Han Chen already knew where their central hive was. Meng Xue Mountain Range. Far in the north, where the cold air thickened, where mist curled over jagged cliffs. The Qivora Tr'all needed frigid conditions to proliferate, to breed, to expand their nest beneath the frozen rock. But this wasn't their only hideout—there were thirteen more, hidden in urban shadows, spreading their poison among the weak-minded.
Han Chen wanted to slaughter the priest and insect directly, the ones responsible for tempting to kill his parents. Hye Won? She burned with rage for the innocents used as livestock.
"I'm coming," she said simply.
Han Chen glanced at her, reminding her of the risks—Grandmasters. Peak martial artists. People stronger than anyone they had fought before.
She didn't care.
The next night, they reached the mountains, flying low over the frozen peaks. Hours of slow, careful flight. They landed without a sound before a cliffside that, to any normal eye, seemed like nothing but rock and snow.
But it was not empty.
The hive was carved deep into the mountainside, indistinguishable from the outside.
And inside?
Descending through the one of the isolated tunnels, the stench hit first. The overwhelming mix of blood, rot, and antiseptic, soaking into the stone walls and further inside is but different a mix of extreme incense and everything else.. Filtering systems and transport rails from outside are built.
There are even Helipads arranged in disguise. But they are for normal entrance from below.
Further in, they passed priests in black robes, whispering guttural chants. The tunnels opened into a chamber lined with cages, and within them—
A feeding pit, just that feed is children.
Han Chen and Hye Won stopped.
Below, figures moved in ritualistic procession. In the dim light, children, young boys dragged and tossed into the pit. It was already thrown in as both of them approached near and now they were chanting with expressions, what seem like enjoying the process of insects feeding on flesh.
The bodies struck in the bloodied stone, the insects swarmed.
Hye Won clenched her fists, her breathing sharp. Han Chen pressed a hand against her shoulder ~ not to stop her, but to steady her.
They moved deeper. Another chamber. Han Chen didn't plan on alerting the cultists first like some idiot. He will clean down.
Next he found women.
Red-robed priests moved like shadows, their chanting a discordant hum. A blood pit dominated the central chamber, its edges stained black. Children—children—lay discarded at its rim, some still twitching. Adjacent to it, a separate room held women. Nineteen of them, chained like livestock, their bodies swollen with forced pregnancies. Breeding stock. Future sacrifices.
He felt the resistance holding onto Hye Won's hands. This was a simply on another level to what she had done. Each step they took, they were experiencing human moral deprivation and savage brutality. He saw people satisfying their primal urges.
Further in, the incubation chambers.
Han Chen's grip on his sword tightened.
A hundred women. Maybe more. Their faces hollow, their bellies grotesquely distended, skin stretched taut over squirming masses. The larvae inside them pulsed, feeding, growing. They absorbed nutrients like human children would, then devoured their hosts from within upon maturity. Some of the women were still conscious. Their eyes met his—empty. Broken. He was invisible but he felt their suffering.
Hye Won didn't vomit this time. But her hands shook and body trembled. He carried her over with his ability.
The Altar
The chanting grew louder as they descended. The inner sanctum was a grotesque parody of a temple—high ceilings, intricate carvings, all drenched in the scent of iron and something spoiled. The theme was more white than the previous dark theme. At the center stood an altar, its surface stained with old blood.
The elite were here.
Men and women in masks, their robes fine, their hands unblemished by labor. The affluent. Then there is martial artists leaking aura, still the ones in power. The powerful. The ones who funded this nightmare. At the head of them all, an old man in an ornate mask—the grandmaster, seems like 150 years old. His presence was a suffocating weight, his qi dense enough to warp the air.
Security flanked the room, armed but complacent. They hadn't noticed the intruders yet as they were entirely invisible and walking a few centimeters above ground.
No one noticed at first ~ their attention was fixed on the boy at the altar, moments from being sacrificed.
Then, a voice cut through the chamber like a blade.
"Turn around." It sounded near everyone's ears simultaneously.
Every person in the room froze.
A weight crushed down on them, a pressure so immense it stole the breath from their lungs. Fear ~ pure, paralyzing fear, more than what they faced upon even seeing their lord, Qivora, gripped them as they turned toward the voice. Some of the stronger souls among them felt the sea of blood behind the blurred figure holding a shiny sword.
The last thing then they saw was a flash of silver.
A single strike.
A shing of metal.
And then—
Every one of them fell. The sword hasn't left his hands, standing at a distance, yet;
Their legs severed. Limbs dropped to the ground, blood spilling over the ritual stones. The rich. The powerful. From mortals to masters. Crawling through their own filth, screaming and bleeding. His spirit will descended on them rudely tying up their arterial veins inside flesh for them to remain awake.
Let them crawl.
From behind, gunfire erupted. Bullets tore through the air, aimed at Han Chen's back. He didn't flinch. The rounds disintegrated before they touched him, his spiritual will a barrier against mortal weapons.
He did not stop walking.
He dragged the tip of his sword along the stone pavement, the sound sending shivers through the broken figures at his feet. The men firing had their necks twist and fell down on their own.
The Grand-master stood trembling at the altar. He appeared old, like around 150 years old. The strongest man Han Chen had faced so far. Nearly 0.8 units, 8 tons equivalent of pure internal strength he is using to suppress the 2 units of pressure Han Chen applied on him through spirit will.
"Let me fight!" the grand-master howled.
Han Chen released the suppression.
The old man moved like lightning, qi - enhanced strikes blurring toward him. Han Chen didn't bother with techniques. Just raw, brutal martial movement. A twist, a pivot, a single palm strike to the ribs tearing through grand-master level hexagonal Qi-shield, collapsing the inside of him.
Bone shattered. Blood spilled out, his spiritual energy crawling and fighting back the energy he is using to stabilize his injuries. The grand-master gasped, stumbling back to ground. His old body has such power even when he got only few years left.
"Who are you? Why are you doing this?" He said within gasps but with fervor. He had seen what he only yearned for years, power like his god, no more than that. Raw power for a human. Ability to strike invisibly, killing masters like flies, overwhelming aura, invisible to naked eyes. That Golden eyes.
Han Chen's voice was ice. "Your words once killed my parents. Now you've tried again." Past life. Present life. It didn't matter. The debt was the same. "I won't kill you."
A flick of his wrist. The sword domain activated. The grandmaster's limbs fell away, cleanly severed.
"I'll feed you to the insect, the god you worship. Then I'll kill it too."
He dig into his mind only to find the exact locations and major people involved and got many revelations. Putting them back in his mind, he descended his spirit will on every one there.
Then, one by one, he dragged every crawling, wailing priests and followers forward—to the pits further forward.The same one where the boy had nearly been offered. The stench here was unbearable—mix of incense and rotting flesh, bile, the thick musk of something alien. The air filters are working in their full power yet nothing changed.
A massive, inverted cone, twenty meters in diameter. And within it ~ The Mother. Three and a half meters of chitin and twitching limbs. Its body pulsed, its maw dripping viscous fluid as it sensed fresh prey. The three-meter monstrosity squirmed forward, antennae twitching, legs skittering over stone. It moved in a flash.
The Prophet, bleeding, limbless, lay at the edge of the pit. He was screaming before. Begging.
"Lord! Your servant calls—your servant is loyal—!"
Han Chen kicked him forward.
The insect pounced.
With a sickening crunch, its mandibles clamped over the old man's torso, splitting him in half. His blood sprayed over the mucus-covered ground, soaking into the writhing mass beneath.
The screams didn't last long.
A three-meter-long insect, its carapace glistening with unnatural black and violet patterns, pulsing as if breathing. Its legs ~ eight, segmented, armored like steel scraped against the pit's surface, it's long tail clicking with a rhythmic, predatory patience. The mandibles were wide enough to bite a man in half, gleaming with a dripping, acidic substance.
Its eyes ~ six of them ~ focused directly on Han Chen, even while feeding as it sensed some danger.
Hye Won flinched, but kept filming the monstrosity, trusting Han Chen.
Han Chen was already in motion, moving to its zone.
The beast roared, its body shuddering ~ then, suddenly, its flesh squirmed, the broken pieces of the Prophet absorbing into its carapace.
"Tch."
Han Chen's grip tightened on his sword.
It wasn't just an insect.
It was a demon in the making.
...
For a second, he calculated. If left unchecked, in another fifty years, this thing might evolve into a true Foundation Establishment realm monster. Maybe even worse. Then these barriers nor flesh remains won't let him restrain. Only nuclear bombs would restrain these.
He wasn't going to let that happen.
The creature lunged.
It moved faster than expected—a blur of chitin and hunger, mandibles snapping toward his head.
Han Chen vanished.
He reappeared even faster above it, sword already descending—
SHIIING!
His blade cleaved through one of its legs, severing it at the joint.
The insect screeched.
A sonic blast.
A high-pitched, brain-splitting wail echoed through the cavern. Stone walls cracked, vibrating with the sheer force.
Hye Won screamed behind him ~ blood trickled from her ears as she collapsed to her knees. Her camera fell, skidding across the stone.
Han Chen's barrier snapped into place just in time, the sound-wave splitting around him like water against rock.
The moment the attack ended, the creature countered—two of its spiked legs lashed out, stabbing toward him like spears.
Han Chen twisted mid-air, his movement so precise that the tip of the leg missed his throat by mere centimeters. He landed on the cavern floor, sliding backward, sword raised.
The monster's wounds were regenerating.
So it can recover, huh?
It reared back, its mandibles opening wide—
A violet glow ignited in its throat.
Han Chen's eyes narrowed.
Qi beams. It seems It really was evolving.
With a sickening hiss, two beams of violet energy fired from its mouth, twisting through the air like serpents—
Han Chen deflected with his sword forming a big crater on the ground nearly 10 metres.
A heartbeat later, he was gone.
The moment he moved, the beams lost their lock on him. They struck the cavern wall instead—BOOM! The explosion rocked the hive, sending debris cascading from above.
Han Chen reappeared under the creature's exposed torso.
His eyes flashed blue.
Soul Illusion Technique ~ Heaven's Reflection.
The monster froze, its movements suddenly stalling.
A flood of illusions flooded its primitive mind.
To the beast, Han Chen multiplied into hundreds, his form flickering in and out of its reality. Swords. So many swords. Each version of Han Chen rushed at it from different angles, overwhelming its senses.
It thrashed wildly—slashing at ghosts.
That was all Han Chen needed.
In one fluid motion, he drew his blade.
His form blurred forward.
The ground cracked beneath his step.
With a single, perfectly executed strike, he severed the monster's head.
For a second—
Everything was still.
The head hit the ground with a wet thud.
The body shuddered, legs twitching.
Then, slowly ~ horrifically—the torso started writhing again.
Han Chen narrowed his eyes.
The flesh split open, revealing a small, pulsating core buried deep inside its chest cavity.
A demon core.
Han Chen clicked his tongue.
So that's why it was evolving so fast.
The moment the core was exposed, the entire chamber vibrated—the remaining insects across the hive started screaming, their bodies convulsing as if in response to their dying master.
Han Chen would not let this thing live another second.
His sword vanished into his pendent on neck.
Instead, spiritual fire ignited at his feet.
Violet flames, born from condensed soul power and law energy, expanded in every direction.
The temperature skyrocketed.
The carapace sizzled.
And then—
The entire chamber was engulfed.
Every egg.Every squirming larva.Every crawling insect.
Burned to nothing.
The demonic core itself melted under the intensity of the flame, releasing an otherworldly screech before finally cracking apart into dust.
The fight was over.
The Aftermath
Han Chen turned.
Hye Won was slumped against the wall, her breathing ragged, her hands covering her ears. Blood still dripped from her nose and ears.
He knelt beside her. Placed his palm over her ears.
A soft, green light spread from his hands.
Within seconds, her hearing was restored.
Her eyes fluttered open.
She looked at him.
Then at the burning hive around them.
She swallowed hard.
Han Chen helped her to her feet. She bent down, picked up the camera, and quietly checked the footage.