They say I'm a world-destroying anomaly.

Chapter 50 Amber and the Lynx

Inside the hall, the scarlet mist resembled a mass of congealed blood, accumulating in mid-air.

Upon closer inspection, the seemingly still fog is actually churning and flowing, with countless thread-like red streams shuttling back and forth.

If Cheng Xu hadn't known beforehand, he would never have imagined that the crimson mist was actually composed of countless tiny insects.

At the edge of the scarlet fog, the gradually thinning red color merges with the atmosphere, and wispy aggregates of insects continuously detach from the fog and drift into the air.

Seeing this, Cheng Xu vaguely guessed why Lance and the others were still affected despite wearing combat suits—

The red insects have blended into the air of the Deep Swamp City, even covering a much farther area.

When they arrived at the Deep Swamp City, the breathing aid system of their combat suits failed to filter out all the nearly single-celled insects, and some of them were inhaled into their bodies.

Based on information obtained from dissecting the giant toad, this insect likely affects parts of the nervous system, such as the brain.

As the site was explored more deeply, more and more red worms were absorbed.

As a result, the degree of erosion of the nervous system gradually deepened, and eventually, the minds of Lance and others were significantly affected, exhibiting a decline in rationality that would never normally occur.

Cheng Xu then thought that if the entire Deep Swamp City was within the influence of the Crimson Fog, then the continuous attacks that had been coming since the group landed could also be explained by this theory.

That's an "anti-rejection reaction" produced by the insect fog to protect itself.

"How do they transmit the intruder's message to other individuals? Do they possess some kind of collective consciousness?"

While Cheng Xu was still analyzing the cause-and-effect relationship, the crimson mist seemed to have also noticed his presence as an "outsider".

The mist began to slowly rotate, forming a vortex that burrowed into the claw-marked hole.

At the same time, the originally clear air around Cheng Xu turned light red, and the color gradually deepened.

Seeing this, Cheng Xu remained calm and continued his analysis:

"Do they lack combat capabilities and can only rely on parasitism to deal with enemies? Or do they have some other means?"

If it were just like this, he felt that one rocket would be enough to destroy most of the crimson worm fog below.

As if in response to his question, a loud roar echoed through the sky from outside the hall below.

It was an exceptionally large sucker reptile, almost twice the size of any ordinary sucker reptile encountered before.

It had a pair of fleshy wings with blackish-green membranes growing on its back, and with its lizard-like appearance, it was somewhat similar to the "Western Flying Giant Lizard" dragon in Cheng Xu's memory.

The crawler flapped its wings, let out another piercing shriek, and with a powerful thrust of its legs, soared straight into the sky.

Besides the crawling creature, roars of beasts echoed from all over the ruins below, but because Cheng Xu was high in the sky, the beasts could only look up and stare blankly.

Clearly, this is the power protecting the core of the insect fog, but they did not expect the enemy to come from the air.

"If we can find a place, we can easily deal with the Luling Clan's spaceship."

In Cheng Xu's view, the biggest problem with the Scarlet Insect Fog is its location, which is too hidden, deep in the ruins of a corner of the vast site.

If he hadn't found the lair of these insects by dissecting the giant moss toad, he probably wouldn't have discovered it even after wandering around the deep swamp maze for three days and three nights.

While he was thinking, the dragon-like crawler had already rushed up to him, and was only about ten meters away from Cheng Xu.

He could even see the grotesque expression on the ugly face of the crawler.

However, having experienced the giant moss toad before, he didn't take the attack from the sucking reptile seriously at all.

"Snap..."

"Aww!!"

He spread his hands to the sides and pulled the pair of fleshy wings off the crawler's back, as if they had been broken off at the root.

The intense pain even made the crawler forget that it was high in the air. Its body convulsed and twisted as it crashed into the ruins, crushed into a blood-splattered meat patty by the enormous impact.

Seemingly sensing the easy death of the crawlers, the red mist around Cheng Xu deepened further.

From the swirling red mist around him, he could sense the panic of the scarlet swarm—a fear of utter helplessness in the face of danger.

Cheng Xu had no intention of wasting time. The presence of the scarlet swarm had already polluted the planet, and its elimination was the only outcome.

Unfortunately, they don't look like anything unusual; rather, they seem more like a species of organism with unique properties.

Cheng Xu closed his eyes and slowly opened his arms.

Centered on him, the temperature of the sky began to drop.

Manipulating temperature is just one common and ordinary aspect of the ability to control the properties of matter.

A cold current spread from his body in all directions, and the red mist around him that touched this cold current instantly froze.

A light, reddish drizzle began to fall from the sky. If someone were observing this scene, they would only be able to discover, upon close inspection, that this misty drizzle was not real raindrops, but rather a substance that had been frozen and then coalesced.

Those were red insects that filled the sky over the entire area.

The next moment, the cold air descended downwards, like a large net, covering the crimson insect fog below.

The vortex formed by the insect fog surged left and right, as if it were a living entity attempting to save itself.

But the relentless cold current still swept over their bodies and froze them completely.

Once Cheng Xu sensed no more moving insect mist, he lightly descended from the sky and headed towards the claw-marked hole.

The edge and inside of the cave entrance were covered with a dense layer of red frost. Cheng Xu waved his hand, and a whirlwind blew out from outside the palace ruins, blowing the frost into one place, forming a clump of insects as tall as a person.

He took out a container from his backpack, collected some of the frozen insects as research samples, and the pile of insects spontaneously combusted without fire, disappearing completely in just a few breaths.

Cheng Xu walked to the entrance of the claw mark cave and peered down.

He had a premonition that there was something in this cave entrance, which was very likely the source of the insect fog.

A lustrous sheen came into view—it was a piece of yellow amber nearly three meters in diameter, with countless tiny pores invisible to the naked eye on its surface.

"Did these insects crawl out of the amber?"

Cheng Xu thought for a while but couldn't come up with a solution.

However, now that he has resolved the insect fog issue, there shouldn't be any problem handing over the subsequent research matters to the Fenglin Star authorities.

He was about to contact the Luling Clan when he heard soft, rustling footsteps outside the hall.

Cheng Xu turned his head and saw a thin feline peeking out from a corner of the ruins.

Is this... a lynx?