Chapter 1031: Trying to Control the Black Beetles

　　It was as Meng Hao sped away in flight that he saw Su Yan become transparent; the black beetles ignored her and began to turn their attention to him.

　　Su Yan wasn’t completely invisible; her outline was still vaguely apparent. However, she didn’t use this opportunity to flee. Instead, she followed the sea of insects, smiling. The expression on her face was something very familiar to Meng Hao.

　　“Profiting from my misfortune!” Meng Hao’s heart went black with hatred. That was one of HIS favorite things to do, but now, the roles were reversed. He was now the subject of the machinations of others, which was something he simply couldn’t accept.

　　“This wench is just waiting until I get tired from being chased. Then she’ll try to extort things from me! She must have her eyes on my spirit-immortal stones!” When he realized this, he snorted coldly.

　　“Spirit-immortal stones are essentially the same as spirit stones!” he thought, grinding his teeth. For someone to try to rob his money was equivalent to targeting his life, and Meng Hao’s eyes were instantly shot with blood.

　　As he fled, a sea of hundreds of thousands of insects whistled through the air behind him. From the look of it, they would die before giving up, and if he slowed down even the least bit, they would rip him to shreds and devour him.

　　That was especially true of the black beetles who were similar to the Immortal Realm or higher. They were incredibly fast and powerful, and were causing Meng Hao’s head to ache. Even more nerve-wracking were the Ancient Realm black beetles.

　　“So, you want to profit from my misfortune huh…? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see who wins in the end!” Eyes flickering coldly, he lifted his right hand, within which appeared a spirit-immortal stone.

　　As soon as the stone appeared, the black beetles behind him surged forward, roaring, their speed increasing slightly.

　　A strange light began to shine in Meng Hao’s eyes as he lifted his left hand and performed an incantation gesture. Gradually, magical symbols began to appear, which began to cluster around his left hand. In the end, they completely sealed the spirit-immortal stone.

　　When that happened, the spirit-immortal stone flickered in an odd way.

　　Su Yan was still trailing behind the sea of insects, and when she saw this happening she gaped in shock. Inwardly, she began to grow wary, and slowed down a bit in her flight.

　　She had long since come to view the spirit-immortal stones as something very strange, and considering that she didn’t know what Meng Hao was doing, it immediately put her on guard.

　　During the space of a few breaths of time, mysterious light began to shine up from Meng Hao’s left hand. At the same time, the spirit-immortal stone began to vibrate, and the magical symbols on its surface flickered with light.

　　“Demon Sealing, Sixth Hex!” Meng Hao’s eyes glittered with bright light. Then, he squeezed his hand down hard onto the spirit-immortal stone, causing brilliant beams of light to shoot out.

　　Shockingly, he had imbued the spirit-immortal stone with the Sixth Demon Sealing Hex, Life Death Hexing.

　　His expression that of determination, he flung the spirit-immortal stone out, causing it to transform into a beam of light that shot into the sea of insects.

　　It was just as if he were fishing. Fishing for black beetles!

　　Whichever black beetle got the spirit-immortal stone would be consuming Meng Hao’s Life Death Hex. Although the likelihood of success was not large, if he kept trying for long enough, he would surely succeed eventually.

　　Light flashed as the spirit-immortal stone appeared in the middle of the sea of insects. In virtually the blink of an eye, countless black beetles pounced on it, going wild in their struggles to acquire it. Soon, a rather large beetle managed to swallow it down, right in front of its countless compatriots, who glared at it covetously.

　　It didn’t take very long for the black beetle who had swallowed the spirit-immortal stone to begin to tremble. After a breath of time passed, a boom could be heard as it exploded into pieces.

　　The sight of it caused the Su Yan’s face to flicker.

　　Meng Hao frowned. However, he knew that the Life Death Hex’s success rate was low, and would probably be even lower since he was using it with spirit-immortal stones as bait. However, he wasn’t discouraged, and continued to make further attempts. As he fled, he threw out more and more spirit-immortal stones. Every time, a black beetle would consume it, then explode.

　　However, the black beetles were as crazy as ever. Despite the possibility of dying, they still wanted to eat the spirit-immortal stones.

　　The pink-robed Su Yan continued to follow, watching with wide eyes and gaping mouth as Meng Hao used the bizarre, wondrous black stones.

　　About two hours passed. Then, one particular beetle chomped up one of the spirit-immortal stones that Meng Hao tossed out, and instead of exploding, its body began to shine with brilliant light and magical symbols. Finally, one particular magical symbol appeared which shot out toward Meng Hao, then merged into him, causing his face to light up with joy.

　　In that instant, a tiny, illusory black beetle appeared in his mind. He knew that with a single thought, he could cause that black beetle to die.

　　“It worked!” he thought, licking his lips. He only had the first volume of the Laws of the Dao of Insects, which was basically an introduction on how to raise Spirit Insects. Meng Hao was already confident in the use of those methods. However, although he had looked into how to control the insects, when it came to a comprehensive understanding of the Dao of Insects, he was quite lacking.

　　In the end, though, that didn’t really matter; he didn’t need to study the control techniques. Since he had the Life Death Hex, he could essentially control them perfectly.

　　Now that he had succeeded, he was much more confident. He was no longer anxious to flee, but instead allowed the sea of insects to get close to him, and continuously threw out spirit-immortal stones.

　　When Su Yan saw this, her heart filled with amazement. Although she couldn’t see any signs which would lead her to the conclusion that Meng Hao could control the black beetles, she was still getting a very bad premonition. She was even starting to feel that if she didn’t take the chance to flee right now, she might find herself in serious danger.

　　“Just what kind of stones are those? They’re so bizarre!!” She almost convinced herself to flee, but couldn’t quite make herself do it. Gritting her teeth, she continued to follow, making sure she was fully on guard, even more so than before.

　　Time passed. Several days later, Meng Hao had already tossed out more than 30,000 spirit-immortal stones. By this point, he now had control of about 300 black beetles. He didn’t summon them to his side, but allowed them to remain among the sea of insects.

　　However, the rest of the 30,000 insects that consumed his spirit-immortal stones all died, without a single exception.

　　Gradually, the number of black beetles he controlled increased from 300 to 400. And then to 500….

　　Of course, the number of black beetles that died also increased, to a total of more than 50,000. Finally, a rumbling cry rang out from the direction of the medicinal plant garden land mass, something that sounded almost like a summons.

　　Moments before….

　　Having seen everything that she had over the past few days, Su Yan was completely shaken. She was even wondering whether or not Meng Hao might actually kill all of the black beetles.

　　“What kind of inhuman creature is he!?” she thought, heart pounding. She was really starting to worry that if she kept up the chase, something bad might happen to her in the end.

　　From the moment she had awoken until now, she had never met a cultivator like Meng Hao, someone who seemed so mysterious and unfathomable that it filled her with dread.

　　Just in the moment when she finally decided to leave, a roar suddenly arose from all of the black beetles, and they stopped in place.

　　Meng Hao’s eyes glittered. Based on his connection with the 500 black beetles he had control of, he could feel that they were being summoned back by the gargantuan king of black beetles that existed beneath the medicinal plant garden land mass.

　　It took only a moment for the insects to stop pursuing Meng Hao and retreat back to where they came from. Apparently, the death of the 50,000 black beetles caused their king to give up on the idea of killing Meng Hao.

　　Almost in the same moment that the sea of insects stopped pursuing Meng Hao, Meng Hao’s eyes flickered coldly. He suddenly extended his right hand and began tossing out one spirit-immortal stone after another.

　　The black beetles were now hesitating. On the one hand, they had the enticement of the spirit-immortal stones. On the other hand, they had the call of the beetle king. A buzzing sound filled the air as the sea of insects ripped into two parts, one of which followed the summons, the other of which, composed of tens of thousands of black beetles, charged madly after the spirit-immortal stones.

　　Su Yan’s face flickered. She had never imagined that Meng Hao would intentionally provoke the sea of insects.

　　However, after a relatively short period of time, the black beetles simply couldn’t resist the repeated calls of the beetle king. Meng Hao was only able to get control of a few dozen more beetles before they turned and headed back to the land mass.

　　When that happened, Su Yan hesitated for a moment, then gritted her teeth and turned to leave. She got a very strange feeling after having seen everything that Meng Hao had done. In addition, she had an even more intense premonition that something bad was about to happen.

　　At the same time that the black beetles turned to leave, Meng Hao suddenly called out: “Come!”

　　More than 500 black beetles stopped in place, then returned to fly around Meng Hao. All of the beetles had Ghost Eyes on their backs, making them look especially vicious.

　　Su Yan, who was already some distance away, looked on with shock, and her mind spun. Earlier, she had felt as if something strange were going on, but she had never thought that Meng Hao would actually be able to control the black beetles. Heart pounding, she quickly did her best to escape unnoticed.

　　Meng Hao’s eyes flickered coldly. He had endured deadly pursuit for days, all the while being followed by the pink-robed young woman, who he knew was just waiting to take advantage of him. How could he possibly let her get away so easily now?

　　“My turn to the be the bandit!” He waved his right hand, using the Life Death Hex to cause more than 500 vicious beetles to suddenly fly directly toward Su Yan.

　　Meng Hao himself descended to sit cross-legged on the back of one of the black beetles, from which position he stared coldly at the fleeing Su Yan. She was moving quickly, but the black beetles were by no means slow. 500 of them shot through the void, and from a distance, it almost looked like 500 Ghost Eyes, radiating mysterious light and sinister auras.

　　“How could this be happening!?” thought Su Yan, her mind reeling. “He… he can actually control the Ghost Eye Beetles!!

　　“According to the legends, these beetles are very difficult to bond. The only way to do so is to personally raise them from larvae, and even then, you have to utilize special methods to have the slightest chance at success!

　　“In this age, though, the methods for raising them have long since been lost! And yet… he’s actually controlling them!! Most important of all, what he’s controlling are not larvae, but full-grown insects!” Su Yan almost couldn’t think straight, and her face flickered with intense fear of Meng Hao.

　　What she feared was not his cultivation base; she could tell that he was merely in the Immortal Realm. What she feared were his 500 black beetles!