Chapter 0134: The Wicked Insect Subdued

While Kabir was busy sorting through the vast quantity of fire diamonds and gemstones his master had brought back, Grimm also began to seriously examine the gains from his own journey into the volcano.

One second-grade Molten Core Giant crystal core, and four first-grade Molten Core Giant crystal cores.

Such a harvest would probably make even a formal wizard green with envy!

With Grimm’s current ability to create magical constructs, however, he was still incapable of handling a second-grade elemental crystal core. Any outside alteration was, in itself, a form of damage to the core. The protective mechanisms within a second-grade giant crystal core alone were enough to give Grimm a tremendous headache. He could not expend his mind controlling the alchemical platform while simultaneously guarding against the crystal core’s own rampage.

A single mistake at a critical moment might destroy this hard-won supreme treasure!

Therefore, until his strength increased once more, the second-grade giant crystal core could only be carefully stored away and left untouched until he was more confident in his ability to handle it.

As for the remaining four first-grade giant crystal cores, they became the focus of Grimm’s work in the days that followed.

Using the most primitive method, Grimm carefully scanned each giant crystal core into his mind. The data gathered by the chip included the hardness of every core, the smoothness of each crystal facet, and the direction and thickness of every crystalline cluster’s growth. Most importantly, it measured the usable surface area of each core.

Based on this vast and complicated statistical data, the chip had to design the most suitable three-dimensional magical array for every crystal core, then optimize and combine the arrays repeatedly until they could be perfectly accommodated within the cores.

Molten Core Giants were magical creatures possessing both earth and fire attributes. To exploit only one of those attributes would obviously be an enormous waste. If Grimm wished to excavate every scrap of their potential, the chip would have to perform a lengthy analysis and countless calculations before arriving at the optimal solution.

After leaving all of this work to the chip, Grimm devoted himself entirely to studying fire magic. Ever since his body had transformed into a body of flame, learning fire spells had become twice as effective with half the effort. Spells that had once taken him one or two months merely to master were now being added to his repertoire at a rate of one per day.

Naturally, spells that required extensive supporting knowledge or possessed multiple magical effects still demanded tremendous effort from Grimm.

His previous expedition into the volcano had completely annihilated the earth-element magical construct squad he had only recently assembled. The loss of five Rock Python crystal cores would also take quite some time to replenish. The Swamp Tower did not possess the vast crystal-core resources Grimm required, so he could only ask Mary to purchase some for him whenever she went out to carry out missions.

Yet the most he could acquire through such purchases were quasi-wizard-grade crystal cores, and every one of them was outrageously expensive. After all, Grimm’s requirements regarding the quality and purity of crystal cores were exceptionally high and exacting. To gather wizard-grade resources in the apprentice market was nothing short of a delusion!

According to the normal hierarchy of subordination, if Grimm needed high-level wizard resources, the most convenient route should have been through Wizard Anderson. Unfortunately, Wizard Anderson was clearly a selfish man. He spent his days concerned only with the magical experiments that interested him and showed no regard whatsoever for the wizard apprentices under his command.

Thus, by comparison, the apprentices who emerged from the Swamp Tower were more than half as weak as those from other wizard towers.

……

The fifth floor of the Swamp Tower.

Late that night, Entik came here once again.

Inside a stone chamber, a vast magical array had already been drawn across the hard stone floor. It was covered with countless strange and profound magical runes and lines. Even after racking his brains, Entik could identify only two or three among the multitude that seemed remotely familiar.

They were all mysterious runes associated with bloodlines, souls, and fusion. As for their specific purposes, he was sorry to admit that the knowledge possessed by a wizard apprentice was simply insufficient to analyze them further.

What shocked Entik most, however, was the dense smell of blood within the magical array and the dark stains on the floor that could never be washed away. They were the most direct evidence of the torment and brutal suffering he had endured over the past several months. If not for the mad determination to grow stronger sustaining him, even his half-insect body would have been unable to withstand such repeated bloodline tempering and fusion.

Dressed in a black wizard’s robe, Anderson was adjusting the magical array before him. As his lips murmured and his ten fingers moved like the claws of a ghost, one profound magical rune after another materialized from thin air and continuously merged into the array.

The various energy circuits and nodes within the array lit up in orderly succession.

“Remove your clothes and stand within the ring.”

Wizard Anderson’s command was simple and blunt, yet his words carried an imposing authority that allowed no resistance.

Entik complied with a deathly pale face.

When the cloth robe covering his body fell away, what was revealed to the air was a horribly twisted half-insect form.

Very little remained of the human torso that had once belonged to him. Every part of his body now displayed unmistakable insect characteristics: strange and ever-changing multicolored pupils, numerous small compound eyes clustered around them, layered mouthparts shaped like lotus petals, black, rigid carapace covering his entire body, and sickle-shaped jointed limbs folded along either side of his torso.

Ever since transforming himself into this bizarre shape that was neither human nor insect, Entik had never revealed his body before anyone. It would not be an exaggeration to say that everyone who had ever witnessed his true form had already been devoured by him, becoming nourishment for the growth of his half-insect body.

But today, he could only expose that body in humiliation.

The gloomy, frigid air and the icy stone beneath his feet made him profoundly uncomfortable, yet he continued to stand upright in the center of the magical array, within a spell ring large enough to accommodate only one person.

“Good… very good…” Anderson’s cold voice drifted through the empty chamber, ethereal and ghostly. “Although your bodily functions have declined somewhat, the effect of the bloodline fusion is still satisfactory. Boy, if you survive this magical experiment, you will become the only Bloodsucking Giant Insect in this world!”

A sinister cackle escaped him.

As Grandmaster Anderson shrieked with near-mad delight, the energy surging within the magical array gradually converged toward the spell ring. The intense magical radiance even illuminated Entik’s body, revealing his internal organs and entire skeleton through his flesh. Within that dazzling light, a hazy and fragmented soul phantom stood where Entik was, staring blankly at everything around it.

Above the magical array, a crack split open in the ceiling. From within it, a fist-sized, crystal-clear Soul Diamond slowly descended. Through the radiance of the constantly operating array, one could see a transparent blood-red crystal spinning within the diamond’s core.

Step by step, Anderson slowly guided the Soul Diamond until it pressed against Entik’s forehead. As the smell of scorched flesh spread through the chamber, the Soul Diamond radiated searing heat, burning Entik’s forehead until black smoke poured from it, then forcibly embedding itself there.

The blood-red crystal spun in circles, releasing a thread of crimson energy with every rotation. Guided by the Soul Diamond, the thread of blood-red energy slowly seeped into Entik’s body.

At first, the transformation was barely noticeable. But as more and more crimson threads merged into him, Entik’s body gradually darkened to a deep red, and blood-colored magical patterns flickered in and out of sight.

Such bodily alteration was no different from a terrible torture for Entik. His half-insect body, which had long since established absolute dominion over him, could never tolerate the contamination of an alien bloodline. Deep within his bloodline, beyond the sight of outsiders, a life-or-death struggle had begun, and the battle was utterly savage.

Under the suppression of the magical array, the half-insect bloodline’s home-ground advantage was steadily weakened. The frail vampire bloodline, however, seemed entirely at ease with the support of the tower’s endless energy. Within Entik’s body, it continuously expanded its territory, conquering new ground and seizing strongholds.

His own body had become the battlefield of two bloodlines. At this moment, Entik was like an ordinary human stripped of every mysterious ability. Even the chilly air in the chamber made him tremble uncontrollably, unable to withstand the cold.

Both bloodlines were fiercely dominant. Each regarded the other as a contamination of itself, and neither possessed the slightest possibility of compromise or coexistence. In every corner of Entik’s body, the factors of the two alien bloodlines fought one another in a struggle so evenly matched that neither could gain the upper hand. Whenever one bloodline weakened, it would invade those bodily factors that remained relatively normal, transforming and infecting them into new companions before sending them continuously into the war.

Yes, this was a war—a struggle for dominion between the half-insect bloodline and the vampire bloodline. Unless one side completely overwhelmed the other, or the host’s body became too weak to continue, the war would go on forever.

As the battle deepened, black, pungent, viscous fluid began to seep continuously from Entik’s eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and every other part of his body, slowly trickling downward.

These were the life factors that had perished in the bloodline war.

Entik’s life force also began to fade, dwindling toward the verge of death.

Sensing that the host’s body had become so weak that it might perish at any moment in this battle reaching into the bloodline and soul, the two alien bloodlines finally retreated and compromised. They curled up within their respective domains of origin, slowing their exploitation of the host’s body while remaining constantly alert to the movements of the opposing bloodline.

The half-insect bloodline, whose host was the Insect Mother, withdrew into Entik’s brain. The alien vampire bloodline, meanwhile, transformed Entik’s heart and established itself within it. Although the original goal of fusing the bloodlines had not been achieved, their coexistence had essentially been realized.

Wizard Anderson, who had been concentrating intently on monitoring the changes within Entik’s body, finally let out a sigh of relief. With a slight movement of his mental power, he sent out a concealed psychic fluctuation.

Taking advantage of the moment when Entik’s soul, body, and bloodlines were at their weakest, a Soul Blood Contract embedded within the Soul Diamond also slipped into his body.

“You…”

Entik possessed quasi-wizard-grade mental power, after all. Although he was weak, he was not completely oblivious to the arrival of danger. Yet before he could devise a counterattack, the Soul Blood Contract had already been branded into his soul.

In the next instant, the naked Entik once again became meek and submissive.

“I await your command, my great master Anderson!”

Hearing the answer he had expected, Wizard Anderson could not restrain his laughter. His cold, shrill cry, like that of a night owl, echoed throughout the entire chamber.