Chapter 348: Indestructible Oil (2/5, Autumn Subscription)

After confirming the number of 【Oil-Eating Bugs】 in the sack, Fang Yue prepared to gather volunteers for testing.

"I'll do it!"

Unexpectedly, the Blood Hunter spoke up in a low voice at this moment.

Fang Yue knew the Blood Hunter felt guilty over the Guard Team member who had just died.

Without saying more, he opened the coarse sack and aimed it at the Blood Hunter.

Buzzzzz.

The 【Oil-Eating Bugs】 swarmed out of the sack, immediately detecting the heavy stench of strange oil on the Blood Hunter's body; like rabid dogs pouncing, they burrowed into his clothes and began feeding on the strange oil.

Fang Yue stood by, observing the Blood Hunter's condition.

At first, the Blood Hunter felt nothing, only slightly shifting his body in discomfort, as if enduring an itch.

But soon, he began frowning, as if sensing a sharp pain.

"Blood Hunter?"

"Wait a bit longer!"

This time, the number of 【Oil-Eating Bugs】 released was small, so their efficiency in consuming the strange oil was low, but they were far safer.

After waiting a while longer, the Blood Hunter gritted his teeth and growled: "Now!"

Boom!

Flames, controlled with perfect precision, engulfed the Blood Hunter entirely.

Sizzling, the 【Oil-Eating Bugs】 fell to the ground, burned red-hot and thoroughly cooked—their heat resistance was extremely poor, and they were instantly incinerated.

Under Fang Yue's control, the flames dissipated; the Blood Hunter cupped his scorching arm and smiled: "Ye Ge, it worked! This method is viable!"

"Mm."

Someone brought cold water and poured it over the Blood Hunter.

Fang Yue began "harvesting" the next batch of 【Oil-Eating Bugs】, then used them to suck out the strange oil, and finally finished with the flames of the Flame Heart Method.

Once the entire process was mastered, efficiency was still quite high.

After becoming proficient in the rhythm, Fang Yue began organizing people into groups of five or six—batches were exposed to the 【Oil-Eating Bugs】, then batches were dealt with, directly entering an assembly-line industrial phase.

When most of the team had been stripped of their strange oil and were safe, the Blood Hunter, who was responsible for capturing the 【Oil-Eating Bugs】 swarms, suddenly frowned: "Ye Ge, the number of bugs is decreasing—the underground swarm seems to be almost entirely passing through here!"

Fang Yue immediately ordered everyone to speed up; they barely managed to strip the remaining people of their strange oil before the underground 【Oil-Eating Bugs】 swarm fully passed through—even Tian Dan Zhi Yuan Wu, who had been left behind, was cleared.

Whether it was an illusion or not, after the 【Oil-Eating Bugs】 swarm departed, they no longer exuded strange oil, as if the strange curse that had enveloped them had also left.

Or perhaps… from the very beginning, they had merely been trailing the tail end of that unknown strange-oil anomaly, and no one else had even noticed their group's existence—they were simply caught in the crossfire.

"If that's true… then that strange-oil anomaly must be incredibly powerful," Fang Yue couldn't help saying.

"Mm. If this hypothesis holds, the strange-oil anomaly is at least a Black Grade High Stage anomaly—possibly even a Blood Grade anomaly!"

Blood Grade anomaly!?

Fang Yue's heart tightened.

For their remote village, Black Grade High Stage anomalies were nearly the upper limit of threat.

A Blood Grade anomaly? That was something they dared not even imagine!

A Blood Grade anomaly corresponds to a human's cultivation realm: Xiantian Realm experts!

Even if Fang Yue had reached First-rate Realm, facing a Blood Grade anomaly would still be hopeless—a full realm gap meant near-certain death for ordinary cultivators.

Crushing you—what does it matter to you?

Having witnessed the bizarre and eerie, and even Qi Ba Jiu Daren's terrifying power, Fang Yue increasingly understood that sometimes being crushed meant nothing more than his own weakness—not deliberate malice from others.

Calming his turbulent emotions, Fang Yue asked in a low voice: "Then what about these 【Oil-Eating Bugs】 swarms?"

"Hmm… I suspect these 【Oil-Eating Bugs】 swarms feed on the strange oil produced by that anomaly. In other words… they might be 【Twin Companion Anomalies】!"

"Twin Companion Anomalies?"

"Ye Ge might not know—anomalies have many survival methods. Some gather in groups, some act alone, and some form strange symbiotic pairings with other anomalies.

They benefit each other, mutually reinforce each other, and can essentially be treated as a single entity. If you encounter one 【Twin Companion Anomaly】, the other is always nearby.

Perhaps that strange-oil anomaly isn't that strong—it merely releases the strange oil, while the 【Twin Companion Anomaly】 【Oil-Eating Bugs】 swarm eliminates the prey, then transmits the results back to the strange-oil anomaly through some unknown method!"

The Blood Hunter's analysis sounded plausible.

But Fang Yue remembered—he had killed these 【Oil-Eating Bugs】 swarms and received no reward whatsoever, so whether they were even anomalies remained uncertain.

"I don't know. I'm just a Hunter—I can analyze some situations, but my knowledge is far inferior to that of warriors who travel regularly. When we return to the village, ask Lord Han—he might know their true nature."

Fang Yue nodded slightly.

If anyone would know about such anomalies, it would be Lord Han.

But… such a powerful anomaly, combined with the vast underground swarm of 【Oil-Eating Bugs】, all fleeing wildly forward like a mass migration—what could possibly be causing this?

As if struck by the same thought, the Blood Hunter's face also darkened with concern.

At that moment, a member of the escort team handed over a large ceramic bottle.

"Captain Ye, we've collected a full bottle."

"Mm."

Under the Blood Hunter's puzzled gaze, Fang Yue took the bottle: "It contains strange oil—I had them collect some that had stuck to the village path, to run some experiments."

Saying this, Fang Yue picked up a palm-sized stone from the roadside, dripped a drop of strange oil onto it, then…

Flame Heart Method.

A small flame sprouted from his right hand and immediately enveloped the stone coated with strange oil.

Boom!!!

The tiny flame, like oil poured onto fire, erupted wildly—its intensity caused the stone to sizzle violently, nearly burning through it.

When he threw the stone away, the flame surrounding it vanished instantly in the wind—but the spot where the strange oil had dripped continued burning furiously, growing even stronger, like an eternal flame that pierced through a large tree and landed on the distant ground, still blazing.

But the flames were still burning!

Fang Yue smiled.

This accelerant was unexpectedly useful, just not so useful to use on oneself—afraid of burning oneself to death.

The Analysis Pupil glanced at it and could discern nothing, so Fang Yue had to name the strange oil himself: 【Unextinguishable Oil】.

(End of Chapter)