CHIRP!

Egg Pancake deftly climbed onto the bed, curled up, and obediently lay down beside Han Ning.

Egg Pancake was now over a meter long. Lying on the bed, it took up a good chunk of space, no longer the tiny creature it once was.

"You hungry? Here, have a snack." Han Ning rummaged around beside the bed, pulled three cans of meat from a box, opened them, and placed them in front of Egg Pancake.

"CHIRP CHIRP!" Egg Pancake happily nuzzled its master’s arm, opened its mouth, and, like slurping up Jell-O, shot out its tongue to coil around the contents of the cans.

In just two seconds, all three cans were instantly emptied.

"Chirp~" Egg Pancake retracted its tongue, not yet satisfied, and looked at Han Ning with pleading eyes.

’This little guy... his appetite is getting bigger and bigger. If he gets any larger, it’ll be tough to raise him without a steady supply of flesh and blood.’

Yin Yi could draw Spiritual Energy from the air and never felt hungry.

But Egg Pancake was a glutton, like a sturdy sixteen or seventeen-year-old boy in the middle of puberty who could eat a full lunch and still be hungry by the afternoon.

"...There’s no more."

He patted Egg Pancake on the head, hopped off the bed, and took out a tablet. He found a children’s cartoon and played it for the two little creatures.

’After going through a life-or-death battle, it’s nice to relax and purify the mind a bit.’

...

「Eight o’clock in the evening.」

After a quick wash-up, Han Ning, with two slices of bread in his mouth and carrying two cartons of milk, brought Yin Yi and Egg Pancake to the conference room in Building A.

The room, which had been temporarily converted into a conference room, was still brightly lit.

When Han Ning walked in, over a dozen people were already gathered inside, including new members from the Mao Bear Country like Lena.

They were crowded around three Insect-men in the center of the room, discussing something.

The three Insect-men had been cleaned of the thick mud caked on their bodies and were now bound tightly in layers of Silver Lotus Wood Vine Whips. They sat limply on three chairs, their terrified eyes scanning the group of humans before them.

"Oh? Han Ning’s here. Have a seat."

Seeing Han Ning arrive, the group stopped talking and forced faint smiles.

The moment he entered, Han Ning felt that the atmosphere in the conference room was off.

Forget smiles—no one even had a calm expression. Most of them had their brows tightly furrowed, as if a dark cloud was hanging over them.

Seeing their expressions, Han Ning’s heart tightened. He asked cautiously, "What happened?"

"Come sit over here first."

Lü Xiuning, who was sitting at the front, directly gave up his seat and pulled over another chair for himself.

Having been through life and death and fought together many times, Han Ning didn’t stand on ceremony. He simply nodded, thanked Lü Xiuning, and sat down, getting straight to the point. "So, what’s wrong?"

"Let’s go through it one thing at a time." 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Dean Wu cleared his throat and, in as calm a tone as possible, relayed their afternoon’s discoveries to Han Ning.

"Through our interrogation of the three Insect-men, we’ve learned how to save Yue Ming and the others."

He took out a small ceramic vial and shook it. This was the same vial left behind by the first Insect-man.

"You remember how we took a third of the supplies from you for research last time? Well, the little black pills in this vial are the key antidote for forcing the black insects out of Yue Ming’s body."

"Oh? So that’s what it was... How did you get them to talk?" Han Ning was very curious.

"Separate interrogations. The three of them were tough nuts to crack at first, but faced with the ’advanced’ interrogation techniques of our Xia Country ancestors, they had to talk whether they wanted to or not." Lü Xiuning took over, his brow still deeply furrowed.

Dean Wu continued:

"Although the pills forced the small black insects out of Yue Ming’s and Zou Yu’s bodies and even put the insects into hibernation, because too much time had passed, their bodily functions have suffered severe damage. Forget walking—it’s a serious question whether they’ll even be able to speak."

"That..." Han Ning’s mouth fell open, his heart sinking.

After a long moment, he asked, "How did the Insect-men locate us?"

Lü Xiuning replied, "Through the small black insects. They control the mother insect of the swarm. As soon as a Subordinate Insect wakes up, the mother insect can sense it."

"Sigh... surviving at all is a blessing in this misfortune. If Yue Ming’s and Zou Yu’s Silver Lotus Wood can become stronger, perhaps their bodies will have a chance to recover."

Dean Wu shook his head.

"The situation with Yue Ming and the others isn’t actually the most important thing. After all, they’re still alive, so there’s at least hope for recovery. What I’m about to say next concerns the very survival of our entire academy—all three hundred-plus survivors."

As he spoke, Dean Wu’s expression became extremely grave.

Seeing his serious expression, Han Ning felt his heart leap into his throat.

"This afternoon, Lena managed to get some very important information by communicating with the Insect-men through body language and observing their expressions."

"These Insect-men we fought so hard to defeat... they’re actually just something like slaves, or servants, within the Insect-man population."

"Slaves?!"

"That’s right."

Lena took out a piece of paper, pushed it in front of Han Ning, and pointed to the drawing on it as she explained,

"I used simple stick figures to draw a social hierarchy chart, similar to human feudal-era slavery."

"Slaves are at the very bottom, the most powerless group." Lena pointed to the bottom row, where stick figures were prostrated on the ground.

"The Insect-men are similar to us in form, so they could understand the drawing. I showed them this picture and questioned them, trying to understand their basic social structure."

She glanced at the Insect-man sitting in the middle.

"I pointed at him, then at the social hierarchy on the chart. I never expected... he pointed to the lowest slave class."

’Slaves...’

’The word echoed in Han Ning’s mind.’

’Just slaves... yet they could command a silver mantis comparable in power to Yin Yi and control a swarm of over a thousand insects in battle.’

’Then... just how many resources did the beings above the slaves control?’

Just hearing the word made Han Ning picture a rigidly stratified social hierarchy.

Lena didn’t give him much time to think, pulling out another piece of paper.

The drawing on this one was much more abstract and crude.

"This was drawn by one of the Insect-men. It’s probably what their village looks like."

The picture showed stone houses enclosed by a fence made of grass and wood.

A few small figures resembling Insect-men were walking between the stone houses.

Above the houses, in the sky, floated an abstract humanoid creature.

It was like a god, standing in the middle of the sky.

"As you can see, the Insect-men’s society is similar to early human tribal eras. Their social structure is rather unique. We call them slaves, but they’re basically commoners. Above the commoners is a tribal chief who holds the absolute power of life and death."

"When I asked if there was an even more powerful being above the chiefs—a Commander who rules over several tribes—their bodies actually started to tremble."

"They didn’t answer, but their reaction told us: yes, there is!"

"The mere mention of such a being made them shudder, overcome with uncontrollable fear."

Hearing this, Han Ning finally understood why everyone’s brows were so tightly furrowed.

If such a powerful enemy existed, and if they were to draw its attention, he doubted that their three-hundred-plus people and large group of Soul Beasts would stand a chance.

After a few seconds of silence, Dean Wu spoke up:

"This is all just speculation based on the Insect-men’s drawings. Maybe things aren’t actually like that..."

Even he didn’t sound convinced. After a pause, he continued,

"There’s still a lot of information we haven’t extracted from these three Insect-men. For example, how do they control the insect swarms? Can we learn that technique to strengthen our own side?"

"Do the Insect-men have more advanced methods for cultivating Soul Beasts that could help us speed up our own cultivation?"

"And their medicine—that pungent, stimulating liquid that can help increase one’s Spiritual Power... These are all things we need to dig into."