“Huh?!”
She woke with a start.
Her consciousness was violently yanked up from the depths of the sea.
The sudden change in pressure made her eardrums buzz.
Ella’s body, leaning against the corner, jerked hard.
Her hands instinctively grabbed at the air, clutching at nothing.
“Ha— Ha— Ha—”
Her breathing was rapid and heavy.
Every exhale carried a near-spasmodic tremble.
Her chest heaved violently.
Silver hair stuck messily to her cheeks and forehead, soaked with cold sweat and clumped together.
Her pupils dilated for a moment, then quickly refocused.
She wanted—
She wanted…
To reproduce.
When the word surged up from the depths of her consciousness, it did not come as a mere thought.
It arrived as a physiological imperative—like hunger, like thirst, like a drowning person’s desperate craving for air.
It was irrational.
It bypassed all rational filters, shooting straight from her spinal cord into every cell of her body.
The effect was so intense that she couldn’t help but clamp her legs together tightly.
Even that simple action brought a powerful wave of pleasure threatening to spill out.
Ella clenched her teeth.
As the Insect Mother, she didn’t actually need to lay eggs herself.
The fluids in her body contained certain microorganisms.
As long as there were enough of them, they could form a bacterial carpet from which the most basic worker insects would slowly emerge.
This was the method she had used ten years ago when she first started—a drop at a time, slowly cultivating her first worker insect at the bottom of a small skiff.
It was too slow.
Ten years ago, she still had the patience to develop slowly and expand her swarm gradually. But now—she had just been dragged down from the throne of absolute rule.
Her insect nest was still smoking on the sea surface.
Her hundreds of thousands of insects had been reduced to ashes.
She wanted it immediately.
She wanted to return to her position as the true ruler right away.
She was incredibly… incredibly… hungry for it.
That craving scorched the walls of her stomach. Her fingers unconsciously scratched deep grooves into the floor. She thought of another method.
As the Insect Mother, her body contained the DNA of all the unlocked insect types.
She didn’t need to start from scratch by cultivating a bacterial carpet—she could directly inject this DNA into suitable hosts, turning the hosts into mothers that would incubate the eggs.
For example, those failures aboard this ship.
They had been cultivated by her using the nest’s secretions and DNA fragments from various 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 would yield 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 outside. It originated deep within her body—from the end of her spine.
It felt as if a ball of fire was burning at her tailbone, as if something was growing out from her bones, pushing through muscle and skin, extending outward bit by bit.
She bit down hard on the back of her hand to stop herself from making louder sounds.
The pain lasted roughly ten seconds before it subsided.
Ella panted heavily. She twisted her head with difficulty and looked behind her.
A tentacle had extended from her tailbone. It was about as thick as two fingers, 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 it probed its surroundings.
She stared at the tentacle for two seconds, then looked away.
Now was not the time to study the changes in her body.
She looked down at the clothes on her body. It was a black robe.
The material was nothing special, and the tailoring was mediocre.
The only stylish thing about it was how it contrasted with her silver hair—black and white.
“Tch… Such tasteless clothing…”
She muttered under her breath and used the hem of the black robe to wipe the dried blood from the corner of her mouth.
Her gaze swept around the room.
No weapons.
No useful tools.
Only a door, and behind that door, those failures.
She clenched her fists tightly.
Damn it.
I am who I am. I am the will of the nest. These failures—if I were still a man—
She paused.
If she were still a man, she would fuck them all senseless until they made perfect ahegao faces.
The thought lingered in her mind for less than half a second before it was interrupted by a knock on the door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
It was not a question or a probe.
The rhythm was even and brief, like a simple notification—I’m coming in. Whether you’re ready or not doesn’t matter.
The door was pushed open.
Zhuluo stood at the entrance.
She had changed clothes.
She now wore a black gauze skirt that reached mid-thigh.
With every step, the hem fluttered gently, revealing the lines of her legs wrapped in fishnet stockings.
On her feet were a pair of black high heels.
The slender heels clicked crisply and rhythmically against the corridor floor.
She was carrying a new tray—another piece of bread and a cup of milk.
Zhuluo entered the room.
Her golden pupils gleamed faintly in the dim light. Her gaze first lingered on Ella’s face for a moment, then moved downward, sweeping over the black robe, over her clenched fists, and finally—
It stopped behind her.
“Your Majesty, you need to eat.”
Her voice was as flat as always.
Then her eyebrows rose slightly.
“Hm? A tail?”
Zhuluo’s gaze lingered on the tentacle for about two seconds.
A trace of confusion appeared in her golden pupils—the first time Ella had seen a clear emotional reaction on this spider girl’s face.
It wasn’t fear or wariness, just pure, curious puzzlement.
It seemed she wasn’t sure what the tentacle was or what it meant.
Perfect opportunity.
“Failure!”
Ella’s voice exploded in the room.
“Become nutrients for the swarm!”
She moved.
This body—this slender, fragile, girl’s body covered in countless chain wounds—burst forth with a speed even she hadn’t expected.
Her legs kicked hard against the floor.
The hem of her black robe whipped through the air. Silver hair streamed behind her like a streak of light.
She charged straight at Zhuluo.
Her hands grabbed the spider girl’s wrists.
The tentacle—the moist, semi-transparent one that had grown from her tailbone—shot out from behind her like a snake.
With near-instinctive precision, it went straight for the area beneath Zhuluo.
All she needed was to pierce in, inject the DNA, and turn this failure into an incubator—
Her heart pounded like war drums in that moment.
Then—
“You’re still not sober enough.”
Zhuluo’s voice drifted down from above her head, still flat, still lacking inflection, even carrying a trace of almost imperceptible helplessness.
Ella’s vision suddenly spun.
Eight spider legs extended from Zhuluo’s back, like eight unsheathed scimitars.
They did not emerge from within her clothes but sprouted from below her shoulder blades, her waist, and even from beneath the hem of her skirt—positions that perfectly matched a spider’s eight legs.
Four of the legs instantly seized Ella’s tentacle.
They did not simply grab it.
They clamped down.
The tips of the spider legs were equipped with extremely sharp barbs that sank deep into the soft tissue at the end of the tentacle, like four needles piercing tender flesh at once.
“Ahhh! Let go!”
The pain hit faster than any previous time.
That tentacle was not merely something “growing” from her body—it was a part of her body, filled with nerve endings just like her fingers or tongue.
With every fraction the barbs dug in, her consciousness felt like it was being torn apart.
“Please wait a moment.”
Zhuluo’s voice remained maddeningly calm.
Her eight spider legs held Ella’s tentacle firmly.
She did not cause further harm, but showed no sign of letting go either.
The four legs gripping the tentacle maintained the perfect amount of pressure—just enough to keep Ella from breaking free, just enough to make her afraid to struggle harder.
“Someone more suitable will come to receive you shortly.”
“First! First let go of my tentacle!”
Ella’s voice had already taken on a tearful tone. She released Zhuluo’s wrists.
Her 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 esteemed Insect Mother show such an expression. Then she released her.
One by one, the spider legs withdrew from the tentacle.
As the barbs pulled out of the soft tissue, they brought with them thin strands of transparent fluid.
Ella collapsed to the floor like a broken puppet. She cradled the deformed tip of her tentacle with both hands, gently stroking it.
Four deep indentations had been left on the tentacle’s tip, as if it had been bitten.
She looked up at Zhuluo.
Zhuluo had already retracted her spider legs, once again becoming the tall, black-gauze-skirted, expressionless girl.
She bent down, picked up the tray that had fallen to the floor, and straightened it.
The bread was still there.
Some of the milk had spilled, but the cup had not broken.
She placed the tray in front of Ella, then stood up straight and turned toward the door.
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