Huang Ying felt like rubbing his temples when he heard Song Yi's disdainful laughter and Chen Hong's swift agreement. He already knew that no matter how this bet ended, it would be he who suffered the most, he would definitely get drenched in alcohol again, just like he had been every other time they decided to drink. But it would still be fun regardless of that so he had no problem with agreeing to it in an overly dramatic exasperated manner.
"Yeah yeah, I'll make sure to get a couple of new clean robes ready for when two of you three weaklings fail to hold back the drinks you'll have to buy to celebrate my victory."
There was no more time for words after Huang Ying voiced his agreement, he was about to pass through the tree crowns and enter the forest. He twisted his body so that he was falling headfirst, pulling out both parts of his spear and using the two blades to cut apart the branches he was about to crash into.
When he passed through the tree crowns he saw that he was about to land at the base of a hill that was about 30 meters tall, a myriad of half-meter wide holes covering the entire hill. He also saw several wasp-like monsters crawling around the hill and the holes, each wasp was about half a meter long and had a black three-piece segmented carapace covered in orange stripes, two sets of fuzzy bug wings on their back. They had a small hole on their rear where he guessed their stinger was hiding, and they had sharp clamp-like jaws that were almost as wide as the holes in the hill.
Most of the wasps were between the 1st and 4th Mortal Step, but the problem was the sheer number of them, he saw at least 15 of them while falling towards the ground. But Huang Ying was not one to shy away from a fun challenge like this, the edges of his lips curving upward. He placed the two parts of his spear together and assembled his two-headed spear, twisting his body just before he landed so that he landed on his feet with a soft thud. The wasps immediately noticed his arrival, a symphony of buzzes grating his ears as the ones around the hill swarmed over to him. Huang Ying prepared his spear, raising his head and letting out a burst of thunderous laughter as he bellowed.
"Heh, couldn't even be bothered to hide the favoritism, could you? But really, Silver Cloud and Burning Cloud, your not even gonna try to deal with me yourself? That's just sad, at least have the balls to come for me yourself. Oh well, with that being the case then you can just wait for me to come for you, I'll show you that there's a price to be paid when you rouse my excitement like this!"
Huang Ying charged forward the moment he finished laughing, sweeping his spear upwards and slicing the closest wasp in half, the two separate sides splitting apart and dropping to the ground on either side of him. He waved his spear sideways after slicing the first wasp in half, a one-meter wide cloud of dust erupting from the tip and getting blown towards two other wasps.
The dust reached the two wasps and actually caused a few cracks to appear on their thick carapaces, slowing them down for a few seconds. Huang Ying frowned slightly when he saw this, he had expected the cloud of sharp dust to completely decimate these two wasps. It seemed like Li Jun hadn't been lying when he said that Demonic beasts were blessed with terrifyingly strong bodies, their ability to control elements or other special traits were basically just adding wings onto a tiger. Huang Ying clicked his tongue upon realizing that just using his elements wouldn't be enough to deal with them, but his face still carried a grin.
"If my elements won't work then I'll just have to carve you up by hand, so just be quiet and become a nice little feast for me."
A one and a half meter wide mud-like black spot appeared on the ground behind him once he finished his words, wriggling and bubbling as muddy tentacles stretched out and dragged the spot towards the wasp he had cut in half. The tentacles latched onto the two halves and dragged them in, tens of floating eyes and mouths appearing on both the tentacles and the black spot itself, quickly eating away at the corpse of the wasp.
Huang Ying felt a pleasant stream of energy enter his body as the corpse was getting devoured, the energy sinking into his muscles, flesh, and bones. The energy he got from devouring this wasp went mostly to his body and strengthened it slightly, less than 1% of it actually sank into his dantian and helped his cultivation. From the looks of it, devouring Demonic beasts was better for strengthening his body, cultivators were probably the better ones for strengthening his cultivation.
The two halves of the first wasp were quickly devoured, the mud-like darkness slinking over to Huang Ying's shadow and seemingly latching to it, causing his shadow to grow somewhat larger as crimson eyes and open maws appeared all over it. Huang Ying licked his lips and then quickly leaned forward, dodging a wasp that tried to bite down on his head. Another wasp immediately grasped this chance to fly beneath Huang Ying's bent torso and turn upside down, raising its rear and extending its stinger in a move that didn't look like it should be possible with their large frame.
The palm-length stinger headed directly for Huang Ying's abdomen, the spot where it should be hardest for him to dodge. But Huang Ying simply exerted a bit of force with his legs and used a bit of wind to lift himself into a downward-facing horizontal position in the air. He grasped his spear and spun his body to the right, the wasp beneath him getting cut in half by the lower part of his spear while the other end cut the wasp above him in half.
His elements were unable to kill the wasps easily, but his sharp weapon mixed with his above-average physical strength was able to quickly cut through their hard bodies. His extended shadow stretched out four muddy tentacles the moment Huang Ying landed on the ground again, drawing in the four pieces and eating away at them. Any strength Huang Ying lost to perform the move was immediately restored, the remainder of the energy entering his bones and flesh again.
But as the corpses were getting eaten at, a sliver of Huang Ying's consciousness also noticed that one of the distant and dim stars in his dantian, the one that had lowered slightly earlier already, had gotten even closer. From the looks of it, he could cause this dim star to fully descend if he continued to devour things, then he would finally see if his guess about them was correct.
Huang Ying rolled to the side the moment he landed on the ground, dodging three stingers that ended up stabbing into the earth where he had just been. He split his spear in two as he rolled to the side to make it easier, at the same time also using one of the blades to slice upwards and cut another wasp in two. The bisected wasp was quickly snatched up by Huang Ying's extended shadow, Huang Ying licking his lips when he straightened his body again.
"You're surprisingly tasty, I could do without the crunchy texture though."
This was one of the stranger facets Huang Ying had discovered about the law of devouring, he could actually taste the things that the law of devouring ate, it was as if he had eaten it himself. He hadn't lied when he told Langye that he wondered what nitwits tasted like, he would truly taste it if he actually ended up devouring anyone from the Burning Cloud or the Silver Cloud faction. He just hoped that what he tasted the first time he ate humans, the bandits shortly after his body was rebuilt, was a result of his recent awakening and not their actual taste.
Huang Ying assembled his spear again and charged at the remaining 11 wasps, who had gathered together to almost form a small cloud as they charged at him. But just as the two were about to clash, Huang Ying stepped on empty air and used his control over wind to create a few footholds in empty air. The footholds were very unstable and would at best be able to last for a few seconds, he also wasn't able to create too many of them yet, but it was more than enough for now.
He ran up into the air, stabbing out with his spear once and piercing the tip into one the head of one wasp before quickly pulling back his weapon. He quickly arrived above the clouds of wasps and then allowed himself to fall to the ground while leaning forward, grasping his spear with both arms and holding it horizontally to his chest as he started to spin his body. He descended to the ground while spinning like a tornado, the two tips of his spear slicing through the cloud of wasps as he somersaulted through them and landed on the ground.
Only one wasp remained in one piece after the onslaught, which could only be done so easily thanks to the fact that the wasps stuck so close to each other. But the remaining wasp was quickly dispatched by a swift stab of Huang Ying's spear and then fell to the ground along with the rest. Huang Ying turned to the hill covered in holes after dealing with the wasps, his extended shadow stretching out several more tentacles and drawing in all the corpses.
The floating open maws and crimson eyes that covered his shadow seemed to smile as they dragged in the corpses, each one wearing the same grin that Huang Ying wore when he waded into battle. Huang Ying started walking towards the hill, his shadow dragging the corpses along while he muttered to himself.
"Man, I really don't wanna meet Mama Wasp yet, that would be one hell of a shit show."
With each wasp he devoured, another star appeared in his dantian, another set of memories for him to go through. And thanks to these memories he learned that these wasps were just a small branch of the actual hive, which was located much closer to the center of the forest. The ruler of the hive was a wasp queen, and while the memories weren't clear on exactly what level of strength she had reached, Huang Ying was still able to feel that her strength was several magnitudes above his.
Comparing it to some of the teachers he had met in the academy, he guessed that she might have reached the peak of the Nine Stairs of Ascension, the cultivation realm above the Nine Steps of Mortality that he was in. There was even a chance that she might have already reached the Nine Mountains of Immortality, meeting a beast like her now would be a disaster.
Huang Ying quickly arrived in front of the hill and headed directly for the closest hole. He used his control over earth to increase the size of the hole, allowing him to walk mostly upright as he headed for the depths of the hill. He encountered five more wasps as he made his way to the center of the hill, but all of them were on their own so they were quickly dispatched and snatched up by his extended shadow, which was encroaching on the walls around him and causing the entire tunnel around him to be filled with open maws and eyes.
It didn't take him long to reach the center of the hill, a crudely dug cavern that was about ten meters tall and wide. The walls and ceiling of the cavern were lined with watermelon-sized white cocoons that contained wasp embryos, each cocoon wriggling slightly. There were also some animal corpses spread throughout the cavern, food for the children once they hatched.
Huang Ying wasn't polite in the slightest, each egg and animal corpse getting snatched up by his shadow and quickly getting covered in the mud-like darkness that was his law of devouring. Huang Ying returned using the tunnel he had created once the cavern was fully cleaned out, licking his lips once he stepped into the forest again.
"Well then, let's go and see what more exciting shit these pathetic fools have planned for us, let's see if they can bring me something that's even tastier."
