Kelvier watched helplessly as the mason bugs sealed off the cave entrance. A sudden realization struck him, and he couldn't help but burst into laughter: in this insect chamber, he was now the dominant force!

His gaze swept over the chamber, pausing at the pile of brains. The thought of eating them made him hesitate. He was quite sure that consuming them would allow him to evolve again, but the very idea made him nauseous, remembering his identity as "Kelvier."

After some contemplation, he decided on a compromise: let the nurse bugs eat the brains first, then he would devour the nurse bugs. There must be a reason the swarm didn’t allow the larvae to directly consume the brain matter, choosing instead to have the nurse bugs process it first.

Now certain that the adult bugs bore him no malice, Kelvier still knew the risk of starvation to the larvae if he consumed all the nurse bugs. Therefore, he reverted to his old ways—slaughtering the eggs.

With a laugh, Kelvier's ten legs sprang into action. He rushed to the eggs before the nurse bugs had a chance to organize them. Kelvier's size was now about that of a vertically split chicken egg, and each nurse bug was surrounded by a cluster of eggs roughly half the size of a chicken.

Raising his legs high, he thrust down fiercely. "Plop, plop, plop!" The satisfying sound of bursting eggs filled the air, spraying egg fluid everywhere.

Excited, Kelvier continued his chaotic stabbing. The nurse bug, having never encountered such an event, didn’t know how to react and simply acted on instinct, stuffing the broken eggs into its mouth.

"Are you going to eat all these eggs yourself?" Kelvier thought gleefully as he continued his frenzied assault. Although the eggs were conveniently clustered, making his task easier, it still took about fifteen minutes to complete his gruesome task.

After gorging on a large quantity of eggs and satisfying his hunger, Kelvier moved on to the next nurse bug.

The cave was vast—at least relative to Kelvier's current size. It resembled a corridor with varying heights; some areas were as high as a human house's ceiling, obscured by darkness, while others were only about half a meter high. The uneven ground, some parts terraced like rice paddies, and the occasional branching path, had Kelvier getting lost several times.

Due to the complex terrain, he managed to find fifteen nurse bugs that day, each accompanied by a heap of eggs.

The eggs would take a week to hatch, and he had six days left. He knew he needed to kill more during that time.

Over the next six days, as Kelvier became more familiar with the terrain, his efficiency improved, although many nurse bugs had already spread out their eggs, which slowed him down.

By the fifth day, Kelvier's small wings had grown robust. His wing cases became more solid, and his outer shell hardened significantly, making it likely impossible for the larvae to bite through anymore.

Kelvier's destruction peaked on the fourth day when he managed to destroy twelve clusters.

Now... it's time to enjoy the fruits of victory!

Kelvier was a bit excited after days of running around, having a rough idea of where the nurse bug was.

The first nurse bug.

Amusingly, this nurse bug had somehow amassed a thousand eggs around it, clearly salvaged from broken ones...

The nurse bug had grown significantly in just a few days, now as thick as an egg and as long as a ballpoint pen.

"You'll turn into food eventually, might as well start with me," Kelvier muttered to himself before pouncing!

The nurse bug twisted in pain, its instinct was to feed the larvae, though being eaten itself was a bit unusual, but instincts prevailed, it just twisted, without struggling.

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After swallowing half of the nurse bug, Kelvier could eat no more, suddenly realizing the problem.

It seemed... he could probably only eat three or four nurse bugs at most, but in the breeding chamber, there were sixty or seventy...

On the last day the eggs hatched, Kelvier, full from his feast, swept around to see if any eggs were missed. He actually found two spots.

When he found the last spot, the eggs had already hatched, and the dense larvae were gnawing at the nurse bug.

Kelvier quietly retreated.

The next day would be the encasement.

It seemed that the adult insects emerging from their pupae were very docile, so Kelvier didn’t bother to interfere.

Plus... he was vaguely feeling the urge to encase himself.

After devouring the third nurse bug, Kelvier instinctively felt the need to pupate!

It started with secreting a viscous fluid from the "flower" area, then he flattened the fluid with his hands, drawing a circle around himself, after which the fluid solidified and hardened on its own...

Kelvier's hands seemed to be coated in something, as the sticky fluid didn’t adhere to them.

Finally, he knotted a tie inside the pupal shell.

Kelvier's body underwent drastic changes, excruciating pain.

He wanted to endure it to observe closely, but his consciousness gradually faded into unconsciousness.

Time passed unknowably.

When Kelvier awoke, the pupal shell was much more fragile, and he broke through it with a single kick.

Eager to see his new body, he examined himself.

A fine green line appeared on his wing covers, somewhat mystical and likely more than just a pattern, though its function was unknown for now.

All ten legs had developed sharp spurs, seemingly sturdy enough for sawing wood.

And his vision seemed much broader, able to see on both sides simultaneously.

Most pleasingly, his wings had finally grown in!

Overjoyed, Kelvier spread his wing covers, and the wings emerged.

“Buzzing—” His form soared abruptly, hitting the cave ceiling and crashing down.

“Ha ha! Full of power!” Kelvier climbed up, continuing to experiment.

If it were a human body, falling from a height hundreds of times one’s height would undoubtedly be fatal. But Kelvier didn’t even feel dizzy, just a bit stunned, and laughed again as he flew up.

The King Bug instincts were still there, but it took Kelvier half a day to get the hang of flying.

Finally, Kelvier buzzed around the cave for half a circle, then suddenly froze.

In his memory, the King Bug could only leap briefly, then glide for a short distance.

But now... he was truly flying!

And last time, in his shock, he overlooked many flying King Bugs, like the Palm Bug, the Orb Bug...

Additionally, last time, it was precisely because the King Bug burrowed into the water that Kelvier had been killed...

Clearly, the King Bug was undergoing some change, perhaps evolving...

It was then he realized he hadn't seen any larvae... no, adult insects?

They were supposed to have almost emerged from their pupae by now; there should be a swarm of adults ready to leave.

Suddenly, he noticed some walls adorned with pupae.

He realized he had already witnessed one round of larval births. This must be the second pupation...

By his calculation, he must have spent at least ten days inside the pupal shell.

Was growing wings supposed to take that long?

Kelvier was puzzled.

Thinking it over, he decided to join this batch of emerging adults.

He wasn't hungry now, but Kelvier had discovered that with food, King Bugs never complained of abundance.

As long as he kept filling his stomach, his evolutionary pace would significantly accelerate.

After searching for a while, as he expected, he couldn't find any nurse bugs; they must have been consumed by the larvae before pupation. So, Kelvier set his sights on the pupae.

The eggs were the size of sesame seeds, the larvae about twice that, and the pupae half the size of a grain of rice.

But the digestive capabilities of the King Bug were truly formidable; almost instantly upon ingestion, they were digested and transformed into energy that flowed throughout his body.

Thus, after devouring about six hundred pupae, he finally felt satiated.

Two days.

In those two days, Kelvier wreaked havoc on over two thousand more pupae.

He felt no significant changes, except that the green line on his wing covers became much more pronounced, even reflecting a faint golden sheen from certain angles.

The continuous buzzing around him indicated that a large number of adults had gathered.

Waiting for the mantis-like bug to open the exit again.

These adults were about the size of rice grains, flapping their wings slightly larger than a fly. Like Kelvier, they had wing covers and large mandibles.

Kelvier's body, about the size of half an egg, was conspicuously large among them, but the swarm treated him as one of their own, so there shouldn't be much trouble getting out.

Crack.

A soft sound finally came from above.

Soon, a beam of light fell down. Indeed, it was that tunnel-digging mantis bug.

The exit gradually enlarged, and once it was big enough, the adults began to fly out.

Kelvier felt a bit apprehensive.

When the majority of the adults flew out, he blended in and flew out with them.

Blue sky, white clouds, large trees, green leaves.

A breathtakingly beautiful scene unfolded before his eyes.

A thrill surged through Kelvier:

I'm back!