287 Chapter 287: Bugging Ou

Unfortunately for us, the gigantic snakes weren't the most dangerous monsters inhabiting the Black Underworld Swamp.

"Watch out!"

A deafening buzzing noise drowned out the words of warning from one of the mercenaries. Turning around, I caught sight of a colossal swarm of bugs flying toward us, their wings almost shimmering as they beat the air.

"Those are…Spirit Devouring Bees!" Redfield murmured, his expression filled with despair and horror.

"Damn it." Brent scowled. "Spirit Devouring Bees are low-ranked monsters…rank F at most, but the problem is their astronomical numbers. A single swarm of them can reduce even a rank C monster into bones in mere seconds."

Just like piranhas or army ants.

"At least it's not the Ghost Face Silver Mosquito," I muttered sarcastically. Everyone turned to stare at me, their mouths hanging open.

"The what Mosquito?"

"Never mind," I quickly said. We could choose to rip off either Forty Millennia of Cultivation or The Great Ruler (animated version), but it seemed that Fate had decided on the latter. "By the way, does anyone have a Tai Yi Lightning Railgun? We'll need that to shoot lightning bolts at the Ghost Face Silver Mosquitoes…I mean, the Spirit Devouring Bees."

"We don't have a railgun, and I've never heard of a Tai Yi Lightning type of railgun before." The guy with the carbine hefted his weapon up and fired an automatic burst into the swarm, but for all of his efforts he might as well be throwing pebbles into an ocean. "Damn it…we'll need something more powerful than this!"

"Richard could always try and nuke the entire site with his spells of mass destruction," Anastasia suggested.

"And kill all of us along with the Spirit Devouring Bees? Don't be stupid. Besides…" Brent glanced at me. "I assume you're going to need a lot of time to cast that Strategic-scale spell, right?"

"Yeah…ten, maybe fifteen minutes…"

"We're not going to last that long under the onslaught of millions of Spirit Devouring Bees." Brent twisted around and gestured for everyone to move. "Go! Run toward the tomb! Seek shelter!"

"What if the Spirit Devouring Bees follow us into the site?" one of the professors asked timidly, but he had already turned around and was running with the mercenaries and the archaeological team. However, it was a good question.

"I'll set up a barrier at the entrance of one of the buildings, and they shouldn't be able to get in for a while. Even though they're capable of eating a high-ranked monster to the point where nothing more than bones are left, they probably shouldn't find stone, concrete, metal or cement as palatable. They probably wouldn't try to chew through the buildings."

If they did, we would be screwed because we had trapped ourselves inside an enclosed space. However, there wasn't any other alternative. We could continue running, but there was no other place to run to, unless we decided to return to the hovercraft and fly out of here.

Considering that Brent was a highly experienced mercenary who had faced countless monsters before, I was inclined to follow his instructions. However, I noticed that the swarm of Spirit Devouring Bees were too fast for us to outrun. Principal Porter in particular, because of his advanced age, was slowing down. At this rate, he would be caught by the rank F monsters and devoured into a skeleton.

"You guys go in ahead. I'll take care of the Spirit Devouring Bees. Vermilion Phoenix!"

My Celestial Guardian soared into the air before unleashing a torrent of flames at the Spirit Devouring Bees. Even though the fiery bombardment tore huge gaping holes in the swarm, incinerating thousands of bugs in an instant, these were like drops in the ocean. There were still millions. A few thousand was barely enough to put a dent in their sheer numbers.

However, it bought us more than enough time. One of the bigger mercenaries picked up Principal Porter and hauled him off the ground.

"Thanks, kid!" he called out to me. "Good job!"

"It's nothing. Please get the archaeologist team to safety!" I focused on burning out the Spirit Devouring Bees before me. Vermillion Phoenix was being chased by a tendril of the swarm right now, pausing every so often to burn, but the bugs were getting smarter. I was astonished to see the swarm split into many tendrils and moved in different directions, minimizing the casualties they sustained from Vermillion Phoenix's attacks. Even though he succeeded in wiping out entire tendrils, just like a many-headed hydra, they tended to reform and produce new tendrils from the massive swarm.

It seemed that no matter how much I burned or incinerated, there were still millions of the bugs to replace those that I had exterminated.

"Taurus! Aldebaran attack!"

The gigantic bull materialized in front of me and bellowed. Stomping a hoof on the ground, his maw yawned and he unleashed a huge gout of flames that wiped out another swathe in the swarm, causing the surviving Spirit Devouring Bugs to scatter. Above, Vermillion Phoenix succeeded in throwing off his pursuers. Wheeling in the air, he then immolated another few tendrils of the swarm, even as they hastily broke off and split up to escape the terrifying inferno roiling toward them.

I wondered if it would be enough.

"Get your ass in here, kid!" Brent hollered. I whirled around and realized that the majority of the group had made it to the tomb. They had found an opening in one of the buildings that made up the tomb, and several of the Silver Wolves mercenaries were scrambling to set up a spirit formation array. Thanks to the precious few minutes I had bought them with my Constellation spirits, it seemed that they were going to make it in time.

I turned to sprint toward the tomb, and at the same time recalled my Constellation spirits. To my surprise, Taurus refused to leave. Instead, he stood his ground resolutely while facing down the approaching swarm of Spirit Devouring Bees. I suddenly understood what he was trying to do.

The Spirit Devouring Bees were too many and too fast. I wasn't going to outrun them at this rate. So Taurus was going to sacrifice himself to buy me the few seconds I needed to dive into the tomb unmolested by the bugs. Vermillion Phoenix had also agreed with him, banking around to unleash his fiery fury upon the Spirit Devouring Bees that were closing on him.

The two of them…

"Damn it."

Closing my eyes, I exhaled and ran for my life. I couldn't allow their sacrifices to be in vain. Even as Taurus was engulfed by a swarm of Spirit Devouring Bees and reduced to nothing more than dissipating bones in seconds, despite doing his best to incinerate the bugs around him, I sprinted. Even as Vermillion Phoenix slowly faltered, being stung again and again by the pursuing Spirit Devouring Bees, I didn't falter. The majestic celestial guardian erupted into a supernova of flames that expanded through the swamp in a colossal conflagration that consumed the majority of the swarm.

The Spirit Devouring Bees reeled, having not expected the self-destruction of Vermillion Phoenix to be so destructive. Even though they were now reduced to a mere shadow of their former numbers, there were still hundreds of thousands of them left, and they buzzed angrily, flying after me in vengeance for their incinerated brethren.

"Fuck!"

The sacrifices of my Constellation spirits hurt me. Sure, most people saw them as expendable. After all, they weren't gone permanently. It would take me a day or two – a few days at most – before I could summon them again. All I needed to do was resurrect them within my spiritual sea, and though that took quite a lot of time and energy, I should be able to revive them. This wasn't the first time Taurus had met his demise, after all.

However, my Constellation spirits weren't tools or weapons. They weren't ammunition to be expended and recklessly thrown at the enemy as suicide bombs. They were my Constellation spirits, my Soul Beasts. Comrades who fought alongside me in battle. I held a strong spiritual and emotional connection to them, a bond that couldn't simply be dismissed as master-and-servant or owner-and-pet. They were companions, friends…even family.

It hurt me emotionally to lose them. Furthermore, I would suffer some sort of mental backlash. It might not appear physically or visibly, but I would need some time to recover.

"Hurry!" Anastasia yelled as I bounded over a fallen, ruined pillar. The scars on the once pristine marble led me to briefly wonder if the tomb here had been desecrated by the monsters. But if that was the case, the site wouldn't be so intact.

"Keep your head down, kid!" Redfield stepped out and pointed his spear at the incoming Spirit Devouring Bees. A torrent of flames washed over and singed my hair, but the bugs that were chasing me weren't as fortunate. They were decimated by the flames.

Several more of the mercenaries were unleashing spells from cover now, buying me those last few seconds so that I could dive and slide right past the entrance where Brent was hastily finishing the last of his spirit array.

"Excellent. Now activate the Tian Qiang Protective Spirit Array!"

He struck the magic circle that he had carved into the dirt, and a shimmering wall of violet burst into life, covering the entire entrance.

The spirit formation arrays were a complex thing. They weren't something you could just set up as and when you liked, and because they consumed a tremendous amount of mana, a single mage couldn't possibly activate it on his own. Usually, spirit formation arrays – such as those that created an impenetrable barrier to protect cities from monsters, or the fiery barrier that had been permanently set up around our house by Dad – required massive generators to power them. The power station that fed the barrier around the city was most likely the equivalent of a nuclear power plant in the late twentieth century while Dad actually had a sizeable generator built in our basement just for that single household barrier. Right now, the three hundred or so Silver Wolves mercenaries were combining their mana to power the spirit formation array, but even their merged strength would not maintain such a mana-consuming barrier for more than an hour. Later they would begin to assemble the portable generators they had brought with them (which had been dismantled so that each soldier could carry an individual component or part) and hook it up to the spirit formation, but for now we needed the barrier because of the current crisis. Our enemies weren't going to wait for us to assemble the portable generators and hook them up to the spirit formations, after all.

The first wave of Spirit Devouring Bees collided with the barrier and they simply disintegrated. It was as if they ceased to exist. The remaining Spirit Devouring Bees broke off from their attack and divided themselves, buzzing away and most likely searching for ways to force an entry into the building we sought shelter in.

Fortunately, there weren't any other entrances or exits. At least none I could see for now. The corridor we now inhabited seemed to lead deeper underground, which was most likely where we were going to spend the night. At least until we found a way to eliminate the Spirit Devouring Bugs from the entire site.

"We are safe for now." Redfield exhaled in immense relief as he slumped down against a damp wall, resting his spear on his shoulder. Flames continued to crackle around his hand, but he extinguished them through his will.

"Don't let your guard down," Brent told everyone, his expression as stern as ever as he gazed out from behind the barrier. The Spirit Devouring Bees were still in the vicinity, their huge numbers hovering around the ruins. "The enemy's still here."

"Not for long," Anastasia remarked. Brent sent her a sidelong glance.

"Is your spell ready yet, Ana?"

"Yup. Just waiting on your signal, Captain Brent."

Brent nodded. "Do it."

Ana nodded and cast the spell that she had been preparing this entire time, while being protected by the Spirit Array, and while I was distracting the Spirit Devouring Bees. A thick miasma, not borne out of the swamp, drifted upward and settled itself upon the dig site, almost resembling a cloud. The Spirit Devouring Bees didn't react at first, not knowing what was going on until it was too late. They buzzed about, even as the gray fog enveloped them.

And then they began to fall. One by one, ten by ten, hundred by hundred, thousand by thousand, the bugs began to die.

I was reminded vaguely of fogging carried out in the past, where humans would release insecticide in the form of fumes into drains, canals, and other places to flush out mosquitoes and other insects. Pest exterminators, if I was correct. It was a common technique carried out by exterminators in tropical countries, where pests such as mosquitoes were very common, which in turn led to the spread of insect-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. As long as it wasn't DDT, which stood for dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, it was fine. And completely worth it.

"Good job, Ana," Brent praised her as the last of the Spirit Devouring Bees dropped. He turned to the rest. "And the rest of you too. Good job holding out."

"Allow me to express my thanks as well." Principal Porter bowed to Brent, Anastasia and the Silver Wolves. He then straightened up and peered past the shimmering barrier. "I suppose we'll have to wait for the poisonous fumes to die down before we can begin excavating the site."

"That would be best," Brent agreed. "But before you do, at least allow us to set up defensive spirit formations and arrays. We're going to try and create a barrier around the tomb, so as to keep monsters out."

These were the small-scale barriers that were a lot weaker than the ones used to protect human cities, though, so the mercenaries still needed to patrol and keep watch. I was going to help them out with that.

Still…to think that Anastasia's poison spell would be so effective. I guess it was true that toxins were the best way to exterminate bugs! It was far more effective than my fire spells. Not that I was going to learn poison magic after this. It was considered a specialized subset of wood magic, but that was too far from my more generalized Constellation magic, and just like healing magic, it would take far too much time and resources to learn. Not worth it.

Even then, I had best not get on Anastasia's bad side if I wanted to live a long life.