Chapter 4: The Planets Infested

After releasing half of its offspring onto that planet, the massive insect felt significantly lighter, and its flight speed gradually accelerated.

Just as it was about to reach the planet, several spaceships suddenly appeared, flying in from behind. They immediately made sharp turns and fled in a single direction.

The massive insect hesitated for a moment, then disregarded the escaping ‘food’. For her now, giving birth to the rest of her offspring was paramount.

She then slowly aimed the exit of her ovipositor at the planet’s far side, piercing it forcefully. She manipulated her ovipositor, expelling all remaining offspring into the planet’s interior in one go.

After delivering all her offspring, the massive insect felt a wave of profound relief wash over her body. However, the birthing process had drained an immense amount of her physical strength, and she urgently needed to feed and replenish her energy.

But to avoid consuming her offspring’s potential food source, she opted to drift further out and began to sweep up nearby small asteroids and planetary debris.

In stark contrast to the massive insect’s leisurely activities, the two planets now injected with insect eggs were clearly not faring well.

A miner, who had been waiting at the edge of a Mining Shaft for his teammate to bring the Space Cable for their descent, just spotted his teammate appearing in the distance. He slowly rose and waved a greeting.

His teammate, struggling with a massive spool of Space Cable, gestured helplessly for him to come and assist.

Just as he started to move towards his teammate to help with the load, a grating sound suddenly echoed from the wellhead.

On this planet, with its thin atmosphere, the sound clearly wasn’t transmitted by air. Instead, it was the reverberation of his armor against the ground, transferring vibrations into his helmet.

His teammate was still some distance away, so the sound couldn’t possibly be that clear from him. This meant the noise was emanating from deep within the Mining Shaft.

‘Could that thing be emerging?’

He instinctively spun around and peered down into the Mining Shaft opening.

What he saw startled him beyond belief. The moment he gazed into the wellhead, four enormous eyes belonging to a massive insect stared directly back at him!

Instantly, the creature raised its foreleg, revealing a razor-sharp blade at its tip, and lunged, stabbing towards the human before it!

From the inherited memories of the massive insect, humans were simply food. While other minerals and metals also fell within its dietary scope, humans were considered exceptionally delicious.

Thus, the insect was eager to hunt the figure standing before it.

Humans, however, were not like inert metal deposits or earth. With incredible speed, the man easily dodged its claw.

The insect’s four eyes widened, and it immediately sprang from the Mining Shaft.

“Gods, what is that…”

The man holding the cable watched a grotesquely shaped creature leap from the Mining Shaft. His astonishment made him release his grip, and the heavy Space Cable crashed to the ground, kicking up plumes of dust.

The miner who had been at the wellhead, reeling from the shock, first evaded the creature’s attack and then tried to flee with incredible speed.

Unfortunately, the creature’s speed evidently surpassed his own.

After devouring High-Energy Crystals, massive amounts of metal, and other associated minerals within the Mining Shaft, the insect’s physical capabilities had reached a terrifying degree of strength.

It possessed four powerful legs solely for locomotion. Each one generated power comparable to, if not exceeding, his Alliance First-Generation Exosuit.

Inevitably, the unfortunate miner was pinned to the ground by the insect’s overwhelming speed. Just as it prepared to bring down its claw once more, the object the man held suddenly swiveled, and he fiercely pulled the trigger, aiming directly at the four-eyed head of the creature!

Without a sound, a super-kinetic Gauss slug instantly pierced the insect’s head. The creature’s foreleg froze mid-air, unable to complete its downward strike.

Just as he slowly exhaled in relief and felt a surge of gratitude for having brought his weapon.

The claw, previously frozen mid-air, suddenly trembled and then sliced downwards! Its razor-sharp foreleg cut through the thick protection of the Alliance First-Generation Exosuit’s chest with almost no resistance.

Hot, crimson blood immediately spurted from the wound. The insect instantly expanded the volume of its foreleg, blocking the injury.

It then opened a suction pore at the tip of its claw, frantically absorbing the human’s blood.

To preserve the human body’s freshness, it continuously secreted substances that stimulated the man’s adrenaline, ensuring a fresh corpse remained even after it had drained the blood from his veins.

Meanwhile, the insect’s destroyed head gradually began to regenerate, sustained by the flowing blood.

Evidently, the insect’s critical weakness was not its head.

Humans consistently made a fundamental cognitive error. Believing their own vital points to be the head and heart, they instinctively assumed all creatures shared the same vulnerabilities.

This very subconscious bias had led to countless human casualties in the wars against unknown species.

Once its head had fully regenerated, the insect cradled the still-living human body and began to feed, starting from the head.

Although a solid layer of armor protected the exterior, to the insect, it likely tasted more like a sandwich cookie.

With a single bite, its sharp teeth tore through the crunchy shell, reaching the bursting, creamy filling within.

This texture and flavor were considerably sweeter than the High-Energy Crystals and other materials it usually consumed.

The other man, however, was clearly not so foolish as to stand by and watch his comrade die without offering aid.

He had already fled.

One fundamental rule of survival in the cosmos dictated that upon encountering a creature not listed in the compendium, one must immediately flee. Bringing back visual data of the opponent was more critical than any lost life.

Moreover, what aid could possibly be offered to a comrade battling a monster that couldn’t be killed by a headshot from a Gauss Rifle?

‘Let a friend die rather than myself,’ he thought. ‘Time to go.’

He immediately pushed his exosuit’s thrusters to their absolute limit, and, at the cost of his armor’s lifespan, quickly sprinted to his spaceship.

After confirming that the footage recorded by his helmet camera was sufficiently clear, he immediately piloted his ship, fleeing the planet.

What he failed to notice, however, was that after his departure from the planet, countless more insects, some identical, others entirely different, began to burrow out from underground. They immediately started to utterly infest and consume the planet.

A similar scene was simultaneously unfolding on the other infected planet.