Chapter 3: The Insect Mother Insulted by Creation.

“My… creation?”

Ella repeated the words in a murmur.

Her brain felt as if it had been filled with paste at this moment. She could hear every word clearly, yet she could not piece them together into any meaningful sentence.

“Yes.”

The pink-haired girl took one step forward. The broken mirror fragments made a faint crunching sound under her boots.

“Butterfly’s Die, Butterfly Wing. That is my name.”

“We are those creations that you regarded as failures, casually discarded like garbage.”

Failures.

Casually discarded.

Something came to her mind.

Ten years of cultivation history, thousands upon thousands of attempts, countless individuals that crawled out of the culture dishes but did not meet expectations. Some had an extra leg, some lacked eyes, some were too large to control, and some were too weak and collapsed during the first transformation.

How had she dealt with those “failures”?

“You… you all…”

Ella’s voice began to tremble. It was not fear. At least she refused to admit it was fear.

“How is it possible that you didn’t die?”

Butterfly Wing’s smile froze instantly upon hearing those words.

Every line on her face stayed in place, but the temperature had completely changed.

“How could I die now?”

The girl’s tone was calm, as if she were not in a conversation. Then her volume suddenly rose, almost to a roar.

“When a bastard like you is still alive!”

“Urgh—!”

A hand clamped around Ella’s neck.

Five fingers pressed down precisely, locking onto both sides of her trachea.

The force was terrifyingly accurate. It did not suffocate her, but every breath had to fight against that pressure, like trying to drink water through a flattened straw.

Ella’s body instinctively leaned backward, trying to break free from that hand. But at the same time, a cold sensation came from her wrists and ankles.

She lowered her head and saw two gray-white metal rings suddenly locked around her slender wrists. There were no seams on the surface, as if they had been directly cast onto her skin.

Thin chains extended from the rings and were fixed to the wall behind her. Her ankles received the same treatment.

In a half-kneeling position, with all four limbs restrained and her neck gripped.

She could not even move a single finger.

Butterfly Wing leaned down. That beautiful face came close to Ella’s, so close that Ella could see the tiny scales stuck to her eyelashes and smell the scent on her body, like crushed flower petals that had been dried under sunlight.

Her lips were almost touching Ella’s earlobe. Every word carried warm breath, yet held no warmth at all.

“As for me, I am the failure closest to success that you ever created.”

Ella’s pupils trembled violently.

She seemed to remember.

It was around the third or fourth year. She had once cultivated an individual with high intelligence. That individual had spent much longer developing inside the culture dish than any other. The mental fluctuations it released when breaking out of the cocoon were so strong that even she had felt a trace of surprise.

That individual possessed a human upper body, and…

A pair of wings.

Butterfly wings.

But the lower half of that individual’s body had not fully developed. The six insect-like abdominal limbs were twisted and deformed, unable to support standing, and could not even walk normally.

Was it something like that? What happened? Her memory seemed… a little strange…

Anyway, after observing it for three days, she had judged that this individual had no practical value, and then…

Then what?

She could not remember clearly. She probably had the worker insects drag it out and dispose of it. She would never waste even a tiny bit of extra effort on these failures…

“Looking at your expression, you must have remembered.”

Butterfly Wing released the hand gripping her neck and straightened up. Her smile had changed. The exaggerated sweet pinkness disappeared and turned ferocious.

The corners of her mouth stretched open to an exaggerated degree, revealing neat teeth inside.

“The purpose of our return to this place this time is naturally only one thing.”

She spoke word by word.

“We have come back to take revenge on you.”

“Our creator.”

“Insect Mother.”

“Her Majesty Ella.”

Each title sounded like a step. She stepped on these steps, walking higher and higher toward a peak of madness.

“Toward you.”

She took a deep breath, as if savoring every trace of fear in the air.

“Re—venge—”

The silver-haired girl, Ella, subconsciously began to struggle. The chains rattled loudly. The skin on her wrists and ankles was rubbed raw by the metal rings, but she could not care about that. Her body was trembling. From her fingertips to the tips of her hair, every inch was shaking.

Even though she called for the Nest Tyrants to rescue her again and again in her mind, she ultimately received no response.

On that originally delicate and cold face, there was now only one expression left.

Fear.

Butterfly Wing looked at the fear on that face. She was admiring it, enjoying it. This was a beautiful painting she had spent her entire life finally completing.

Then, she did something Ella had not expected at all.

She suddenly lifted her right foot backward. Her right hand hooked onto the heel of her high-heeled boot. The movement was smooth and elegant, like a step in a dance.

The high-heeled boot adorned with fine scales was removed, revealing a heel wrapped in black stockings, slightly pinkish-black in color.

“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time.”

The next instant, that foot came down.

It stepped directly onto the back of Ella’s head.

She forced Ella’s head down, lower and lower, until her forehead touched the cold ground.

Bang.

A soft impact sound.

The pain from her forehead was dull and muffled, like someone flicking her forehead with a finger. But what really made Ella’s entire body stiffen was not the pain itself…

It was the position.

She was being stepped on the head and pressed against the ground.

She was the Insect Mother!

The supreme existence on this island. Even the island itself had been created by her!

Being stepped on the head by a foot and forced to lie on the ground…

That foot did not stop there. Butterfly Wing’s sole slowly rubbed against the back of her head. The texture of the black stockings left warm traces on her scalp, then continued to apply pressure, pressing her forehead even tighter against the ground.

“What’s wrong?”

Butterfly Wing’s voice came from above, carrying a nearly pleasurable, lazy tone.

“My dear creator, Your Majesty?”

Her sole lightly ground down. The action looked as if she were stepping on some kind of trash, or a cigarette butt.

“Go on, command your most trusted swarm to come and kill me.”