Chapter 64 He Truly Was a Romantic Man

"Darn it, you actually understand human speech? And you're just a mere Mithril-grade biological weapon."
Lu Ming was extremely surprised.

Upon hearing this, the Owl King Battle Blade initially twitched its feeding cavity, intending to nod in response.
However, upon catching Lu Ming's latter remark about it being a "mere Mithril-grade," its feeding cavity instantly twisted in anger.

"Tsk tsk, it even has emotional feedback? How bizarre."
This thing seemed rather different from what the description stated.
Only after the ultimate sublimation did the Ancient Emperor's Blade acquire a faint intellect and manifest its primal instincts from life.
What on earth were you? Just a tiny Mithril-grade, yet you dared put on an attitude.

Pinching the crooked mouth of the Owl King Battle Blade, Lu Ming pulled out his big asset—ordinary Xenogeneic blood—and poured it aggressively straight into its feeding cavity.
Only when the blade's xenogeneic biological activity was fully replenished did he release its feeding cavity.

The Owl King Battle Blade froze for three seconds, abruptly retracted its feeding cavity, and then plunged into a state of utter silence, acting like a wronged little bride.
Lu Ming cared not a whit for its tantrum and tossed it directly back into his spatial pouch.

Yet once it was truly inside, a complex feeling washed over him.
It could already actively feed, understand human speech, and display emotions, but the spatial pouch still refused to recognize it, treating it as a lifeless object. Where, then, was the boundary between life and death?

He opened the world channel to check the time.
16:35.
Only two hours and twenty-five minutes remained until the 19:00 nightfall.
He hadn't expected to spend forty minutes messing around with a weapon; he truly was a romantic man.

He patted the ten ancient owl emperor eggs in his pocket, realizing that the 8,816 specialized crystals he had left—both of homologous and non-homologous origins—were simply not enough to hatch them all.
Lu Ming turned around, scooped up Chuxue, and said to her, "Let's go get some more Sickle Owl larva carcasses."

Just moments ago, while pondering the spatial pouch's criteria for classifying things as living or dead, he had thought of another exploitable angle.
Since hunting larvae while simultaneously performing sublimations yielded specialized crystals at a terribly low efficiency, why not use all of daytime exclusively to hunt larvae or other xenogeneics?
Thanks to the spatial pouch's ability to retrieve lifeless objects and stack them infinitely, couldn't he haul them all back to the safe haven?
Then, he could use the long night to work overtime on sublimating and decomposing them, earning specialized crystals?

This way, he could save time by focusing on one step at a time, while also avoiding using the sublimation process outside where others might see him.
It could truly be called killing three birds with one stone.

Chuxue nodded gently, her small hand making a grasping motion in the empty air as a golden thread materialized in her palm.
Having experienced this many times, she knew very well that it was her time to shine.

Just as she was about to take Lu Ming with her and soar through the air using her thread, Lu Ming straightened her skirt, hooked his arm under the bend of her knees, and scooped her up horizontally.
"My turn this time."

He conveniently looped her arms around his neck, mirroring the time when Chuxue told him to hold on tightly and he had wrapped his arm around her waist.
"Hold on tight."

Giving a brief warning, Lu Ming gazed straight ahead and sprinted at top speed. Just as he was about to reach the fourth-floor wall, he triggered Godspeed.
The explosive sprint combined with the amplification of Godspeed transformed Lu Ming into a sharp arrow that pierced straight through the wall shattered by blade light, flying toward the building opposite!
That's right, he wasn't jumping; he was flying!

Whoosh————!

Crossing hundreds of meters in an instant, he landed on the rooftop across the street, his momentum so powerful that he slid a full dozen meters before coming to a halt.
The soles of the leather shoes on his feet had already vanished, yet as he frictioned bare-foot against the concrete rooftop, his soles felt merely slightly warm.

Was this the physical strength of a high-tier hunting warrior? It felt like whether Sickle Owl larvae had their crests raised or not didn't even matter anymore.
Even if he stood right in front of them and let them spew concentrated acid, it would merely dampen him with some spit.
What a pity; just to experience a bit of speed, he had wasted a good pair of shoes.

Kicking off the tattered footwear, Lu Ming went barefoot once again.
After much thought, he really needed to forge a set of biological weapon armor; otherwise, ordinary clothing simply couldn't withstand the output of this physique.

Standing at the edge of the rooftop, Lu Ming surveyed his surroundings while muttering, "Where would dense concentrations of larvae be?"

Hearing this, Chuxue raised her head and pointed toward the southwest, signaling Lu Ming to head that way.
Looking into Chuxue's clear eyes, Lu Ming smiled and said, "Let's go there."

Crouching down and leaping, no longer relying on Godspeed or sprints, Lu Ming easily vaulted across various rooftops.
In twenty seconds, covering a distance of nearly a thousand meters, Lu Ming truly spotted a traffic jam of Sickle Owl larvae swarming the streets below.

Even though the area a thousand meters outward was utterly desolate, these larvae showed no intention of scattering; they were all clumped together, some even stacking on top of one another like human pyramids.
Could there be a treasure?

That was the first thought that popped into Lu Ming's mind.
And the probability was extremely high.
Thinking of the Kangbao shoe factory and the shopping plaza, the situation was identical.

"Eye of Truth."

He activated the Eye of Truth, setting his search parameters for supply crates, weapons, and humans.
Yet, after scanning a radius of a hundred meters, not a single target tag appeared within his field of vision.

Bizarre.

Chuxue, nestled in his arms, caught Lu Ming's perplexed expression, glanced away evasively, and put on an expression implying it had nothing to do with her.

Frowning slightly, Lu Ming dropped the matter. He was here to kill bugs, and seeing this pile of swarming insects before him already felt like holding mountains of gold and silver.

"Xiaoxue, are you coming down with me? That sounds like a redundant question."

Carrying Chuxue, Lu Ming leaped down from the high-rise, utilizing a few landing points to reach the ground directly.
Setting Chuxue down, he drew the Owl King Battle Blade from his spatial pouch and swung it with all his might!

"Cross Pulse!"

Cyanic halo filled the blade, and a massive arc of blade light surged forth destructively.
Ten meters wide, three hundred meters deep—with a single slash, hundreds of larvae instantly evaporated.

That's right, left without even a trace of residue.

Squinting slightly, Lu Ming had a bad premonition. He raised a hand to target the empty space before him and said in a deep voice, "Greed."

[...]

"Greed!"

[Prompt: No harvestable targets in the current area.]

[...]

Did that mean if the carcasses vanished, he wouldn't even get a crumb?

Heh!

In the end, having a weapon that was too powerful was also a headache. Several hundred larvae translated to the loss of several thousand crystals.

With a dark expression, Lu Ming had no choice but to put the Owl King Battle Blade back into his spatial pouch and switch to his exclusive weapons for slaying Sickle Owl larvae—the portable crossbows.

"Eye of Truth."

Activating weakness observation and fully loading the bolts, Lu Ming rushed forward five hundred meters and began slaughtering the walking mountains of gold.

Larvae fell in patches, and carcasses were collected in piles.
He was like a scourge to the larvae, slaughtering his way from one street into another.

Two hours, four districts, streets devoid of larvae—not a single wriggling creature could be seen anymore.

And right now, in his spatial pouch, lifeless objects labeled "Sickle Owl Larva Carcass" had piled up to a grand total of 3,400 units.