But the current situation left her no time to dwell on it.
"An opportunity!"
A glint flashed in her eyes, and she instantly suppressed all the shock and doubt in her heart.
'No matter what's going on, I absolutely can't let such a good opportunity slip by!'
She turned to look at Chu Sheng, her gaze carrying a hint of a question.
Chu Sheng was sharp. He understood her gaze instantly and proudly sent a thought back to her: "Don't worry, leave it to me!"
With a thought, his swarm of "minions" that were still chasing the pig instantly vanished. He had recalled them into his Space, clearing a perfect attack path for Gu Yuexi.
The next second, Gu Yuexi moved!
Her figure shot forward like an arrow released from its bow, silently rushing toward the lone Iron-skinned Pig!
The Iron-skinned Pig had just reached the edge of the pond and hadn't even had time to enter the water when it felt a vicious gust of wind from behind!
It whipped its head around, only to see a cold glint flash before its eyes!
SHLICK!
Relying on her sharp eye and precise strength as the Empress, Gu Yuexi's dagger effortlessly pierced the weakest point of the Iron-skinned Pig's Defense—its eye socket—and plunged straight into its brain!
URK—!
The Iron-skinned Pig couldn't even let out a squeal. Its massive body swayed twice before it crashed to the ground, its life extinguished.
A single, fatal blow!
Clean and decisive!
Gu Yuexi quickly dragged the pig's carcass into a patch of dense grass to hide it. Only then did she breathe a sigh of relief, preparing to turn this one in to complete her mission.
She would never use the Ten Thousand Beasts Melting Furnace Technique to absorb an ordinary Demon Beast like this, which didn't even have a proper Bloodline.
This was because the Essence Blood of such a Demon Beast contained too many impurities, and its bestial will was more chaotic and violent. Absorbing it offered little benefit and could easily lead to cultivation deviation. It simply wasn't worth the risk.
However...
Just because she wouldn't absorb it didn't mean a certain mosquito wouldn't!
'Heh heh, Empress, if you're not having any, then I won't hold back!'
Chu Sheng could no longer wait. He leaped from her shoulder, landed on the pig's carcass, and viciously plunged his thick, hard [Armor-Piercing Spike] into it!
[Ding! Host has absorbed 5.8 Qi Blood!]
[Warning! Target's blood quality is too low and contains a large amount of impurities. Conversion efficiency is significantly reduced! After digesting this blood, you are projected to gain 1.2 Evolution Points!]
The system's notification made Chu Sheng pause for a moment.
'Holy shit, this pig is over four hundred pounds and it only gave me less than six Qi Blood? The conversion rate is this low?'
He understood instantly. It seemed a Demon Beast's Bloodline directly determined the "cost-effectiveness" of him sucking its blood!
This Iron-skinned Pig was a classic case of "water-injected pork"—it looked like a lot, but it was actually all trash with very little nutritional value.
'Oh well. It's not much, but it's something. Beggars can't be choosers!'
Chu Sheng wobbled back to Gu Yuexi's shoulder and let out a satisfied burp.
Gu Yuexi then returned to the clearing where the herd of pigs had gathered. Staring at the remaining fourteen Iron-skinned Pigs, she was once again lost in thought.
'The mission still requires two more...'
'How should I do this?'
'Watch me!'
Chu Sheng saw what she was thinking and once again unleashed his army of the Insect Race. Repeating his earlier tactic, he launched another "Spiritual Contamination" Attack on an unlucky pig at the edge of the herd.
The familiar scene played out once more.
Gu Yuexi was completely dumbfounded as she watched the cloud of insects appear out of thin air and attack with precision.
Her delicate, beautiful face was a mask of bewilderment.
At this moment, she was one hundred percent certain!
'These insects... they're this mosquito's doing!'
'But... why?!'
'How did it do that?'
'Where did these insects come from? Does it really have its own Space that can hold living creatures?'
'This... This defies all common sense about Beast Taming!'
Gu Yuexi felt like her brain was about to shut down. All the knowledge and experience she had accumulated across two lifetimes seemed like a joke in front of this mosquito.
Her perception of Chu Sheng underwent a seismic shift in that instant.
Shock, curiosity, confusion, bewilderment... A whirlwind of emotions intertwined, making her momentarily forget what she was supposed to be doing.
It wasn't until Chu Sheng lured out the second pig that she snapped out of her daze, seized the opportunity, and killed it cleanly.
Just like that, with Chu Sheng's "assistance," the third pig was also quickly dealt with.
Looking at the three pig carcasses hidden in the grass, Gu Yuexi let out a long breath. The mission was complete.
But...
She glanced at the twelve remaining Iron-skinned Pigs still leisurely rooting around in the distance, then at the "monster" on her shoulder that was currently digesting blood and looking completely harmless. A bold idea suddenly popped into her head.
'Since... it's this easy...'
'Then why not... finish them all off?'
'This is all money!'
'One pig can sell for ten thousand coins, so a dozen or so would be over a hundred thousand! With that money, I could buy better Cultivation Resources!'
Once this thought appeared, it became impossible to suppress!
'Let's do it!'
A trace of the Empress's decisiveness and ruthlessness flashed in Gu Yuexi's eyes!
Over the next hour, a bizarre slaughter unfolded in this part of the Black Forest.
One by one, the Iron-skinned Pigs were harassed by a swarm of elusive insects that appeared and vanished without a trace, forcing them away from the main herd. Then, they were killed with a single blow by a girl who moved like a ghost.
Even the Pig King, the strongest of the bunch at the First-Grade Late Stage, only managed to struggle for a few extra minutes before collapsing indignantly in a pool of its own blood when faced with the "insect swarm tactics" and Gu Yuexi's cunning, ruthless attacks.
In the end, the entire herd of Iron-skinned Pigs was wiped out by one girl and one mosquito in what could only be described as a complete steamroll.
Looking at the field of pig carcasses, Gu Yuexi wiped the blood from her dagger, a faint, satisfied smile gracing her usually cool face.
There was no way she could carry so many carcasses at once.
She dragged over the three smallest ones, tied them together with vines, and prepared to carry them back to complete her mission first.
She covered the rest with a large pile of branches and fallen leaves, marked the spot, and planned to come back for them in batches later.
Meanwhile, Chu Sheng went from one carcass to the next, draining all dozen or so pigs on the ground. Finally, he contentedly perched on the Pig King's enormous body and sucked up the last drop of its essence.
[Ding! Host has absorbed 6.5 Qi Blood! Current Total Qi Blood is 86.9!]
[Notice: Due to absorbing a large quantity of low-quality blood, you are projected to gain 5.3 Evolution Points after digestion! Current Total Evolution Points: 22.8 (Upgrade Skills?)]
'Almost there! I just need a dozen or so more Qi Blood to reach 100!'
Chu Sheng stared at his panel, buzzing with excitement.
He was just 13.1 Qi Blood short of reaching one hundred, which he needed to prepare for his third evolution!
Unfortunately, he had already sucked these dozen-plus pigs dry; he'd practically drained the marrow from their bones.
'Oh well, no need to rush. Maybe I'll run into another unlucky soul on the way back!'
Not long after Gu Yuexi and Chu Sheng had left the "slaughterhouse," satisfied and carrying three pigs in tow, Chen Hao and his classmates emerged from the woods on the other side, looking utterly disheveled.
They were all bruised and battered, their clothes torn to shreds, and their faces covered in dirt. They looked utterly wretched.
"Fuck! We're so damn unlucky! How can there be more than one herd of Iron-skinned Pigs in the Black Forest!"
The tall, skinny classmate patted his chest, still shaken. "The herd we ran into was way fiercer than the mission intel said. They almost had us surrounded!"
"Yeah, if Brother Hao's Wind Blade Wolf hadn't risked its life to cover our retreat, we'd probably all have died back there today!"
Chen Hao's expression was also grim. His Wind Blade Wolf was lying on the ground, its aura weak. It had several gashes on its body from being gored by tusks and was clearly seriously injured.
Forget completing the mission; they were lucky they hadn't been wiped out.
"Dammit, even we ended up in such a sorry state..."
Chen Hao panted heavily, but a trace of malicious glee suddenly welled up inside him. 'That Gu Yuexi is only at the First-Grade Early Stage. If she ran into a herd of pigs, there probably wouldn't even be a scrap of her bones left by now, right?'
Hearing this, his classmates all showed expressions of agreement, and the gloom in their hearts dissipated considerably.