Chapter 567: Ambush on the Sixth-Tier Floating-Land

Using the Eyes of Heaven’s remote surveillance ability, the Song family members quickly sized up everything happening on the peak sixth-tier floating-land ahead.

At the very center of the floating-land, a massive sixth-tier Origin Geyser churned—marking the heart of the enormous insect nest built by a seventh-tier Ancient Broodmother of the Starry Sky Insect Clan.

“Four King Bug chrysalis chambers. Good—the central area’s the same as two hundred years ago. No new dominator-class King Bugs are being bred!”

When they saw the projection on the screen still showed only four King Bug chambers, the members of the Song family finally relaxed.

“We can’t afford to wait any longer!”

In the Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang at the center of the six warships, Song Wujian’s voice escaped through the comms—heavy and firm, lacking the relief the others like Song Xingru or Song Shixing had shown.

“Look at the Ancient Broodmother’s abdomen.”

At his words, everyone focused again on the projected image in front of them.

A dozen seconds later, Song Shiyuan spoke up first:

“You’re right. At a glance, it looks just like before, but if you watch the underside of her belly, close to the ground, there are faint red markings that weren’t there before.”

At that, even the normally unfazed Song Xingru caught on.

“Red markings—does that mean she’s about to hatch a new King Bug?”

Aboard the Heavenly Ruin, Song Chi—wielding his sixth-tier Dual Pupils—had already spotted this detail, but wasn’t surprised.

This Ancient Broodmother had moved her nest here over a century ago, feasting on all the rich energy of an entire peak sixth-tier floating-land. And with millions of insect warriors hunting high and mid-level star beasts nearby, it wasn’t hard for her to gather the power needed to breed a fifth King Bug.

As for this soon-to-be-born King Bug—while it wouldn’t possess dominator might the instant it hatched, with its supreme bloodline and the mountain of purified energy all around it, it wouldn’t be long before it surged up to seventh-tier strength.

That’s why Song Wujian was insisting they act now.

After their deep dive into the insect nest’s details, the group of six set about planning their operation.

Half a day later, more than twenty light-years out from the peak sixth-tier floating-land, a monstrous battleship—over a hundred thousand kilometers long—emerged from the void, its profile menacing.

At that same moment, at the heart of the sixth-tier floating-land, the Ancient Broodmother who’d been quietly nursing the fifth King Bug abruptly raised her flawless upper torso.

Screeeeee! Screee!

A shrill, piercing hiss burst from her red lips. The next instant, a hulking figure erupted out of the leftmost chrysalis chamber—its wings slicing the air as it shot directly into the deep starry sky, streaking straight for that lurking mega-ship. Behind it, a swarm of hundreds of thousands of mid- and low-tier insects followed, flooding the stars.

……

“It’s a seventh-tier Sawtooth King Bug—not bad.”

In the Star-Annihilator-class ship comms group, the Song family watched the Eyes of Heaven’s projection closely.

In the center of the screen glowered the Three-Eyed Clan Imperial Flagship—the very juggernaut that had triggered the Ancient Broodmother’s alert.

One million kilometers ahead of the flagship, the Sawtooth King Bug arrived with a spatial ripple, its special dimensional wings cutting straight through the void.

Moments later, even more fourth, fifth, and sixth-tier insects appeared, warping in from the void.

Seeing this, Song Wujian spoke fast aboard the Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang:

“Now’s our chance! Move out!”

At his command, all six warships hidden in the void fired up their spatial jump modules in unison.

Over a dozen light-years away and high above the center of the sixth-tier floating-land, six warships materialized in total silence.

Just as Song Chi usually did when activating the Mirage Dragon Metamorphosis Pearl’s Mirage ability, the six warships jumped without producing the slightest spatial disturbance.

They owed this to the Group Phantom River module—not only did it cloak the whole group, it masked all sound and flux from teleportation and jumps while active.

Seeing that the Ancient Broodmother below still hadn’t noticed them, the ships didn’t descend. Instead, every ship powered up its cannons, charging for a surprise attack.

That Broodmother’s psychic strength dwarfed anything else at her level—descend any closer, and even the Group Phantom River couldn’t promise to keep them hidden. Staging a cannon barrage right now would catch her off guard.

Vrrrmmmm!

Suddenly, a dense, almost engine-like buzzing filled everyone’s ears. It sounded just like a warship’s drive, but the Song family instantly sensed something was off.

“No, that’s a Shadow Swarm! Watch out!”

The comms channel rang out with an urgent warning, but the group reacted fast—everyone instantly triggered their own defensive measures.

Bzzzt! Bzzzt!

Space trembled as waves of black insects of all shapes and sizes emerged all around.

With blood-red eyes, they hurled themselves at the warships without a hint of self-preservation, slamming into the hulls over and over.

Unlike the splatterbugs and armor beetles—those low-level grunts—Shadow Swarm bugs were among the Starry Sky Insect Clan’s infamous mid-tier species. Not only were they sharp-jawed and deadly, their natural stealth was second to none. Now, swarming the six Song family warships, they didn’t do much damage but completely shut down the ships’ cannon charging cycles.

“That Ancient Broodmother below spotted us ages ago!”

In the warship comms, the Song family looked grim. They’d clearly underestimated just how coldly perceptive a dominator-class Ancient Broodmother could be.

Before they could formulate a response, three immense figures shot up from below.

Two Tiger Carapace King Bugs and one Sawtooth King Bug.

“Hold them off!”

Song Wujian ordered immediately.

Already, several ships were in a tight spot with thousands of Shadow Swarm bugs crawling all over them. If those three dominator King Bugs joined the fight now, Song Shiyuan and the others—aboard their seventh-tier ships with only silver hull plates—would risk going down hard.

Not waiting a second, the Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang and the Scarlet Sea-Boiler broke formation, each charging at a Dominator King Bug. Meanwhile, aboard the Heavenly Ruin, Song Chi hung back, popped the hangar doors, and released the miniaturized Starry Sky Dragon Shark.

ROAR!

Now fully recovered, the Starry Sky Dragon Shark dashed out under Song Chi’s command, launching straight at the final dominator King Bug.

Below, the explosive clash of dominators sent shockwaves everywhere—but Song Chi barely gave it a glance. He had one job right now.

Sky-Domain AI System: Full Auto Sub-AI Machinery, activate!

As the new AI function booted up, the open hangar once more filled with shadowy shapes.

Swarm after swarm of compact mechs poured out. In the end, a full two thousand five hundred fourth-tier Hellfire Mechs—and five hundred fifth-tier Mara Void Mechas—spread out over the floating-land. The moment they left the ship, all three thousand mechs snapped back to full size.

The Hellfire Mechs weren’t too imposing at about a hundred meters tall, but the Mara Void Mechas? Each one was a staggering ten thousand meters high. Lined up together, their sheer presence was crushing.

Guided by the Sky-Domain AI aboard Heavenly Ruin, the two thousand five hundred Hellfire Mechs trained their cutting-edge nuclear beam rifles on the thousands of nearby Shadow Swarm bugs, picking them off with ruthless precision.

Shadow Swarm bugs—unmatched agility and stealth, huh?

But compared to the Mara Void Mechas, who could phase in and out of the void at will, how would they fare?

Under endless suppressive fire and the Mara Mechas’ uncanny hunt, the Shadow Swarm numbers plummeted at a terrifying pace.

Screee! Screee!

Suddenly, the Ancient Broodmother’s elegant upper body twisted. One moment, her face looked just like a flawless human woman—then her red lips split wide, revealing rows of spine-chilling fangs. A bone-piercing screech ripped out of her throat, shrieking through the battlefield.

But for the Song family, that soul-piercing shriek—shrouded in powerful psychic might—barely registered.

At first, pain twisted their features, but almost instantly, the phantom of Dragon Whale Hall deep in their ancestral cores blocked out all harm.

With the pitch-black soul defense granted by Dragon Whale Hall, topped by the now seventh-tier Dragon-Spine Continent’s protection, even the Broodmother’s soul power could only break and scatter like waves on a cliff.

Realizing the psychic attacks she’d always relied on were useless, panic finally crept into the Ancient Broodmother’s flawless face. She now knew for certain—the six mysterious battleships overhead really could kill her.

High above the dominators’ brawl, Song Chi saw the Shadow Swarm thinning rapidly. Without hesitating, he slammed both engines on the Heavenly Ruin and rocketed downward.

Originally, he had planned to rendezvous with the Old Ancestor, to relieve the Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang of the Tiger Carapace King Bug so it could focus on taking down the Ancient Broodmother.

Notorious even among dominators, the Ancient Broodmother posed the biggest threat in the field. Among the Starry Sky Insect Clan, she outranked all others—queen, mother, broodmother—her intelligence as terrifying as her power. If they didn’t pin her down or destroy her quickly, the fighting would never truly settle.

Take now, for example—the red markings along her underbelly had multiplied several times over. She was burning her own life force to speed up the hatching of yet another King Bug.

There was no way the Song family would allow that—that would throw the entire battle into chaos.

Heavenly Ruin accelerated, but something else was even faster.

Suddenly, from the rear King Bug chrysalis chamber beneath the Ancient Broodmother, another colossal King Bug burst forth.

“A fifth dominator-class King Bug!”

Song Chi wasn’t the only one startled—the entire Song family was caught off guard.

No one had expected that particular chrysalis—the one only a tad bigger than the rest—was actually hiding two dominator-level King Bugs.

As the black-shelled King Bug streaked upward, its glaring scorpion tail clear as day behind it, Song Chi recognized it instantly and frowned.

“A Black Scorpion King Bug? Seriously?”

The Black Scorpion King Bug was among the most lethal breeds—a monster with terrifying defenses, and a dominator-tier venomous tail. One sting from that tail, and the ongoing poison was just the beginning. Worse, all true defense attributes went out the window—nothing could block its bite.

Even shaken, Song Chi pressed his attack. The battlefield had finally stabilized, and he wasn’t about to let the enemy disrupt it again.

CLANG!

Steel warship rammed alloy exoskeleton in a thunderous collision. The sixteen-kilometer-long Heavenly Ruin bounced upward, sent tumbling tens of thousands of meters by the recoil.

As for the Black Scorpion King Bug, the impact barely seemed to bother it. Even the Black-Gold Ramming Spike had only left a shallow white scratch.

A red-quality ramming prow was just too feeble against a dominator. Add in the sheer size difference, and this outcome was inevitable.

But Song Chi stayed cool—he’d been expecting this. A single dreadnought battling a dominator head-on was always going to be a pipe dream.

Like over on the Scorching Sea Blazer, where eldest brother Song Yan was holding off a Sawtooth King Bug using a high-grade fire domain module—harrying and stalling for time with guerrilla tactics.

Pusa Zen Seal: Samsara Time Domain, activate!

A surge of temporal force erupted from the Heavenly Ruin, rapidly constructing a domain around both ship and Black Scorpion King Bug—time inside crawled at one-tenth its usual speed.

The other battles across the field weren’t caught in the Samsara Time Domain—if you wanted to keep separate from other dominators’ duels, distance was the bare minimum.

Even that wasn’t enough. After slowing time, Song Chi triggered the Superbody Compression Plate’s ability.

Immediately, the Black Scorpion King Bug in front of him began shrinking. It didn’t fully contract to one-tenth size, but its battle power dropped by about twenty percent, which was enough for Song Chi.

With time slowed and the enemy weakened, plus the Heavenly Ruin’s defense and speed, he could go toe-to-toe for quite a while.

As for the Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang, he wasn’t worried. Overhead, the Old Ancestor and two others had already wiped out the Shadow Swarm. Three dreadnoughts now dove downward.

With the Unmoving Vajra, Calm-Sea Rising Dragon, and Violet Moon Longsong leading the charge—and three thousand Hellfire and Mara Mechas flanking them—stopping the dominator King Bug at Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang’s position would be no trouble.

Then, more bad news—three descending dreadnoughts suddenly blocked by a vortex of space.

The dominator King Bug that had left for the Three-Eyed Clan flagship had returned!

That’s the big drawback of the Three-Eyed Clan flagships—they pack power and defense, but if an enemy wants to retreat, there’s almost nothing that can truly stop them.

In the hands of the Three-Eyed Clan, they can use all sorts of exclusive tricks, like binding abilities, but anyone else at the controls just never gets that advantage.