Pirate Kingship.

Chapter 322: Resurrection from the dead, mushroom colony
After Byron met with Catherine and Bruch respectively and arranged the affairs of International Port and Port Royal, he took the Golden Deer and returned to Rapids Fortress on Yucatan Island with Xiaowo.

Jingle bells
"One, two, pull!"

"Take the cleaning rods and nails that have just been delivered from the ironworks and send them to Dry Dock No. 2."

"Lift the lumber over here and turn the crane around."

"."

The largest shipyard in the entire Bantaan Islands is bustling with people.

The white-skinned people of the Silver Continent and the bronze-skinned Taino natives came and went frequently, working in perfect harmony with one another, without showing the deep barriers seen in other places at all.

Just because although they are of different races, they gradually share a common belief - the father of medicine.

This mysterious existence once saved the lives of most of their families and clans.

They don't know what the "vaccine" is, they just believe it is a real miracle.

The third-level master craftsman Violet, in her capacity as Prime Minister in the Golden Law, was responsible for coordinating and directing the entire process:

“All materials and craftsmen will be given priority to Dock No. 1.

From now on, we will be under closed management and entry and exit are strictly prohibited.

Everyone must remember their own work instructions and not ask about other people's work content at will. Once the taboo is violated, the consequences will be borne by the individual.

Byron had already found the time to carve the third rune seal, [Rip Current], after [Blasphemy] and [Abyss], on the back of her right hand.

By the way, they also accepted 20 Castilian craftsmen handed over to them by Fox, the Governor of Havana.

Under Violet's management, the large dry dock at Port Rapids was expanded one after another, and at this moment, six Tudor schooners were being built at the same time.

And since personnel, wood, steel and weapons are all fully prepared.

Byron decisively started the shipbuilding project of the invincible "heavy-armored cruiser" in advance.

Heavy cruisers with extremely superior self-sustaining capabilities and the ability to use wolf pack tactics for long-distance raids will be the absolute main force of the privateering fleet in the future.

At a time when large battleships find it difficult to sail across the sea, this thing is the uncrowned king of the Bantaan Islands.

However, Byron did not return to Torrent Fortress to inspect the progress of warship construction.

Instead, he was looking for the "teacher" the third-level great wizard [The Swarm] (Chapter 185) who had been stationed here since the beginning of the fortress's construction.

“I saw the correct direction for decrypting [Secret: The Shadow Behind the War of Red and White Roses] from Edward IV’s secret order.

The content of the Bloodthirsty Cult's current research is most likely what the York family and the church want.

I can take advantage of this opportunity of the Bloodline Sublimation Ceremony to sneak into the Holy Land of the Cult and use the [Ship Log] to see for myself the secrets hidden there."

In the Bloodthirsty Order, a dark wizard organization that is based on the master-disciple relationship.

If you want to reach the holy land of the cult that the "Giant Insect Book Sect" is determined to seize at the cost of exterminating the "Bloody Mary Sect", you can only do so through the only one online, [Insect Swarm].

After greeting the other party, this cheap teacher also said that there was a secret realm in the holy land with special rules similar to the Treasure Island, which could greatly enhance the effect of the promotion ceremony.

Only deacons at the great wizard level are eligible to apply.

There was no choice but for Byron to come here to join the [Insect Swarm] and then set off with him.

Passing through the busy copper and iron mining area where natives from various city-states were coming in and out transporting ore, he once again came to the Zhishen Mine Cave.

In order to prevent the miners from disturbing the Zerg master and apprentice and the Zhi God while working, this place has long been isolated.

Even Byron himself, a disciple of the "Giant Insect Book School", suffered psychological trauma after seeing the scene in which Diggory, the Thousand-legged Man, fed the Beast God a love potion that was not suitable for humans of all ages.

Never step into this crystal cave unless necessary.

“I just hope they can restrain their inhuman quirks a little this time, knowing that I’m coming to visit, and stop playing any weird tricks with that Zhi God.

Otherwise, those restricted scenes are like mental pollution, and you can never get over it once you see them.”

While praying in his heart, Byron activated [Storm Admiral].

A layer of azure storm aura appeared on his body, and he was blown into the complex and winding mine like a breeze.

Once again, I saw countless colorful and magnificent huge crystal pillars.

When he encountered various insects and fungi along the way, he tried his best to avoid them to prevent accidentally stepping on his "master's wife" and "master's sister-in-law" to death.

Because [Zhi Shen] is essentially a natural spirit that has degenerated into bestiality and turned into a grotesque one.

It has no real entity.

Every leech, cockroach, flea, head louse, earthworm, rat, mosquito, fly, and other filthy insects in the mine are part of it.

As long as you enter this high temperature and high humidity crystal mine, every insect you encounter may be the ears, eyes, hands and feet of the insect god.

Only your own people will not be attacked by it.

Byron followed the guidance of the glowing fungi on the ground and soon arrived at the edge of a vast mushroom forest.

The mushroom forest is composed of many huge luminous mushrooms of strange shapes, and there are many colorful mushrooms as tall as trees.

There are also hundreds of other creatures living in the forest that are fed by it, and together they form a huge ecosystem called [Zhishen].

If you want to kill it, even if Byron's subordinates, who are experts in shaking egg yolks, chopping earthworms vertically, and scalding ant nests five times, come, there will inevitably be some fish that slip through the net.

This would only be possible if underground magma erupted, wiping out all living things in the entire crystal cave, not even sparing a single fungal spore.

"Diggory, Ward, Julian, Emily. Where are you all? Where's Mr. Swarm?"

Byron landed lightly next to the mushroom forest and unexpectedly discovered that more than a dozen apprentices trained by the great wizard [Insect Swarm] were all gathered here.

Each of them was wearing a gray robe, wrapping themselves tightly, and the occasional exposed limbs had the characteristics of various insects.

Apparently, these fellow disciples were all practitioners of the forbidden knowledge "The Book of Giant Insects".

Byron greeted them one by one, but was very careful not to add "senior brother" or "senior sister" or any suffix to distinguish gender after their names.

Every time he thought of the reason, Byron couldn't help but shake his head in his heart:

“The alternative of the Giant Worm Book School is top-down, systemic, and hopeless.

Even among all the black magic cults that have ceased to be human, this is definitely the most bizarre one.

When interacting with them, many things are beyond the scope of normal human cognition.

For example, you cannot just define the other person’s gender based on subjective assumptions and call them “senior brother” or “senior sister.”

Yes, the gender of members of the Giant Insect Book sect is not determined by physiological conditions, but by custom.

Relying on the "Book of Giant Insects" that allows them to coexist with various insects, they can replace their own organs, change their gender, and even species at will.

In the huge insect family, including slugs and a large variety of parasitic groups such as roundworms, hookworms, filarial worms, and trichinella, all are hermaphrodites.

Therefore, over the years, the Giant Insect Book School has long abandoned the old concept of physiological cognition and has formed dozens of genders and self-cognitions.

In addition to the normal female, male, hermaphrodite, and genderless, there are also non-conventional genders, pan-gender, transgender, and cross-species
If you casually define someone as a senior brother or sister when you are not familiar with them, it is absolutely very offensive.

Even though Byron was no stranger to these fellow apprentices who followed the "Insect Swarm" and temporarily settled in his territory, he still found it difficult to address each other accurately.

This is the same even if there is a function to read the information in the [Navigation Log].

Guessing is faster than he changes.

The most familiar [Thousand Legs] Diggory, who is also a "centipede man" who has merged with the centipede, turned around and greeted Byron warmly after hearing the noise:
"Byron, you here?
Oh, no, it should be His Excellency the Baron of Stromgarde.

I have heard about your great achievements in the Zhishen Mine. Congratulations on gathering all the prerequisites for [Ritual: Blood Feast Holy Grail] so quickly.

It's a pity that you got promoted at a wrong time."

Hearing this, Byron's heart skipped a beat:
"Isn't it the right time? Did something happen that I can't be promoted normally? The teacher didn't tell me about this."

Seeing that he had misunderstood, Digory immediately moved his centipede-like hands full of limbs:

“No, no, no, that’s not what I meant.

You can still open the Blood Feast Holy Grail through the normal path, but..."

After looking up and down at Byron's appearance which was totally inconsistent with his own aesthetics, he shook his head and said with regret, as if he was panting heavily when speaking:

“I just feel a little sorry.

You accidentally walked onto the Bloody Mary Pie route, and walked so fast that the second ritual was about to begin.

Once you take that step, you will completely miss out on the most powerful [Ritual: Heart of the Swarm] of our Giant Insect Book School.

Not only can they not obtain beautiful shells, tentacles, and limbs like us, but they also missed out on a great milestone in the transformation of our Giant Insect Book School."

"Heart of the Swarm? Great Change?" Byron also has the corresponding knowledge in the "Book of Giant Insects".

Naturally, I know that the [Heart of the Swarm], which takes the route of symbiosis with insects, is the second blood sublimation ceremony corresponding to the [Blood Feast Holy Grail].

The emphasis is completely different, but they will reach the same conclusion in the third ritual [Scarlet Holy Grail].

The former has the advantage of more direct improvement and stronger combat power in the early and middle stages.

The Heart of the Swarm, which has transformed into a certain kind of insect, does not need to practice swordsmanship hard or master the "flow" to be directly immune to most physical attacks in the world.

Gain access to a range of insect sorcery, able to fight, run and resist, even organized armies are hard to match.

Of course, the side effects were also difficult for Byron to accept.

Your cognition will be forcibly distorted, and you will become a truly like-minded "comrade" with these fellow disciples who have dozens of genders and are passionate about cockroaches, maggots, and other disgusting things.

Therefore, Byron did not feel the slightest regret for his words, and shook his head vigorously in his heart:

'Compared to maggot girls, cockroach girls, flea girls, and fly girls, I think squid girls or octopus girls are cuter.

No, the latter is simply an angel!
You bug-loving heretics, I have no interest in your exotic pursuits.

But what is change?

Out of curiosity, I asked directly:
"What do you mean by milestone change?"

Before the centipede man Diggory could explain to Byron with a smug look on his face, the mushroom forest in front of them suddenly changed.

"squeak"

The densely packed insects in the mushroom forest in front of him suddenly made collective sounds and gradually gathered into a huge whole in the center of the mushroom forest.

They pieced together a humanoid entity that was about five meters tall, had touched the top of the cave, and barely had female features.

The hair is red fungus, the eye sockets are filled with densely packed wriggling maggots, and the limp body is made up of who knows how many earthworms and worms it is made up of.

There were countless mice crawling around in the swollen abdominal cavity, and two clusters of colorful mushrooms similar to Ganoderma lucidum grew on the forehead, like two giant reindeer horns.

The body surface is covered with green, black, white, yellow, and red mold
Surrounded by a dark cloud of flying insects, every breath exhaled a cloud of insects and spores
This is the symbol of the underground mine ecosystem, the natural will of the cave world [Zhi Shen] which is a higher level than the heart of the single species [Zhe Swarm]!
Byron had seen it when he first explored the mine.

It has no clear self-awareness and can only kill people according to the rules. It is similar to the old gods soaking in the sea and is a "dead" monster.

But contrary to Byron's expectations, the changes of the Zhishen did not stop there.

Suddenly, colorful light burst out from its body. The thousands of insects that were originally just barely put together, but each with its own ideas, were in extreme chaos and gradually merged into one.

Under Byron's surprised gaze, it kept twisting and stretching and finally turned into a strange "girl" in a green tights, with red hair and a hot body.

Moreover, in her green eyes, there was a flicker of humanity, no longer as chaotic as the original pan-consciousness.

Although only the face had become a complete human appearance, the humanoid body below the neck still looked like a tree stump hollowed out by insects, moss, and mushrooms.

It seemed that it had simply changed from one kind of curiosity to another, but Byron knew that there was an essential difference between the two.

"Has the animal nature in its body been partially balanced? It has returned to its original natural spirit state?
For humans, it means resurrection from the dead? Hiss——!"

Byron took a deep breath when he saw that the other person was half human, half beast, but still able to remain rational.

Suddenly, a light bulb went off in my brain, as if there was a thread connecting many scattered memories and clues together.

I couldn't help but think of all the weird things I had seen before.

Most of them are composed of human souls and wild beasts. Because of the imbalance between [animal nature] and [divinity] in their bodies, they eventually appear to be half-human, half-beast.

The proportions of divinity and animality are different, and the proportions of human form and animal form are also different. The animal part is usually much larger than the divine part.

The same is true for the old gods who fell into eternal sleep. For some unknown reason, they lost most of their divinity and were left with only their super-sized beastly nature.

All the old gods Byron had seen had a human head without exception.

[Hydra, the Thousand-Faced Serpent] has a corrupt human head with a half-human, half-snake triangle shape on its neck; [Mammon, the Worm of Greed] has a human-shaped golden mask; [Kraken, the Sleeping God] has a fleshless skull.

Referring to the current state of the Zhi god, Byron felt that the grotesque or old god with a human head should be the closest to returning to balance.

As long as there is a human head, he can control the animal nature in his body and gradually regain his sanity.

Even in the mythological stories of Byron's previous life, there were many half-human, half-beast monsters, among which those with human faces and animal bodies were often revered as gods or auspicious beasts.

Especially since the [Zhi God] in front of him has personally proved that the state of corruption is completely reversible, and the dead old gods can also be resurrected!

And the method is very simple, that is - eating people!
“For those old gods who are outside the standard.

Once it recovers its human head and face like [Zhi Shen], it may no longer be a rule monster that can be easily exploited by others, but will come back to life.

Then the Greedy Worm and the Sleeping God that I have already offended are...?"

This unexpected yet reasonable discovery immediately shocked Byron.

The decryption density of [Secret: The Shadow Behind the Red and White Rose War, Influence 31] also increased from 78% to 82%.

At this time, a familiar burst of wild laughter sounded in the mushroom forest again:

“Hahaha, transformation and replacement, the refined [Transmutation Blood] is obviously more effective than eating a living person.

It was worth it that I fed most of the transmutation blood I had accumulated to [Zhu Shen·Nora].

It took a full five months for my beautiful Nora to finally recover from the state of death in which she had lost herself.

And the knowledge she gave me back also helped me take a crucial step forward.”

Byron quickly put aside his thoughts and looked up, and found that there were many huge black locusts lying on the body of the Zhi god.

The Great Wizard [Insect Swarm] itself is composed of thousands of palm-sized locusts. It is not difficult to guess the identity of these black locusts.

At this moment, as the swarm of insects finished speaking, the locusts actually split up again.

Extremely tiny black spores dispersed in the air, rolling continuously in the air and gathering into a thick spore cloud.

Then the mycelium gradually gathered together and transformed into a huge mushroom man who was no shorter than her.

Under the huge mushroom cap is a strong giant body, and the proud faces of the insect swarm appear on the top.

This great wizard actually gained a second form - the mushroom man - through the knowledge he gained from the Zhi God.

Just like the "Bloody Mary Faction" has another simplified version of the ghoul [Lord of Gluttony] route besides [Night Devil].

In the future, this kind of mushroom man may become an important branch of the "Giant Insect Book School".

At least from the appearance, mushroom people are much more acceptable than insect people.

At the same time, the voice of the insect swarm rang in the hearts of all the apprentices, including Byron:
“My disciples, as early as the Dark Millennium, we used the various followers of Lilith that invaded from the cracks in the old world to analyze the forbidden knowledge.

But even though we have been offering sacrifices to [Mother of Creation Lilith] for so many years, we are still a little short of the third ritual [Scarlet Holy Grail] that can produce a cup of 'Eternal Blood'.

The god Ruola has proved that without relying on Lilith, we can also summarize and complete the corresponding knowledge from other beings on similar paths.

At this moment, I have completed all the rituals of [Ritual of the Fungus Colony].

Gained a series of abilities including spore poison cloud, telepathy, colony regeneration, etc.

You will have more choices in the future, and you can customize your own race and gender at will, and even form a group or create a race by yourself!"

This kind of large-scale telepathy is obviously achieved with the help of spore cloud.

"The teacher is so strong."

"Long live the teacher! From now on I am myself and will never be defined by anyone else."

"Teacher Swarm will eventually become the High Priest of the Bloodthirsty Cult!"

"."

The dark wizards in the field who were still at the correct gender level were cheering.

Only the [Insect Swarm] looked at Byron silently with its new senses, and the spore network was filled with an almost uncontrollable greed:
"There is no difference between 'Myconid Colony' and 'Heart of the Swarm' in essence.

The blood of immortality! Only the blood of immortality can make people truly immortal, and even compensate for the price that needs to be paid when ascending through all the blood sublimation rituals in the world.

Even the saints of the church are in urgent need of this treasure to complete their own essential transformation.

The cult's "eternal life plan" has been going on for hundreds of years, but there has been no result.

Now that the Bloody Mary Faction has been destroyed and our Giant Insect Book Faction has taken over, it's time to be more radical.

Starting with this extremely gifted experiment in front of you, follow me to the Holy Land to face [Mother of Creation Lilith] and become a living follower who listens to the whispers of the old gods at all times."

(End of this chapter)