The Great Information Nest at late night presented a rare, feverish hive of activity.
Xiao’s claim of "some willing to help" turned out to mean almost every male worm working there. They appeared in crowded groups, even drawing the attention of the patrol teams. Some of the patrolling females were reassigned to escort the stragglers over one by one.
For all the males who had volunteered to help, this was a brand-new experience.
It was their first time walking the streets after nightfall. Their initial trepidation transformed into high spirits, and finally, for some unknown reason, a trace of inexplicable sadness surfaced.
When he received the communication, Kliman was still at the control hub of the defense orbit. He had been woken by his subordinates after a brief rest and informed that the fleet at the front lines had lost contact over a small area—a phenomenon that had greatly alarmed the settlement.
The last time a similar situation occurred, the previous Sub-King Worm had blown up an entire Old King Nest.
Hearing the news that many males were quietly heading toward the Great Information Nest, the Armed Species leader froze for a moment. Between being a hindrance and assisting, he chose the latter.
"Escort them there," he said, adding sternly, "You know the discipline. Do not cause any unnecessary fright."
What a single male could achieve might be negligible, but what a large group of males could do was far more.
They buzzed as they plugged into the information linkers, helping the exhausted white worm share the heavy burden and maintain the Nest’s high-power operation.
Including the Broad-winged Species, many of them were inexperienced, but once they gathered in a swarm, the increase in quantity triggered a qualitative change.
Something that a single male could never have achieved was now being precariously sustained by their collective effort.
Gera felt a moment of daze.
An unspeakable emotion kept him silent.
Initially, he had accepted Xiao because Sakti had designated the short-winged male as a member of his own tribe, so Gera instinctively wanted to shelter and soothe his partner’s males as well.
Later, the males of the defeated tribes joined the workforce, and the scope continued to expand. Once they stabilized within the Grey Wing core star system, members of high-tier genetic clades also participated.
The sentiment of "loving the house and its crow" had transformed into a much heavier and more necessary responsibility.
Everything was now fundamentally different from his original starting point.
The black Core Species might have noticed this change, but he only smiled and said little, leaving the entire matter to Gera’s discretion.
In the present, Xiao—who had moved to a closer position and yielded his original low-power linkage plug to a newly joined Broad-winged male—was so anxious that his tail flicked rapidly.
"Don't... don't cry!"
The bewildered short-winged male roughly understood what Gera wanted to do with the Nest. He thought Gera was sad because they hadn't found Sakti yet. Unable to move for the moment, he stammered out a comfort: "We'll look a bit longer. Everyone isn't skilled yet, so it's easy to miss things, *gu*!"
The light brown worm was so anxious that he began using emotional language, accompanied by a slight buzzing.
The surrounding worms buzzed in agreement.
This made Gera laugh.
"Thank you."
Soft emotions caused him to shed tears unconsciously, as if this human-like expression of feeling had truly become a part of him.
"I do indeed need your help."
His partner was gone.
As if he had suddenly vanished from this universe, he was nowhere to be found, which filled Gera with fear and unease. But at the same time, he had other equally important things to do. While Sakti was away at war, Gera had to ensure that his partner would not lose his footing due to any concerns back home.
Clark’s fleet was perfectly offline.
However, this was different from the decisive battle against Krisha. These Grey Wings currently seemed... incompletely shielded. The static of interference was constant; he could "see" them, but effective communication was difficult.
For several moments, Gera felt as if he were standing at the end of the pathway once again.
Hallucinatory, writhing fragments of consciousness and aurora-like colors almost melted into one, diffusing like oil paint dropped into water.
The male was nearly mesmerized by this bizarre sight.
It was hard to define whether this was an image projected by the Nest or something occurring solely on the level of consciousness. He knew very little about the abilities wielded by the King Worms of past generations, and thus had no point of reference.
The lingering resonance of a thin tide spread through the Fourth Quadrant like seeping water stains.
Those were Rifts.
Rifts that were difficult to detect with human technology and impossible to observe directly with the naked eye.
No worm knew exactly what was happening in the Fourth Quadrant right now, not even the user of the Nest.
Just as he could not find Sakti, the incomplete Information Nest was nearing its functional limit. A flawed, artificial creation could never compare to the true Akasha.
Before the Grey Wing tribal schism, the Great Information Nest had shouldered all deep-space communications and data storage for the ten core genetic clades—until it was shoveled away by the Red Tai Sui.
Currently, the Pedipalp Species' Small Information Nest was disconnected. The white male wanted to try some unconventional, harsh methods.
The Puppy Nest was an incomplete, defective product. it could not go any further unless it received more assistance.
Without disconnecting from the information linker, Gera sat within the linkage plug, maintaining the synchronized frequency as he pulled up the communication interface.
"I need to speak with Kliman and Arthur."
*******
Based on Sakti’s lingering memories, his life had seen many difficult moments.
For instance, his most recent eclosion had caused him to experience the agony of his physical body melting and his consciousness disintegrating. And looking further back, there were many similar incidents.
Before meeting the Red Tai Sui, he had maintained a lawless temperament, daring to try anything.
Once, the mecha he piloted, along with his wingman, had crashed on the border planet DK809 during an accidental skirmish. They were completely disconnected for three weeks. Almost all his colleagues and superiors believed he was dead and were ready to issue a death notice.
After all, during the period of the insectoid invasion and the Federation's chaos, too many soldiers died for no clear reason. A lowly lieutenant’s rank wasn't worth wasting resources on a large-scale search.
It was only because Klein persistently submitted application documents and Evelyn, for the first time, violated her principles to seek help from the Holman family that a further search and rescue opportunity was secured.
Afterward, the fearless troublemaker simultaneously received roars of fury and scolding from Klein and Ms. Finley Yang far away on V217. The serious and gentle Finley Yang had rarely used such explosive language, her voice raised an octave as she scolded him into a state of restless anxiety, only to cry sorrowfully after she finished shouting.
The green-eyed woman, on the other hand, said nothing at all. She simply took a whip and lashed him until he rolled off the hospital bed where he was receiving treatment.
"I broke my promise for the first time just to trade for a search warrant."
The electrified whip crackled. The woman with the fiery red hair remained unmoved by her friend’s ghostly wails. Aside from avoiding his face, she lashed him until he wanted to jump out the window to escape—the second time she had done so since the "ABO Literature Incident."
"You owe me," she said, her voice cold, calculating the interests with absolute clarity. "You had better remember this and repay me tenfold in the future. Dare to do this again, and I will personally shave your head and hang you from the flagpole on the drill ground, right beneath the Federation’s vertical-striped flag, so every soldier in training can see you clearly."
At the time, Sakti was weak and listless, going from attempting to struggle to lying flat and accepting the lashes.
He understood that Evelyn’s relationship with the Holman clan had always been delicate. To some extent, this heir did not like the mountain that served as her backing; during her rebellious phase, she had even tried to draw a clear line, and between the Conservatives and the Reformists, she had subtly chosen to side with the more radical Reformists.
Making her bow her head to the Holman faction was, in a sense, no different from treading her pride into the dust.
"Fine, I accept the debt."
A man who could bend and stretch like no other, he immediately gave his promise, while his other hand frantically signaled Klein out of sight to hurry up and break up the fight.
As it turned out, his partner—who was then as green as a cucumber and would one day become the Imperial Secretary—simply kept a stiff face and ignored the distress signal.
However, the truth not written in the reports was that it had indeed been an unexpected stroke of sudden bad luck.
The man who usually went looking for trouble had, for once, not been instigating anything. Instead, he had been trying to lead the only subordinate with him back on a steady course, only to stumble right into an insectoid tide in a feeding state, culling a herd of exotic beasts. Given the overwhelming disparity in combat power, they were treated to a "plane crash gift package."
DK809 was a desolate planet.
It had its own atmosphere, and its gravity was similar to that of the Old Earth and other habitats, but the temperature difference between day and night was massive, and supplies were scarce.
He spent two weeks crossing an entire desert. The final week was spent crawling by the water’s edge of a green patch, waiting for death or rescue. Every time he recalled it, he still felt like wringing his own neck.
For a long time, he could not distinguish between truth and falsehood. He moved in a sleepwalking state, occasionally exchanging a word or two with his wingman to maintain sanity.
That young soldier was very lively. Even after such a horrific accident and suffering severe leg injuries, he never complained loudly. He even showed a rare trace of embarrassment when Sakti carried him on his back.
"Sorry, sir," the other whispered, leaning on the shoulder of the man—or rather, the lieutenant who was transitioning from youth to manhood—who held a higher rank than himself.
"If I hadn't failed to keep up with your speed, you could have escaped."
"It would have been better if you hadn't turned back for me."
"Shut up. When we get back, you're writing ten self-reflection reports. Write mine too."
The man, whose throat was parched to the point of smoking, had no energy to argue. Moving forward on his own was exhausting enough, let alone carrying a grown man.
In that moment, Sakti realized that good rations could also become a burden. The Reformist canteen should provide low-fat meals.
Most of the time, it was the other person talking, pulling Sakti’s drifting thoughts back at critical moments and refocusing his gaze on the sand beneath his feet.
They had only simple directional and positioning equipment and could receive no signals. Their remaining supplies were also rapidly depleted. If they could not cross this desert and find a temporary stopping point, only a dead end awaited them.
In an era of such rapid technological advancement, the things that truly consumed human life were the most basic: water, salt, and food.
Unlike the human habitats filled with light pollution, the nights on DK809 were almost pitch black.
The Milky Way rising over the desert cascaded from the horizon deep into the heart of the sea of sand. Now that humanity had migrated to space, few people actually bothered to gaze at the sea of stars beside them; every inhabited planet was brightly lit.
The upper class on high-tier planets enjoyed the night, while the excavators and miners on low-tier planets worked through it without rest.
It was a scene of prosperity that felt like a curse.
Only when standing in
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Sacre-D: Reborn as the Swarm's Apex | Chapter 123 | Resonance of the Collective | Novela.app | Novela.app
