Chapter 167: Insect Moss

“My Lord!”

Although Angus strongly objected, he understood that protecting these three mastiffmen here actually benefited Wu Qingsong’s mission more. His frustration stemmed from feeling powerless under such circumstances.

“Just keep a close eye on those three,” Wu Qingsong instructed him. “You should know their testimonies are crucial for us to clear our names.”

The mastiffmen were surprised by Wu Qingsong’s plan. Marquis Osaga liked to embark on adventures alone, relying on his formidable combat skills, but Wu Qingsong, a half-elf? And accompanied by two beastgirls who looked like they had no combat ability at all? Especially the mixed bread, wielding boomerangs so large they seemed ludicrous, was it meant to be a joke?

However, since Wu Qingsong’s subordinates didn’t object, they naturally wouldn’t either. As long as they didn’t rashly follow Wu Qingsong out and get killed by spiderpeople, Wu Qingsong’s fate was of little concern to them.

“Scared?” Wu Qingsong asked Liuli.

Having already ventured with him once, Ling was undoubtedly ready for another.

“Not scared!” Liuli said immediately, though her perked ears and tail subtly revealed her anxiety.

“Trust in Ling, she’ll protect us,” Wu Qingsong whispered to them.

They swiftly exited the mine and moved out of its visible range, heading deeper into the valley along the side. A group of mite insectoids quickly spotted them and began to chase, chirping as they approached.

Ling’s boomerangs in her hands swiftly split into four and left her grasp and began to orbit around them. Any mite insectoids bold enough to get too close were promptly bisected, scattering the rest in fear.

Several spiderpeople swiftly approached, claws outstretched.

“Can you handle it?” Wu Qingsong asked Ling.

Without verbal reply, Ling nodded vigorously, and they continued at their quickest pace deeper into the valley.

A sharp screech filled the air as four or five strands of spider silk were shot toward them from afar, only to be cleanly sliced by Ling’s controlled boomerangs. Wu Qingsong protected Liuli with his body, watching as a boomerang, under Ling’s command, neatly decapitated a spider insectoid. The boomerang traced a beautiful arc back into Ling’s control zone.

“Nicely done,” he praised without restraint.

Ling felt a surge of excitement but merely nodded vigorously on the surface, continuing to send her boomerangs slicing through any spider-people that pursued them.

Wu Qingsong thought to himself, ‘There must be a better way to use Ling’s abilities.’

Four or five spiderpeople fell close to them, greatly beyond their expectations. Before more could catch up, Wu Qingsong and the girls had widened the gap sufficiently. Circling around, they found another pass to enter the valley.

The peculiar smell intensified. Turning a corner, they were greeted by a layer of dark red, strange material covering the forest floor.

“Insect moss?” Wu Qingsong blurted out.

Ling and Liuli looked at him in confusion, while he cautiously approached the seemingly alive dark red substance, reaching out to touch it.

It was sticky, resembling rotting flesh mixed with a mass of indefinable substances formed into a gel, emitting the bizarre aroma of fruits in advanced decay. Vein-like structures, or perhaps more akin to plant leaf veins, irregular in thickness, were embedded within, occasionally pulsing as if they were transporting water and nutrients. This made the expansive insect moss appear as a living entity.

Suddenly, a spiderperson leaped in front of them. Just as it prepared to spit silk, two boomerangs crossed paths, decapitating it. White, undeveloped silk sprayed from the cut, almost hitting Wu Qingsong and Liuli.

“Wu? What is this? What exactly is this?” Ling finally recovered from her shock.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Wu Qingsong responded. “It might be insect moss or what’s known as a fungal mat, likely something the insectoids use to gather food.”

“Is it alive?”

Mimicking Wu Qingsong’s careful touch, Liuli reached out to feel it but immediately recoiled from the sensation, her fur bristling.

“If I’m not wrong, it seems to be a type of fungus or plant,” Wu Qingsong speculated.

He then drew his short sword, slicing off a sizable chunk from the edge of the moss.

To be honest, he half-expected the moss to behave unpredictably, possibly sprouting numerous tendrils and coming to life. Fortunately, it seemed to be exactly as he understood it to be. A dark red fluid leaked from the cut area but quickly stopped.

Inside, it featured a spongy structure. At the moss’s extremities, roots akin to those of plants densely penetrated the ground.

Wu Qingsong cut another large piece of the moss. In some areas, the roots were thick, burrowing deeply into the earth.

“These trees will probably die soon,” he said in a low voice to Ling and Liuli.

The valley was still covered with trees, yet in its deepest reaches, the foliage had noticeably lost its natural hue, withering to a sickly yellow. Areas that should have been teeming with a variety of shrubs, wild grass, ferns, and lichen plants, now blooming in this season, were instead covered in a dull and abrasive color, evoking an instinctual sense of disgust and aversion.

“Wu, we’re not going to walk in there, are we?” Liuli asked, her unease palpable.

“We need to figure out what exactly is going on,” Wu Qingsong said.

It appeared the spiderpeople lacked the capacity for long-distance communication, as they hadn’t yet faced any coordinated interception in this vicinity. Contemplating for a moment, Wu Qingsong instructed Ling to stay alert while he approached the corpse of the slain spiderperson to try capturing its soul fragments.

Soul fragments from the spiderpeople were significantly weaker than those of beastpeople but harbored a much more intense brutality. Enduring the onslaught of these savage memories, Wu Qingsong managed to purify it. He then etched a magic circle into the insect moss and, with Ling’s help, positioned the spiderperson’s body within it.

The body structure of spiderpeople was completely different from beastpeople. Would this be successful?

He didn’t know, yet to his astonishment, success came within a dozen seconds.

The spiderperson had become a decaying cadaver.

“We’ll need more specimens like this,” Wu Qingsong said with newfound confidence. “Ling, when you kill them, try to keep their bodies as intact as possible.”

Although Ling was unclear about Wu Qingsong’s intentions, she nodded in agreement, “I understand.”