Chapter 27 Insect King
Hot winds swept across the hemlock hills, carrying sand and gravel, making a soft, mournful sound.
Galos slammed the Rock-Breaking Worm heavily onto an open ground, pressing its head carapace with its dragon claws, forcing the nearly twenty-meter-long giant worm to curl into a ring.
The rock-breaking worm is a creature that, if not for the layer of insect-like carapace covering its body, would be considered a different species.
Given its length and thickness, it looks more like a giant snake than an insect at first glance.
“Rock-breaking worms live underground, and digging holes is an instinctive talent for them; they are good at hiding and lurking.”
"If I can subdue it, I can get the Rock-Breaking Worm to steal black oil for me."
"No, it can't be considered theft. The black oil storage was originally unclaimed property; this was obtained through one's own abilities."
Galos thought to himself.
The Carmel Black Oil Field is heavily fortified, and there may be some kind of underground defense as well. However, there are multiple oil fields in the Sel Wilderness, and some smaller oil fields have lower levels of defense, making it easier to obtain black oil.
As for Samantha.
Its alchemy skills are currently unreliable; it has not yet learned how to refine and distill black oil.
Moreover, even if one could use alchemy to extract black oil directly from monsters, the efficiency would still be insufficient.
Black oil itself is the result of the monster's body being deposited underground through a special reaction over an extremely long period of time.
Unless one's alchemy skills are extremely advanced, directly refining black oil using alchemy requires a great deal of monsters to obtain even a small amount, making the effort disproportionate to the reward.
The primary source of black oil is still natural storage.
Refining black oil is possible.
Although Galos had never tasted higher quality black oil, he felt that, just like the difference between ordinary metal and high-quality steel, refined black oil would definitely be more effective.
His gaze fell on the rock-crushing worm.
Galos let out a long breath, pressing his claws firmly against the head of the Rock-Breaking Worm, preventing it from breaking free.
Spell-like skill - Mind Sense.
A white light shone in the dragon's eyes, and Garos immediately closed his eyes and concentrated, extending his invisible spiritual energy to touch the head of the Rock-Breaking Worm and sense its spirit.
The ability to sense thoughts was something Galos had painstakingly developed from his bloodline.
Whether it was luck or because my goals and ideas were very clear, my adaptive evolutionary talent took effect.
It didn't take Galos long to awaken this skill.
It allows the practitioner to sense the recipient's emotions, while also enabling the recipient to understand the practitioner's thoughts, allowing the two to communicate to a certain extent through the spiritual world.
This gave Garros the possibility of subduing the Rockbreaker Worm.
Ferocious beasts like the Rock-Breaking Worm are not very intelligent and difficult to communicate with; they can only communicate through skills similar to telepathy.
Due to the difference in mental strength between the two sides, the mind-sensing technique was successfully applied to the rock-crushing worm.
In Garros's mind, the first thing that surged was primal urges such as hunger and destructive desire. Then came fragmented flashes of memories: the salty, fishy taste of kobold corpses while gnawing on mineral veins, the excitement of mating with other rock worms, and the fear of being lifted into the sky by dragons and released from the earth.
The rock-breaking worm's consciousness was vague and unknowing.
A dragon-shaped light and shadow, representing Galus's spiritual will, appeared in its spiritual world.
Galos looked around and found that the mental world of the Rock-Breaking Worm was exceptionally dark, like a pitch-black underground world, and the Rock-Breaking Worm's will was curled up in a pit.
"Submit to me, and I can spare your life and provide you with food."
Galus's voice resounded in its spiritual world, in a way that it could sense and understand.
"oh."
The rock-breaking worms showed little reaction, as if life and food were of no importance to them.
After thinking about what had excited it earlier, Galos pondered for a moment and said, "Submit to me, and I will grant you unlimited opportunities to mate with other Rock Worms."
As expected.
The rock-crushing worm's emotions immediately soared.
It seems that for it, this is the most important and sacred thing in the insect's life, even more important than life itself.
"I am willing."
It answered intermittently.
That's great, I didn't expect it to be so simple.
Galos was secretly delighted.
Although communication through telepathy is not enslavement, given the worm's intelligence, it lacks the concept of deception. As long as Galus can provide it with what it wants, it will be loyal to its instincts and serve Galus.
This is more like a mutually beneficial arrangement.
A transaction in which each party gets what they need.
Just then.
Something unexpected happened to Galos.
Crackling sounds filled the air. The subterranean spiritual world suddenly trembled, and the consciousness of the rock-crushing worm was filled with awe, respect, and fear.
"What happened?"
"Garos asked."
"Your Majesty, you've arrived."
The rock-crushing worm replied in anguish.
At the same time, its will also trembled, and cracks appeared on its surface. Then it shattered, and a small worm, much smaller in size but more solid in appearance and lifelike, crawled out.
It has no eyes.
But Galus could sense that it seemed to be staring at him coldly.
At this moment, the entire mental world of the Rock-Breaking Worm began to collapse, and the little worm gradually became transparent and slowly disappeared.
Galos opened his eyes again.
The rock worm in front of him twitched a few times, then stopped moving, as if it had become a soulless shell. It had no fatal wounds, but it was already dead.
"Subduing the Rock-Breaking Worm doesn't seem to be easy."
Galos sighed, but he was not discouraged and quickly cheered himself up.
The world doesn't revolve around him. It's perfectly normal to encounter setbacks. The key is how to overcome difficulties, make thorns bloom, and turn bumps into smooth roads.
"The last little worm to appear when the king arrives should be the worm king."
"It can directly decide the life and death of its subordinate worms and destroy their spirit?"
Galos remembered the insect king he had seen before. Its carapace gleamed with a cold, metallic sheen in the sunlight, and its length of about 100 meters was quite terrifying. Its life level was at least level 12.
Level 12. A red dragon would need to be around 40 years old to reach this life level, while an iron dragon would need to be over 50.
In other words...
The Insect King's life level is at least equivalent to that of a young dragon, which is beyond Garos's current capabilities.
"Strange, the inheritance didn't mention that the Rock-Breaking Worm King had such a means of mind control."
"Perhaps it has undergone some kind of mutation, giving it skills that are different from ordinary insect kings."
Galos pondered in his heart.
Next, he went to the abandoned mine again, using wild beasts as bait to lure out ordinary rock worms, which he then captured alive. He then tried to subdue them by using his mind-sensing ability on them.
The result was the same; they were once again interfered with by the Insect King.
This made Galos realize that unless he could subdue the Insect King, he had no way to subdue the Rock-Breaking Worm to work for him with his current abilities.
"You'll ruin my plans, just you wait."
Galos made a mental note of the troublesome Insect King.
We'll catch it sooner or later and make it work itself to death mining for oil every day.
As the saying goes, there is no absolute way to kill a dragon. If you want to do something, you can always find another way. This swarm of rock-crushing worms is difficult to subdue, but Galos has other goals.
(End of this chapter)
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