Chapter 5: The Hysterical Insect Mother.

“What?”

“Bombs?”

“What are they planning to do?!”

“Hmm, not bad.”

Butterfly Wing’s voice came from above, carrying a casual satisfaction.

One thing had become clear. Butterfly Wing had been deliberately provoking her from all angles, trying to make her angry and uncomfortable.

“Prepare to set sail.”

Ella’s brain began operating at high speed in that instant. Every brain cell was screaming.

The bombs?

What were the bombs for?

One answer rose from the depths of her consciousness. She tried not to look at it, tried not to think about it, but the answer was too clear. It was so clear that every neuron in her body was screaming in confirmation.

“Hehehe~”

Butterfly Wing’s laughter drifted down from above. It was playful and delighted. Her voice was originally very beautiful, but right now Ella could not feel even a shred of beauty in it.

She finally moved her foot away.

Ella’s head was freed. She jerked her head up violently. Her silver hair was stuck together in strands by blood and messily clung to her cheeks and forehead.

Her forehead was broken. A wound of moderate depth ran across the area above her brow bone. Blood gushed out from there, dyeing her silver hair red. It flowed down from the corners of her eyes, the tip of her nose, and her chin, dripping drop by drop onto her half-kneeling legs and the floor.

Her gaze pierced through the bloodstains and stared fixedly at Butterfly Wing.

“You heard it, right?”

Butterfly Wing squatted down. Her long pink hair fell on both sides of her shoulders. Her beautiful face was split into clear light and dark halves by the dim light inside the cabin.

Her smile was bright and gentle, which only made Ella want to tear the skin off her face even more.

“About the bombs.”

She extended her index finger and drew a circle in the air, as if outlining some shape.

“In just a few more minutes, the insect nest you spent ten years building~”

She brought her index finger and thumb together, making an explosion gesture.

“Will go boom and turn into ashes.”

“Ashes…”

Ella repeated the word in a murmur.

Throughout her entire body, something was surging up from the deepest layer of her soul. Something that made her entire existence scream.

The insect nest.

Her insect nest.

The insect nest she had built brick by brick, inch by inch over ten years.

It was her home, her fortress, her kingdom, her everything. It was the only piece of ground she had stacked together using the swarm’s condensed matter and her own blood and sweat in this world without land.

Every inch of wall had been designed by her. Every passage had been planned by her. The temperature, humidity, and lighting of every incubation room had been personally adjusted by her.

It was not just a building.

It was the proof of her existence as the Insect Mother.

It was her only evidence of resisting nothingness in this endless blue.

Ella suddenly tried to stand up. Or more accurately, she used every ounce of strength in her body to attempt to stand.

The chains were pulled taut. The metal rings dug deeply into her wrists and ankles, slicing open fine cuts in her skin. Blood dripped down along the curve of her fingers.

She could not stand up at all. The length of the chains only allowed her to maintain a half-kneeling position, with less than twenty centimeters of clearance between her knees and the ground.

But she did not care. Her upper body leaned forward madly. The chains rattled loudly from her pulling, as if they would snap at any moment.

“You! You can’t do this!”

Her voice was hoarse and sharp, completely unlike the tone a creator should have.

It sounded more like a child whose only toy had been snatched away, screaming on the verge of hysteria.

“I! How was I supposed to know that you failures didn’t die!”

She did not even know what she was saying anymore. Words poured out of her mouth without any logic or coherence, as if an invisible hand was digging them out from her throat.

“Yes! I’m sorry!”

The moment these three words burst out, even she herself found them absurd.

Sorry?

She was the Insect Mother.

She was the creator.

Why should she apologize to her own creations?

“I should have killed you all right away!”

No, that was not an apology, that was…

“I’m sorry! No! Don’t touch the insect nest!”

…This was begging.

The way Ella begged had completely lost the toughness from earlier. Her silver hair fell messily in front of her face. Blood and tears mixed together and covered her entire face. Her eye sockets were red as if burned by fire.

She knelt halfway on the ground. Her body, bound by chains, leaned forward desperately, like a person tied to a torture rack wagging their tail and begging the executioner for mercy.

The attitude could even be called humble.

Butterfly Wing watched this scene. Her expression barely changed. She only tilted her head slightly.

Then, she raised her foot.

This time, the sole of her boot landed precisely on the side of Ella’s face.

“Ugh—!”

Ella’s body was kicked sideways by this foot, but the chains pulled her back. In the end, she collapsed onto the ground in a twisted posture, knees still kneeling while her upper body tilted to one side. Her silver hair scattered across the floor. She looked like a kidnapped princess casually thrown into a corner.

A clear boot print appeared on her cheek, stretching from her cheekbone all the way to the base of her ear. It would swell up soon and turn purple, but it would heal by itself before long.

“As expected…”

Butterfly Wing withdrew her foot and looked down at her from above. Her voice carried the satisfaction of having confirmed a certain guess.

“The insect nest really is the most important thing to you.”

She bent down. Her pink hair fell forward and swayed gently at the edge of Ella’s vision.

“Then I want to destroy it even more.”

“No!”

Ella’s voice suddenly rose sharply, almost cracking.

“No! Please!”

Her body twisted on the ground, trying to adjust her posture, trying to make herself look more humble and more pitiful.

The chains rattled loudly from her pulling. The wounds on her wrists were cut deeper by the metal rings. Blood dripped from her fingers onto the floor, forming a small puddle.

“Don’t hurt it! I’ll kneel for you again! Please!”

Kneel again.

When these four words came out of her mouth, she herself heard everything they implied. She admitted it. She had already been stepped on and forced to kneel once, and that was not enough. She was willing to kneel again, twice, countless times, as long as the insect nest was not destroyed.

The corners of Butterfly Wing’s mouth curved up slightly. That arc stopped precisely at a position between “pleasure” and “cruelty.” She did not speak. She simply stood there, watching Ella’s final struggle.

And it was this silence that made Ella realize…

Nothing she said would work.

This person would not stop just because she begged.

From the very beginning, this person’s purpose in returning was not negotiation, not compensation, not anything that could be “persuaded.”

Her purpose was only one thing.

Revenge.

The moment she realized this, the last line of rational defense in Ella’s heart completely collapsed.

She no longer thought about consequences, no longer weighed the pros and cons, no longer calculated how many seconds it would take for the Nest Tyrants to arrive, how many seconds it would take for Butterfly Wing to kill her, or whether the gap of those few seconds was enough for her to turn the tables…

Her consciousness shot toward the insect nest network like a spring compressed to its limit.

Return!

All Nest Tyrants! All combat units! All—any insect that can still move!

Immediately!

Now!

Right now!

Come to me! Destroy this ship! Kill everyone on this ship except me!

Everyone!