Chapter 50: The Spoiled Buffet

As expected, the human world had descended into complete chaos. Although the nebula outwardly retained its former appearance, the massive insect could sense that all internal order had vanished entirely.

With the massive insect’s arrival, the nebula’s dramatic upheaval finally drew to a close.

The colossal creature, accompanied by her swarm, effortlessly plundered the nebula’s resources. There wasn’t even any meaningful resistance. What the massive insect found most laughable was how some opponents still dared to fly their ships directly at her, attempting to inflict harm.

This time, however, the massive insect’s actions were far more decisive and clean. With no true resistance left, she commanded her children to scour the nebula for resources without restraint. The massive insect herself joined in, gorging herself ravenously, as if releasing all the accumulated desires from her time in the Cosmic Desert. Her children, understanding, respectfully kept their distance from their mother’s feeding grounds, then launched continuous assaults on the nebula’s peripheral regions.

The massive insect found this unrestrained feasting incredibly satisfying. As humans would say, it was like an all-you-can-eat buffet where she could take whatever she desired.

Yet, the massive insect sensed that some ingredients in this ‘buffet’ had begun to spoil.

It was the human souls.

How awful. While the souls she had devoured before had harbored fear and panic for a time, it was always fleeting, never affecting the overall taste; if anything, it was a unique seasoning.

But the inhabitants of this nebula seemed to have experienced fear for far too long. The flavor of their souls had become less palatable, like something overly salted.

The massive insect considered herself not a fan of strong flavors, so this change was unwelcome. To maintain a fresh taste, she decided to swiftly clear these ‘dishes’ from her plate.

For the massive insect, who wished to accelerate her consumption, this was no difficult feat. She merely needed to pierce a planet with her claws, crush it, and then suck all the debris directly into her maw.

Still, she found this method somewhat unappealing. For smaller planets, the massive insect preferred to wrap her tentacles around the entire sphere, delivering it whole to her mouth.

After all, the molten magma that erupted from the fractured surface of a star with a single bite still tasted incredibly delicious.

During her feasting, the massive insect also rapidly sifted through the memories of all the warship soldiers from the Imperial fleet she had previously devoured. Discarding the mundane trivialities of their lives, she found her understanding of the world instantly and vastly expanded.

‘Those humans from the Alliance truly had such limited knowledge, didn’t they?’

The massive insect could only utter such a remark. There was no other way to put it; if the knowledge contained within the previous batch of human souls was merely a wellspring, then the wisdom and insights she gained from the souls devoured this time were the vast sky beyond that wellspring.

She acquired more advanced technological knowledge and a deeper understanding of the Universal Empire.

After reviewing it all, the massive insect even let out a gasp of, ‘Oh, so that’s how it is.’

It was based on this newfound knowledge that the massive insect felt confident enough to thoroughly cleanse the entire nebula. Within the memories of the pilots and scientific engineers, she discovered that the Universal Empire’s internal strength was actually quite decentralized. Although they could easily deploy a seemingly powerful fleet for battle, the actual deployable scale was limited to this single unit. Other higher-tier cosmic battleships were stationed near other more threatening alliances.

As for the nature of these alliances, the massive insect searched through the memories of these Imperial warriors but couldn’t discern a clear picture. She could only gather that their individual strengths were formidable, they defied Imperial command, and some even took dangerous actions against the Universal Empire.

This information piqued the massive insect’s curiosity immensely. She had previously learned through the Alliance humans’ souls that other, more powerful and intelligent beings existed in this world besides humanity.

Now, within the memories of this batch of Imperial warriors, some of these races were even explicitly labeled.

This greatly enhanced the star map memories in the massive insect’s mind, even revealing several crucial Quantum Anchor Points. With this information, the massive insect could perform ultra-long-distance teleportation to these anchor points whenever she wished.

Most importantly, among the warships she devoured this time, besides the stellar energy, there was another particularly intriguing technology.

‘Deep-level Quantum Space Super-Acceleration?’

No matter how one looked at it—straight on, obliquely, or in reverse—this technology appeared utterly bizarre, almost completely overturning the massive insect’s current understanding of quantum mechanics.

If the massive insect’s previous comprehension of quantum space was merely a planar dimension, then the demonstration of this technology introduced her to higher dimensions of quantum space.

‘This is truly…’

The massive insect continued to eat while silently analyzing this technology in her mind.

The results of her analysis were astonishing. This level of wisdom made the massive insect feel as if she had reached a deeper layer of the universe, and its profundity extended far beyond that. As for what lay even deeper, the massive insect faced two limitations: first, her own technological capabilities were insufficient for further interpretation; second, if something truly dangerous lurked beneath, its peril might prove troublesome even for her.

Furthermore, and crucially, there was no certainty about a return method once one entered this deeper quantum world. This was the most uncertain point.

The massive insect certainly didn’t wish to enter this world out of curiosity only to find herself unable to return, leaving her children to suffer abuse across the cosmos.

Therefore, to understand more profound information, she would likely need to seek it from those intelligent races.

Indeed, ‘intelligent races’ rather than ‘humans,’ because after this battle, the massive insect was surprised to discover that while human souls predominated, a significant number of quasi-human intelligent beings were also interspersed among them. If she hadn’t been so meticulous in her selection, she might have overlooked these similar, smaller entities.

📚 Also on NHV Novels

Underdog Connection

ChaebolContemporaryObsessiveLove

Read Now →
Not interested