The others covered their ears tightly, especially Leonardo, who had witnessed the power of Fuyuan’s sonic waves before.
But this method could not completely block out the sound.
After accidentally hearing a little of it, Si Zhao fell into deep thought.
Wasn’t it said that merfolk had the most beautiful voices of all the beastfolk?
Was Yangyang’s beast companion just a little… too unusual?
Just as Si Zhao was thinking this, Yunyang’s voice came through the lightbrain again. “Sister Zhaozhao, Fuyuan’s mutated sonic waves will affect the males’ corruption levels. Remember to keep an eye on them.”
It would be bad enough to be injured by an out-of-control comrade after escaping harm from the insect race. That would be far too unfair.
“Got it.”
Si Zhao responded and immediately spread her mental power over all the males present.
Because the others had covered their ears in advance, they were not greatly affected. With Si Zhao helping to stabilize their corruption levels, none of them were in danger of losing control for the time being.
Meanwhile, the Insect Queen’s mental attacks continued.
Fuyuan was an SS-rank ability user, after all. Though he could not completely cancel out the Insect Queen’s mental attacks, he could at least neutralize seventy percent of them.
The remaining thirty percent was greatly weakened, and the few ability users could withstand it on their own.
Every mental attack consumed a considerable amount of the Insect Queen’s energy. Even after devouring several ninth-level insects, it had not recovered much.
Ten minutes later, the Insect Queen’s mental attacks finally stopped.
Fuyuan also halted his sonic assault at once and took out another insect core to replenish his abilities.
The Insect Queen had assumed that after maintaining the attack for so long, the beastfolk hiding nearby would be disturbed and expose themselves.
But not only had reality turned out completely opposite to what it expected, the already-chaotic insect forces had become even more disordered because of its mental attacks and Fuyuan’s mutated sonic waves. Some had even begun attacking one another indiscriminately.
The Insect Queen was dumbfounded, then let out an enraged screech.
The two support-type ability users noticed that when the Insect Queen screeched, the female insects quietly moved a little farther away from it.
Did they dislike the Insect Queen’s screeching?
The two did not really understand what was happening, but they immediately reported it to Si Zhao.
After a furious series of screeches, the Insect Queen issued another command to the female insects, urging the insects on the ground to return.
It no longer expected anything from the useless males in the nest.
Useless things deserved to become its nourishment.
While defending itself against the attacks, the Insect Queen spat out puddle after puddle of mucus, pulling nearby insects toward it and devouring them.
Its chewing was astonishingly fast. A ninth-level insect was eaten clean in the blink of an eye.
Only after devouring dozens of insects in succession did the Insect Queen regain enough strength to move.
Throughout this time, He Youchuan and the others inside the Guiying had never stopped attacking it.
Whenever their abilities were exhausted, they absorbed insect cores to replenish them. With Si Zhao stabilizing their corruption levels, they had gradually gained the upper hand.
But the Insect Queen’s defensive power was several times stronger than that of a ninth-level insect. Even after exhausting their abilities several times, the group had inflicted only superficial wounds on it.
Once the Insect Queen could move, their slight advantage vanished completely.
The only consolation was that it had recovered only part of its energy, while the wounds on its body had not yet healed.
Furthermore, its enormous body, combined with the restraints imposed by one of the support-type ability users, made its movements extremely slow.
Yunyang stared intently at the scene displayed on the light screen. She still had to divide her attention between blessing the Federation troops and purifying them.
At that moment, she wished she could copy Chen Yueli’s clone ability. That would at least reduce the strain on her mind.
Unfortunately, no such convenience existed.
Yunyang shook her face lightly. Taking advantage of the brief lull before any Federation troops needed purification, she hurried to the lounge and washed her face as quickly as possible.
The light screen moved with her, so Yunyang did not miss a single moment of what was happening in the nest.
When she noticed that the Insect Queen could move its body, she stopped and instinctively fixed her eyes on its abdomen.
The Insect Queen’s belly seemed far too large.
Could it be entering its breeding period again?
Unlike beastfolk, the Insect Queen stored its fertilized eggs until they reached a certain number, then laid them all within a single month. That was the Insect Queen’s breeding period.
Normally, an Insect Queen had only one breeding period each year.
Perhaps the destruction of its previous egg-laying site, which had cost it more than a hundred thousand eggs, had forced it to bring the next breeding period forward.
These were merely Yunyang’s guesses. She could not be certain, so she told Si Zhao’s group to try attacking the Insect Queen’s abdomen.
Whether or not its breeding period had arrived, the abdomen was a relatively weak point in its defenses.
That was true of both beastfolk and the insect race.
After receiving Yunyang’s message, Si Zhao instructed He Youchuan and the others to aim their attacks at the Insect Queen’s abdomen.
The Insect Queen had clearly realized what they intended. Four pairs of legs were used to move, while the remaining three and a half pairs clung tightly around and protected its abdomen.
It began devouring the male insects frenziedly. Every insect it swallowed restored some of its energy.
Once it had accumulated a little energy, it would stop and unleash another mental attack.
The Insect Queen’s offensive methods were extremely limited. It had only this one type of attack: mental shockwaves.
In the past, mental shockwaves alone had been enough to give the beastfolk splitting headaches.
But today, Fuyuan, the mutated merfolk, happened to be present, rendering the Insect Queen’s mental attacks completely ineffective.
No, that was not entirely true. They still had some effect—but on the insects.
The Insect Queen had already abandoned the insects in the nest. Every time it launched a mental attack, it made no effort to avoid affecting the males. Combined with Fuyuan’s sonic waves, the male insects had become dazed and could no longer distinguish friend from foe.
Meanwhile, the Insect Queen continued devouring them. Before long, half of the male insects in the nest had been lost—and that was without He Youchuan and the others attacking them at all.
Kalunden, who had seen everything clearly through the light screen, fell silent.
Well, the Insect Queen’s mental attacks were more effective against the insects than the entire Federation army combined.
Yunyang did not know what to say either.
Under the Insect Queen’s repeated urgings, the insects on the ground launched a noticeably fiercer offensive than before.
Under the direction of the ninth-level insects, quite a few insects had already successfully burrowed back underground.
Fortunately, the Guiying had not been exposed.
Even if those insects returned to the nest, they could not locate the invisible Guiying right away.
Victory was gradually tilting toward the Federation.
After another one of the Insect Queen’s mental attacks ended, He Youchuan absorbed the ninth-level insect core in his hand. The instant his ability recovered, he condensed thunderclouds above the Insect Queen’s head.
The Federation troops with fire-based abilities added their firepower.
Bolts of lightning wrapped in flames came crashing down one after another, forcing the Insect Queen to use all fifteen of its legs to dodge in a panic.
But beneath the thunderclouds, thorn-covered vines burst from the ground in an instant and tightly bound all fifteen of its legs.
The Insect Queen’s spider legs were covered in hard, fine hairs, so breaking through the vines was not difficult.
But Leonardo had never expected to hold the Insect Queen forever. What he and the others needed was merely this moment of restraint.
Once its spider legs were bound, He Youchuan and the two attack-type ability users mobilized every bit of their power, while Cang Zhuonian brought out the energy cannon with the greatest destructive force.
For a moment, everyone’s attacks surged forward like an unstoppable force, charging straight toward the Insect Queen’s abdomen.
