Chapter 739: Butterfly

The vein-like tubes were extremely fast like sharp arrows. The two winged cavalry warriors were not on guard, and it was already too late when they recognized the threat. By that time, these tubes had already pierced into their bodies.

“Damn it!” Gong Zheng flew into a rage when he saw this and immediately cut the old man in half with his blade.

The “puppet” startled everyone again after it was cut apart.

The old man didn’t have any organs.

There were countless vein-like tubes inside that old man’s body, and Gong Zheng’s blade had cut them apart. Many of them spilled out of his body and wriggled constantly as if they were living things.

All of his flesh was lumped together like a fist-sized meatball.

That meatball and the vein-like tubes occupied the inside of the man’s entire body.

“This…” Gong Zheng was stunned and tongue-tied when he saw this happen. It was completely beyond his expectations.

Many of the nearby winged cavalry warriors cried out in surprise as audible gasps rang out continuously.

The empress walked over when she heard the sound of gasping, and her expression changed when she saw what had happened.

Gong Zheng turned around, looked at her, and said, “Sir Ren’s guess was right. Something is wrong.”

Ren Baqian grinned. This was pure luck. He merely felt that they should try all methods of investigating the problem. He didn’t expect them to discover it with the first strike of a blade.

However, this sight was truly disgusting…

He turned to the two winged cavalry warriors who got attacked and asked, “How are the two of you feeling?”

The two of them pulled out the tubes and threw them aside. They then drew out their blades and chopped the tubes into pieces before angrily responding, “We are fine. They missed any vital parts.”

“That’s good. Speak up if you feel anything wrong.” Ren Baqian nodded.

He then looked at the tubes and the meatball that resided inside the old man’s corpse, frowned, and said, “It seems like his organs were eaten up by these things and replaced them to sustain his life.”

“What are these?” The empress knitted her eyebrows.

“No idea.” Ren Baqian spread out his arms while the others shook their heads as well.

They had heard of other such things that happened before, but had never actually seen them. Nobody had ever expected this to happen.

“Lend me your blade.” Ren Baqian borrowed Gong Zheng’s blade and flicked that meatball to the ground. It actually looked like it was still moving around. It was this meatball that made him sense the 10 beats per minute heart rate from the bodies of those people he checked.

He cut open the meatball with the blade and realized that there was a layer of fleshy membrane wrapped around something inside.

It was a red worm.

It was a larva that hadn’t grown into a butterfly!

It was only after taking a close look that Ren Baqian could see that its wings had already begun to form. These wings were tightly wrapped around its body. After the meatball was cut open, fluid seeped out while the wings began to slowly spread apart.

It was evident that the worm’s body had already matured, but its wings were only partially developed.

Most importantly, there was actually a very small and distorted face of a human on the body of the butterfly.

After Ren Baqian looked carefully, he discovered that the face looked identical to the face of the host.

That meatball was actually a cocoon.

Those vein-like tubes were used to control the host’s body and absorb nutrients; they were the cocoon’s tentacles.

Ren Baqian felt even more strange.

Even if these people were possessed by spirits, he would still find it easy to accept.

The empress had planted a part of her spirit in his body.

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Heaven-grade weapons were formed by one’s consciousness, and he currently had two of them in his mind.

However, he didn’t expect that the thing possessing this old man was actually a butterfly or that it had the man’s face on its body.

At this moment, changes started to occur in the village.

After this cocoon was cut open, the other “puppets” seemed to have received some sort of a signal. They stood up from the ground, let out an extremely deep and low sound, and dashed toward Ren Baqian and his party.

Even though the sound wasn’t loud, when all of their voices converged, it made them feel sick and dizzy with distress in their chest.

“Kill them!” the empress ordered when she saw the “puppets” charging over. After seeing the condition of the old man’s body, she made this decision without the slightest bit of hesitation.

Those villagers could not even be classified as humans anymore.

There were less than 200 “puppets” in the village, and the empress had 300 Kismet Heaven level winged cavalry warriors with her.

When they clashed, limbed started flying everywhere. The thing that caught them by surprise was that more than 10 of the winged cavalry warriors suffered injuries.

These “puppets” could actually still move after they had been slashed. The vein-like tubes pierced through the winged cavalry warriors’ bodies and came out from the other side. They were as fast as crossbows, and at such close distance, many of the winged cavalry were unable to dodge this attack.

Ren Baqian reacted immediately and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Don’t aim for their heads—split their bodies apart. They are controlled by that meatball in their bodies. Cut away all of that meatball’s tentacles.”

Everyone realized this fact after hearing Ren Baqian’s advice and continuously hacked apart their enemies. The winged cavalry warriors cut apart the chests and abdomens of the villagers and chopped up the tentacles. They then discovered that the “puppets” would lose their energy after the tentacles were cut up and would stop shooting out those tubes.

A short while later, all of the “puppets” in the village were killed and all of the meatballs were taken out of their bodies and chopped up.

One of the winged cavalry warriors had actually died after the tentacles pierced through his heart.

In addition, almost 20 people had sustained injuries.

“Remove those meatballs from their bodies, kill them, and bury them,” the empress ordered.

Even though all of the “puppets” had been killed, she still didn’t seem too happy.

After all, these “puppets” were still aboriginals once.

Ren Baqian stroked his beard and looked pensively at the butterflies on the ground that had human faces on their body.

“What are you thinking about?” the empress asked.

“These butterflies aren’t fully developed yet,” Ren Baqian replied. “16 years—it’s been 16 years since Ya Sheng discovered them, and they had already been acting weirdly at that time. There’s no telling when these things actually entered their bodies.”

“It’s indeed been a long time.” The empress nodded. The butterflies weren’t even fully developed after spending 16 years in their hosts, which was truly a long time.

Then, Ren Baqian spoke about another problem and continued, “That’s why there aren’t any children here. The youngest people in the village seems to be in their thirties. They were in their teens when the parasites infected them 16 years ago. The younger ones might not have been suitable hosts. Also, they might not have been able to tolerate it and might have died before the parasites took control of their bodies.”

They finally understood why there weren’t any teenagers or children in the village.

However, what these things were and where they came from had currently become the biggest questions.

Ren Baqian also thought about another problem. What would these creatures look like after they hatched out of the host bodies? What would they do?

Also… why did the butterflies have the faces of their hosts on their bodies?

Seeing that the winged cavalry were about to take the bodies away, Ren Baqian stopped them and walked over with a blade. There were other parts that he wanted to examine.

He cut open one of their heads and found that more than half of the brain was already gone. There were many thin tentacles latched onto the remaining parts of the brain.

Ren Baqian asked a few of the winged cavalry to keep some of the corpses of those creatures inside the meatballs for him to take back to Earth for examination.

The rest of them were burned.

The party rested in the village for the night. The empress wasn’t in the mood to talk, and Ren Baqian was also preoccupied with his own thoughts.

They woke up the next morning and conducted a thorough search of the village before leaving.

After another day’s journey, the party finally arrived at their destination, the Earth Yin Spring.