Otherworldly Desert Dust

"Filthy!"

"Despicable!"

"You are just a swarm of cockroaches gnawing on your own kind!"

Suddenly, from within that white Insect Mountain came a ghastly whisper, as if condemning these still-living humans.

Wu Hen stood on the watchtower, looking out with his Second Rank Spiritual Vision, piercing through the white miasma only to see human-like silhouettes. They walked within the white fog like a group of dead returning from Hell, incessantly muttering that sentence.

Initially, Wu Hen thought he was the only one who could hear it, but when he looked around at the reaction of others, he quickly realized that it was a language being transmitted by the high-dimensional insects to all of humanity!

"They're coming, prepare for battle," Wu Hen said to the overall commander, Wang Yan.

Wang Yan nodded and gave the command to ready the fire weapons: "Prepare the Sleeve Fires!"

Sleeve Fire was a type of incendiary weapon. Every Order Maintainer was equipped with this advanced weapon, a lightweight apparatus akin to an armguard, but with the mere press of a button, it could emit intensely hot flame bombs – comparable to the fire mages from Western lore, able to engulf an entire area in scorching flames!

Conventional heat weapons were already hardly a match for alien insects; even heavy machine guns showering those bugs with bullets hardly left a scratch on their Armor.

However, the flames produced by the Sleeve Fire Equipment reached extreme temperatures, and even those without Spirit Awakening could operate them, marking them as man-made elemental weapons.

Within the white mist, one humanoid shape after another appeared.

Their steps were staggering, much like walking corpses, but upon closer observation, you could discern strange tendrils and flesh filaments on them – these were clearly not normal humans.

Besides, how could anything human emerge from those white Wormholes?

As they drew closer, finally Wang Yan, with his Third Rank Spiritual Sense, could see clearly what these things crawling out of Hell were…

"They are our compatriots," Wang Yan said, his face full of shock.

The white fog dispersed with the wind, revealing a multitude of decomposed rotten people below the fortress. They clawed their way up as if rising from their tombs, endlessly voicing those earlier curses, as if seeking vengeance on the humans that had survived!

"They're all dead, just corpses controlled by those alien insects," Wu Hen commented.

"Weren't they taken away by the Longevity Sect? How could they come crawling out of the Wormholes, all turned into such rotten and dreadful puppets?" someone questioned, puzzled.

"Longevity Island itself was a Hell; the high-dimensional insects want to break our internal defenses by using these dead. Don't hesitate anymore, just liberate them," Wu Hen said.

All were just rotting husks.

There probably weren't even any Insect Eggs left inside their bodies.

The high-dimensional insects had collected those dead humans and then used them as the first wave of cannon fodder as retaliation against the human army.

These rotten people, their faces remained intact as if to remind humanity that what they were now facing were their own compatriots!

Actually, Wu Hen felt no great psychological pressure.

He knew that those who first fled to the Longevity Sect were likely already being experimented on by the high-dimensional insects.

Those rotten people climbing out of the Wormholes now were probably just the high-dimensional insects' slaughter leftovers, sent to the battlefield with just one purpose: to deepen the living's fear.

The souls of those people were who knows where, their bodies turned into gruesome specters. Incinerating them beneath the fortress would be an act of salvation and liberation – indeed, it was a way to accrue merit for oneself.

"Liberate them!"

Wang Yan, too, made a sweeping gesture with his hand, commanding those equipped with Sleeve Fire Equipment to open fire!

Flame bombs with searing heat fell one after another, concentrating in the valley basin. In an instant, the basin turned into a giant crematorium, and the rotten people, driven by some strange force to this place, were rapidly cremated...

The rotten people had no real fighting strength; they just kept reciting that curse and accusation!

Wu Hen was not clear what had actually happened on Longevity Island.

He only knew that the remaining sixty percent of humanity in this homeland were living bodies with independent souls; they were lives filled with emotion, and they would not submit to the high-dimensional insects.

"It's like falling leaves returning to their roots," Wu Hen thought as he watched the roaring flames, maintaining a calm heart.

"Why has this happened... Did all those who were taken to the Longevity Sect die?"

"I think I just saw my neighbor."

"What exactly happened, and why curse us, saying we feast on the flesh of our own kind?"

No matter how calm Wu Hen remained, the fear that the high-dimensional insects intended to spread had still crept into people's hearts, but fortunately, it was just emotional – it hadn't reached the genetic level.

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It's like a butcher slaughtering a meat dog, when the other dogs see it, they become terrified, even if they only see the slaughtered corpse. The scent of the butcher alone then causes other stray dogs to scatter and feel fear, and even well-trained domestic dogs react this way.

Now, people see so many who were taken away come crawling back as rotten people, which actually proves the failure of the high-dimensional insects' gene implantation.

Becoming furious with embarrassment, the high-dimensional insects resorted to a primitive method, using the corpses of human brethren to spread the emotion of death, aiming to undermine the human resistance's morale...

The problem is, human emotions are quite complex.

There are two log bridges, one sturdy, the other damaged, but you can't judge without stepping onto them.

When people are forced to step onto one, and the other bridge breaks, throwing those on it to their deaths in an unrecognizable state, it often doesn't instill fear in those on the intact bridge. Instead, there's a sense of relief that they chose the right path!

There is fear, yes.

But the emotion of relief at still being alive is stronger, and afterward, people become even more convinced that the path they chose was the right one, and this sparks an even stronger resistance!

The number of rotten people is vast – they burned for countless days.

Like an inferno factory that never stops burning...

The fatty oils from their corpses and the dense smoke mingled in the air, seeping into the silver dome, casting a shroud over Lun Mountain City.

The entire Lun Mountain City and the surrounding mountains lost all sunlight, feeling suddenly thrust back into the era of rampant coal mining of the last century, with everywhere covered in a grey haze.
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This is all with the temperature of the Sleeve Fire Device being sufficiently high; if ordinary flames were used, the ashes and unburnt materials would produce poisonous smoke in such amounts that Lun Mountain City and other cities in the region would succumb to toxic death.

A whole month passed.

Rotten people still crawled out of the wormhole.

For this entire month, Wu Hen was also within the Funeral Fortress, giving elaborate funerals to complicated ally components.

Not knowing how many rotten people they delivered from suffering, finally, the alien insects launched a real attack. The grey-smudged Lun Mountain City, due to the funeral pyres, had turned into a hell filled with ashes. The fortress seemed dragged to the center of purgatory itself, with countless alien insects surging out like a white tsunami!

"A whole month of torment from these damn alien insects!" Wang Yan raged.

The Sleeve Fire Equipment, originally prepared for the alien insects, had run out of fuel. Now they could only deploy the Mechanical Armored Team.

The Mechanical Armored Team mainly composed of Mechanical Beasts and drone matrices. The variety of other combat machinery was dazzling: some precision-crafted combat robots equipped with advanced chainsaws, some like ancient Heavy Sword warriors, and also Mechanical Cavalry forged in black, along with various mechanical wild beasts modeled after real animals...

These mechanical forces were either controlled by AI or remotely by humans. The key point was to carry out this brutal slaughter without any loss of human life, as the enemy's first wave of attack is the fiercest and most likely to result in massive human casualties!

The alien insects almost all have very hard shells, including those Alien Ghost Fire Mosquitoes with a type of tough skin covering their bodies. The firearms of human's previous phase can hardly penetrate, let alone hit the target.

The Alien Cockroaches, Alien Demon Spiders, Alien Ice Flies, Alien Giant Mites, Alien Scorpions... all covered with thick armor, the thickness of which is not inferior to that of human-manufactured metals!

When the alien insect army clashed with the human mechanical troops, it was hard to distinguish parts from insect shells. The landscape was littered with these hard carapaces, oozing either red insect fluid or black machine oil!

"Our mechanical troops have also improved in quality. In the past, facing these alien insects, we had to sacrifice those precious Spirit Awakeners," said Wang Yan, showing a hint of relief at the sight of the battle.

Compared to when humans first encountered the alien insects, the combat capability of human forces had greatly improved.

At least there would be no casualties when dealing with Alien Cockroaches, Alien Ghost Fire Mosquitoes, and Alien Flies.

"To the high-dimensional insects, these don't even count as toy soldiers. Don't be fooled by their otherworldliness; each one of them probably costs even less than our war Mechanical Beasts," Shen Wenhai shook his head, indicating this was not a cause for pride.

"Most of these are probably to release the insect race's scent for the Red Zhe Insects," Wu Hen said.

The Red Zhe Insects are the real threat.

If in the game at the Red Palace, high-dimensional insects could deploy a thousand Tyrant Tiger Armors, then, driven by rage, they might increase this number several times over, possibly by tens or even hundreds of times for this retaliation against humanity!

If there was no Nuwa Law to suppress the Red Zhe Insects, they would stand no chance at all!

The army of alien insects, for the high-dimensional insects, is as numerous as they desire – they could even supply thousands for each human being if they wished. Their numbers might even exceed those of the smaller insect colonies in their homeland.

However, the number of insects coming through the white wormhole is limited.

They will not keep sending these alien insects...

Once the body fluids and shells of the alien insect race evaporate into a sufficiently thick "air" of Red Zhe, the real Red Zhe Insects will come through. Then, it will be time for human Spirit Awakeners to fight them hand-to-hand...

The Red Zhe Insects that Wu Hen currently knows of include the Silver Winged Mantis and the Tyrant Tiger Armor – both possessing Heavenly Brilliance Level combat prowess!

Through the white miasma, with visual, auditory, and gustatory perception all interacting, Wu Hen felt as if he saw pair after pair of chilling adult eyes, like rock layers covering a vast cave of woodlice, densely packed, without a single gap!

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