Chapter 46: The Star-Devouring Moth
"How charming."
Ruan Mei's voice was a soft, clinical murmur as she conducted her routine examination. Today, Rekka was walking the Path of Propagation. While Herta herself was currently absent from the Herta Space Station, Ruan Mei had stepped in to observe. Rekka had assumed the form of a massive, terrifyingly complex insect. Thankfully, having mentally prepared himself for today's daily cosmic roulette, he managed to keep his mandibles to himself. No catastrophic incidents had occurred. Yet.
"The fear response has vanished, hasn't it?" Ruan Mei noted, her emerald eyes tracking the micro-twitches of his antennae.
"Partially," Rekka clicked, his voice vibrating through a series of chitinous plates. "I can suppress the urge to panic now." He instinctively shrank back, his massive blue-purple carapace scraping against the reinforced alloy floor of the Seclusion Zone. "So, could you please stop looking at me like that? Thank you."
It was that look. The exact, unnerving gaze a biologist gave a particularly fascinating, perfectly preserved specimen right before reaching for the scalpel.
Ruan Mei set her data tablet on a nearby console. Her slender fingers retrieved a transparent test tube from a sterile rack. Inside sloshed a pale blue, gel-like substance, its surface shimmering with a faint, unnatural fluorescence.
"What is that?" Rekka asked, his compound eyes whirring as they focused on the vial.
"A nutritional supplement." She extended the glass tube toward his massive, terrifying jaws. "Your caloric and Imaginary energy consumption is exceptionally high in this state. I specifically concocted this replenishment formula for your current biological parameters. Give it a try."
"There aren't going to be any surprise side effects, right?" Rekka eyed the glowing sludge with deep suspicion. "Like causing me to uncontrollably undergo mitosis and split into hundreds of tiny, ravenous bugs?"
"None," she replied, her tone perfectly even. "It is purely to replenish your physical stamina. You explicitly stated you wished to be treated with equal respect. Therefore, I will not conduct any unauthorized biological tampering without your prior consent."
With a flick of her wrist, Ruan Mei brought up a holographic projection screen right in front of his face. "These, however, are the subjects I intend to research."
Rekka stared at the impossibly dense, endlessly scrolling list of invasive biological projects and let out a sharp, clicking gasp.
"This is merely the preliminary outline," she added mildly. "Once the actual research commences, the number of projects will multiply several times over."
'Multiply several times over...' Rekka's glowing antennae drooped, going completely limp against his head.
"Open."
Resigned to his fate as a guinea pig, Rekka parted his layered, terrifyingly sharp mandibles. Ruan Mei carefully poured the glowing blue gel into his maw. It tasted faintly of ozone and synthetic sugar.
As he swallowed, Ruan Mei suddenly turned her head, her gaze shifting toward the reinforced observation window looking out into the starry void.
"...Are you interested in participating in a special experiment?"
Meanwhile, in a dark, quiet corner of the cosmos, a different conversation was taking place.
"Zandar One Kuwabara. The first Genius in history."
"The guy who supposedly created Nous?"
"Yes. If the legends hold any truth, he is the mortal man who built an Aeon."
"It's better if the legend isn't true," a younger, distinctly bored voice replied. "I have zero desire to add Zandar Hunter to my resume."
Silver Wolf leaned against the cold metal bulkhead, her silver-gray spiral ponytails floating slightly in the low gravity. She casually chewed on a piece of synthetic bubblegum, her fingers flying across a holographic keyboard projected from her wrist.
Pop.
The pink bubble burst, sticking briefly to her lips before she sucked it back in.
"Is that Rekka guy really going to be an aid on her Path as a Trailblazer?" Silver Wolf asked, her eyes never leaving her game screen. "I'm not gonna lie, I was actually pretty startled when I hacked into the Astral Express database to take a peek at him. The guy's data is a total mess."
"As long as we follow the script, we will arrive at the correct future," Kafka replied. Her voice was smooth, a dark velvet purr that carried absolute certainty.
"Randomly switching Paths every single day, completely altering his physical form and power system, yet still retaining all his memories and accumulated knowledge..." Silver Wolf tapped a rapid sequence of keys, pulling up a glitched, shifting wireframe model of Rekka. "Did Elio's script really account for a walking anomaly like this? I hate dealing with unreasonable bugs in the code. It ruins the game balance."
Despite her complaints, Silver Wolf's expression remained as nonchalant as ever.
"As long as his goals align with the Astral Express, he will be her most solid backup," Kafka said, a faint, knowing smile playing on her lips. "We only need to ensure that he does not deviate from the script at the key junctures. The rest is just entertainment."
"I hope so."
"Now is not the time to make contact." Kafka turned, her heels clicking softly against the floor grating as she walked into the depths of the shadows. "Prepare yourself, Silver Wolf. It will soon be time for our grand entrance."
Bang.
A Voidranger of the Antimatter Legion crumpled to the floor, its twisted, chaotic form dissolving into dark ash.
Silver Wolf blew another bubble, glancing at the dissipating enemy. "This level of mob strength isn't going to be enough to stop the crew of the Astral Express. They'll just farm them for drops."
"It doesn't matter," Kafka's voice drifted back from the gloom. "Three Doomsday Beasts are also en route."
Silver Wolf paused her game, blinking in genuine surprise. "Three? Isn't that overkill? The server might crash."
"I was actually wondering if three was too conservative," Kafka mused softly. "After all... our unpredictable friend is a very large insect today."
WEE-OOO! WEE-OOO! WEE-OOO!
The piercing shriek of the highest-level emergency alarm instantly shattered the sterile tranquility of the Herta Space Station. The soft, ambient blue lighting lining the pristine corridors was violently overridden, plunging the entire facility into a glaring, bloody red.
Heavy blast doors slammed down from the ceilings with bone-rattling force. The deafening crash of colliding metal echoed through the massive expanse of the Master Control Zone, locking down sectors in a desperate bid for survival.
Deep inside the Seclusion Zone, the massive blue-purple insect that had been resting on the floor with drooping antennae suddenly snapped to attention.
Rekka hoisted his upper body off the ground. His crystalline optical structure, composed of thousands of hexagonal compound eyes, flashed frantically. He could feel it. A suffocating, violent fluctuation of Imaginary energy tearing through the vacuum outside the space station. His thick, armored carapace creaked as his muscles tensed, reacting to the sheer hostility radiating from the void.
A jagged, bleeding rift tore open across the sea of stars. From the dark, swirling vortex of destruction, a tide of twisted monsters belonging to the Antimatter Legion poured forth.
"Doomsday Beasts..." Ruan Mei walked calmly to the reinforced observation window, her hands clasped behind her back. "Three of them. The space station's outermost defensive grid will collapse in exactly forty-eight seconds. Voidrangers of the Antimatter Legion have already breached the hull and invaded the Storage Zone. Their singular goal is the absolute destruction of all orderly structures."
She turned her head slightly, looking at the giant insect. "I am quite curious. When the shadow of death approaches, will you choose to release your biological restrictions and create a Swarm tsunami to consume them? Or will you attempt to use this singular physical shell to go head-to-head with three planetary-class weapons of destruction?"
Hummmmm—
Rekka had absolutely no patience to entertain her cold, academic curiosity.
The thick, armored elytra on his back snapped open with a sharp crack. The complex network of blue-purple fluorescent veins running along his translucent inner wings instantly ignited, erupting with a blinding, radioactive light.
BOOM!!!
The sound of indestructible chitin colliding with reinforced space-station alloy was deafening. Rekka didn't bother looking for the door. He simply launched himself upward, smashing a massive, jagged crater straight through the ceiling of the Seclusion Zone. Twisted metal fragments, sparking wires, and chunks of synthetic insulation rained down like confetti.
Forcing his colossal frame through the breach, Rekka squeezed out of the laboratory and began charging wildly through the station's corridors. He was far too large for the architecture. Thick coolant pipes lining the walls groaned and ruptured, twisted and deformed by the sheer bulk of his passing body. The red emergency lights shattered in rapid succession, exploding into showers of glass as his bladed limbs tore through the bulkheads.
Hum-hum-hum-hum-hum-hum—!
The terrifying, high-frequency vibration of his wings shook the very foundations of the station. Now was not the time for restraint. Even if the Astral Express crew was destined to resolve this invasion according to the plot, Rekka had zero intention of sitting back and hiding while his friends were in danger.
He tapped into the core essence of his current Path. The terrifying power of Propagation.
One. Two. Four. Eight. Sixteen. Thirty-two. Sixty-four. One hundred and twenty-eight. Two hundred and fifty-six. Five hundred and twelve. One thousand and twenty-four!
A horrifying, endless wave of the Swarm surged out from the gaping hole he had left in the Seclusion Zone. They didn't spawn one by one. They multiplied exponentially in fractions of a second, forming a true, suffocating insect tide.
The vanguard of the Antimatter Legion had just breached the sector. A squad of Voidrangers rushed around the corner, holding high their glowing, jagged blades condensed from pure antimatter field generators.
They opened their twisted maws to let out a hoarse, bloodcurdling battle cry.
They never got the chance.
Like a bursting dam, the corridor ahead of them flooded with a massive, screeching wall of True Stings.
The Voidrangers in the front ranks didn't even have the time to swing their weapons. In the blink of an eye, each Legionnaire was violently tackled to the floor by seven or eight True Stings simultaneously.
Razor-sharp, chewing mouthparts clamped down with hydraulic force, directly crushing the exposed joints of the Voidrangers that lacked antimatter shielding. Barbed, scythe-like limbs pierced straight through their armored skulls, pinning them to the deck plates.
These were not ordinary, mindless bugs. Under Rekka's direct command, they were high-ranking Pathstriders of the Propagation. Every single one of them possessed the strength to tear through steel like wet paper.
In the Master Control Zone, Lead Researcher Asta stared blankly at the tactical monitors. The data terminal in her trembling hand slipped, nearly clattering to the floor.
What... what was she looking at?
An insect infestation? Here? Now?
She zoomed in on the security feeds, her breath catching in her throat. No. It wasn't just an infestation. The Swarm... the Swarm was actively resisting the Antimatter Legion? And they were slaughtering them.
Outside the station, the three colossal Doomsday Beasts emitted a deafening, overlapping roar that distorted the local gravity field. Yet, mid-rampage, all three leviathans simultaneously halted their assault. Their hideous, bone-plated heads snapped in unison, turning their hollow, glowing eyes toward the Base Zone of the Herta Space Station.
Their primal instincts screamed at them. They felt it. An extremely pure, ancient threat awakening from within the metal shell.
KRA-KOOM!
A massive section of the Base Zone's outer hull exploded outward with an devastating roar. Rekka's unbelievably massive Insect Emperor form smashed straight through several meters of reinforced titanium plating, erupting from the station and launching himself into the cold, unforgiving vacuum of space.
Behind him, a literal river of countless blue-purple True Stings surged out of the breach. They fanned out behind their Emperor, forming a giant, pulsating fluorescent net that stretched across the starry void.
'Tear. Gnaw. Split. Consume until the world ends!'
The three spatial rifts tearing through the cosmos constantly spewed out massive waves of Legion monsters. In response, the giant insect Emperor flapped his glowing wings, sending out a psychic command that echoed through the Imaginary Tree. The True Stings continuously split, doubling, quadrupling, filling the void with their terrifying numbers.
In the dark expanse of space, the endless Swarm and the chaotic Antimatter Legion crashed into each other, instantly locking into a brutal, grinding stalemate of flesh, chitin, and dark energy.
The battle was fierce, but Rekka had only just unlocked his splitting restrictions. Deep down, a sliver of human consciousness was still holding back his true, apocalyptic strength, terrified of losing himself entirely to the Aeon's primal instinct.
Violent bursts of Imaginary energy manifested as dull, heavy thuds in the vacuum, sending shockwaves that rattled against his outer shell and struck directly at his mind.
Sensing his hesitation, two of the Doomsday Beasts flanked him. One on the left, one on the right. They maneuvered their massive, sky-blotting bodies to firmly block Rekka's retreat back to the space station, boxing him into a kill zone.
Rekka let out a furious hiss, raising his pair of massive, sickle-like forelimbs. He forcibly braced himself, catching the right-side Doomsday Beast as it lunged at him with its jaws wide open. The collision of these two overwhelmingly powerful forces stirred up a visible, swirling frenzy of raw energy in the vacuum.
However, because Rekka was still deliberately suppressing the terrifying instinct within him, the urge that screamed at him to infinitely propagate and consume the entire star system, his Imaginary energy barrier flickered. Against the combined might of three planetary destroyers, his defenses were proving somewhat inadequate.
A massive, bone-spiked tail lashed out from his blind spot, slamming brutally into his flank.
CRACK!
His supposedly indestructible blue-purple carapace made a sickening, teeth-grinding sound under the sheer kinetic force of the whip-strike. A huge, jagged gash rolled open along his side. Thick, glowing blood spilled into the vacuum like floating sapphire droplets.
But the Path of Propagation did not know defeat. The moment those sapphire droplets of blood hit the void, they rapidly expanded, violently transforming into even more True Stings to join the fray.
Rekka's massive body trembled violently from the impact. A sharp, furious buzzing sound erupted from his vibrating wings, echoing directly into the minds of everything on the battlefield.
'Grow larger. Grow even larger!'
Fueled by their Emperor's pain, the insect tide surged forward with renewed, terrifying ferocity, utterly fearless of death as they threw themselves at the Doomsday Beasts.
Back inside the ruined Seclusion Zone, Ruan Mei stood calmly by the shattered remnants of the observation window. Her tranquil green eyes reflected the chaotic, swirling sea of blue-purple insects fighting in the void outside.
"The splitting rate is still far from reaching its theoretical peak," she murmured to herself, analyzing the data streaming across her tablet. "Are you truly still unwilling to release your restrictions, even now?"
She let out a soft sigh and shook her head.
Suddenly, the orbital cannon matrix on the periphery of the space station roared to life. The massive turrets emitted a dazzling, blinding light as they charged to maximum capacity. Thick, high-energy plasma beams cut through the dark vacuum, accurately striking the exposed flank of the Doomsday Beast pinning Rekka down.
Hum-hum-hum-hum-hum-hum...
Seizing the opening, Rekka violently pulled back. The sapphire blood boiling in his veins ignited. His physical form began to rapidly expand, his carapace thickening, his scythes lengthening, becoming even more massive, more terrifying, and infinitely more aggressive.
He was no longer just a Pathstrider. He was the embodiment of the Swarm.
The Saprophyte. The Crystalline Insect Emperor. The Star-Devouring Moth.
[Inorin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me and keeps these daily updates flowing!
Want to read 50 chapters ahead or just want to help keep a shameless translator alive? (My livelihood actually depends on this, haha 😭). You can support me directly here:
(P.S. Just remove the brackets and replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters): patreon[.]com/InorinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/InorinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]