Bombarding Cultivators with Cluster Artillery

”Hmm?”

Jiang Ding uttered a faint sound of surprise as his Divine Sense swept through a gap.

With a flash, he arrived within the Demon Palace of Bai Zu Heavenly Lord.

The place was dark and damp, pitch-black and riddled with various tunnel openings that meandered in all directions, leading into unknown depths.

It was clear that though Bai Zu Heavenly Lord had cultivated to the Divinity Transformation Stage, he still retained many of his beast instincts and lacked many aspects of what could be called ’civilization’, whether it be the civilized ways of Demon Race or Human Race Cultivators. His style of conduct was the same.

Jiang Ding found the body of a Golden Armored Centipede at the very center of the Demon Palace.

This Golden Armored Centipede was only a few hundred meters long. It was also of a different bloodline, not much inferior to that of Bai Zu Heavenly Lord, possessing the aura of a Quasi-Fifth Order creature.

Her chest had a large hole torn through it, her heart and brain having been devoured by the resident Hundred Poisons Golden Thread Gu.

’She’,

Yes, she was a female centipede, and she must have been the wife of Bai Zu Heavenly Lord.

However, it seemed that the term ’wife’ was merely how others referred to her; in Bai Zu Heavenly Lord’s eyes, she was probably nothing more than a mating partner.

A strand of faint Divine Sense appeared at the abdomen of the Golden Armored Centipede.

Jiang Ding casually made a cut.

The body of the centipede was split open, and its stomach was too, revealing an egg covered in stomach and poisonous fluids, with golden and green patterns interwoven on it. Within it pulsated the breath of life, along with a delicate and affectionate thread of Divine Sense.

”Tushan... Tushan Heavenly Monarch?”

The thread of Divine Sense softly inquired.

The voice was gentle, devoid of hatred, without the wrath of shocking grievances or snowfall in June.

”Indeed, it is I.”

Jiang Ding nodded and said, ”Lady Jia You, I’ve come to visit Bai Zu fellow cultivator, but he is nowhere to be found. Does the lady have any knowledge of where Bai Zu fellow cultivator might have gone?”

”Ha ha...”

”How would a mere consort like myself be privy to such matters.”

Lady Jia You laughed sardonically at herself: ”Though Bai Zu is a Heavenly Monarch, he acts like the lowest of centipedes, cold and ruthless. Even his offspring are just materials for his Gu cultivation, to be devoured at will. How could he possibly confide the foundation of his very existence to me?”

”He even killed me and birthed a Hundred Poisons Golden Thread Gu with the potential to elevate to the Fifth Order.”

She sighed.

”It is over; in our Demon Race, it is the survival of the fittest, and the strong are revered. For me, a weak one, to prattle on here is pointless. The weak perish, and that is only natural.”

”Lady Jia You takes it rather well.”

Jiang Ding expressed his admiration, deciding to allow her Divine Sense to linger a bit longer.

Indeed, had she not been dead, Jiang Ding would have intended to kill her himself.

This Lady Jia You, though appearing meek and fragile, was in fact a ruthless character. Unfolding her Golden Armored Centipede form, she was impervious to blades and spears, immune to fire and water, and resistant to even the damage of Treasures. Devouring hundreds of thousands of Demon Race and Human Race beings in a single day was nothing to her, possessing an even more notorious reputation than Bai Zu Heavenly Monarch in the Southern Border.

Bai Zu Heavenly Lord, fond of using humans and demons for Gu cultivation, was not interested in the brutality of direct devouring.

”Taking it well? It’s merely the law of the survival of the fittest.”

”If I were strong enough, I would have long since devoured Bai Zu, and I would have devoured you, Heavenly Monarch, too.”

Lady Jia You laughed at herself sardonically.

She fell silent for a long time, then with a gesture from her Divine Sense, pointed to the giant egg beneath her which was covered in gold and green: ”This is my child, named Jia Jin. He has a talent that surpasses both myself and Bai Zu by far. It took me a great deal of effort and some luck to keep him safe, to prevent Bai Zu from poisoning him.”

”If you are interested, you could take him as your Spiritual Pet, set up a Spirit Consciousness Restriction on him, and use him as a servant, or to guard your sect’s gate, either would be a great help.”

”Rest assured, Jia Jin is too young; he might not even have formed his Divine Soul yet.”

Lady Jia You gently caressed the giant egg with love and said wistfully, ”He won’t hold any resentment towards you because he knows nothing of the outside world, and even if he does know...”

”In our Centipede Clan, aside from a mother’s affection for her child, the males, and even the affection of children towards their mother, or between siblings, is extremely rare. It’s normal for us to consume one another. The centipedes have been living like this for thousands of generations.”

”If nurtured properly, he may provide you with the backing of a late Divinity Transformation Stage power, or even more.”

”Is that so?”

Jiang Ding remained noncommittal.

He did not show any delight like other Cultivators might upon discovering a young creature of a different species.

To him, humans were the best subordinates. With the same culture and race, as time passed and the population grew, as his territory expanded, it would even give rise to Elites.

Why would such a person be worse to cultivate than some picked-up centipede?

As for betrayal or lacking loyalty, suppression is the solution.

If someone is more powerful than you, why should they be loyal to you? This is common sense.

Absolute loyalty signifies absolute weakness, and is utterly worthless.

”You are not interested?”

Lady Jia You sighed, misunderstanding something. Her voice grew fainter: ”Indeed, he could be a trump card left by Bai Zu. I couldn’t possibly deceive him. He is a Heavenly Monarch, so it’s really possible.”

”Then, you should decide yourself...”

Her voice grew softer and softer, and at last, it vanished with the wind, leaving not a trace, having exhausted all her strength.

The hundred-meter-long Golden Armored Centipede’s belly, a gold and green giant egg shimmering in the light, lay atop her mother’s corpse, alongside the remnants of all her expended energy.

Jiang Ding watched the scene and pondered for a long time.

With a wave of his hand, the giant egg fell into his grasp, and his Divine Sense and Sword Intent surged into it for a thorough inspection.

”There are no traces of Divine Sense left, this trump card is merely a purebred foreign centipede egg.”

”Bai Zu Heavenly Monarch deliberately let him go, even killed his own mother to put me at ease, without any explanation.”

After some consideration, Jiang Ding sighed lightly: ”It seems that even the most heartless of males, the most powerful of males, are influenced by the innate instinct to reproduce their genes and to continue their bloodline.”

”This is the instinct that troubles us males for life.”

Jiang Ding then placed the centipede egg in the Demon Palace, planning to let the Central Court Cultivators of Tushan deal with it later.

Yes, he wasn’t going to kill off Bai Zu Heavenly Monarch’s last bloodline.

The Demon Race of the Six-tailed Fox Tribe, the Demon Race of the Golden Wing King Clan, and all the other Demon Tribes, as long as they didn’t consume humans, he set them free. They could add to the diversity of human Immortal Path civilization and preserve the precious assets of the natural world.

As for now, a mere centipede egg that has not even birthed a soul, naturally there is no reason to kill it and root out the problem.

As for raising it into a Spiritual Pet?

Its talent is not sufficient, nowhere near enough—it would be just a burden.

By the time this centipede egg grows up, his own strength would have either surpassed Divinity Transformation, or he would have perished amid the many dangers of the Cultivation World, needing nothing.

Jiang Ding’s Divine Sense and Sword Intent carefully scanned the surroundings.

Fortunately, most of the Array Bases for the Ten Thousand Gu Ten Thousand Poison Formation of the Ten Thousand Poisons Sect were still there, only lacking the accumulated poisons and gu insects over the years. With an investment of over a hundred billion, he could modify it to barely reach a Fifth Order Formation, saving him the trouble of having to purchase an entirely new Formation.