Yang Hong had miscalculated one thing. The queen ant, like a demonic dragon, did not fuse with the Nascent Soul of a demon cultivator. Instead, it fused with something even more terrifying—
The demon soul!
The soul of a demon of the demon-human level!
The immortal and Buddhist sects of the Upper Realm had already made significant moves. How could the demon race remain inactive?
The ones truly behind the cultivation of these gold-devouring ants were not demon cultivators, but actual demons!
At the bottom of the blood pool in the sinkhole, a demon dragon, only three feet long but with a ferocious and bizarre appearance, unfurled its body, its strange divine sense fluctuating!
"You deserve to die, what human ant dared to ruin the great Nine-Headed Demon Venerable's plans? Don't let me catch you, or I will devour your soul and flesh, and suppress you within me for eternity, torturing you ceaselessly!"
A bizarre growl echoed at the bottom of the sky and blood pool, but only within a hundred feet.
The demon dragon, having just reawakened, was still relatively weak. It could only issue threats and dared not truly come out to punish Yang Hong.
After a quarter of an hour, the demon dragon's body grew to thirty feet long, and its aura reached the seventh-tier Integration stage.
In a quarter of an hour, it surged from the first-tier Qi Refining stage to the seventh-tier Integration stage. This was one of the inherent talents of the demon dragon race.
However, after reaching the seventh tier, its strength growth finally stabilized.
"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!
The number of gold-devouring ants is still too small, and the spiritual energy and blood essence collected are still too little!"
Its furious voice still echoed only within a hundred feet. It cautiously extended its divine sense and witnessed a scene that made even a demon doubt its sanity.
A bizarre formation composed of over a hundred thousand spiritual plants had limited its divine sense to an area of a thousand miles. Whether above or below, beyond a thousand miles, its divine sense could not penetrate.
The gold-devouring ants that had been surging earlier no longer approached. Without its continuous guidance through divine sense, those gold-devouring ants that had not yet entered the thousand-mile range began to hover outside the Yin-Yang Taiji Array.
"No, I cannot just wait for death. If this continues, this human might employ some other strange trick. I must quickly transmit the world coordinates back to the demon realm."
Immediately, the energy from the dark blood pool gathered rapidly towards him, and a black ball of light slowly enveloped him.
After absorbing for only three days, the blood in the blood pool had completely vanished, and a black ball of light, only eight feet in diameter, floated at the bottom of the blood pool.
"Damn human! Old Dragon Benwei will return!"
With this angry and distant roar, it condensed sharply, and a black stone gate, nine feet high and three feet wide, slammed onto the ground!
...
After successfully activating the Yin-Yang Taiji Array, Yang Hong merely recovered some of his spiritual power before immediately using earth遁 to burrow underground, directly penetrating the ground and arriving at the magma layer.
He had not forgotten that gold-devouring ants could survive in magma!
"As expected, the underground is the real disaster zone."
Looking at the densely packed gold-devouring ants and the queen ants constantly laying eggs, Yang Hong's scalp tingled!
The more he explored, the more his scalp tingled. The evolution of the gold-devouring ants far exceeded his imagination.
The queen ants could now survive by simply consuming magma and lay eggs. Upon entering the magma, not only were the ant eggs not destroyed by the thousand-degree high-temperature magma, but they also absorbed energy from the magma to hatch.
The newly hatched gold-devouring ants could immediately start consuming magma to grow!
These were no longer gold-devouring ants but should be called "fire-devouring ants."
Combined with their extremely high resistance to the five elements, once they grew, they would be even more terrifying than the Li Fire Flying Locusts!
"I can only say that I underestimated these gold-devouring ants, and even more so, I underestimated the demon cultivators. They are practically bio-engineers in the cultivation world!"
While sighing, Yang Hong did not dare to linger and immediately returned to the surface, taking out the seeds of the Great Azure Willow and planting them.
He no longer cared about the karma of heaven and earth. The rules of time and creation radiated outwards, covering an area of 900 miles. The freshly planted seeds quickly broke through the soil, growing and developing visibly!
In just three days, Yang Hong directly accelerated over 60,000 Great Azure Willow trees to the sixth-grade spiritual plant.
He originally intended to go all the way to the seventh grade in one step, but it required too much spiritual energy and time. He dared not wait, so he stopped at the sixth grade.
65,610 Azure Willow trees were planted by him according to the formation within the Yin-Yang Taiji Array. On one hand, this would continue to enhance the strength of the Yin-Yang Taiji Array, and on the other hand, it would add offensive means to the array.
Through three days of planting, his spiritual power had recovered to its peak, with a slight improvement. Thus, he did not need to adjust his state further and immediately used earth遁 to descend underground again.
"Hiss~ Has the magma layer descended so much?"
At a depth of 30 miles underground, one could normally enter the magma layer. Now, a void of over two miles deep had appeared – no magma, no rock, just an empty expanse as if the earth had been hollowed out.
And further below, there were densely packed gold-devouring ants, their numbers at least doubled!
Moreover, the shell color of the newly born gold-devouring ants had evolved from pure gold to dark gold. The texture of these shells indicated they were much sturdier.
"They're growing too fast!"
"If I don't hurry, the earth within a million miles might collapse."
Yang Hong's divine sense was released, connecting with the Yin-Yang Taiji Array that extended deep into the earth. The previously invisible array shield lit up with a bloody halo.
Hiss~ Hiss~ Hiss~
The gold-devouring ants, which had been silently consuming magma and growing, all stopped their movements and rushed towards the bloody halo. They charged forward madly and recklessly, completely devoid of reason.
Well, insects, by nature, have no reason, only instinct!
Furthermore, a corner of the blood pool above was exposed, which was originally a signal to attract the gold-devouring ants, making them even more frantic.
Yang Hong adjusted the area and range of the bloody halo with his divine sense while forming seals, activating the attack of the Yin-Yang Taiji Array!
Amidst the continuous "sizzling" sounds, all the gold-devouring ants that entered the bloody halo were cut into pieces by the sharp spatial force.
Even though countless gold-devouring ant corpses fell, they could not stop the ants from madly rushing into the bloody halo.
After observing for three hours and confirming that the gold-devouring ants would not stop entering his designed death trap, Yang Hong returned to the surface.
Now, the gold-devouring ants should be completely annihilated, right?
Although he still hoped to completely eradicate the gold-devouring ants, the continuous high-intensity combat and array deployment had left Yang Hong utterly exhausted. Especially the two instances of using the rules of time combined with the rules of creation for cultivation had pushed his mental state to the brink of collapse.
He quickly took out a pile of formation flags to protect himself, immediately sat down cross-legged, and circulated the "Clear Wind Breathing Technique" to restore his mental energy.
This period lasted for five days. Yang Hong's mental energy and divine sense had only recovered less than half before he was awakened by an icy burning sensation!
"Karma fire has finally ignited?"
Feeling the familiar opposite sensations of coldness and burning simultaneously, he slowly opened his eyes, showing no surprise.
Using the rules of creation and time to accelerate the growth of spiritual plants on the Taiyuan Continent was essentially plundering the origin of heaven and earth to strengthen the spiritual plants and the cultivator. While it allowed for rapid cultivation, it also came at a price. The most basic of which was entanglement with karma and burning by karma fire.
Since he had anticipated this, Yang Hong merely willed it, and a crystal-clear red flame enveloped him. The countless black karma fires were instantly absorbed by the red flame.
The Red Lotus Karma Fire burned even more vigorously!