A few hours went by and three insects gathered atop a big, diamond-shaped table. It was a metallic table, though Helzar has no idea why someone would make such a table.
Helzar chuckled.
La'Queen changed the subject, completely ignoring the puzzled Zharan. Helzar ignored Zharan too, forcing the latter to focus as hard as she could if she hoped to keep up.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Helzar scoffed.
<...>
Feeling obliged to teach Zharan what a billion was, Helzar sighed. La'Queen watched with amusement, but didn't interfere. She also wished to know how many cockroaches Zharan owns.
<...> La'Queen stared at Zharan silently, not knowing whether to believe the claim or not.
On the other hand, Helzar nodded.
He knew how big the Mad Intrusion is after making the Slave Contract with Zharan. He's also aware that despite being numerous and having sharp mandibles, Zharan’s cockroaches were extremely fragile.
They were like glass knives. Sharp, but they will break at the slightest stress.
+++-+++-+++
The roof of the house was covered in exoskeleton. They were once Spawns, but in order to satisfy Helzar, they ripped their exoskeletons from their bodies and used their flesh, blood, and organs to act as glue, binding the exoskeletons together to cover the roof.
Not only the roof, but the walls were covered too, both on the outside and on the inside.
A thing, dark blue mist was constantly circling the strange house, and countless bugs were packed inside the house.
Humming to himself in his own lair, Helzar gazed at the Nest. The Nest, apart from its increasing size, didn't change much. It remained both complex and simple to use.
With a sigh, Helzar placed insect bodies such as centipedes, spiders, butterflies, and other insects he could find into the Nest’s stomach, gaining their blueprint. After doing so, he connected his mind with the Nest.
With much struggle and focus, Helzar's mind snapped back into his own body, and in front of him was an egg, one inch in size.
The egg twitched, before a mouth was formed at one end of it.
Helzar nodded in satisfaction, but his hopes weren't high.
He ordered a Spawn to feed the Swarmling, and the Spawn was quick to bring a cockroach in front of the Swarmling. The Swarmling, like all its brothers and sisters, ate the cockroach with much delight. The cockroach was six inches long, and to fill the Swarmling's stomach, the Spawns had to bring in two more of such cockroaches.
Presented with such disappointing results Helzar couldn't find the urge to feel dismayed. He simply felt… nothing.
‘For some reason, I can't upgrade the Spawns, nor make a new type of insect,’ Helzar sighed.
He faced troubles upgrading the Motherbugs before, but he never faced any difficulties in creating a brand new insect. He also never thought he'd be unable to upgrade the Spawns any further.
‘If I can't even upgrade the Spawns, then how will I upgrade the Motherbugs? The Swarm will face a bottleneck at this rate’ Helzar, lost in thought, disconnected with the Nest.
He pondered for a good few minutes, not realizing that an hour had already gone by. To him, days, or even weeks could pass by and all he has to do is blink.
‘Is it because of the size?’ Helzar wondered. ‘Now that I think about it, both La'Queen and Zharan are much bigger than their minions. Each insect on the Swarm is as big as me, is that why the Nest can't make further improvements?’
Helzar crawled about, walking around his lair that was swamped with Motherbugs and bloated Eaters. Where there is a Motherbug, there will be a few Eaters around it. The Eaters were all one foot long, but only because their abdomens were stretched to its limit.
The Eaters were the last insect Helzar managed to upgrade, and they no longer produced Bloodworms.
Instead, they're vitality was enhanced, and after processing the food they ate, they'll mix it with their blood which contains special properties to preserve and make the “food mixture” more nutritious. When prompted, they will regurgitate the food mixture inside their stomachs to feed the Swarm.
Helzar sought out the help of La'Queen, who herself tried making ant repletes. She succeeded, which in turn made Helzar succeed.
‘Too bad, La'Queen doesn't see any use for her ant repletes,’ Helzar shook his head. Sooner or later, the Swarm will run out of prey, and the Eaters will become excellent storage units until more prey could be found. Not only that, unlike before where they'll lose a bit of the food they eat, they now more or less double the food they eat.
In other words, they can eat one cockroach and regurgitate two cockroaches worth of food mixture.
Turning his head away from the wall and floors covered in layers of Motherbugs and Eaters, Helzar thought about his own growth. For a while now, his size hasn't changed.
Even La'Queen grew to one feet long despite not eating any souls.
‘I’m half-demon, I need souls to grow. Ordinary humans have near zero potential to grow souls, but why is it that all Agents have souls?’ Helzar found it a mystery.
Using the Spawn's ability to manipulate humans, he tried forcing them to develop a soul and failed every time. He even force fed a human with a large amount of food, hoping to use the energy gathered from eating to produce a soul.
That attempt failed too, only resulting in exploding the poor man's stomach and making him die an agonizing death. Not like the other victims who fell prey to the Swarm had any good endings.
‘Apart from the last bastion of humans, the continent is all but conquered by the Swarm.’
La'Queen was far away from him, it'll take her a few hours to reach his lair. However, Helzar didn't intend for La'Queen to greet him in person.
Helzar heard laughter inside his head, and a rush of excitement filled his body. These emotions weren't his, but rather La'Queen’s.