PD -Chapter 139 The Armored Insect Army

The child seemed extremely interested in my clothes. After thinking for a moment, I took off my coat and draped it over his tiny body. The oversized coat wrapped around him completely, and he narrowed his eyes in contentment.

Then, as if he had suddenly understood my question, he stepped onto the snowy ground and pointed toward a distant direction.

I froze for a moment and followed where he was pointing, but all I could see was a vast expanse of wind and snow. Aside from the ice and snow beneath my feet, even the surrounding mountains had disappeared from view. I had no idea what he was trying to show me.

After some thought, I cautiously picked him up again and leaped in the direction he indicated.

When I landed on the broad icy surface, I finally understood what he meant.

The place where I stood now was actually the surface of a massive lake enclosed by distant mountain ranges.

Squatting down, I brushed away the thick snow with spiritual energy and discovered a thick layer of ice beneath it. Under the ice was pitch darkness, as though something terrifying had been sealed below.

Standing atop the ice, the child suddenly began emitting wisps of mist from beneath his feet. He bent down and pressed his reddened little hand against the frozen surface.

At once, an eerie blue light began to glow from the ice.

The child was immediately enveloped by the radiance.

“What are you doing?” I shouted in alarm, jumping to my feet.

But the blue light only grew stronger, forming a pillar that shot straight into the sky and swallowed the child completely.

“Get out of there!” I yelled, reaching for the coat draped over his shoulders.

Yet in that instant, the blue light violently pulled me in as well.

This is bad!

My vision was flooded with blinding blue light.

A powerful force began dragging both the child and me downward through the ice.

In the blink of an eye, we were pulled beneath the frozen layer, sinking rapidly along the column of blue light.

Bang!

Pain shot through my tailbone as I slammed onto what felt like a concrete floor.

The blue light vanished instantly, plunging the entire space into darkness.

Slowly rising to my feet, I activated the Golden Light Mantra to illuminate my surroundings. The temperature here had dropped to more than twice the cold above.

I searched for quite a while but could not find the child anywhere.

I called out to him several times.

Only my own echoes answered.

Carefully feeling my way forward, I suddenly stepped on something.

Looking down, my scalp tingled.

It was an insect.

It resembled a praying mantis, but was more than twice the size of an ordinary one.

The creature was covered in a hard shell. Even after being stepped on, it seemed completely unharmed.

However, my foot apparently disturbed its slumber.

Its body twitched twice, and a pair of huge eyes opened to glare at me.

Click… click… click…

At the same time, countless similar sounds began echoing all around me.

Under the illumination of my Golden Light Mantra, I saw things breaking through the blue ice beneath my feet.

One after another.

Dense, endless masses of insects that looked as though they had been forged from steel emerged around me.

My heart sank.

These hard-shelled creatures had to be the monstrous insects recorded in the legends—creatures that loved burrowing into the frostbitten wounds of souls suffering in Hell.

Which meant one thing:

I was no longer in the first layer, the Hell of Blisters.

I had somehow arrived at the final layer—

The Great Lotus Hell.

The insects gave me no time to think.

The moment they emerged from the ice, they charged toward me from all directions.

I cursed under my breath.

Demonic-Flame Fire instantly burst to life in my right hand.

With a casual flick, I threw out talismans that formed a circle around me.

Then I activated the Demonic-Flame Fire.

Boom!

All the talismans ignited simultaneously.

They transformed into several masses of azure flames that revolved around me before spreading outward and forcing the swarm back.

Still, a few particularly fearless insects attempted to squeeze through the gaps in the flames to attack me.

The instant they moved, however, the Demonic-Flame Fire split into countless tiny fireballs and shot directly toward them.

Though these insects appeared to possess steel-like exoskeletons, they were even more vulnerable to fire than I had imagined.

Wherever the flames passed, the creatures immediately shrieked and writhed, flipping onto their backs before burning into piles of black ash.

What I hadn’t expected was that the attack failed to intimidate them.

Instead, even more insects crawled out from beneath the ice.

The sound of their claws breaking through the frozen surface made my skin crawl.

Every place my Golden Light Mantra illuminated was nearly covered by these armored insects.

The Demonic-Flame Fire continued circling around me, constantly burning any bugs that approached.

But they were endless.

They fought with blood-red ferocity, utterly fearless of death.

The moment one was reduced to ashes, another immediately rushed forward to take its place.

The encirclement grew tighter and tighter.

The insects piled up into mountains around me, surging forward like a tidal wave.

Protected by my Golden Light Mantra, I felt like a lone candle in a raging sea of death.

How could I not attract so many insects?

Yet if I wanted to survive the freezing temperatures of this icy hell, I had to keep the Golden Light Mantra active.

That made me the perfect target.

The black swarm grew thicker and thicker, their momentum and numbers nearly overwhelming even my Demonic-Flame Fire.

Then I noticed something else atop those mountains of insects.

Human figures.

They were the souls trapped in the deepest layer of the Eight Cold Hells.

Their eyes glowed with eerie blue light.

Their bodies were riddled with holes.

Some were even split into several pieces, yet they still staggered and crawled atop the insect mounds.

I knew very well that neither their bodies nor their minds belonged to them anymore.

The insects that had burrowed into them had seized control.

And now those possessed souls had joined the assault against me.

Cursing again, I burned away a large cluster of insects that had reached my feet.

Then I used the Wind-Fire Flight Spell once more, shooting into the air and hovering with the aid of the wind.

Just as I was about to pour more spiritual energy into enlarging the Demonic-Flame Fire—

The blue light that had vanished earlier suddenly reappeared.

In an instant, it illuminated the entire space.

This place truly was beneath the frozen lake.

Looking up, I could still see the ice layer overhead, and beyond it, the snow-covered mountains faintly visible.

ROAR!

A deafening roar erupted from within the blue light.

The moment the armored insects heard it, every single one of them turned around.

The creatures that had been charging toward me seemed stimulated by the blue glow—or perhaps enraged by the challenge contained in that roar.

All of them pivoted simultaneously and stared in the same direction.

From within the blue light, a gigantic beast radiating an eerie azure glow slowly stepped forward.