Chapter 53: King of the Insects (Ten)

"Calm down, calm down," Zhou Ke patted Wu Bai's shoulder, advising him with the composure of a seasoned elder, making it genuinely difficult to tell who was the senior of the two.

"I've been observing your battle for a while now. Aside from speed and physical stamina, you completely outclass it. The core issue is your lack of a means to break through its defense."

"And so you used explosions and fire to test out the cotton's weakness?" Wu Bai's eyes lit up.

"Um, no." Zhou Ke pondered and shook his head. "My truth has nothing to do with fire, so even if I found a weakness, I wouldn't be able to exploit it."

"Then why did you go to all that trouble of riding a motorcycle and crashing out?"

"Need you even ask?" Zhou Ke said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Because it was right there, mostly. Besides, once I'm back in the real world, I don't have a driver's license, so I might as well enjoy the thrill while I can."

"How is it that you can make driving without a license sound like profound philosophy?" Wu Bai felt a wave of darkness wash over his vision.

"Hey, you two look like you're having a great chat. Mind including me?"

Completely ignored throughout, the King of Insects grew increasingly furious. It raised its claws and summoned sharp earth spikes right beneath the feet of Zhou Ke and Wu Bai.

This was the earth-manipulation ability granted to it by *The Five Elements Theory: Earth Volume*.

Just as Zhou Ke had deduced, as long as the King of Insects consumed a large area of flesh and blood from an arch-mage, it could acquire the [Truth] and watch its ether rank grow robustly.

Its current strength far surpassed that of its former evenly-matched rival, the King of Hounds.

*Whoosh—*

The obvious precursor to the earth spikes clearly couldn't harm the battle-hardened Wu Bai or the perpetually cautious Zhou Ke. Both reacted within a single second, easily dodging away.

"Do you have any other tactics that might actually work?" Wu Bai asked, leaping to the side.

"I do, I do," Zhou Ke hesitated, a rare occurrence for him. "It's just a little cruel."

"Let's hear it first!" Wu Bai thought to himself, just how cruel could it possibly be?

"How about using black people against cotton? Based on my many years of playing Pokémon, it's definitely a type matchup advantage!" Zhou Ke said with a completely straight face.

"Enough is enough! What time is it, can you please use your brain normally for once?!" Wu Bai was in the middle of thrusting his spear straight at the King of Insects, and Zhou Ke's words almost made him choke on his breath.

"It seems you really hate him too. In that case, I'll help you kill him."

The King of Insects' resentment toward Zhou Ke had also been festering for a while; its carapace secreted mucus, and its speed surged!

It had absorbed the memories of those it devoured, knowing that the examinees were extremely weak, and thus viewed Zhou Ke as a helpless lamb of a prey.

However, this time, it was wrong.

Zhou Ke was more elusive than an imperceptible breeze, and the King of Insects' sure-kill evasive strike couldn't even touch a single strand of his hair.

Then, a dark shadow flashed swiftly, and blade-notes crossed in the air.

By the time the wind resumed its flow, Zhou Ke had somehow appeared far behind the King of Insects.

He had the back of the Spirit Key resting on his shoulder, his expression chillingly dark. "Hey, if you dare to touch me with that slimy hand of yours, you're dead."

""

The King of Insects made no reply; it looked with lingering fear at the cotton tuft growing on its chest, where two crossed cross-slash marks were particularly conspicuous.

If the slash had been even a fraction deeper, it would have pierced the cotton armor and truly bitten into its carapace!

"Formidable." The King of Insects no longer dared to speak boastfully. A beast's intuition told it that Zhou Ke was extremely dangerous—even more dangerous than Wu Bai.

Angering Wu Bai would at most result in a fair and straightforward defeat.

Going against Zhou Ke felt as though a hundred miserable ways to die were lying in wait for it.

The King of Insects grew vigilant. The ether from Wick Stage Eight caused its deep green carapace to glow with brilliance.

It looked at Wu Bai and said, "Wu Bai, I'm going to use my full power now."

With those words, the Truth manifested.

*The Penglai Immortal Isle is nowhere to be found, nor is the breath of the dragon's lips.*

The heat shimmering off the ground evaporated, and the figure of the King of Insects merely blurred for a moment before returning to normal, showing no other visible changes.

"The Truth of hallucinatory abilities?" Hundreds of possibilities flashed through Zhou Ke's mind instantly. Just a single glance was enough for him to make a close guess.

"That's right—" Wu Bai's expression turned exceedingly ugly and complex, as if a mixture of anger, sorrow, guilt, and disappointment had been mashed together.

*Mirage*, originating from the ancient Central Province science-system grand-mage, Shen Kuo, also known as Elder Mengxi.

A mirage is a natural phenomenon, yet during the ancient Qin and Han dynasties, emperors mistakenly believed it to be the Penglai Immortal Isle appearing in the heavens, repeatedly sending people in various ways to seek the elixir of immortality at Penglai.

Meanwhile, common folk mostly believed it was formed by the breath exhaled by divine dragons.

Yet Grand Mage Shen Kuo never blindly followed convention; he sensed that mirages possessed a certain fathomable rhythm hidden within the netherworld.

Thus, he observed and comprehended them repeatedly across oceans, rivers, and deserts, day and night without rest, finally attaining enlightenment in the magic of illusion and mirages, allowing him to conjure mirages at will and confound others.

Wu Bai was all too familiar with the *Mirage* now being used by the King of Insects.

It was the former junior squad member who used to look up to him with eyes full of admiration, the former comrade-in-arms who had fought shoulder-to-shoulder with him, and the sworn enemy with whom he would never share the same sky until death.

"Jiaohai, even you—"

"As it happens," the King of Insects seemed to recall something and said, "the original owner of this Truth wanted to exact revenge on you, so he risked his life diving deep underground, attempting to kill me and seize power from my body."

"However, he greatly overestimated his abilities." The King of Insects sneered. Its ability to stand here was entirely thanks to Jiaohai's "sacrificial feeding of flesh."

"In my eyes, he was nothing more than an ungrateful and shameless scoundrel."

"Blathering on about how you caused his younger brother's death and demanding that you pay the price—it was all just bitter whining that blamed everyone but himself."

"In truth, he knew very well in his heart that during the previous examination, you had to deal with the King of Hounds and simply didn't have the bandwidth to protect his younger brother. Even knowing this full well, he still harbored resentment toward you."

The King of Insects glanced at Zhou Ke. Seeing that he made no move, it continued to provoke Wu Bai with words: "Don't you feel wronged? Don't you feel you've been dealt an injustice?"

"I gave my word to protect his younger brother, and I failed to keep that promise—" Wu Bai's gaze grew dim, offering no defense.

"Heh, humans are nothing more than utterly hopeless creatures." The King of Insects took a disdainful step forward. "So be it. He's dead, but at least he gave his Truth to me, so I shall use his ability to fulfill his lifelong wish."

With that, the King of Insects sprinted toward a seemingly empty direction and lashed out with its claws at the empty air.

Suddenly, Wu Bai was struck as if by an invisible force in the air, his body sent flying backward.

Regaining his balance, Wu Bai immediately gripped his spear shaft to sweep out a defensive arc, his eyes scanning his surroundings without a single moment of pause, completely ignoring the King of Insects which had sprinted off elsewhere.

"Ah, I get it. The illusion is what's out in the open, while the true body is in a state of invisibility—no, that's not quite right."

Before finishing his sentence, Zhou Ke corrected himself. "A mirage, you say? What the eyes see doesn't match the actual physical location."