Chapter 8: The insect queen… wants to… reproduce…

“Ha?!”

Ella jolted awake.

Her consciousness felt as if it had been violently dragged up from the deep sea. The drastic change in pressure made her eardrums buzz loudly. Her body, which had been leaning against the corner of the wall, trembled violently. Her hands unconsciously grabbed at the air, catching nothing.

“Hah— Hah— Hah—”

Her breathing was rapid and heavy. Every exhale carried a near-convulsive tremble. Her chest heaved violently. Her silver hair lay messily against her cheeks and forehead, soaked with cold sweat and stuck together in strands.

Her pupils lost focus for a moment, then quickly sharpened.

She wanted—

She wanted…

To reproduce.

When the word surged up from the depths of her consciousness, it did not come as a thought, but as a physiological need. Like hunger. Like thirst. Like a drowning person’s desperate craving for air.

It was unreasonable. It bypassed all rational filters and reflected directly from her spinal cord to every cell in her body.

The effect was so intense that she could not help but clamp her legs together tightly. Even just doing that brought a strong wave of pleasure that threatened to spill out.

Ella gritted her teeth hard.

As the Insect Mother, she did not actually need to lay eggs herself. Her bodily fluids contained certain bacteria. As long as there were enough of them, they could form a bacterial carpet, from which the most basic worker insects would slowly be born. That was the method she had used when she first started ten years ago — drop by drop, slowly cultivating the first worker insect at the bottom of the ship cabin.

But it was too slow.

If this were ten years ago, she would still have the patience to develop slowly and expand the swarm gradually. But now, she had just been pulled down from the ruler’s throne. Her insect nest was still smoking on the sea surface, and her hundreds of thousands of insects had turned into ashes.

She wanted it immediately.

She wanted to immediately return to her true position as ruler.

She was extremely… extremely… craving it.

That craving burned her stomach lining. Her fingers unconsciously scratched deep marks into the floor. She thought of another method.

As the Insect Mother, her body contained the DNA of all the unlocked insect types. She did not need to start from scratch by cultivating a bacterial carpet. She could directly inject this DNA into suitable hosts, using the hosts as mothers to incubate the eggs.

For example, those failures on this ship.

They had been cultivated by her using the nest’s condensed matter and DNA fragments from other creatures. Their bodies were the most suitable incubators.

She only needed to inject the corresponding swarm DNA into them. They would begin producing eggs and hatching larvae like cells infected by a virus. Within a few days, they could produce a small swarm.

The corners of her mouth curved into a dangerous arc in the darkness.

“Ugh! Ugh…!”

Before the smile could fully form, it was torn apart by a burst of intense pain.

The pain did not come from the outside, but from deep within her body, from the end of her spine. It felt like a ball of fire burning on her tailbone, or as if something was growing out from her bones, pushing apart muscle and skin, extending outward bit by bit.

She bit down hard on the back of her own hand to stop herself from making louder sounds.

The pain lasted about ten seconds before it gradually subsided.

Ella panted heavily. She twisted her head with difficulty and looked behind her.

A tentacle had extended from her tailbone. It was about two fingers thick, with a slightly swollen tip. Its surface was covered in a moist, semi-transparent membrane. It hung behind her like a real tail, the end curling slightly as if probing the surrounding environment.

She stared at the tentacle for two seconds, then looked away.

Now was not the time to study the changes in her body.

She lowered her head and looked at the clothes on her body. It was a set of black robes. The material was nothing special, and the tailoring was not particularly refined. The only fashionable thing about it was probably the contrast it created with her silver hair — black and white.

“Tch… Such tasteless clothing…”

She muttered softly and used the hem of the black robe to wipe away the dried blood at the corner of her mouth.

Her gaze swept around the room. There were no weapons, no useful tools. Only one door, and behind that door, those failures.

She clenched her fists tightly.

Damn it.

I am me. I am the Insect Nest Will. These failures… If I were still a man—

She paused.

If she were still a man, she would definitely fuck them all senseless, fuck them all into ahegao faces.

This thought stayed in her mind for less than half a second before it was interrupted by a knocking sound.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The rhythm of the knocking was even and short, like a notification: I’m coming in. It doesn’t matter if you’re ready or not.

The door was pushed open.

Zhuluo stood at the doorway.

She had changed her clothes. She was now wearing a black gauze skirt that reached the middle of her thighs. When she walked, the hem would gently flutter with her steps, revealing the lines of her legs wrapped in fishnet stockings.

On her feet were a pair of black high heels with slender heels. They made crisp, rhythmic sounds as they stepped on the corridor floor.

In her hands, she carried a new tray. Once again, it was a piece of bread and a cup of milk.

Zhuluo walked into the room. Her golden pupils glowed faintly in the dim light. Her gaze first paused on Ella’s face for a moment, then moved downward, sweeping over the black robe on her body before stopping behind her.

“Your Majesty, you need to eat.”

Her voice was as flat as always.

Then her eyebrows lifted slightly.

“Hm? A tail?”

Zhuluo’s gaze lingered on the tentacle for about two seconds. A trace of doubt appeared in her golden pupils. It was the first time Ella had seen a clear emotional reaction on this spider girl’s face.

It seemed she was unsure what the tentacle was or what it meant.

Good opportunity!

“Failure!”

Ella’s voice exploded in the room.

“Become nutrients for the swarm!”

She charged forward.

This body — this slender, fragile girl’s body covered in countless wounds from the chains — erupted with a speed even she had not expected.

Her legs kicked hard against the ground. The hem of the black robe fluttered loudly in the air. Her silver hair trailed behind her like a streak of light.

She rushed in front of Zhuluo.

Her hands grabbed Zhuluo’s wrists.

The moist, semi-transparent tentacle that had grown from her tailbone shot out from behind her like a snake. With near-instinctive precision, it headed straight between Zhuluo’s legs.

As long as it pierced in, as long as the DNA was injected, as long as this failure was turned into an incubator—

Her heartbeat pounded like war drums at this moment.

Then!

“You are still not sober enough.”

Zhuluo’s voice drifted down from above her head. It was still flat, still lacking fluctuation, and even carried a trace of almost imperceptible helplessness.

Ella’s vision suddenly spun.

Eight spider legs unfolded from behind Zhuluo, like eight curved blades unsheathed at the same time. They did not emerge from inside her clothes, but extended from below her shoulder blades, from her waist, and even from under the hem of her skirt. Those positions perfectly matched the distribution of a spider’s eight legs.

Four of the legs instantly clamped onto Ella’s tentacle.

The tips of the spider legs had sharp barbs. They sank deeply into the soft tissue at the end of the tentacle, like four needles piercing a piece of tender flesh at the same time.

“Aaahhh! Let go!”

The pain came faster than any time before. That tentacle was not something “grown” on her body — it was a part of her body, filled with nerve endings just like her fingers or tongue. With every bit the barbs sank in, her consciousness was torn apart.

“Please wait a moment.”

Zhuluo’s voice remained that maddening calm. Her eight legs firmly controlled Ella’s tentacle. She did not cause further harm, but showed no sign of letting go either.

The four legs holding the tentacle maintained just the right amount of force — enough to prevent Ella from breaking free, and enough to make her too afraid to struggle hard.

“Someone more suitable will come to receive you soon.”

“First! First let go of my tentacle!”

Ella’s voice had already taken on a crying tone. She released Zhuluo’s wrists. Her entire body arched from the pain, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

“It hurts! It hurts, it hurts!”

Zhuluo first raised an eyebrow, seemingly surprised that this level of pain could make the noble Insect Mother show such an expression. Then she released her.

One by one, the legs withdrew from the tentacle. When the barbs pulled out of the soft tissue, they brought out thin strands of transparent fluid. Ella collapsed onto the ground like a broken string. She held the deformed tip of her tentacle with both hands and gently stroked it.

Four deep dents were left on the tip of the tentacle, as if it had been bitten.

She raised her head and glared viciously at Zhuluo.

Zhuluo had already retracted her spider legs back into her body, once again becoming that tall, expressionless girl wearing a black gauze skirt.

She bent down, picked up the tray that had fallen to the ground, and stood up again. The bread was still there. Some milk had spilled, but the cup had not broken.

She placed the tray in front of Ella, then straightened up and turned toward the door.