Chapter 1332: Chapter 348: The Path of Breaking Free, the Road to Advancement

The barren resources were a delicacy fought over by all factions.

The earth was covered with layers of corpses, remnants of life left by years of relentless war.

Every piece of rotting flesh, every bone, emitted a nauseating smell yet served as the cradle of our survival.

We twisted our bodies arduously among the folds of the corpses, evading energy shockwaves that could bring destruction at any moment, or the sudden attacks of other fierce predators.

Although this world was abundant in decaying corpses, resources still had to be obtained through competition.

Those gigantic rotten-flesh monsters lived by devouring everything in their path, spraying corrosive liquid as they went. Our clansmen were crushed into groups, and the bone spirits parasitizing in the bones swallowed bones to gain strength, controlling them to attack us. Once entangled by their bony tendrils, we would be instantly drained of life.

In this world, we were at the very bottom.

Amid extreme scarcity of food, brutal killings often erupted among our kin for a bite of blood-stained bone debris, tearing each other apart with immature, fragile teeth.

Until one day, an ancestor awakened spiritual wisdom while gnawing on a strange crystal stone.

It sensed the existence of self and realized the tragic plight of our tribe.

"Why can’t we become predators that devour other tribes just like them?"

It questioned itself and the world, followed by anger at the injustice of our destiny.

It was this question that opened a brand new future for our Evil Gu Insect Clan.

From that point on, we embarked on an endless path of ascension.

We faced brutal competitors head-on, continually evolving, and finally pierced through the layers of rotten flesh to reach the surface.

Yet we discovered the outside world was far more complex than we had imagined, not just immersed in decay and stench.

The first opponent we encountered nearly led to our annihilation.

This was a force known as the "Crystalized Vine Clan."

They didn’t survive on flesh but fed on life energy and could secrete a crystallizing venom.

Whenever they appeared, the flora of the entire area would wither at a visibly rapid speed, a sign that energy was being forcibly extracted.

Once our clansmen were bound by the vines, their shells would crystallize and shatter in an instant, body fluids absorbed into transparent crystal blocks, leaving only a light, empty shell swept away by the wind.

There was also the "Mingsha Clan."

Their bodies seemed to be made of flowing sands, lurking under dry riverbeds, and would turn into sandstorms to engulf any detected living beings.

The roar of sand particles grinding could shatter our consciousness, and those of our kin swept up would be ground into powder, leaving not even fragments of their shells.

Most terrifyingly, they could emit an invisible alluring sonic wave, luring countless clansmen step by step into a death trap.

Facing such powerful foes, we suffered heavy casualties.

Through repeated near-extinction struggles, we learned to become more united.

We used tunnels hidden beneath decaying flesh for guerrilla warfare, crafted weapons from spikes dropped by monsters, and concocted poisons from collected corrosive liquids to briefly paralyze enemies.

Our life forms evolved continually to adapt to warfare.

Every victory was accompanied by the sacrifice of innumerable clansmen, yet our desire to escape bottom-layer circumstances only grew stronger.

Having embarked on this path, we shall walk it to the summit.

To become the rulers of this world, to become the apex predators of our ancestors’ food chain, no longer anxious about safety.

The road of ascension was filled with endless enemies, as we climbed over the corpses of our kin.

Each generation was a stepping stone for the next, the only point of evolution for those who come after.

This was a heart-wrenching evolution history.

To survive the crystallizing venom of the Crystalized Vine Clan, we consumed toxic-resistant decaying grasses, watching our kins’ bodies convulse, swell, and burst, green liquid splattering onto rocks... until the surviving shells seeped a faint greenness, the armor precipitated from the toxins within.

Since then, the tips of our pincers began secreting a substance that could neutralize crystallizing venom, which became our weapon against the Crystalized Vine Clan.

To resist the alluring sonic waves of the Mingsha Clan, we learned to adjust our shell resonance frequency to a specific band.

Countless clansmen’s consciousness disintegrated during resonant evolution experiments, some shells self-shattering in high-frequency vibration, some tendrils stiffening like withered branches, ultimately evolving a "sonic filter" ability in the tribe’s auditory system.

To solve the chaotic clan control system, we evolved a collective spirit network that could carry the thoughts of all clan members.

After defeating these powerful enemies, yet found the challenges were far from over.

Crossing one strong enemy would bring even stronger forces to the stage.

When we became the strongest force in that area, we were met with the challenge of the "Higher Intelligent Creatures."

They were smarter than us.

This was also our first realization that intelligence could be used as a weapon.

Our evolution depended on memory fragments in genes, while their evolution relied on inheritance, inscribing knowledge on paper or etching it on information crystal stones.

They could also transmit generations of wisdom to descendants through language.

A young intelligent creature could manipulate ancestral trap mechanisms just after stepping out of the clan land, while it cost us countless clansmen’s sacrifices to gain a bit of survival experience.