On the star chart, the red dots representing Zerg life signs quickly faded in batches.
Jiang Lijin sat in the command chair of the dreadnought. Her mental network spread out, covering the entire front-line starfield. Her purifying force gave the frontline soldiers complete freedom to fight harder, pushing the insect swarm to the brink of destruction.
At that moment, deep within the dark and reeking hive nest, Su Wanwan realized that the mental links to her vanguard forces had dropped in large numbers. Her insect-swarm tactics were about to collapse.
“Useless! All of you are useless!”
The red mother-beast writhed on the slime-covered fungal mat, crushing many unhatched eggs beneath her bulk.
Gu Chenyuan lay not far from her, pinned to the ground by the mother-beast's bloodline pressure, unable to move.
But soon, unwilling to give up, Su Wanwan issued her final command to Gu Chenyuan: consume.
As a male drone, Gu Chenyuan could not resist the mother-beast’s order. His mandibles, lined with fangs, opened uncontrollably as he was forced to bite into the lower-ranking Zerg still twitching beside him.
The devouring began.
The remnants of his human consciousness struggled within his mind, his stomach churning with nausea. Mouthful by mouthful, he chewed on the flesh of his own kind, green mucus dripping from his mandibles, sizzling and corroding the fungal mat beneath.
With every kin he swallowed, Gu Chenyuan’s body grew larger. The agony of bones shattering and reforming forced a harrowing scream from his throat.
Within minutes, Gu Chenyuan had become a massive blob. His back split open as bony armor plates sprouted, and both arms transformed into two huge bone scythes.
“Go! Go and kill her!” Su Wanwan’s command echoed through the hive.
The mutated Gu Chenyuan had lost all reason. He dragged his enormous body, crashing through the hive’s passages, heedlessly charging into space. He was Su Wanwan’s weapon for a last-ditch counterattack, her meat shield to take the hits.
He headed straight for Jiang Lijin’s dreadnought.
Tianyan let out a whistle. “Boss, we’ve got a big piece of trash incoming. Judging by that uniquely hideous look, I’d say it’s that old acquaintance of yours.”
Jiang Lijin leaned back in the soft padding of her command chair, watching the holographic screen. She locked onto the mutated insect rampaging through space.
“No need for you to dirty your hands,” she said, tapping the control console. “Xiao Yi, charge the main cannon. Lock on target.”
The hologram of the core AI, Xiao Yi, glowed red, and a mechanical voice echoed through the bridge: “Received. Main cannon charged. Target locked.”
At that moment, Gu Chenyuan was pushing through the firepower of the Yunlan Fleet. Dozens of laser cannons slammed into the armor on his back, scorching it black. Yet his compound eyes remained fixed, unblinking, on the transparent bridge of the dreadnought.
The distance shrank. Jiang Lijin hadn’t even stood up. Her finger hovered over the firing key.
Then Gu Chenyuan’s movements slowed down by half a beat.
Through the energy shield, he saw Jiang Lijin sitting in the commander’s seat. She wore a black combat uniform, surrounded by the star system’s top-tier males, whose gazes toward her were burning with fervor.
Memories he had nearly forgotten flooded back into his mind.
In her past life, her eyes had always been on him. For a casual compliment from him, she would stay up all night working on a business proposal. She endured grievances for the sake of his career and future.
And what had he done? He trampled on her sincerity, using her as a stepping stone to please Su Wanwan.
Karma had turned its wheel. Now he was a bug surviving by devouring his own kind, while the girl he had discarded had become the ruler of the stars.
A belated regret broke through the suppression of his Zerg instincts. A drop of mucus seeped from his compound eye. He halted in the vacuum, unable to go forward.
Jiang Lijin didn’t bother to wonder why he had stopped. She simply estimated the distance, looked at the screen, and pressed the firing key.
“Goodbye, trash.”
The main cannon opened fire.
A beam of high-energy light erupted from the cannon’s muzzle, piercing straight through Gu Chenyuan’s colossal body.
The extreme heat vaporized the insect body and its bony armor in an instant, leaving only a cloud of ash drifting through space.
Deep in the hive nest, Su Wanwan sensed that Gu Chenyuan was gone. Yet she felt no sorrow. Instead, excitement began to stir within her.
The massive energy released by Gu Chenyuan’s death was surging back into her body!
The mother-beast’s enormous form began to convulse. Layers of red carapace peeled off, revealing the slime-drenched pink flesh underneath.
In the images transmitted back through the water mirror, Su Wanwan’s body had shrunk by half. Her form was undergoing a grotesque transformation. At the bulbous head of her insect body, a human face was forcibly squeezing its way out!
It was Su Wanwan’s original face. Her features were still delicate. Yet when that face was embedded in a body covered in compound eyes, the dissonance was more nauseating than the pure insect form itself.
That human face opened its mouth and let out a Zerg shriek: “Jiang Li! Do you think killing him means you’ve won? I’ll make you join me in the grave!”
With that cry, Su Wanwan left the hive nest she had hidden in for tens of thousands of years. In an instant, she appeared on the battlefield.
Jiang Lijin suddenly felt a sharp stab of pain before her eyes. She quickly realized it was the mother-beast’s mental contamination.
The scene around her changed. The starships and the insect swarm vanished.
In front of her stood a man in a suit, looking human enough but hollow. The dagger in his hand pressed against Jiang Lijin’s throat. The sharp blade traced her skin, and blood trickled down her neck.
His eyes held not even a shred of pity—only disgust. Deep, utter disgust…
“Jiang Li, now you’re not even qualified to be Wanwan’s stand-in anymore.”
Su Wanwan nestled weakly in his arms: “Sister Lili, I’m so sorry. Don’t blame Chenyuan. He just loves me too much; he can’t stand to see me suffer at all…”
“Accept it. In this life, you were born to be my stepping stone.”
Jiang Lijin couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “Su Wanwan, do you still think I’m that fool you could push around?”
She grabbed the dagger and, turning it around, stabbed fiercely toward the two of them—but her target was not this fake illusion.
Her purifying force sliced counter-current into the mother-beast’s mental sea.
The illusions around her shattered.
“Since you like watching shows so much, let me give you a good one! Xiao Yi, project the battlefield footage all around the mother-beast—three hundred and sixty degrees, no blind spots—open a live stream on the star network, and let every beastman in the galaxy witness this historic moment!”
“You got it!” (✧∇✧)
Soon, holographic screens lit up around Su Wanwan, boxing her enormous body in the middle.
The image showed a massive mountain of flesh. The human face grafted onto the insect body had twisted in pain into a terrifying grimace.
Real-time comments from the star network scrolled across the holographic screens.
“So this is the mother-beast? I can smell the stench from here!”
“That human face is way too horrifying. What a monster!”
“Hurry up and get rid of this disgusting trash. I’m going to have nightmares!”
In the past, Su Wanwan had basked in the admiration of others, valuing her beauty above all else. After becoming a mother-beast, in the dark hive nest, she could only see her own repulsive limbs. But now, she saw her entire ugly self completely, along with the curses of all beastmen across the galaxy.
Su Wanwan went mad.
“No! This isn’t me! I’m not a monster! I am the most beautiful!”
The human face grafted onto the insect body contorted. She flailed her barb-covered forelimbs, clawing at her own face, trying to tear it off the insect body.
Large chunks of flesh were torn from her body, green bodily fluids mixing with blood as they flowed out.
She seemed to feel no pain, only letting out screams again and again. Under the mockery of interstellar netizens and the ugly truth, her mental defenses collapsed.
Jiang Lijin pressed the main cannon's firing button once more.
The moment she pressed it, the gun barrels of tens of thousands of warships, all linked to her mind, aimed simultaneously at the mother insect's coordinates.
Su Wanwan, still in the midst of her madness, was instantly vaporized in the white light without even a chance to scream.
The blast’s radiance illuminated this dead star belt.
The insect race had met its end.
...
On the bridge of the starship, the mainframe’s data stream reconverged into a shape.
The electronic voice narrated in a flat tone: "Detected the physical destruction of female lead Su Wanwan and male lead Gu Chenyuan from World 1104. Proceed with the complete soul eradication program?"
Jiang Lijin stared at the now-empty battlefield, her tone indifferent: "Execute."
"Eradication command confirmed."
The moment the mainframe finished speaking, the star fleet’s communication channel erupted into fierce cheers.
Jiang Lijin leaned back into her command chair, closed her eyes, and let out a long breath.
It was finally over.
All grudges had been settled. From now on, this stretch of the galaxy belonged only to her.
