A while later.
Ian Song and Sherry Summers were seated in the courtyard; Lena Wei quietly handled the tea service nearby. Even though Lena had already slept with Ian, she still kept her position straight and never acted like she was his official woman.
"Big trouble!"
Sherry Summers' opening line was a bombshell.
Ian looked at her, waiting for her explanation.
Sherry said, "A month ago, the Goblin Pig army attacked Sky-Sun Region with overwhelming force. On the third day, the Black Barbarian army hit Greatsun Region. Over the next ten days, Divinesun Region, Phoenix-Sun Region, Mystic Sun Domain, and Starfield Domain were all attacked one after another by other races. The situation is really bad!"
Six out of the Ten Human Realms have been attacked—there’s no way that’s a coincidence. It’s almost certainly a coordinated offensive.
"How’s the war going?" Ian asked.
With Ian Song's help, Sherry Summers had already secured her footing inside Daxia Merchant Guild, so she was getting plenty of news from other domains.
"It’s not looking good," Sherry shook her head. "The Human Race may be one of the Ten Great Races, but our factions are too scattered. The races attacking us aren’t as strong as the Human Race, but they’re unified, so we’ve been losing ground from the start. Mystic Sun Domain is in the worst shape—already a tenth of its territory has fallen to the Insect Horde."
Ian frowned and asked in a low voice, "Has Daxia Merchant Guild figured out why all these races are attacking humans?"
"No one knows yet!" Sherry shook her head. "But there must be other top races pulling strings behind the scenes. Without their support, these races wouldn’t dare attack the Human Race so openly!"
"So does the Human Race have any way to respond?" Ian pressed.
Sherry said, "All the factions sense the crisis and want to unite against the enemy, but there are too many complications. It won’t be easy to form an effective alliance anytime soon!"
Sherry Summers didn’t stay long before leaving. Now that she was one of the main managers for Daxia Merchant Guild in Mystic Sun Domain, she had to oversee the evacuation of all their industries because of the Insect Horde attack—a massive job that needed her full attention.
Six Human Realms being attacked by other races wasn’t normal at all. Ian guessed there must be some deeper reason or conspiracy, but there just wasn’t enough information—even his wisdom couldn’t figure out the real cause.
He might just be an outsider, but Ian couldn’t stand by and watch the Human Race get wiped out. No matter what, he was still human.
Soon after, Sherry sent someone over with more detailed info about the Insect Horde.
He’d specifically asked for it.
The System had issued him the System Quest: Exterminate the Insect Horde, so he couldn’t just ignore the invasion.
By now, a full tenth of Mystic Sun Domain’s territory had fallen to the Insect Horde. Countless humans had become bug fodder, making the three main Insect armies even stronger.
From what Ian understood, each Insect Queen could control about a billion bugs.
Right now, the Insect Horde’s numbers had surpassed 120 billion, meaning there were at least 1,200 Insect Queens spread across the three battlefronts.
The best way to beat the Insect Horde was to kill off those Insect Queens.
So Ian decided to head straight for the frontlines that very day and start hunting Insect Queens.
News of Ian’s return spread quickly among his friends, and they all came to visit, eager to follow him to the front and slay more bugs.
But this time, Ian refused.
The Insect Horde was just too massive, and their cultivation was way too low—they wouldn’t make much difference if they tagged along.
Thinking of the looming Human Race crisis, Ian took out some Frost-Soul Pills and handed them to his friends, hoping they’d reach Sun-Soul Realm soon.
After a quick round of farewells with Wes Wei, Rhea Yan, Moira Ji, Jason Zhuge, and the others, Ian left Dragonfang City again.
The Insect armies were coming up from the south, advancing along three axes: straight east, northwest, and northeast.
Ian headed straight for the eastern front.
Right now, the eastern battlefield had gathered over two million Human troops—mostly regular soldiers from Valeguard Kingdom and Zhougate Kingdom, about 1.2 million strong. The other 800,000 were cultivators sent by major clans and sects from both kingdoms.
With the threat of extermination hanging over them, nobody dared slack off. After all, the bugs saw them as nothing but food. If the Insect Horde took over Mystic Sun Domain, there’d be no hope of survival. Even running to other domains wouldn’t guarantee safety—Sky-Sun Region and Greatsun Region next door were also at war.
Two million troops sounded like a lot, but facing over 40 billion bugs, it was nothing.
Stepping onto the battlefield, Ian couldn’t help thinking of Victor Chao.
From Sherry’s intel, he’d learned that Victor Chao had already died in battle. As for his cousin Ray Chu, Ian had no idea if he was still alive.
Eastimperial City.
Once one of Mystic Sun Domain’s ten great cities, Eastimperial City was no longer bustling—people rushed through the streets in panic, and crowds streamed out the east gate.
Right now, Eastimperial City had become the frontline fortress against the Insect Horde.
Ian arrived just in time for a battle.
Swarms of armored flying bugs clustered into black clouds near the city walls. Exploding cloud arrows rained into the swarm, bursting apart and sending bug corpses tumbling down like heavy rain.
With a flicker, Ian appeared behind the Insect Horde and activated his Clairvoyant Vision to search for the Insect Queens.
"Well, well!"
His scan revealed nearly five hundred Insect Queens. After last time’s ambush, they were all on high alert, shifting positions nonstop inside the spatial interlayer.
"You think that’ll save you from assassination?" Ian sneered.
With a wave, Ian released nearly a thousand Fusion-realm monster cultivators from the Temple, including more than ten Tribulation-realm experts.
Using divine sense, Ian projected the approximate locations of the Insect Queens onto his subordinates’ spiritual senses.
Solo searching would have taken ages, but in small teams, it was easy to lock onto the Insect Queens.
"Attack!"
On Ian’s order, the monster cultivators teleported right next to the Insect Queens, shattered the void, and stormed into the spatial interlayer to strike.
"Aaaah!"
The Insect Queens’ screams echoed one after another.
Only a few dozen managed to escape the assassination—over ninety percent of the Insect Queens were slain in an instant.
Ian dove into the void again and again. In less than half a quarter hour, he’d finished off every last escaping Insect Queen.
Then he ordered the monster cultivators to hunt down any Insectoids hiding among the Insect Horde.
In less than a quarter hour, every Sun-Soul-grade Insectoid was dead—only a handful of Sigilforge-level bug commanders managed to escape.
With the command structure shattered, the Insect Horde fell apart and began to scatter in panic.
"The Insect Queens are dead—go hunt down the rest of the bugs!" Ian called out.
With that, Ian recalled his monster cultivators into the Temple and rushed off to the next battlefield. He was determined to wipe out every Insect Queen before word got out.