Zhao imparted at that moment, with a huge difference between the upper and lower limits. Tang Zhao had not added much Sword Essence to the light that sliced the giant cicada's wings, and had even restrained the high temperature; that it could still cut off the wings showed that these wings were truly fragile.

The only obstacle was that the wings were attached to the giant cicadas, which had incredibly fast flight speeds and were extremely difficult to track—sometimes even the eyes could not catch them—but what Tang Zhao feared least was a contest of speed.

The speed of light, on a typical battlefield, really has no need for the word "speed."

"Borrowing some light."

Tang Zhao was too lazy to even move his hands; he lightly pinched, pulling a ray of light from the bright sky around him, and waved it casually. The light shot forward almost instantly, piercing a transparent wing, then jumped upward following the gesture of Tang Zhao's hand, tearing out a gap. Immediately after, the light ceased to condense and dissipated into the daylight.

Still a bit unskilled. Not as easy to use as his own Sword Light.

Tang Zhao knew in his heart that although he had obtained the Sunlight Sword Image, he was still far from being able to toy with light, let alone manipulate natural light as he pleased. Tang Zhao was just acting on a whim, wanting to test his relationship with sunlight; he did not dwell on it on the battlefield, his Sword Qi turning into light, and his body was also bathed in layers of brilliance.

With a few *chi-chi* sounds, the wings were shaved off, and the last cicada also plummeted.

After all, there were only three cicadas on his side.

Actually, these few cicadas were still alive; with their wings gone, they crawled on the ground after falling, clearly not injured by the high fall due to their hard bodies. But there was no need to pay attention to them for now, because in a battle of this level, things crawling on the ground posed no immediate threat.

After Tang Zhao finished dealing with his side, he immediately looked at Chi Deputy Envoy. He remembered that Chi Deputy Envoy seemed to have been at a disadvantage just now. Chi Deputy Envoy did not seem to be a speed-type, so even if he knew the weakness, he had no way to attack...

Immediately after, he saw at a glance that Chi Deputy Envoy was leading four or five cicadas into the sea of fire in the surrounding forest, as if flying a kite.

Ah... good tactic.

Tang Zhao sighed slightly, and saw Chi Deputy Envoy crawling out of the sea of fire, covered in dust and dirt; he looked disheveled but completely unscathed. Immediately after, bursts of charred fragrance and the sound of fire-roasted crispy skin popping came from behind.

Tang Zhao was a bit nostalgic for this smell; back in the day, he was also one of the mischievous children who roasted cicada pupae over fires, and those days hadn't been that many years ago.

It was just that the charred fragrance only drifted out for a few wisps before the smell became strange, mixed with other inexplicable stenches. It seemed that after the insect bodies became larger, some things became exceptionally unpleasant when roasted.

Tang Zhao was so disgusted that his childhood memories were interrupted, and he turned to ask Chi Deputy Envoy: "Deputy Envoy, are you alright?"

Chi Deputy Envoy spat, spitting out a mouthful of charcoal ash, and said: "I'm fine. It's just that you kid managed to solve yours before me. This must be a trick the old man buried in advance. Originally, they should have all gone to deal with Lao Xing; we split a few, so we blocked half a disaster for Lao Xing, which counts as a little bit of use, right?"

Tang Zhao felt that saying they blocked half a disaster was an overstatement; the cicadas the two of them solved combined were not even ten, while those flying cicadas that rushed up were more than a hundred. He feared it wasn't even one-tenth of a disaster; their role was better than nothing.

However, these cicadas were not particularly tricky, and they could both deal with them; it shouldn't be difficult for the Chief to deal with them, right?

Even if the quantity was a bit high.

At this moment.

In the sky, it was already covered with iron chains; these iron chains branched out from the iron frame that clamped the big tree, crisscrossing to seal off the sky, like a giant insect-catching net.

Although these iron chains had woven into a web, the gaps before were not small; if they were ordinary insects, they would have leaked through like a sieve long ago.

Fortunately, these cicadas were large enough, and, the iron chains were an extension of the Deep Prison; once caught, they would be affected by the "Prison Qi" of the prison and suppressed until they could not move. Although these giant cicadas came aggressively, they could only lie on the net and be unable to move now. This move quickly suppressed them. Even the piercing chirping sound stopped.

However, Xing Ji felt a secret sense of alarm: maintaining these iron chains would divert a portion of the Deep Prison's power, causing him to fall into a disadvantage in the contest of Sword Techniques.

And these cicadas were likely a backup plan buried by the Summer Pillar of State from the beginning, not a force split off temporarily. This should be some kind of special Sword Technique; once the prerequisites were met, he let them grow in the soil, using the time of this growth and other conditions to reduce the consumption of Sword Essence and increase the power. Therefore, the Sword Essence reduced by both sides was not the same, and he was at a disadvantage.

To be honest, from the beginning, the Sword Essence of the two was not on the same level. The cultivation of Sword Essence certainly had its speed, but with the accumulation of time, it always became more and more. Xing Ji's age and the time he had been a Sword Hero were far behind the opponent's; being young and strong was not an advantage in the Sword Hero arena, and the previous contest had already left him a step behind. At the same time, reducing a portion still left him at a disadvantage, not to mention that he had reduced more than the opponent; the disadvantage grew with each passing turn.

Of course, Xing Ji had his own plans for dragging the situation into a stalemate of power. But the premise was that the situation could not be too unfavorable; the Sword Technique he had prepared was still gathering momentum. The wave of cicada attacks just now was too sudden, making him subconsciously divert a lot of Sword Essence; this was a small mistake.

A mistake gave the opponent an opportunity.

The one on the opposite side was an experienced old rebel; he should take this opportunity to strike over, right?

Xing Ji was already prepared for a wave of advancement from the opponent.

"Hahaha..." The Pillar of State stood on the canopy of the big tree, laughing loudly.

Hm?

Xing Ji was surprised: Not taking the opportunity to attack, but laughing suddenly? Is he trying to distract me with laughter to launch a sneak attack? Just like shouting loudly before killing a general on horseback?

"Do you think it's over just like this? You underestimate our Summer Cicadas too much."

Your Summer Cicadas?

"The cicada is buried under the soil for seventeen years, yet its lifespan is only a mere few days. Ten years of life exchanged for seven days of chirping; how brilliant is that chirping sound? How could it easily go hoarse? You want to make the cicadas shut up; that is truly going against the heavens."

Xing Ji could not help but say, "Are these things really buried for seventeen years? Have they even been buried for seventeen breaths?"

Summer Pillar of State sneered, "Do you think these cicadas were just buried by me? Ever since I established this stronghold, I have sent them into the soil to develop. They eat dust and drink dew in the soil, hibernating for days, all for the sake of today's cry. To amaze the world with a single cry, we can pay any price. Because they are born in summer and buried in summer, this is the cry of summer!"

"Cry, summer cicadas!"

"Zhi—"

The swarm of cicadas, whose collective sound had just been suppressed by the prison aura, suddenly cried out in unison, sharp enough to pierce the clouds, like a roaring symphony.

At the same time, the Luse bodies on the iron chains suddenly deepened, turning dark brown, and their bodies continued to swell, becoming several times their original size, completely dwarfing a person's height.

That was the complete form of the cicada, the moment the cicada was most mature, and also the moment closest to death.

They rushed toward death at a faster speed, also gaining more powerful strength, and charged while crying out.

Boom—

An iron chain was snapped by the powerful force.

Xing Ji's expression changed slightly—the strength had not just increased, but had reached a higher level, reaching the level of a Sword Technique. The opponent possessed two Sword Techniques at the same time!

This latter Sword Technique was even more troublesome.

Boom, boom, boom—

The iron chains snapped one by one, and a large number of crying cicadas charged toward Xing Ji. The sound of their vibrating wings was like metal scraping, and their ugly heads were lined up together, revealing sharp, straw-like mouthparts.

Even though Xing Ji had seen many Heavenly Demons, he could not help but retreat and reach out to block—

"Yumen Guan!"

A gate with a tiger head appeared out of thin air, blocking the first wave of the cicadas' suicidal impact.

"This is not enough! Summer has not only crying cicadas, but also countless blooming lives!"

Summer Pillar of State's laughter rumbled incessantly, as if he were about to laugh his Soul out: "People all say the key to summer is 'lushness'. However, I feel that this is the blooming before death. Precisely because autumn is approaching and all things face withering, and death is unavoidable, today's blooming has meaning. In order to better welcome the curtain call, one should bloom at this very moment at any cost!"

"Bloom, Xia Hua!"

Snap—

Another soft sound.

The sound of flowers blooming.

On that towering tree, huge flowers bloomed instantly.