Chapter 234 - A Nuclear Day
The white butterfly fluttered toward a certain direction in the Realm of White Sand and ten Soul Formation Stage, as well as hundreds of Spirit Nurturing Stage cultivators, followed closely behind. Such a formidable team was certainly worthy of a powerful foe such as the Ant Queen.
The Ant Queen that they were going to kill was the mastermind behind the Ant Tribe army, as well as the mother of many in the Ant Tribe. It was said that the Ant Queen possessed fearsome power as well as extremely strong guards.
The main instigator of this epidemic was not the Ant Queen, but instead, there were more complicated and powerful dark forces at work, but that was something for the four Heavenly Monarchs in the Kingdom of the Nine States or even their superiors to worry about. Sword Immortal Ling Xiao only needed to eliminate the mastermind that was exposed in the open.
Even so, this was still an extremely arduous mission.
In the distance, a cloud of dust suddenly rose up.
They heard a sound akin to that of a series of waves; the second wave of ants was upon them.
“Everyone, maintain a cool head. The ants on the ground will be taken care of by the cultivators guarding the Black Mist Bridge. Our objective is to try not to attract the Ant Queen’s attention,” Sword Immortal Ling Xiao demonstrated an immortal spell to obscure his body and aura as he spoke.
Rumble…
This was the first time ever An Lin had heard a group of ants that sounded like a stampede of wild horses. And the sound was even more concentrated, giving him a sense of asphyxiation.
There were countless ants on the ground and also a vast amount of flying ants in the sky. The aura each ant exuded was perhaps not as powerful as the mutant beasts in the Myriad Mountain Domain, but their insane numbers had accumulated to cause a qualitative change.
The wave of ants now gave An Lin a sense that Armageddon was approaching. It was exactly after witnessing this that he began to worry for the students guarding the Black Mist Bridge behind them.
“The ordinary ants below do not have much intelligence, and they are being controlled by the consciousness of the Ant Queen. If we kill the Ant Queen, their formations would undoubtedly crumble, making them easy to vanquish,” Xuanyuan Cheng said as he consoled An Lin.
An Lin nodded and concentrated on the task at hand.
Their small team bypassed the ant army and continued deeper into the Realm of White Sand.
Ant nests were normally constructed underground, and the entrance was usually a simple black hole. One would never be able to tell from outside just how huge a space the nest encompassed nor how many huge ants were dwelling within.
The ground below them was quite barren, consisting of only white sand and bare rocks. This made An Lin wonder just what food source the ants had to support such a huge population.
Within the black hole was an extremely cavernous space.
There were countless giant ants scurrying around there, each of them carrying a colossal black object which they were transporting elsewhere.
In the very center of the ant’s nest was a mountainous ant with a body several thousand feet in length. The ant was sprawled out on the ground, its body slowly squirming.
That was the mother of the Ant Tribe, also known as the Ant Queen.
“Ah…!” A delicate, yet raucous cry was accompanied by a violent squirming of her abdomen as hundreds of huge eggs gushed forth with a flood of sticky liquid from her lower abdomen.
“Congratulations on a smooth birth, mother.”
A huge blue ant standing on its hind legs exuding a powerful aura bowed to express congratulations.
A dozen other huge ants of all shapes and forms also bowed, all of them had vast amounts of power within their bodies, and their eyes glowed with bloodlust.
“I’ve lost connection with all the fertilizers I’ve spread…” The Ant Queen panted lightly.
The huge blue ant was initially taken aback by her words and its face fell. “Normal cultivators would definitely be unable to discover the fertilizers. The people from Heavenly Court are indeed a quick-acting bunch.”
“They might be able to find their way here with the fertilizers gathered.” The Ant Queen opened her cavernous mouth and placed the huge black objects the worker ants were carrying into her mouth.
The huge blue ant chuckled coldly. “Even the Zeng Chang Heavenly Monarch was forced into retreat by our tribe leader. If anyone else dares to come here, our army of over a hundred thousand would ensure they stay here forever!”
Right at this moment, a white butterfly fluttered in from a passageway.
It was light and graceful, flying slowly toward the mountainous Ant Queen.
The Ant Queen and the huge blue ant both reacted violently at the sight of the butterfly and just as they were about to spring into action, a resounding boom suddenly erupted as a sword forged of white light punctured through the ground and landed in front of them.
The sword was glittering and translucent, with a huge metallic object attached to it.
The metallic object was a nuclear missile…
In the Realm of White Sand, over a hundred powerful cultivators retreated in unison with all their might.
An Lin looked at Xuanyuan Cheng as his lips twitched and he couldn’t help but make a remark, “Big Brother Cheng, where did you get that nuclear missile from? It’s such an overkill!”
Xuanyuan Cheng smiled lightly. “I descended into the mortal world last time and developed an interest in these things, so I swapped a few spirit stones for a few missiles. Who would have thought that they would come in handy now…”
Earth Immortal Yue Ying flew to Xuanyuan Cheng’s side on her book and adjusted her red-rim glasses as she spoke in an intelligent tone, “The nuclear missile has an explosive force equivalent to tens of millions of tons of TNT, and the effective explosive radius created by its explosion and shockwave is around fifteen kilometers.”
“Add to that the spell formations that number in excess of twenty set up by Student Xuanyuan Cheng to amplify the power of the explosion, the effective destructive radius increases to twenty kilometers, enough to raze a large city to the ground…”
“We don’t know just how big the ant’s net is, but the nuclear missile will definitely blast them into the sky.” Xuanyuan Cheng made a rare show of cockiness.
“Poor Ant Queen…” An Lin could already envision the scene of the nuclear missile exploding in the Ant Queen’s face.
Boom!
Heaven and earth quaked at this moment.
An unfathomable amount of power erupted in the ant’s nest, releasing destructive force akin to the onset of Armageddon.
An extremely fearsome mushroom cloud erupted and quickly expanded as it rose upward.
The very ground itself had been blasted open and a terrifyingly destructive shockwave burst forth.
An Lin looked behind him at the golden ball of fire in the center of the explosion. It was even more spectacular than the sun in the sky, as it released boundless light and heat.
All of the cultivators activated their protection spell formations and sped away in retreat, but they were still caught in the peripheral shockwaves as the ground split apart around them, and a violent sandstorm obscured the sky above.
The huge mushroom cloud remained on the horizon for a long time without dissipating, appearing as if it was a huge ferocious beast standing between heaven and earth.
An Lin and the others all stopped to turn back and appreciate the scenery.
They were already completely out of the blast radius so their safety was ensured.
“Heheheh, there’s probably not even a single speck of the Ant Queen left after that,” An Lin exclaimed in marvel.
As the leader of the group, Sword Immortal Ling Xiao also had a satisfied smile on his face. “Unless there’s a mighty figure in the ant’s nest capable of manipulating space itself, there’s not a chance they could have survived. It was all thanks to Student Xuanyuan’s nuclear bomb. Otherwise, we definitely would not have been able to secure victory so easily.”
Xuanyuan Cheng smiled lightly in embarrassment. He didn’t dare use this type of weapon in a normal fight, in fear that he too would be reduced to ashes and dust if he didn’t run away fast enough. However, after learning of the enemy’s location in advance, they would be able to target a location from afar for an extremely effective surprise attack.
After the explosion, the group did not immediately depart.
Sword Immortal Ling Xiao was planning to set up another Aura Tracking Spell Formation to verify whether the Ant Queen was indeed dead.
But he did not have time to even begin setting up the formation before a ball of blue light flew out from the mushroom cloud and heading toward their group.