Just as Ella was about to drive the needle-sharp tip of her tentacle into Yiwen’s body, Yiwen barely lifted her head.
The face that was always gentle and scholarly was now pressed against the bloodstained floor.
Her long red hair lay scattered across the planks, mingling with the dried bloodstains.
But her eyes—those red pupils—stared straight at Ella with a subtle, never-before-seen look.
Serious. Solemn. It carried such weight that it left Ella momentarily stunned.
It was like the moment your mother suddenly called you by your full name—you instantly knew you were done for.
“Ella.”
Yiwen’s voice was quiet. Not “Your Majesty.” Not “you.” Just her name—Ella.
“What?”
Ella lifted her chin, trying hard to maintain her superior posture, but a faint trace of unease crept into her voice without her realizing it.
“What else do you want to say?”
“Admit it.”
The corners of Yiwen’s mouth curved into an arc. It was neither mocking nor provocative, but one of quiet certainty and composure.
“You’re looking at me with extremely rude eyes.”
Ella blinked.
Rude?
Her tentacle still hovered above the back of Yiwen’s neck, the needle tip less than two centimeters from that fair skin.
Her Tyrant still stood beside them, one arm pinning Yiwen’s shoulder down.
She held absolute control. She was the victor. She was the one giving orders.
What could possibly be rude about that? And even if it was, so what?
Still, she forced her expression to calm.
The excited gleam in her crimson pupils faded.
She pressed her lips together and adjusted her face from “smug and triumphant” to “serious and composed.”
“The you who keeps getting mesmerized by my body is no longer the cold, profit-driven Insect Mother you once were.”
Ella’s brows furrowed.
“How am I not?!”
Her voice rose instinctively. She had been hit right where it hurt.
“I dragged you back here specifically to breed! I need to expand the swarm!”
“No, you don’t.”
Yiwen’s smile deepened.
“You just want to sleep with me.”
Ella’s face flushed crimson from the base of her neck all the way to the tips of her ears.
“I—I…!”
Her voice caught in her throat. Her mouth opened and closed, closed and opened again.
Countless rebuttals flashed through her mind—she was the Insect Mother, she needed to reproduce, she needed to expand the swarm, Yiwen was merely a tool to achieve her goal, she felt nothing extra toward her, none at all, absolutely none—but every single one of those reasons spun on the tip of her tongue before retreating.
No! Impossible!
She had never thought that way. Even if—even if she had! It was only incidental! Incidental!
“Then why don’t you prove it?”
Yiwen’s voice was slow and unhurried, carrying the calm poise of a teacher calling on a student in class.
“How do I prove it?”
Ella answered almost on instinct, then immediately regretted it.
“You’ve already lost.”
Yiwen’s red pupils reflected Ella’s flushed face.
“The very fact that you feel the need to prove it shows you’re no longer pure.”
“You—you’re cheating!”
Ella’s tone turned almost petulant, though she herself didn’t notice.
“You’re the one who told me to prove it!”
“Then go ahead.”
Yiwen’s voice suddenly grew serious.
Her gaze left Ella’s face and drifted toward the small mountain of werewolf corpses piled in the corridor.
Fresh dark red blood still seeped from them, slowly trickling along the gaps in the floorboards and gleaming eerily in the firelight.
“Don’t forget that right now, even as a woman, you yourself are an excellent breeding vessel.”
Her voice was soft, but every word was crystal clear.
“Go on. While these werewolf corpses are still warm, collect their DNA and give birth to an even better swarm yourself.”
Ella’s body froze solid.
“What?!”
Her voice cracked sharply, nearly breaking.
“I don’t want to!”
Her hands clenched unconsciously, nails digging into her palms.
“I’m a guy, okay?! I’m just trapped inside this female body because of you people! If it weren’t for you, right now I—”
She stopped mid-sentence.
Because she suddenly realized something.
She couldn’t continue.
“So you’ve realized it too.”
“You can’t do it. The so-called indifference, the willingness to sacrifice and devote everything for the swarm—none of that applies to you.”
She paused.
“The reason is simple: because you’re human.”
Her gaze met Ella’s directly.
“Understand now? The reason you became like that before was because the Insect Nest’s will was controlling you.”
The corridor fell silent for a heartbeat.
Ella remained squatting there, her tentacle still hovering in mid-air, but the taut tension at its tip had vanished.
Her gaze stayed fixed on Yiwen’s face, on those red, serious pupils that held not a trace of teasing.
She opened her mouth.
Then asked a different question.
“You stopped calling me ‘you’ or ‘Your Majesty.’ Why?”
Yiwen looked at her.
Then she smiled and did something even more outrageous.
The red-haired older sister gave her upper body a deliberate little shake, slipping the already-loosened undergarment completely off.
Those massive breasts appeared before Ella’s eyes—pale and luminous, trembling faintly in the firelight.
Ella’s gaze locked onto them as if magnetized.
Her pupils dilated.
Her lips parted slightly.
Her breath hitched.
“Because you saw it too.”
Yiwen’s voice floated up from beneath her, laced with open amusement.
“Right now you’re just a little kid who can’t stop sneaking peeks at me.”
Ella’s face burned from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes.
“I—I! No!”
Her voice rose to a near-scream.
Her eyes bounced away from Yiwen’s chest—up to the ceiling, over to the wall, onto the Nest Tyrant’s six crimson eyes—then snapped straight back.
“Anyway!”
She sucked in a deep breath, trying to restore the dignity an Insect Mother should possess.
But her voice still trembled with unmistakable panic and frustration.
She was too busy explaining herself to notice that the previously motionless Nest Tyrant had begun to move.
The arm equipped with the bone blade lifted.
Its edge glinted coldly in the firelight, the cracks and nicks from the earlier slaughter still visible—yet it remained deadly sharp, still capable of slicing a person in two in an instant.
The bone blade aimed straight at Yiwen.
“Watch out!”
The instant Ella’s voice exploded, her body reacted faster than her brain.
Her hands slid from Yiwen’s shoulders to her waist.
She shoved hard, wrapping her arms around the older woman as she dove sideways.
The bone blade came down.
It brushed past Yiwen’s hair and slammed into the floor, carving a deep gouge.
Splinters flew in every direction, striking Ella’s back with stinging pain.
Ella and Yiwen slammed into the corridor wall and stopped.
Ella’s back pressed against the wood. Yiwen lay on top of her, their faces so close Ella could see the exact curve of every eyelash.
Ella’s breathing came fast and ragged.
Her heart hammered wildly inside her chest.
She turned her head and looked at the Nest Tyrant.
It still stood in the center of the corpse pile, six crimson pupils fixed in their direction.
The bone blade remained embedded in the floor, slowly being withdrawn as wood chips pattered down from the crack.
Ella was certain.
She had not given the Tyrant any order to attack.
“It’s the Insect Nest’s will.”
Yiwen’s voice came from beside her ear, calm and certain, as if she had expected this all along.
“It’s controlling the Tyrant.”
Ella’s pupils contracted slightly.
“Impossible…”
Her voice was filled with disbelief.
She stared at the Nest Tyrant, sinking her consciousness into the mental network that linked them.
The signal was still there. The connection was still there.
She could feel the Tyrant’s presence, its heartbeat, the tension in every muscle fiber inside its body.
But something was wrong.
She had never encountered this before. She was the Insect Mother.
She was the sole master of the swarm. Her will was the highest, the absolute, the one that stood above all else.
This was the faith she had spent ten years building—the very foundation of her existence as the Insect Mother.
Yet now a crack had appeared in that foundation.
Her hand tightened unconsciously.
Then she felt something.
Her fingers had closed around something soft, warm, elastic, with a small, firm peak at the center.
Her fingers lingered there for a fraction of a second.
Then her brain finally processed the signal traveling back from her fingertips.
Her blood ran ice-cold from the top of her head to the soles of her feet, then surged back up in a burning rush.
“Ella~”
Yiwen’s voice drifted up from beneath her, extremely gentle.
“Take your hand off.”
Ella looked down.
She saw her own hand.
It was placed perfectly, fingers spread wide, covering…
Yiwen’s left breast.
Her fingertips were resting directly on that small, firm peak.
Her lips twitched.
“…”
She couldn’t speak. Not a single word.
Her face had gone far beyond “red.” From forehead to chin, from ear tips to neck, every inch of exposed skin had turned a deep crimson—as if scalded by boiling water, scorched by fire, or left baking under the sun for three full days and nights.
She tried to pull her hand away.
But her fingers refused to obey.
They felt glued to Yiwen’s breast, unable to move, unable to release, unable even to curl.
Her brain issued the command—”remove your hand”—but somewhere between her mind and her arm, the signal was intercepted, altered, and rewritten into…
“just a little longer.”
Oh… so that’s what a breast feels like… she had accidentally touched it here… haha…
“Hurry!”
Yiwen’s voice rose, carrying a rare note of embarrassment and urgency that had never appeared in her tone before.
“Sorry!”
After blurting the apology, Ella looked back at the Tyrant.
It now stood there like a warm statue, the bone blade fully withdrawn from the floor with no further intent to attack.