Outside each wormhole were Antarctic sentries. Using a wormhole had thresholds: the Spirit-Insect People of the Antarctic had set rules, and you had to meet their conditions to use one. But unlike a teleportation array, a wormhole didn't need to be activated—if you went in, it worked. The guards outside existed to stop forced entries.
Xiaopeng streaked for the wormhole in a blaze of gold. The sentries startled awake, but before they could even see clearly, Xiaopeng had already plunged inside. Several Chaos-realm major-attainment guards didn't react in time; they looked at each other, baffled. By the time they came to their senses, there wasn't even a trace of lingering gold. Two of the major-attainment guards exchanged a glance, then shut their eyes again as if nothing had happened—less trouble is better.
Inside the wormhole, Lin Moyu could feel space twisting; they were crossing space in a peculiar way.
Little Tree said, "The head and tail of the space-worm form an independent spatial conduit. It folds space within its body. Right now we're moving a bit faster than a standard teleport array."
Chaos Seed said, "Back in our time—did we have worms like this?"
Little Tree shook his head. "Never heard of them. There were so many odd beings back then—no way to know them all." What they knew were the famous, powerful names of the age; countless weaker ones were cannon fodder—some died the moment the war began. Maybe some had special abilities, but nothing useful. Space-worms, for instance: after death they could serve as wormholes; beyond that, not much. The Antarctic has billions of insect species—impossible to count.
Chaos Seed said, "Among the insects then, the strongest was called the Ancient-Wild Progenitor Worm, right?"
Little Tree said, "Two worms were somewhat known: the Ancient-Wild Progenitor Worm was one; the other was the Chaos Heaven Worm. But both died early—killed by Jinri God-Lord; rumor says their corpses were refined into a powerful treasure."
Chaos Seed said, "That I know. When Jinri God-Lord's treasure was almost finished, enemies came knocking—he fell, and the treasure was never fully completed. No one knows what that treasure was for."
Little Tree said, "Those two worms weren't that impressive, but both had absorbed Primordial-Genesis Qi. A treasure refined from them wouldn't be bad."
Having left the world-remnant, the two little ones were finally back to normal—chatty, painting vivid scenes of the past. From their words you could feel how the entire Chaos Ancient Wilds had been a constant war, utter chaos. The weak were either killed or eaten; after death, even turned into treasures—a miserable end. The strong didn't fare much better; they just died later—in the end, all died. To them, insect beings were extremely weak and unremarkable. Even the two "strongest" worms were easily slain and refined. Now the Antarctic has birthed new insect races; however strong, they won't be that strong. The Spirit-Insect People, though, were interesting— fusing human blood with insect lines induced mutations; that made a difference.
The wormhole ended quickly. Xiaopeng burst out at speed. There were no guards at this exit; he vanished into the void in a flash of gold.
Little Tree kept locating wormholes; Xiaopeng dove in one after another, ignoring the guards entirely. These insect sentries seemed fond of dozing, crouched and unmoving when idle; using sheer speed, Xiaopeng usually slipped in before they could react. Most guards preferred to let sleeping dogs lie. But the closer they drew to the Antarctic's far south, the more alert the sentries became.
At last, on the approach to one wormhole, Lin Moyu spotted a team: several dozen Chaos-realm major-attainment insects locked down the entrance—clearly waiting for him. His keen soul sensed something odd—some peculiar aura was rippling through the void, a scent only a soul could "smell," racing across billions of miles in an instant.
"This is how the insects transmit information—remarkable." Mu Tianze's dossier had noted that Antarctic insects had a unique long-range communication method—very convenient. Humans didn't have it, nor could they imitate it. Now Lin Moyu experienced that omnipresent signal himself—very strange—and only insects could read the meanings inside.
"Crash through," Lin Moyu ordered.
Xiaopeng exploded forward—several times faster than before. A flash of gold, and the guards were sent flying as he punched into the wormhole. That was the wormhole's flaw: you couldn't lock others out. A teleportation array could be shut down against invaders; a wormhole couldn't. To stop an enemy there was only one way—
Suddenly space shook violently.
"They're going to destroy the exit," Lin Moyu frowned. "Little Tree!"
There was only one way to close a wormhole: destroy one end of the space-worm's head-or-tail anchors. Then the wormhole collapsed. Once it did, everything inside would be flung out into turbulent space—where you'd end up, no one knew.
Little Tree was ready. As Lin Moyu barked the order, roots speared out through the void, forcibly opening a spatial channel inside the wormhole itself. Lin Moyu dove through and emerged from the far side a step ahead of the collapse. The wormhole imploded, chaotic currents scattering everything—while he slipped safely out of the ad-hoc passage.
Sensing the grand array, Lin Moyu pointed the way; Xiaopeng became light again and shot off.
They had entered the Antarctic's core. Everywhere, insect auras carried messages; vast traffic flowed into countless insect minds. The fact that Lin Moyu hadn't been tossed into chaotic space by the collapse was quickly known—someone had intruded. The insects mobilized; unnumbered swarms roused from slumber to hunt him.
"Can't hide this," Lin Moyu muttered. The insects' capabilities outstripped his expectations.
Soul-flames dotted his vision everywhere—tiny sparks. The weakest were mere True Gods. Their bodies were fingernail-sized, yet they could surveil the void and broadcast positions. Before, they'd been fully dormant—soul-flames quenched, bodies merged with the void—so he hadn't noticed them. Only when they awoke did he realize he was already encircled. He was deep in the insect heartland: once exposed, he'd be surrounded next. He wasn't afraid, just annoyed—he'd come to find the grand array, not to fight an entire insect civilization, especially one backed by a Great Venerable (and Quasi–Great Venerables).
"Chaos Seed—your turn."
Chaos Seed appeared in his hand, shedding hazy light. He drew on the Chaos-Disrupting Pearl's power, spawning countless illusions. At once, the message-traffic rippling through the void became garbled.
In the Antarctic's core—the insects' belly—a vast mesh of transmissions linked the swarms. Lin Moyu thought of the insect broods he'd seen in the Small World and the Great World; they had similar nets—real-time signaling across any distance. But those had been brood-mothers commanding their own spawn; here it was species-wide, peer-to-peer, non-interfering—a higher form. From a soul perspective, it had reached an extreme.
He also inferred: to sustain a soul-network of this scale, there had to be a central node—like those brood-mothers he'd seen before. The Antarctic insects' core…
"It should be that Insect Stele," he thought. Ninety percent likelihood.
Chaos Seed pushed the Chaos-Disrupting Pearl's effect to the limit—his first time unleashing it fully since devouring the pearl. Its greatest use was to influence souls, making them see what they wanted to see. Lin Moyu didn't know what these insects desired, but once he triggered it, the soul-net instantly fell into disorder. As the effect's radius widened, the chaos propagated along the network—more and more insects were affected. The pearl caused no damage; its confusion spread silently, and those affected didn't realize anything was wrong.
With the pearl active, Xiaopeng met no further blockades—he slipped through wormhole after wormhole with no trouble; the intercepting sentries all "overlooked" him.
"Everything has two sides," Lin Moyu mused. "A soul-communication network is convenient—but it gives others openings too."
"We're getting closer to the array. Hopefully this goes smoothly—and the Antarctic Great Venerable doesn't come make trouble." Great Venerables had their informal rules and mutual checks; under normal circumstances they didn't strike ordinary cultivators—unless provoked or the rules were broken. In other words, a Great Venerable needed a "proper" reason, one clean of entangling causality. Of course, if one didn't care about face or karma, he could still act—so luck mattered.
Lin Moyu trusted his luck.
After nearly a hundred wormholes, they finally neared the array laid by the Great Venerable of Calamity. In the far distance Lin Moyu saw a colossal stele—the Insect Stele. He couldn't tell what material it was: smooth like jade, immaculate, with liquid flowing within. It was vast beyond measure—on the order of a giant domain-world. Even from billions of miles away, it was crystal-clear. It was the largest object Lin Moyu had ever seen. Even for Xiaopeng, flying from its base to its crown would take days. Xiaopeng's ultimate speed exceeded tens of millions of li per second. Back in Lin Moyu's original world, the fastest speed was light at ~300,000 km/s; Xiaopeng could reach a hundred times light speed—and faster still with secret arts.
The stele was engraved with countless images—each one a species of insect. Any insect kind that had ever existed in the Antarctic appeared on it. Thus the insects revered it as sacred, believing they were born from it. In all Antarctic eyes, it was inviolate. Ironically, the true rulers were the Spirit-Insect People—mixed human-insect blood, not pure insects. Their images did not appear on the stele—yet they ruled the Antarctic, controlled the stele, and through it, commanded all insects. There had once been conflict between Spirit-Insect People and insects—but in the end, the former won and fully subjugated the latter.
Seeing the stele, Lin Moyu knew the source of the soul-net: everything passed through it. Without it, no soul network.
Chaos Seed suddenly cried, "The Insect Stele is the thing Jinri God-Lord refined!"
Little Tree echoed, "Right. Jinri God-Lord killed the Ancient-Wild Progenitor Worm and the Chaos Heaven Worm, and refined their corpses into the Insect Stele. Unfortunately, before it was fully finished, he was killed."
Chaos Seed said, "He died, but the treasure survived."
Little Tree shook his head. "Not that simple. Jinri God-Lord was top-tier; not so easy to kill. Look at what's inside the stele—what does it make you think of?"
Chaos Seed stared, then said, "No idea."
"Think harder—what was Jinri God-Lord's true body?"
"If I remember right… an egg?" Chaos Seed ventured.
"And what's inside an egg?" Little Tree prodded.
"Yolk and white—" He stopped, then jolted. "You mean the stuff inside the stele—that's Jinri God-Lord?"
"Should be," Little Tree said. "He was slain, but not thoroughly. He shed his shell, slipped into the stele, and fled with it."
Chaos Seed finally got it. "So the 'half-finished treasure' that vanished back then—this is it."
Those times were too chaotic; no one pursued the matter. Whoever killed Jinri God-Lord didn't chase it to the end, and he escaped. If he didn't truly die… could he still be alive? Would "Dao" allow someone like that to live?
Listening, Lin Moyu's expression grew solemn. He fixed on the stele and simultaneously felt for the array—it lay behind the stele, tightly linked to it. He'd thought they'd be some distance apart; he hadn't expected the stele to be this enormous. Xiaopeng had been flying toward it for half a day, and the gap barely seemed to shrink. It was like seeing a mountain far away—you could see it clearly, but reaching it takes a long time.
Thankfully, with the Chaos-Disrupting Pearl at work, the insects didn't bother them—ignoring him completely.
After two more days of flight, they seemed to enter another band. Large numbers of perfection-level insect beings appeared around them. The pearl still worked—but not as well. Some glanced over with puzzled looks, but didn't act.
By now they were closer; the carvings were clearer, and Lin Moyu could distinctly feel the stele's unique aura.
After three days, Lin Moyu suddenly spoke: "Xiaopeng—hold for a moment."