Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Maybe it was a hatchling-bond thing—Yor realized he cared more about Taste and Dexter than he'd expected.

They were the family he'd never had... his bug family.

Looking at Dexter's banged-up body, then thinking about Taste's kamikaze way of fighting, Yor dropped his eyes.

He oughta do something.

Like... make honey, feed the two brothers so they could level up.

That way, when facing enemies, they'd have a better shot at surviving.

As for pheromone balance... he could just use more suppressants later. He'd figure something out.

"I'm good." Yor took a deep breath, shoving all that messy stuff out of his head.

He patted Dexter's shoulder and walked him over to the med-pod. "Get yourself patched up first. I'll stay right here."

Dexter's brow scrunched up. "Stay... in the med bay?"

"Nowhere's really safe, is it?" Yor pressed him down, firm. "Besides, I'm way more useful here."

Sure, nowhere was really safe, but with so many hurt war bugs right now, if every wounded bug got sent here, packing them all in would make this place a prime target for the Serian clan's attacks.

Plus, treating that many wounded would really drain Yor—he'd only just gotten over a fever last night...

Dexter didn't argue, but his face said it all—he wasn't having it.

Yor looked at him, eyes soft, voice barely above a whisper. "But what if Taste gets hurt?"

Dexter's comeback died in his throat.

If Taste got hurt and was brought here, with Yor around, at least he'd have a fighting chance...

But Yor didn't have to go this far. It'd always been the two of them being looked after by Yor...

And now, this soft-hearted Broodmother was the one comforting him: "Go get patched up. You can't protect me unless you're healed."

Dexter looked at him, voice rough. "Of course... even if it kills me—"

He couldn't finish his words.

A massive wave of psychic force slammed into them.

It was the Lord's psychic link.

It wasn't just Dexter—Leonius's voice rang out in every war bug's head, Yor included.

His voice was deep and steady, like a rock that could hold back all the chaos: "Wartime order: any war bug with mental sea damage over level nine gets sent to the med bay. Med bay security is now maxed out."

The link cut off.

Yor blinked. Wartime order?

Dexter couldn't quite wrap his head around the order either, but before he could think about it more, Leonius just showed up in the med bay.

He gave Yor a quiet look, still tight-lipped, no small talk—just scanned the room, checking out the med bay.

This was Leonius's ship, and it bent to his will.

He raised a hand, and the rooms around the med bay started shifting.

The ship's walls were rearranging themselves.

The metal panels of the other rooms on this deck started breaking apart, layer by layer rolling, snapping together, and locking into place—like some weird, living metal creature.

From the outer ring to the inner, every layer of wall was "moving" toward the med bay where Yor stood. The med bay's walls thickened and reinforced, until—except for the front entrance for the wounded—the whole place was sealed up like a nut in an iron shell.

Last step was at the back of the med bay.

The metal floor split open, and a tall throne rose up. Leonius sat down, back straight, and then... spread his elytra.

Nothing like Zane's—another Lord—fancy, flashy elytra.

For war bugs, elytra weren't for showing off—they were weapons for survival.

So Leonius's elytra weren't pretty at all—straight-up vicious, honestly. The wing surfaces were deep iron-gray, etched with fine patterns like cooled lava.

The edges weren't smooth curves either—they were jagged, angular serrations that gleamed with a cold metallic shine.

The second those wings spread, an overwhelming pressure slammed outward.

They slowly opened behind him, like two giant blades, pressing against the walls, wrapping the whole med bay in their protection.

No matter how sneaky the Serian clan's shuttles were, no matter how they blew themselves up, they couldn't get through this last line of defense.

"Psychic attacks won't work on you." Leonius spoke—his first words since entering, still calm in tone, direct in content. "You can start working."

With that, he closed his eyes.

The fight outside kept going. His psychic force spread out like a huge web, covering the whole ship. Wherever there was a surprise attack, wherever a war bug dropped, wherever a hole got torn in the defenses—he "saw" it all.

Order after order pulsed out from the center of that web, like silent ripples, cutting through wall after wall, sinking into every war bug's mind.

Pointing the war bugs where to go.

Leonius sat there, eyes shut, like a silent lighthouse.

Yor got it.

Psychic damage couldn't touch him, and physical attacks were blocked by the Lord himself. So Yor could safely treat the war bugs brought to him.

Free to do what he needed to do.

He took a deep breath, turned around, faced Shuji and the others already on stretchers, breathing faint, and raised his hand.

Learning a new way to use his psychic force was like opening a door to a whole new world.

Yor's psychic force wasn't just a single thread reaching out anymore—it was countless threads woven into a fine net, spreading wider and wider.

First patient: mental sea edges shattered, like a chunk had been ripped off. Yor's psychic net automatically split off a piece, like super-sticky gel, fusing perfectly with the broken edges.

Second patient: Serian psychic residue in the consciousness sea, like rust stuck to the mental sea walls. The psychic net hardened in spots, like a fine brush, scraping away the junk with ease.

Third one, fourth one, fifth one...

The wounded came in with every kind of injury imaginable, but the psychic net shifted shape on its own. Yor didn't even need to think—he knew exactly what to do, like it was second nature.

The wounded just kept pouring in, no end in sight.

As long as they entered the coverage of Yor's psychic net, those frantic, crumbling mental seas would get caught, settling quietly into the net, waiting to be fixed.

Yor's psychic net handled over a dozen different injuries at once, like a well-oiled, multi-threaded factory—parts streamed in, got processed, and were sent back out safe and sound.

He'd lost count of how many he'd treated.

Time stopped meaning anything to him. His repairs became more mechanical and instinctive by the minute. The psychic net got sharper with every use, faster and faster.

And the wounded in the net kept dwindling.

Only when the last wounded soldier was "sent" out of the net did Yor feel like he was finally surfacing from a long dive.

His consciousness slowly pulled back from that tightly woven net, like the tide going out. Psychic energy flowed quietly around him—steady, clear, no longer blocked.

He realized nothing new was touching the net anymore.

None.

He opened his eyes.

The medical bay was empty. The stretchers, the wounded, the busy guards—all of it had been cleared out at some point without him noticing.

Even Dexter was gone. Where he'd been lying was just an empty chair now, with a patch of still-wet blood on the seat.

The silence around him was eerie.

Yor froze for a second, then looked down at his hands.

His fingers were shaking on their own. His mind finally snapped all the way back, and he started to feel something churning inside him—like water at a rolling boil, the calm surface just a lie.

A heavy breath sounded from behind him.

Yor flinched and spun around.

Leonius sat there, back still ramrod straight, his terrifying elytra still spread wide.

He was just watching Yor, quiet.

But that look made Yor's breath hitch.

"Where's Dexter?" Nervousness made Yor instinctively look for Dexter, but his voice came out so hoarse it even freaked him out.

Leonius didn't answer, but the second he heard Dexter's name, his eyes went dangerous.

Yor's heart slammed in his chest.

His body picked up on something wrong faster than his brain did. The shaking in his fingertips didn't stop with deep breaths—it spread to his wrists, his arms, his shoulders.

Most importantly, the gland on his chest and the gestation sac in his lower belly were both swelling, heating up.

Like seeds buried in the dark too long, finally about to push through the dirt.

Yor finally snapped all the way awake, his face going pale—during the treatment just now, he'd touched and repaired countless male insectoid mental seas. Even without meaning to, he'd absorbed a massive amount of psychic energy.

Drenched in male insectoid psychic energy, his pheromone balance was thrown off again.

He looked down and saw his fingertips were glowing.

Yor blinked without meaning to, but it wasn't a trick of the eye—it was real, a faint golden glow seeping out from under his skin, like a soft halo.

Then his senses seemed to suddenly unlock. He "saw" it, and he "smelled" it too.

A faint golden mist hung in the air, barely there, like morning light through sheer curtains.

The mist was thickening—from barely there to unmistakable, from gold to honey, from a faint sweet tang to something thick, rich, impossible to ignore.

It was his pheromone.

Like a flower in full, rotten bloom, silently opening in the empty medical bay.

Petal after petal unfolded, each one dripping sweet nectar, so sweet it was cloying, so fragrant it was suffocating. The whole room was filled with his scent, so thick it almost had weight, pressing on the skin, seeping in with every breath.

Yor began to tremble.

Fear he couldn't control surged through him. The Broodmother's pheromone—for male insectoids, it was an irresistible pull.

He looked up, shaking, at Leonius in the chair.

The other man stayed put, back straight, watching him quietly through the golden mist that filled the room.

A raw, instinctive look.

Like a beast starved too long, catching the scent of blood, cracking its eyes open.

Yor could even see Leonius's iron-gray pupils contracting nonstop.

He couldn't steady his breathing. His fingers dug into the armrest, knuckles going white.

His pheromone was screaming at him to get up.

He was fighting it with everything he had.

On the medical bay's wall, those fearsome elytra stayed spread wide, and Leonius sat between them, completely still.

"Click."

A soft metallic click.

The medical bay's main entrance—the passage the wounded came through—slowly sealed shut.

One layer, then another, then a third, like stage curtains slowly closing, the last gap vanishing.

The last sliver of light went with it.

Yor stood there, closing his eyes in despair.

The medical bay had become a fully sealed space.

No entrance. No exit.

Just the golden mist filling the room, and—a Broodmother in full bloom, and one male insectoid.

This place had become his... prison.