Amidst the scorching and raging Yang Fire Flames, the Demon Insect King’s head slowly turned to ash, its spiritual aura completely collapsing and dissipating.
A generation’s Demon Insect King had fallen, just like that, in such an anticlimactic manner!
Upon learning the news outside the cave, Qi Ping instantly breathed a huge sigh of relief.
The Demon Insect King had ultimately died at the hands of Little Crow.
However, Qi Ping didn’t let his guard down. He first had the High-Speed Cutting Bees laboriously slice the insect king into several pieces before transforming into an Ink-Armor Bee and flying inside.
Only after entering the cave and seeing the Demon Insect King, dead beyond any doubt, did Qi Ping truly feel completely at ease.
“It’s really dead!”
Looking at the corpse of the Demon Insect King, its body crimson red and densely covered with mysterious patterns, Qi Ping felt quite emotional.
A famously formidable Demon Insect King had actually died by his hand!
Even now, dead, the oppressive aura emanating from the corpse was still powerful, far heavier than the pressure he felt from the Yang Fire Crow.
No wonder the Demon Insect King was called the natural king of demonic insects, capable of spawning terrifying insect plagues.
This was merely a juvenile, not even at a higher cultivation stage than Little Crow, and its body had been restrained by the formation array. Yet, it was still this formidable.
Qi Ping truly dreaded to imagine how powerful this creature would have become if it had escaped and developed for some time, especially combined with the terrifying demonic insects that had emerged recently.
He estimated that if this thing had developed for just a month, the next time they met, it could have brought tens of thousands of demonic insects to annihilate him in seconds.
It was a good thing he had been cautious enough and had made extensive preparations.
The exploration and battle process had been carried out with extreme care. Given the terrifying power of the Demon Insect King’s spiritual sense, even the Yang Fire Crow, if caught off guard, might have had its spirit instantly destroyed, let alone someone with Qi Ping’s modest capabilities.
Fortunately, the outcome was positive!
Still, Qi Ping had a nagging feeling that the nurturing of this Demon Insect King, along with the recent emergence of demonic insects from the secret realm, were likely all part of someone’s deliberate plan.
In fact, Qi Ping’s feeling was correct. Within the Qingtian Domain, forces including the Qingyuan Sect, the Alliance of the Defiled, and others were currently exhausting their resources investigating the existence of the Demon Insect King.
Qi Ping, who had been busy slaying demonic insects recently, had inadvertently prevented the Demon Insect King’s emergence.
Now, multiple parties, including the Qingyuan Sect, were running themselves ragged searching for the Demon Insect King, yet they found no trace of it, leaving them utterly bewildered.
Hadn’t it been said the Demon Insect King would emerge soon? Why was there no sign of it?
They were monitoring every move within the Qingtian Domain closely, hoping to be the first to find the Insect King’s trail, as no one knew exactly which corner of the domain the soon-to-emerge king was hiding in.
Qi Ping was unaware of how much anxiety his actions had caused.
Unfortunately, with the Demon Insect King’s unexpected death, these forces were destined to never find it.
For a while, no one would discover that the Demon Insect King was already dead. Probably no one would believe that in the current Qingtian Domain, overrun by demonic insects, the Insect King could have been killed by an ordinary cultivator.
Under normal circumstances, once the Demon Insect King emerged by seizing the opportunity to enslave other insects, it would only need a short time to possess strength capable of sweeping away all Foundation Establishment stage cultivators.
Unaware of the significant impact his actions today would have on the Qingtian Domain’s situation, Qi Ping’s main concern, after confirming the Insect King’s death, was to clean up the scene quickly.
He was somewhat worried that killing the Insect King might attract retaliatory enemies.
So, he was already prepared to make a quick escape at any moment!
For safety’s sake, Little Crow had already burned the Insect King’s entire head into charred fragments.
He then promptly gathered the pieces of the corpse and the remains of the royal-grade spirit insect.
At the same time, he ordered Little Crow and the bee swarm to begin destroying the Four Extremes Demon-Nurturing Formation from the outside.
Destroying the formation wasn’t particularly difficult; it just required destroying the formation bases from the exterior. Even mid-tier first-stage demonic insects had the strength to damage it from the outside, though it would take them longer.
With the Yang Fire Crow and the bee swarm working together, it took only a moment to completely demolish the Four Extremes Demon-Nurturing Formation. The four spirit origin stone pillars, only slightly smaller than Qi Ping himself, were also pulled out by Little Crow.
The altar was smashed into several pieces by Little Crow to make it easier to pack into the storage bag later.
The storage bag had originally been taken away by the bee swarm, but Qi Ping had sent a High-Speed Cutting Bee to retrieve it before entering.
The storage bag Qi Ping had obtained from the late Qi Refining stage cultivator in black robes had a relatively large capacity, enough to hold everything in the cave.
Besides these items, there were two other unusual objects casually placed near the cave wall.
The first was a cloth strip with writing on it.
Qi Ping didn’t handle this himself. Instead, he flew far away and had two bees use stones to unfold it, avoiding direct contact with the cloth as much as possible.
Once unfolded, only one line of text was visible: “Enjoy the final gift from this venerable one — Heavenly Pool Venerable.”
“Indeed, quite a nice gift. My animal companions and I will gladly accept it.”
Qi Ping held no goodwill towards this Heavenly Pool Venerable who had nurtured the Demon Insect King.
If he hadn’t accidentally prevented the Insect King’s emergence, given its abilities and cruel, cunning nature, few in the entire Qingshi County would have escaped alive.
Qi Ping’s friend Sister Nan, Wang Shan who might have gone to the three great families, the emaciated Li Peng who was nearly drained by the evil male cultivator… including Qi Ping himself, would probably all have died here.
“Four spirit origin stone pillars and the Demon Insect King’s corpse truly are excellent gifts!”
Not only had Qi Ping thwarted Heavenly Pool Venerable’s plan, but he had also gained two precious treasures highly useful to him, especially the Insect King’s corpse, which couldn’t be bought with spirit stones anywhere.
He felt quite pleased about this.
But at the same time, a faint worry nagged at him. In the Qingtian Domain, ‘Venerable’ typically referred to Nascent Soul stage cultivators.
Qi Ping didn’t know if that old monster Nascent Soul cultivator was still alive or if they could sense what had happened here.
Although it was highly likely that they were long gone, not even ashes remaining, Qi Ping still wanted to finish up here and leave as soon as possible.
After instructing Little Crow to burn the cloth strip, Qi Ping turned his attention to the other object.
It was an oddly shaped jade pendant imbued with a mysterious aura. It looked like one quarter of a complete pendant, with an insect pattern on it that was also incomplete.
Clearly, this peculiar jade pendant was extremely valuable and held great secrets.
But Qi Ping had no intention of holding it himself; such items were often the most dangerous.
So he instructed:
“Send two High-Speed Cutting Bees to move this jade pendant and hide it in an inconspicuous burrow within the Misty Cloud Mountains. Then send four other bees to follow: two responsible for memorizing the location, and two to stand guard there. The two bees that touched the pendant must immediately flee towards the outskirts of the Qingtian Domain.”
This approach ensured that, like the strange token engraved with the character ‘Defiled,’ the pendant was kept in a secret location under his control while avoiding the risk of carrying it on his person.
The bees tasked with remembering the token’s location were specially assigned to stay with the Bee Queen, away from dangerous battles. Their sole mission was to remember the burial spots for Qi Ping.
If their lifespan was nearing its end, they would pass the location information about the pendant and token to new, younger bees in time.
Just as Qi Ping finished these tasks, the High-Speed Cutting Bee sent out earlier returned with the storage bag.
Therefore, Qi Ping transformed back into his human form and used spiritual power to control and store all trace-bearing items from the cave into the storage bag.
After completing this, Qi Ping transformed back into a bee and, carrying the storage bag, quickly left the area with the bee swarm and Little Crow. He left behind a portion of the bees to restore the dug-out cave, diligently destroying or erasing all traces of the cave and the surrounding area.
Especially the exterior, it had to be restored to look like the other flower-planting areas, ensuring no one could detect its specificity.
Although evidence of the Four Extremes Demon-Nurturing Formation and the Demon Insect King’s existence inside the cave had been erased, and most people entering wouldn’t notice anything amiss, Qi Ping believed it was better to be safe than sorry.
