“My… creation?”
Ella murmured the words again.
Her brain felt as if it had been stuffed full of paste.
She heard every word clearly, yet she couldn’t piece them together into anything meaningful.
“Yes.”
Dieyi took a step forward.
Shattered mirror fragments crunched faintly under the sole of her boot.
“The ‘Die’ in butterfly—Dieyi is my name.”
“We are those creations you viewed as failures and casually discarded like garbage.”
Failures.
Casually discarded.
Something clicked in her mind.
Ten years of cultivation history.
Thousands upon thousands of attempts.
Countless individuals that had crawled out of the culture vessels only to fail to meet expectations—some with an extra leg, some missing eyes, some too massive to control, others too weak and collapsing during the very first modification.
How had she dealt with those “failures”?
“You… you all…”
Ella’s voice began to tremble. It wasn’t fear—at least, she refused to admit it was fear.
“How are you still alive?”
The smile on Dieyi’s face froze the instant she heard those words.
It was as if someone had pressed pause on a painting.
Every line remained in place, but the temperature had completely changed.
“How could I die now?”
Her voice was soft, almost like she was talking to herself.
Then her volume shot up sharply, nearly turning into a roar.
“When a piece of trash like you is still alive?!”
“Ugh—!”
A hand clamped around Ella’s throat.
Five fingers dug in precisely, locking onto both sides of her windpipe.
The force was calculated to a horrifying degree.
It didn’t suffocate her, but every breath became a struggle against the pressure, like trying to drink through a flattened straw.
Ella’s body instinctively arched backward in an attempt to break free, but at the same moment, she felt a cold sensation around her wrists and ankles.
She looked down and saw two gray-white metal rings suddenly locked around her slender wrists.
The surface had no seams, as if they had been cast directly onto her skin.
Slender chains extended from the rings and were secured to the wall behind her.
Her ankles received the same treatment.
She was half-kneeling, limbs shackled, neck gripped.
She couldn’t move even a single finger.
Dieyi leaned down, bringing her beautiful face close to Ella’s.
So close that Ella could see the tiny scales clinging to her eyelashes and smell the fragrance coming off her—like flower petals crushed under sunlight.
Her lips were almost touching Ella’s ear. Each word carried a warm breath.
“As for me, I was the failure closest to success.”
Ella’s pupils trembled violently.
She remembered now.
Around the third or fourth year, she had cultivated an individual with high intelligence.
That one had spent far longer developing inside the culture vessel than any of the others.
When it broke out of its cocoon, the spiritual fluctuations it released were strong enough to surprise even her.
That individual possessed a human upper body and—
A pair of wings.
Butterfly wings.
However, its lower body had failed to develop properly.
Six insect-like abdominal limbs were twisted and deformed, unable to support standing or even normal walking.
Something like that? Why did her memory feel… off…
In any case, after observing it for three days, she had determined the individual had no practical value, and then…
Then what?
She couldn’t remember clearly.
She had probably ordered the worker insects to drag it away and dispose of it.
She wouldn’t waste even a shred of extra effort on these failures…
“Judging by your expression, you’ve remembered.”
Dieyi released her grip on Ella’s throat and straightened up.
Her smile had changed. The sweetness was gone, replaced by something vicious.
The corners of her mouth stretched into an exaggerated arc, revealing neat rows of teeth—like a terrifyingly patient predator that had finally watched its prey walk into the trap.
“The reason we’ve returned to this place of yours is naturally only one.”
She spoke slowly, emphasizing each word.
“We’ve come back for revenge.”
“Our creator.”
“Insect Mother.”
“Her Majesty Ella.”
Each title sounded like a step on a staircase, leading her 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—began struggling instinctively.
The chains rattled loudly as she pulled against them.
The skin on her wrists and ankles burned where the metal rings rubbed against it, but she couldn’t care less.
Her entire body was shaking, from her fingertips to the tips of her hair.
Even though she kept calling desperately for the Nest Tyrants in her mind to come save her, she received no response whatsoever.
On that originally exquisite and cold face, only one expression remained.
Fear.
Dieyi gazed at the terror on that face as if admiring a masterpiece she had waited her entire life to see completed.
Then, she did something Ella never expected.
She suddenly lifted her right foot backward.
Her right hand hooked the heel of her high-heeled boot in one smooth, elegant motion, like a step in a dance.
The high-heeled boot, adorned with fine scale powder, slipped off, revealing a foot wrapped in black stockings—the heel showing a faint pinkish tone beneath the black.
“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time.”
In the next instant, that foot came down.
It planted itself directly on the back of Ella’s head.
She forced Ella’s skull downward, lower and lower, until her forehead pressed against the cold floor.
Thud.
A soft impact sounded.
The pain in her forehead was dull and muffled, like being flicked on the head with a finger.
But what truly made Ella’s entire body go rigid was not the pain itself…
It was the position.
She was being stepped on the head and forced face-down onto the ground.
She was the Insect Mother!
The supreme existence on this island. The one who had even created the island itself!
And now she was being stepped on the head by a foot, pressed down onto the floor…
That foot didn’t stop there. Dieyi’s sole slowly rubbed against the back of Ella’s head.
The texture of the black stockings left warm trails across her scalp before continuing to press down harder, forcing Ella’s forehead even tighter against the ground.
“What’s wrong?”
Dieyi’s voice drifted down from above, carrying an almost delighted, lazy tone.
“My beloved creator, Your Majesty?”
Her foot ground down gently, as if stamping out a cigarette butt that still had a spark left.
“Go on, command your most trusted swarm. Come and kill me.”