Chapter 18

Chapter 18

The next morning, when Yor woke up, his body still ached somewhat, but the medical monitor showed all vitals were normal—his fever had gone down, and his pheromones had stabilized.

Except...

He struggled to reach back and feel his shoulder blade area. It itched, and on both sides there were two tiny protrusions, as if something was slowly pushing up from inside, making the skin feel tight.

Yor's face tensed slightly. He'd seen this on the forums—he knew what it was.

Wings.

The wings that only male bugs have.

After using that many suppressants to completely suppress the Broodmother pheromones in his body, his bug genetics were instinctively driving him to metamorphose into a male.

Though whether he became a male bug or a Broodmother wasn't exactly great news for a Blue Star human... but well, better the lesser of two evils. Compared to being locked up and having kids, if he was going to become a male bug, so be it...

Yor checked himself—the metamorphosis didn't affect his mental strength at all.

If it didn't affect his work, he had to go to work.

With a sigh, he crawled out of the sleep pod.

Logistics had faithfully carried out the Lord's orders—as soon as they got word that Yor was awake, they immediately delivered the prepared food.

Yor wolfed down his food until he was about half full before he felt like himself again.

"From now on, only arrange two war bugs per day," Yor said between sips of soup to Dexter, who looked deeply worried. "Any more than that and I'm done."

Dexter nodded immediately. "Two is already a lot."

Yor glanced at him, his eyes crinkling slightly.

War bugs were easy to get along with, in a way—they rarely asked questions, never pushed for anything, and they'd agree to things first and ask questions later.

Downing the warm soup in one gulp, Yor headed off to his workspace.

Today, Taste had also finished his onboarding for the logistics department, and he went to work with Yor alongside Dexter.

Having two tagalongs, Yor didn't mind—in fact... it was kind of reassuring.

Maybe because they knew Yor hadn't been feeling well yesterday, today's first patient wasn't in particularly bad shape.

After a quick greeting, Yor prepared to begin treatment. But just as he drew out his mental threads, the starship suddenly gave an eerie lurch.

Yor's extended mental threads almost snapped. He snapped his head up.

The shaking continued, and it wouldn't stop—not the kind of jostling you'd get from flying through an asteroid belt, but something coming from inside, like something had blown up within the hull.

Dexter was already standing, his face grim.

Urgent footsteps and garbled shouts came from outside the door. Taste, who'd been chatting with the guards, sensed the commotion and came charging in from outside—moving so fast he almost hit the doorframe.

His expression was one Yor had never seen before. The playful, boyish look was gone. There was fire blazing in his eyes.

"It's the Serian clan!" The words were practically squeezed out through his teeth.

Before Yor could even react, Taste had already armed himself—the bone spurs at his waist snapped out, his mechanical limbs let out a low hum, and his whole body was like an activated war machine.

He looked back at Yor, his lips moving as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he said nothing.

He turned and ran.

His footsteps faded down the corridor, swallowed by the growing chaos.

Yor grabbed Dexter's arm. "He... he transferred to logistics! He's a logistics bug now!"

Because he'd lost his pheromones, hadn't started combat training with his mechanical limbs, and other reasons, he'd been deemed unfit for frontline combat and transferred to logistics—so how could he charge out like that?

And with a look like he was ready to fight to the death!

Dexter's eyes were equally dark, but he made no move to stop him. "Taste has combat experience against the Serian clan."

The explanation was vague, but Yor immediately understood: "The ones who came... are the race that cut Taste in half?"

Dexter nodded, offering no further explanation.

"I'll take you to the escape pod first." His voice was steady, but his pace was noticeably faster than usual. "In case..."

"In case?" Yor interrupted, barely believing his ears. "This is the Lord's starship. How could there be an 'in case'?"

Dexter didn't know how to explain.

He said succinctly: "In the War Department, wherever the Lord is, that's the enemy's primary target."

Yor was stunned for a moment.

"Absolute obedience to commands is a war bug's genetic instinct. On the battlefield, the Lord's orders flow without obstruction, and war bugs move like an extension of his will, without hesitation—that's our combat advantage," Dexter explained rapidly while keeping a wary eye on their surroundings. "But by the same logic, if the Lord is pinned down... we can easily fall into disarray."

So any enemy fighting against war bugs would prioritize attacking the Lord.

Yor opened his mouth to say something, but the starship shuddered again.

This time it was more violent. The lights overhead flickered, and the sound of something shattering echoed from the corridor.

Seeing the corridor erupting with explosions, Dexter spread his elytra, shielding Yor as they moved toward the inner room of the medical bay.

Yor tried to stay relaxed, not wanting to add extra burden to Dexter, but the first wave of the frontal assault came faster than he'd imagined.

Directly behind the medical room, the hull wall was pierced clean through. A Serian shuttle emerged from the void, embedded in the bulkhead like a nail driven into soft wood.

The next second, the shuttle exploded.

The shockwave swept through the medical room from behind like a giant broom.

Yor was pinned firmly beneath Dexter, his body completely unharmed—but he couldn't block the piercing shriek that assaulted his ears.

The extremely high-frequency screech sent Yor's mental sea into turmoil. After a brief wave of dizziness, he realized: this was a mental attack.

Yor lay still in Dexter's arms, not daring to make a sound, afraid of disrupting the war bug's rhythm. But... Dexter's breathing pattern was wrong.

Too slow... so slow it was almost inaudible.

After the explosion's aftershock subsided, there was no movement outside.

Yor tentatively pushed against Dexter's chest and whispered, "Dexter?"

No response.

“Dexter?” His voice rose slightly, his fingers clenching the other’s clothing.

Still nothing.

Yor’s heart sank like a stone.

He fought his way out from under the elytra, the metal wing-edges scraping his shoulders, but he couldn’t afford to feel it.

When he finally crawled out from under that airtight shield and looked up at Dexter’s face, thick, warm liquid was oozing from Dexter’s nose and the corners of his eyes, dripping off his jaw.

Before Yor could even react, a drop of blood splashed onto his forehead, running down the bridge of his nose, then two more splashes of crimson.

His face was drenched in Dexter’s blood.

Yor’s fingers trembled as he gripped Dexter’s shoulders, too afraid to shake him, only daring to give two gentle pats. “Dexter?”

Dexter’s body went limp against him, like a puppet with its strings cut, completely unresponsive.

The empty medbay was so quiet it was unnerving.

Yor forced himself to calm down.

He closed his eyes, pushing his mental energy into Dexter’s mental sea. When he saw what was inside, his fingers wouldn’t stop shaking.

It was torn to shreds.

The whole mental sea looked like a fishing net that had been violently ripped apart—ragged edges, with gashes big enough to fit a fist, and countless smaller tears scattered across every edge. Dexter’s mental energy was leaking out through the tears like water from a cracked bucket—there was no stopping it.

Yor tried to sew it back together.

He spun his mental energy into threads, but the walls of the mental sea were too shattered—the threads had nothing to grab onto, and they slipped right out every time he pulled.

He tried again. It fell apart again.

Like trying to sew a crumpled piece of paper—the paper was already shredded, and the thread just hung there, useless.

He switched tactics, flattening his mental energy into a flat sheet, pressing it against the outer wall of Dexter’s mental sea like a bandage, trying to plug the holes.

But his mental energy was like a slippery piece of silk—with nothing to grip, there was no way to plug the holes.

Dexter’s breathing was getting slower and slower.

“No… don’t…” Yor’s voice cracked into pieces, his fingers clenching Dexter’s collar so hard his knuckles turned white. “Please…”

His words were a mess, helplessness flooding his chest.

He wanted to beg Dexter not to die, to beg his own mental energy to be stronger, to beg someone—anyone—for help.

Anything.

But all that answered him was Dexter’s weakening breath and the blood in his palm growing stickier and warmer.

Yor’s shoulders started shaking, a muffled sob forcing its way out of his throat.

Footsteps pounded down the corridor—“thud, thud, thud.”

Yor didn’t need to turn around—he could “hear” it too: the silent screams of war bugs whose mental seas had been ripped apart.

The bug charging in wasn’t just any bug—it was Shuji, Yor’s first patient.

When the attack started, Shuji’s squad was patrolling the corridor on the mid-deck. They’d run straight into the first Serian clan shuttle.

The bugs on duty reacted fast, scrambling backward at full speed, but even with the distance they put between themselves, they couldn’t escape the shuttle’s suicide strike.

When the shockwave hit, three war bugs in the squad dropped on the spot, thin threads of blood seeping from their seven orifices, their mental seas shattered like glass hit by a hammer. Two others screamed, clutching their heads and rolling on the floor, fingernails digging into their scalps.

Only Shuji was still standing.

He froze for a second, looking down at his fallen teammates. His mental sea was shaking too, but it was like ripples on water—not the mountain-crushing, explosive damage of a blast.

Though he was hurt too, his freshly combed mental sea had absorbed most of the attack through its healthy, flowing resilience.

Yor had saved his life again.

Shuji snapped out of it and made a split-second decision—find Yor!

He crouched, hoisting the nearest teammate onto his shoulder, tucking a second under his arm, and slinging a third onto his back… strapping them all tight against his body, he bolted toward the medbay, his steps frantic as if fleeing for his life.

But he didn’t know that the Serian he’d assumed was dead in the explosion was hiding inside his teammate’s mental sea.

As the vanguard of this Serian surprise assault, its resolve and strength were beyond question.

After the explosion, it still had reserves. Rather than following instinct to return to its homeworld, it curled up like a parasite in the deepest recesses of the wounded war bug’s shattered mental sea, waiting quietly, patiently.

Waiting for the next wave of detonations to take out even more war bugs.

When Shuji burst into the medbay, Yor was frantic, at a loss.

“The wounded…” Shuji’s voice was hoarse beyond recognition. He set the teammate from under his arm on the floor, then turned to untie the one on his back. “Lord Yor… there are several…”

But Shuji’s words died in his throat when he saw Yor’s face covered in blood.

“My lord!!!” Shuji shrieked, his voice going shrill.

But Yor, catching sight of the wounded on the floor, narrowed his eyes. “Put him next to me.”

He pointed at the most severely injured of the casualties—inside his mental sea, there was a grayish-white, mist-like thing.

The moment he saw it, Yor’s entire consciousness screamed: “Delicious!!!”

Shuji hesitated, then quickly moved to comply. But just as he bent down to lift the wounded bug, the white mist moved.

It shot out of the shattered mental sea like a spring compressed to its limit, striking straight for Dexter’s face.

Its target wasn’t Dexter’s body—it was his mental sea.

Dexter was the highest-ranked bug here. Though he “looked” injured, the energy feedback from his mental sea was still immense.

The higher the energy level, the greater the explosion. Detonating alongside this high-ranking war bug could blow out half a deck of the ship.

Yor hadn’t known what to do, but that “delicious” thing had lunged right at him.

His mental energy reacted on pure instinct, surging out and seizing the gray-white mist the instant it touched the boundary of Dexter’s mental sea.

Then it wrapped tightly around it.

He enveloped the entire mist in his mental energy, like trapping a dark cloud in a bubble. Only, this cloud was furious—struggling, swelling, trying to explode—but Yor’s mental energy held it down like a soft wall, crushing it flat.

A few seconds later, it went still.

It was crushed without a sound by Yor's mental power, then dissolved into his mental sea.

Beside him, Shuji noticed nothing, still watching Yor expectantly, waiting for his next instruction.

Yor sat still, his heart hammering in his chest.

He'd learned something.

A new, more efficient way to use mental power.

Mental power could be like a blade, slicing with its edge; or like a fire, igniting everything; or like a gel, mending wounds.

He leaned down and pressed his forehead to Dexter's. A few seconds later, Dexter opened his eyes.

His pupils were unfocused at first, his vision filled with blurry patches of color.

He blinked once, then again, and finally his eyes focused.

He could see Yor's face.

Covered in blood.

Red, thick blood dripping down Yor's jaw, clinging to his eyelashes, smeared at the corners of his mouth.

Dexter's pupils contracted sharply.

"Are you hurt?" His voice was hoarse as he struggled to sit up, his arms trembling against the ground, as if he felt no pain.

Yor didn't answer.

Only when he saw Dexter's refocused pupils did the taut string inside him snap with a "crack."

He threw himself onto Dexter, burying his face in the crook of Dexter's neck. Hot tears slid down Dexter's collarbone, running down to the back of his neck, leaving a cold, wet mark.

Yor was sobbing, sobbing so hard that Dexter's whole body shook.

"Don't cry..." His voice was even hoarser than before, "Please..."