The endless desert of Silithus is no longer what it used to be.

After the Battle of Quicksand a thousand years ago, this desert where countless souls were buried was quiet for a while, but soon, the darkness hidden under the desert emerged.

At first, there were just some weird bugs digging passages and building nests in the desert. Then they emerged on a large scale and spent hundreds of years building three large "cities" of their own in the desert.

Anyone who has been to Silithus knows the names of these three large insect hives, Yash, Rhaegal, and Zora. They were all given to them by the elves stationed in Cenarion Fortress in the center of the desert.

Because bugs don't call their homes in Elvish.

These three major insect nests are located in the north, southeast and central and west respectively. No one knows how many alien insects there are in the insect nests. They have different shapes and strange shapes, and it is difficult to find two identical insects.

However, unlike the Great Rift Hive in the Tanaris Desert, the Silithids in Silithus are more "tolerant" to visitors.

According to the experience of the local elf guards, as long as you do not make dangerous moves, the bugs will allow you to get close to the edge of the nest, and they will mind their own business and ignore you.

You are even allowed to stand on tiptoes and take a look at the insect nest extending underground.

This behavior proved a terrible thing.

That is to say, the bugs of Silithus are not mindless beasts. According to the observations and conclusions of local druids for many years, these Qiraji from the Beetle Wall have certain intelligence and significant sociality.

Biologists believe that they can communicate, know how to maintain hierarchies, occasionally perform mysterious rituals, and even crawl out of messengers to conduct "trade" with neighboring insect nests.

Of course, outsiders are not allowed to observe their rituals.

If outsiders try to break this rule, those reckless guests will become "commodity" traded between the insect nests the next day.

This kind of thing has happened more than once in the Silithus Desert.

The only problem with the Qiraji and the silithid living in other areas of Azeroth is that they cannot speak. Except for some senior druids and high-level hunters, few people can communicate with them.

And successfully communicating with them is not a good thing. Basically, people who do this will end up badly.

Or crazy.

Or commit suicide.

Or maybe one night, with dull eyes and muttering words, he disappeared into the desert.

Therefore, a long time ago, the Cenarion Order strictly prohibited druids from using natural magic to communicate with silithid insects.

This compulsion is for protection.

Unfortunately, if someone wants to figure out the secrets of the bugs, or try to use the bugs to enter the interior of the Beetle Wall that has been sealed for a thousand years, they must break this rule.

Unfortunately, the price for breaking the rules is always high.

For example now...

Blake was smiling and sitting under the parasol in a majestic posture, with idiot Finna and Little Star standing behind him like guardians on the left and right.

Next to him was a black dragon lady in pirate costume who served tea and water.

It's actually a bronze dragon.

Although he already has an entity, Sephiel still maintains the habits he had when he was a ghost and is not very willing to come into contact with the sun.

"I may have exerted a little force just now. Does it hurt you?"

The smelly pirate asked gently.

Emeril Shadowguard, who was sitting cross-legged in front of him, covered his face and shook his head.

"I hope you understand that although my actions are a little rough, my heart is good. I really want to help you. My chief retainer doesn't want to see you die miserably in the insect nest, so I complied with her request.

I didn't send you back to World Tree first, and then I helped you 'cure' your illness. You can't say that I don't respect women.

Although I am a heinous pirate, I also have my own bottom line. I will not do such a thing as beating a woman.

It's just that if I don't save you, your end will be very miserable. For the sake of your life, I have to break my rules, which makes me very painful.

Can you understand my difficulties?"

Blake took a glass of wine from the plate held by Sephiel, shook it in his hand, and asked again.

Emeril in front of him nodded silently.

"Very good. It seems that you are a sensible woman, so I'm relieved."

Blake laughed, took a sip of wine and said:

"So, let's get into the Q&A session. My first question is, why do you think your hunting knowledge is enough to help you conquer the Qiraji?

You have also participated in the Battle of Quicksand. As a top hunter, you should know that no one has ever done such a thing as conquering the will of the swarm."

"No! I've heard of you! My dear, I have a lot of electricity!"

Emeril raised his head and retorted.

But the originally beautiful and aloof elf girl's cheeks were as swollen as big buns, and her speech was a little leaky. Fortunately, the "inflection" of the Salas language was not difficult to understand.

It's just that the way Emeril speaks now is really bad and a bit funny.

This made the group of villains around Blake burst into laughter.

This laughter made the leader of the secret passage very embarrassed, but you can't expect a group of smelly pirates to be very stylish, right? What's more, they saved Emeril, who should have fallen into corruption.

People need to be grateful, and elves also take this as a virtue.

So the embarrassed elf could only choose to grit her teeth and remain silent. But her words made Blake and Windrunner's mother, who had a bandage around her waist, look at each other.

The little fishman also lay beside his bucket in confusion, looking at the embarrassed elf with a swollen face.

These three people are the only three hunters present. The meaning revealed in Emeril's words is particularly important to the hunters, because it means that the alien insects protected by the will of the huge insect swarm can also be tamed by the hunters!

To understand the value of this information, you must first understand the special concept of "the will of the swarm."

Humanoid creatures, including elves, trolls and tauren, all have independent wills. They only share a population at the level of civilization.

But the alien bugs are different. All alien bugs in Azeroth originated from the servants of the ancient gods in the Dark Empire era. They drew power from the void and evolved a very special civilization form.

To put it simply, although the alien insects can be regarded as independent lives in terms of form, their will is unified. Each insect nest will have a swarm consciousness, which is the "master brain" of countless alien insects fused together.

Each insect nest can be regarded as a special life form, with the main brain giving orders, and each individual mutant insect is a "sibling".

They serve the common will of the insect swarm as individuals.

This is the reason why Qiraji worms seem to have a certain strict social nature to outsiders.

Hunters cannot tame the alien insects, no matter how powerful the hunter is, because no matter how strong the will of a living body is, it cannot resist the mastermind formed by the wills of countless insects gathered together.

This is a truth among the high-level hunters in Azeroth.

And now, the famous saying "Truth is meant to be broken" has once again demonstrated its power in front of pirates.

"No wonder I made a casual joke before and you actually risked your life to tame the Silikens in an attempt to find the secret passage to the Beetle Wall."

Windrunner's mother stood up, walked to Blake, and looked at Emeril Shadowguard, who was rubbing his face and twitching in front of her, and said seriously:

"You didn't run to die because of my words! You saw someone taming the silithid before, so you decided to replicate the miracle of that year, you bad girl!

Makes me upset thinking I almost killed you...

Let me guess, the hunter who tamed the Silithid back then was your mentor, my friend Namulia Linge? Is there any secret behind her death in the Battle of Quicksand?"

"Um."

Emeril Shadowguard lowered her head. She didn't know whether it was because she was ashamed of concealing the truth, or because her face was swollen and she was too embarrassed to see anyone. She said in her own leaky way of speaking:

"Nuodanglian is in Niu Sajie Jianni..."

"Okay, okay, if you say so, we have to guess next year."

Blake reached out and interrupted the Shadow Guard's painful way of speaking.

He took the paper and pen from Sephiel's hand and handed it to Shadow Guard, who let out a sigh of relief, lowered his head and wrote quickly, and then handed the paper written in Salas language to Blake.

He also emphasized:

"Jie Jian is a flavonoid enzyme, Shiranen! Nian Dailan De green stone saves the streets!"

"We understand, don't worry."

Blake took the paper and assured Emeril, who was looking at him:

"You are not someone who can't tell the difference between seriousness and seriousness. Since you have kept this secret for a thousand years, I have reason to think it is very dangerous. Don't worry, I will protect this secret from now on."

After saying that, the pirate and Windrunner's mother turned around to read the words on the paper. The little fishman also jumped out of the bucket with his head swung, jumped on Blake's shoulder, and crawled there with his head bent to read.

The information on the paper is not much, but it is very important.

In the Battle of Quicksand a thousand years ago, the Sentinel General and the founder of the Secret Passage, Ms. Nymulia Ringe, commanded the Sentinel Legion to participate in the battle.

During the brutal war, she realized that it was impossible for the elves to completely defeat the Qiraji, and they had to find another way.

So in addition to her busy military duties, Ms. Lin Ge began to use her knowledge as a hunter to study the characteristics of the Zerg. At that time, the priests of the Sisterhood of Elune had confirmed the existence of the will of the Zerg, but Lin Ge was not discouraged.

The veteran who had fought in the War of the Ancients and the War of Satyr, and who had guarded Kaldorei for more than nine thousand years, even used some forbidden knowledge. One day, she successfully tamed a silithid bug and obtained it from herself.

The pets learned about the existence of the "Queen" of Qiraji.

Lin Ge realized that the queen was the source of the Qiraji worms and the master of the will of all swarms.

As long as he can assassinate the Queen, the swarm consciousnesses scattered in various insect nests will immediately lose their leaders and fight on their own in chaos, and the destruction army that the Qiraji Empire is proud of will collapse in an instant.
To be continued...