[Unknown Land]
Everything was immersed in the damp glow of chaotic mist.
The chamber walls, composed of living flesh and blood cells, slowly writhed. Hive-like white tendons provided support for the soft, mushy blood and flesh, sturdy enough to serve as both floor and walls.
Thick, slick blood vessels crawled and spread across the ceiling of the oval chamber, forming beautiful, disordered shapes—like countless blood snakes slithering about. At their ends, dense clusters of fine vessels branched out, trailing down the walls and connecting to petal-like gray-white membranous shells.
The shells contained transparent liquid, nurturing the nascent forms of “Crawlers”—grotesque insects with centipede-like segments, slender limbs long enough to wrap around themselves two or three times, and a tail bristling with pinecone-shaped spines. Ugly, ferocious, and bizarrely ominous.
Dense white vessels submerged in the liquid within the shells surged and writhed with the beating of the insect heart, like an undersea forest where dark, profound vortices gently brushed against undulating roots.
At the end of each vessel was a valve on the shell, through which the monstrous insects breathed.
But one of the membranous shells did not hold a larva. Instead, it cradled the delicate, pale body of a young girl.
Around eleven or twelve years old, matching the growth stage of the larvae. Her hands and feet were dainty, her waist and back slender and soft, her snowy-blue hair soaked in the liquid.
A makeshift mask fashioned from insect shell covered her exquisite little face. White vessels connected to valves fed air into the mask, forming a breathable layer.
The original occupant had been gnawed down to half.
For the girl’s snow-white little teeth, the larva’s tenderness was just right. She especially loved the slender, soft foot tendrils—they tasted like soft-shelled crab legs. With a gentle bite, the crisp, tender, sweet “crab meat” burst into her mouth.
…
Xixi opened her eyes and reached out to lift the membrane shell, crawling out like she was emerging from a bathtub. Thick nutrient fluid slid off her and pooled on the ground.
She stood up, brought a small finger to her lips, and yawned lazily. Then, she donned her “buggy suit”—remodeled by the zone supervisor “smart bug.” It resembled a undulating pupa, covered in blue cilia, some of which were extremely long, forming tentacles for transmitting consciousness. They quivered, their tips glowing with a bluish light, allowing her to command “subordinate bugs.”
The chubby buggy girl reared up her upper body and slowly wriggled across the ground on four plump little feet.
Leaving the incubation chamber, she arrived at the center of this octagonal zone. There stood a pillar-shaped transparent shell made of chitin, connecting ceiling to floor.
It was like a fish tank, filled with nutrient liquid where dozens of “Brain Fish”—human brains connected to spinal nerves—swam leisurely.
The thirty-one pairs of human spinal nerves grew finer toward the tail, like a bundle of horsehair forming the Brain Fish’s tail whiskers.
These tender, fragile nerves tangled and adhered together, forming a bizarre tree that plunged into the fleshy base at the bottom of the tank.
Were they still alive? Did they chat together? Wonderful ideas popped into Xixi’s little head.
This was the zone center, especially lively. Patrol Crawlers and Observers occasionally circled the “brain tank” and entered another partition. The walls writhed with white slugs—the “Cleaners,” responsible for sweeping dust and mucus from the cortical layer and flesh surfaces.
The scene before her eyes mimicked the internal structure of a living organism, with the bugs as mindless living parts maintaining its functions.
Xixi exited through the passage onto the street.
The ground and sky were shrouded by bug walls. Flexible dermis, writhing flesh, and sturdy gray-white bones had swallowed everything. Occasionally, geometric cubic behemoths or long angular remnants hinted at the old city below—no people in sight. They had probably all become Brain Fish joining the group chat.
Rounding the corner, she suddenly spotted a fiery red parrot battling several Crawlers!
Though the parrot could fly, the Crawlers matched its speed. Their segmented limbs adhered to the flesh, letting them scramble up near-vertical walls. They pursued relentlessly, waiting for the parrot to tire and fall.
“Sasha!”
Xixi shouted in delight, twitching her tentacles to release a consciousness pulse. The Crawlers scattered.
Hearing the familiar voice, the parrot flew down to her feet and regurgitated a cassette tape.
“Couldn’t deliver it, huh…”
Xixi shed her insect shell, freeing her hands, and picked up the tape thoughtfully.
Sasha hung its head dejectedly, seemingly guilty for failing its mission.
“Let me check.”
The girl seized its neck as if to strangle it, thrust her small hand down its throat, and stirred inside with sticky squelching sounds. She withdrew, stared into the parrot’s pitiful little eyes, and muttered:
“Looks fine, but something feels off. This city’s just us two now? Where’d all the other superhumans go? Even pigs squeal when slaughtered.”
“Grawk! Grawk!” Sasha cried twice, rubbing its head against her leg.
“You came at the right time. Let’s do an experiment.”
Xixi suddenly had an idea and pulled two watches with removed straps from her pouch.
After syncing their times, she directed the parrot to carry one in its beak while she held the other.
With a flick of her arm, the parrot soared into the sky.
Then, she narrowed her eyes and watched intently.
Xixi noticed that above one hundred meters, the parrot’s movements began to stutter subtly. At one hundred fifty meters, the frame-skipping was obvious—whether from space distortion or something else.
After two hundred meters, she waved it down. Comparing the watches side by side revealed a half-second delay!
She tried several more times, each with a delay—the higher it flew, the longer the lag.
Xixi wasn’t particularly surprised. A few days earlier, using smart bug privileges, she’d controlled Crawlers for a similar ground experiment: delays from plus/minus half a second to a second.
Since each test lasted under half a minute, it couldn’t be power drain slowing the mechanical watches—and negative delays defied explanation.
“Two possibilities: one, time dilation along longer paths; two, uneven magnetic fields magnetizing the escapement, affecting balance wheel frequency and causing speeding, slowing, or stutters…”
Xixi’s dark brows furrowed in thought.
“If it’s just time flow and magnetization, it doesn’t explain everything. There must be another interpretation—pointing straight to this King Insect’s core ability…”
Suddenly, her heart raced, pounding with unease. In an instant, images flashed through her mind like slides.
Sasha’s undelivered message, Smedley the “Deep Sea Moonlight” with his mind controlled, the sky-obscuring Hive, Brain Fish swimming in the Container, the bugs’ social polymorphic division of labor, frame-skipping and time-lag phenomena…
She sensed it. Everything pointed to a horrifying yet ironclad answer, just one sheet of paper away from piercing through…
But unbeknownst when, gray mist had permeated the surroundings. Then, a slender, tall figure burst through the fog!
The newcomer wore rotten, twisted silver armor. Aside from the half-helm and joint guards, the rest had melted into silver slag, embedded with dark red garnets in the cracks and holes.
The Silver Knight stood nearly two meters tall, wielding a heavy thrusting sword single-handed. Its basket hilt elegantly coiled like branches, forged as if from pure silver. In her hand, the over-twenty-kilogram greatsword felt as light as a twig, its blade trailing fluid ripples as it hung at her side.
Xixi recognized her identity at a glance—the Rift City Lord! “Oracle Blade” Deirdre!
The Rift City Lord was a renowned powerhouse, having displayed her abilities more than once. Thus, the enemy often held the information advantage.
Even so, “Oracle Blade” was deemed one of the most flawless supreme abilities.
Xixi had heard a bit about it. Simply put, it first unfolded a four-dimensional hypercube space, then slashed into the three-dimensional world!
From a four-dimensional view, the three-dimensional world was a flat plane without inside or outside, rendering defense meaningless. The sword tip could thrust from any angle—even from inside out, bursting through the body.
Moreover, the attack wouldn’t manifest as the blade’s shape. As the four-dimensional object traversed three dimensions, its geometry constantly shifted, causing horrific tears and distortions.
In terrifying silence, the Silver Knight approached the girl, her body flowing with molten-silver brilliance. Suddenly, she halted abruptly, shifting her center of gravity backward with a withdrawing step. Air tore with an explosion as the thrusting sword whipped up from her side!
Xixi’s pupils contracted. This was the “Capoferro” sword stance opener!
Then, the Silver Knight lightly spun the thrusting sword, making it quiver in the air before thrusting forward!
