Under the control of the super brain machine, the Venerable King Knights lined up in neat formation, creating a spectacular matrix. They tilted their bodies at a forty-five-degree angle to welcome a crescent-shaped rock pedestal floating through the air.
The pedestal was about two meters in diameter, with damaged edges and a naturally hollowed interior. Lying within it was a bizarre insect pupa.
Petal-like jade pieces bloomed to form its skull, splitting open and peeling away along tear-like lines below to reveal a slightly upturned nose tip and silicone-textured lips.
Symmetrical rents on the sides of the pupa shell’s chest and abdomen extended six tender, newborn arms without nails or bones—more like tentacles with opposing thumbs than actual limbs.
The pupa’s lower half was even stranger, resembling a tail or a silkworm chrysalis, plump and full. At its star-shaped tip, a large white droplet was secreting, seemingly the embryonic form of an ‘Insect Jade.’
Seeing this, Ashley tensed up completely, her scalp crawling as she reached the brink of a stress response!
She didn’t find this thing cute in the slightest. This was the entity that had peeled the scalps off fifty thousand people—calling it humanity’s natural predator was no exaggeration!
What should she do now?!
The enemy general was at such close range—it seemed like a prime assassination opportunity. Should she go all-in? If she gathered the power of all the Fusion Beasts…
Cold sweat beaded on her forehead. Was the King Insect something that could be defeated so easily?
It was possible. This King Insect’s ability might enhance the Lord of Insects and elevate its life level, much like the Lost Corridor—its main body might not be strong in combat…
Sure enough, the Jade King halted a hundred meters away and approached no further.
Then, a pulse of consciousness swept through her brain, and a stiff, mechanical voice mimicking human speech echoed in her mind.
“I am very curious… what are you fighting for… There’s nothing left here… Your compatriots have lost their bodies… They can only survive forever as Brain Fish…”
Ashley remained silent. She wasn’t here for the fifty thousand people—she was here for one person.
The King Insect had probably learned about human society through communication with the Brain Fish, assuming she was some ‘righteous ally,’ ‘duty-bound warrior,’ or ‘hero acting on a whim.’
In truth, if she’d encountered Xixi along the way, her goal would have been accomplished. As for the remaining fifty thousand… was that something for a Tribunal employee earning six pounds a week to worry about? She only made a few dozen pounds a month—why risk her life?
“I admire your courage… You are a very special one among humans… If you abandon some of the perceptions formed in the human stage… you will understand that life has only just begun…”
“Only after breaking down can it truly begin?”
While humoring it, Ashley vigilantly scanned her surroundings, sensing crises lurking in the shadows.
Her instincts were correct, but the absolute gap in strength left her no time to react. The Fusion Beasts guarding her disintegrated and dispersed, stripping away her five senses in an instant!
Next, four or five pairs of soft little hands covered her body, gripping her gently. These small hands seemed fragile, but when she tried to struggle free, they clamped down like iron vices.
Gwendolyn clamped her hand over her mouth in the Slanted House, not daring to breathe. She watched as several Bug Lolitas surrounded the Blue-Haired Loli, standing or squatting around her like backup dancers on a stage.
All of them were humanoid forms of the Lord of Insects!
In a world she could no longer sense, Ashley’s consciousness sank to the bottom of dark waters.
This was utterly disastrous…
Forget doing anything—she didn’t even know what was happening outside. Her consciousness was compressed into a tiny clump, unable even to touch her “Revolver”…
She remained calm enough to think.
What would happen next?
Would she be executed?
Imprisoned? Treated as a rare human specimen?
Or turned into bug food?
…
Only when the humanoid Lord of Insects escorted her before the throne did her vision return. The gradually brightening field of view was like a beam of light piercing the darkness—she thought it was hope, but the King Insect right before her plunged her into hell.
The Jade King wriggled its short, thick tail. After several contractions, a transparent, glass-like sharp curved tube extended from a concealed skin slit beneath the star-shaped protrusion of its Insect Jade-secreting gland.
“W-what are you going to do to me?!” Ashley had a bad premonition and shouted.
“I will… grant… grace… You will become… my… kin…”
The King Insect’s consciousness fluctuations formed an emotionless human voice, carrying a strange obsession.
Huh—?!
Ashley struggled fiercely, but how could her slender arms and legs overpower the humanoid Lord of Insects?
“Ah—!”
Ashley completely broke down, screaming hysterically. No, this was more terrifying than death!
“Not… what you think…
…a developing live body… but a decoding key recording part of the gene locks. It is the unique gift I bestow upon my kin. It will reside in your body, allowing you to use a portion of my power.”
The King Insect’s human speech grew smoother, though the content was hardly human.
It was going to inject straight into her Little Flower!
Ashley twisted desperately, retorting through gritted teeth:
“Wahhh… I can expel this kind of thing myself… No need to trouble you…”
While this bizarre ritual unfolded here, unnoticed on the other side, transparent distortions rippled in the space before the massive body of the Lost Corridor.
A girl with striking snow-cyan hair stepped out, followed by two others—the Blue-Haired Loli and the Silver Knight.
The girl pressed the back of her hand to her forehead and sighed in relief.
“The timing is perfect.”
The Lost Corridor immediately sensed extreme danger from the Silver Knight before it!
Before it could emit a warning consciousness pulse, Deirdre flicked her wrist. The tip of the S-Rank Relic “Starshatter” rippled with a tangible blue glow. It spun half a circle with a lingering hum and thrust forward!
The girl held her breath involuntarily. Everything in her sight distorted into high-speed rotating and stretching lines and planes—like a world seen through a kaleidoscope, or a shredded painting reassembled into irregular geometric shapes!
The Lost Corridor was instantly sliced into tiny fragments. Before collapsing into dust, countless indigo crystals erupted from the fissures!
These crystals grew rapidly, squeezing against each other with a teeth-grating friction, like frost flowers blooming on winter window glass.
The sharp crystal shards pierced from four dimensions into three, colliding and splashing to form billions of cutting surfaces in an instant!
Boom—!
An avalanche-like roar rolled across heaven and earth. The enormous insect body vanished,
leaving only dark blue mist drifting leisurely…
Deirdre’s fury was far from over. Seeing the devastated city, her boiling killing intent shot to the skies. She lifted her sword tip from the ground with a buzz, unleashing a Four-Dimensional Slash that shifted shapes endlessly into the sky!
The insect-swarmed dome split instantly, brilliant blue crystals bursting in midair like falling stars!
At the same time, with the Lost Corridor’s death, the layered space collapsed, causing the copies, Brain Fish, insects, and trapped powerhouses to gradually emerge…
Meanwhile, beside the Lord of Insects and Ashley, a loli appeared quietly.
Her skin was snow-tender, her ash-gray shoulder-length hair shimmering with mysterious allure. A Neural Fiber twitched irritably on her forehead.
“You beast! What are you doing to my beloved disciple?!”
The Jade King showed no reaction at first, seemingly pondering why it hadn’t sensed this human loli’s approach.
And why the millennium-accumulated power it had painstakingly gathered was draining away rapidly—why the self born from breaking free of the pupa shell was fading, turning into a blank canvas never painted…
Something… terrifying… was happening…
At first, the King Insect didn’t know what fear was. After contact with humans, it learned it was a psychological state unique to weak creatures—too frail to control their fates, their futures filled with uncertainty and peril everywhere, breeding bewilderment and retreat. As the beautiful and mighty pinnacle of the life pyramid, she could not feel it.
But…
Its plump white insect belly hardened and contracted, its tiny limbs shriveling like wilted bean sprouts until they retracted. The broken pupa shell parts healed and sealed through reverse growth…
With the activation of the third ability of Time Sequence Heterostructure, the King Insect was forcibly regressed to its pupa state!
The King Insect felt an unprecedented terror!
It released pulse after pulse of consciousness. The responding Bug Lolitas rushed toward it—only for half the face of one to vanish grotesquely the next second, a spiral void appearing in the middle!
The other Lord of Insects forms similarly crashed into ‘Reefs of Time,’ their bodies pierced through with holes!
Ashley’s mouth gaped wide. She hadn’t expected her teacher to actively control the vortices and reefs in the river of time, rather than randomly scattering ‘landmines’ in surrounding space. Moreover, her teacher could clearly accelerate or reverse time in designated areas, meaning absolute dominion over time within her domain!
Dominating time within space—was that a space ability or a time ability?
Ashley pondered for a long time without figuring it out. But her Fig was safe—no need to be injected with the King Insect’s bizarre ‘gift.’ That was great.
