1276 An Awkward Situation

This was a planet that had once been inhabited by humans!

Lin Huang furrowed his brow the moment when he saw the photograph.

He had not thought too much about it when he initially noticed that the buildings were styled in the manner of human architecture. This was because most buildings in the God Territory had been inspired by human designs.

Furthermore, none of the previous trial participants had ever come across any human encampments during past explorations of areas in the God Territory.

Although Lin Huang had speculated that there might be humans residing in the Great Heaven Territory, never had he imagined that he would be directly teleported into one such area.

From a Divine Telekinesis scan for the number of ruined buildings that still remained, Lin Huang could roughly estimate that there had been at least three billion people on this planet.

This was close to half of the Earth's population, not to mention countless animals and plants that had been eaten and killed by the Bug Tribes. Not a trace of them remained.

Although this was not Lin Huang's first encounter with the Bug Tribes, it was the first time he truly understood the threat they posed.

However, Lin Huang's thoughts were simultaneously going wild inside his head.

"The inhabitants of this planet were all human; it could very well mean that this was a gathering point for humans. So there's a high probability of humans inhabiting other living planets nearby. Judging from the Bug Tribes' frequent campaigns over the decades and centuries, this war between humans and the Bug Tribes might still be going on in some other planet nearby."

This made it even more imperative for him to find a star map.

After some brief consideration, Lin Huang summoned a Bug Tribe Queen Mother.

As soon as the order was given, a massive number of Bug Tribe armies swarmed forth to cover the entire planet once again.

This time their mission was not to kill but to search for information on the planet's civilization.

Over 100 million bug hordes took merely a couple of minutes to cover every corner of the entire planet.

Some ten minutes later, a Queen Mother in a white dress who looked like a little girl turned her head to speak to Lin Huang.

"We found an underground laboratory that's still functioning. We should be able to find quite a bit of information there."

"Give me the coordinates!" Lin Huang exclaimed hurriedly, "Ask them not to damage anything in there."

A couple of minutes later, Lin Huang and the Queen Mother arrived at the coordinates where the entrance to the underground facility was located.

The great metal door at the entrance had been ripped apart during the war. Lin Huang and the Queen Mother hurried inside.

This underground laboratory had collapsed long ago. However, the Bug Tribe fighters sent by the Queen Mother had cleared a path for them.

Lin Huang led the Queen Mother into the laboratory's control center without encountering any obstacles along the way.

Part of the control center had actually collapsed as well. Fortunately, the machines at the central control unit were not damaged; even the holographic projector had been preserved in its entirety.

The main control unit was huge, like supercomputers on earth. Lin Huang was unable to figure out how to operate it even after staring at the hundreds of buttons on its console for a long time. Feeling helpless, he had no choice but to summon Grimace.

Usually, Lin Huang would get Bloody to handle such tasks whenever she was with him. Now that she was not here, he could only seek help from Grimace, who also possessed Supreme Intelligence.

Once Grimace was summoned, he fell to studying the machine without saying much of anything.

Some ten minutes later, Grimace finally figured out the basics of how to operate the machine.

"We're very lucky that there's still internet access on this planet. What would you like to look for?"

"Information about this planet—the star maps of the surrounding areas, the bigger the coverage and the more detailed, the better. Information about other living planets nearby, and also related information on the war with the Bug Tribes…"

Lin Huang gave Grimace a list of some of the things that he wanted to know most of all.

A 3-D holographic projection appeared in the middle of the room all of a sudden as Grimace operated the machine.

The projection was of a starry sky that Lin Huang was unfamiliar with.

"This machine seems to be connected to the entire star zone's internet. The blinking light on the star map is the planet that we're currently on."

"What do the colors of the labels mean?" Lin Huang immediately asked. He saw that many planets on the star map had been color-coded and marked with various symbols.

"Red means planets that are currently at war; green means living planets inhabited by a single tribe; blue means planets inhabited by other harmless tribes. A red cross means planets that have been destroyed; a black skull means planets that have resident Bug Tribe armies, and a red skull means planets with powerful enemies in residence…"

Lin Huang noticed that the planet that he was currently on had been marked with a red cross. Not only that, but a few dozen planets close by were also marked with red crosses. From afar, the red crosses looked like a sea of red dots.

Looking up in another direction, Lin Huang saw hundreds of black skulls and a couple of red skulls.

"The planet we're on is between the Bug Tribe armies and planets inhabited by Bug Tribes. The only way to return to the safe areas marked by the green dots of light would be to pass through the Bug Tribe armies. This planet has only undergone several hundred years of development; the dimensional portals only support two teleportation points. Both the planets that the dimensional portal connects to are currently war zones. Furthermore, we have to make sure that the dimensional portals still work. Even if they do, we have no way of ascertaining if the dimensional portals between the two teleportation points are in good condition."

"Can you find out the overall ability of the current invading Bug Tribes?" Lin Huang asked quickly.

"The war is led by three high-level Heavenly Gods. There's also a recently elevated Heavenly God Queen Mother from the Bug Tribe. Apart from them, there are three true god-level Queen Mothers, over 20 peak-stage True God Bug Kings and bug guardians. There are eight virtual god-level Queen Mothers…"

"At the moment, the Heavenly Gods have yet to fight; they're just taking a back seat for now. They're on the several red skull-labeled planets on the star map. There are also three true god-level Queen Mothers, peak-stage True God Bug Kings and bug guardians, as well as high-level True God Bug Tribe elites in the areas marked with black skulls. We can't be sure exactly which planets they're on."

"A recently elevated Heavenly God Queen Mother…no wonder the Bug Tribes started a war out of nowhere!" After hearing Grimace's information, Lin Huang, who had a certain understanding of how the Bug Tribe was run internally, immediately realized why war had broken out.

The emergence of a Queen Mother elevated to Heavenly God meant that the entire Bug Tribe could produce heavenly god-level Bug Tribe fighters.

The war was initiated to provide the Heavenly God Queen Mother with better food so she could produce heavenly god-level powerhouses.

Moreover, members of the Bug Tribe could elevate their combat strength and levels through eating. Eating massive amounts of good-quality food could help the Heavenly God Queen Mother to elevate her combat strength further.

However, judging by the information Grimace provided, the war was clearly still in its preliminary to middle stages. It had not yet come to the final stages where the Heavenly Gods and high-level True Gods officially joined the battle.

Even if that were the case, the current situation showed that the Bug Tribe had the upper hand.

"Of the Bug Tribes already in the war zone right now, what's the most powerful Bug Tribe's combat strength? Can you find out?" Lin Huang asked again.

"The Bug Tribe has only sent out intermediate-stage True Gods for the moment. The ones with the highest combat strength are several class-4 sixth-rank True God Bug Kings."

"Quadruple mutated sixth-rank True Gods…" Lin Huang frowned again.

A Bug Tribe with such combat strength was a definite threat to his life. It was quite impossible for him to win even if he used all his trump cards.

His most powerful technique was his God's Figurines' Combat Souls but their combat strength was only at virtual god-level rank-9. At most, their ability was on par with second-rank True God Bug Kings. Even if he were to use the Provisional Combat Strength Upgrade Card, the most he could do would be to elevate three ranks, which was about par ability-wise with that of a fifth-rank True God Bug King.

At true god-level, just one rank made a huge difference in one's abilities.

"It would be a bit of a hassle to bump into those Bug Kings but there's nothing else to be done. The trial only lasts for a month; I can't be wasting my time…" Lin Huang soon came to a decision.