Moth kept sending ssages for almost half an hour. The Grand Elder followed the subsequent ssages with pure, unadulterated interest. He noticed how thoroughly aware Moth was of Hye’s every trick and secret—knowledge that went far beyond re observation.
The Grand Elder reviewed the attached videos. They were grueso. They showed various test subjects—from low-tier monsters to captured races from different wars—ingesting raw bones.
In every single clip, the result was the sa: the subject’s body would swell unnaturally as their internal pressure spiked, eventually detonating in a shower of gore.
[Interesting... So he can consu these bones and not explode? How?!]
[That... Requires another paynt then!] Moth wasn’t ashad to ask for a price. He knew he held the most valuable currency in the room: knowledge.
[Let guess...] The Grand Elder shot a glaring look toward Moth’s seat, [You need another request from , right?]
[I always consider you to be the smartest of all the Hescos!]
[Save your useless flattery. I need to know what exactly you want to do with all these favours!] At first, the Grand Elder was rely curious about the favour Moth was banking. But after Moth doubled down for a second request, his curiosity instantly shifted to suspicion.
[It’s all for the sake of our future!] Moth replied, refusing to budge. He wasn’t planning on sharing the details of his master plan just yet. [You know I won’t do anything to harm our people!]
[I know, that’s why I’m asking!] The Grand Elder felt that no matter how he tried to pressure Moth, the younger man was a fortress. [Fine! I grant you a second request. Now tell the answer!]
[It’s all thanks to his timing!] Moth spoke as if he was Hye’s shadow, possessing a mind-reading ability that understood Hye’s every thought.
[As the bones provide an imnse, volatile amount of energy, the trick is to use them in the middle of a grueso war, or while executing a grand technique that consus energy at a massive rate. If the energy is being spent as fast as it is being introduced, it won’t end up exploding the body!]
[Proof?] The Grand Elder was prepared to cancel the request privilege if this was all based on re theories.
[Here!] Moth was never the type to play with unproven theories. He leaned on cold, hard data and evidence.
He shared a new set of videos—ones where he personally led the tests over different race mbers. These subjects were using their deadliest, most taxing attacks that would normally drain their entire energy. As they unleashed these ultimate attacks, they simultaneously consud the bones.
The videos showed the subjects’ veins glowing with a violent light, their bodies trembling, but they didn’t explode. They channelled the bone’s energy into the attack itself, fueling a feedback loop of destruction.
[That’s not all!] Moth added, his text practically buzzing with excitent. [Those who survived this process had their stats elevated by the System. They underwent a forced transformation—an evolution born of surviving the energy surge!]
[Oh, show !]
Moth shared the final segnts of his research data, ticulously securing a third future request from the Grand Elder in the process. In the hierarchy of the Hescos Empire, a personal request from the Grand Elder was not rely a favour; it was a debt.
To hold a promise from the Grand Elder was to have the weight of the entire Hescos race behind you. It was the ultimate insurance policy.
As the two kept secretly conversing—sharing views, data, and the deep secrets regarding Hye’s potential—the subject of their discussion was currently imrsed in the raw, brutal reality of exploring their world.
The first thing Hye did after securing his insect vanguard was to pick a direction at random and stick to it. He lacked even the most basic geographical information about the Hescos’ holand. He didn’t know if he appeared in the periphery, the centre, the north, or the west.
Flying in the upper atmosphere allowed him to evade the tangled, troubling challenges of the ground—hazards he could only begin to guess at.
He flew with the 100,000 insects for several hours, using the ti to obsessively cross-reference his ship’s sensor data. Everything he read pointed to a single conclusion: it was impossible for any known creature to inhabit this hellish place.
"Forget about the scorching heat," Hye muttered, staring at the flashing red alerts on his dashboard.
"The pressure asurents are way off the roof! The air is a cocktail of corrosives, and the sensors are picking up spores of so sort of invasive organism—a disease, perhaps, or a microscopic parasite. I don’t know... This world... How can anyone live here and call it ho?!"
The more reports he digested, the more shocked he beca. To test the severity of the environnt, he had attempted to send one of his summoned warriors out in a space suit.
The warrior was dead in less than three minutes. It was an agonising, visible death; the suit’s alloys had pitted and cracked almost instantly, and his body had been crushed like a tin can.
Hye wanted to unleash his army—to pour his legions out and show the Hescos his true strength—but he was limited to the hull of his ship. He knew he could swap his small for one of his massive flagships, docking his current vessel in a hangar and moving into a more fortified command centre without exposing himself to the atmosphere.
However, as long as he remained ignorant of the true power of the world’s native monsters, he preferred the agility of the scout. He would rather be fast and fragile than slow and sturdy in a world that could clearly crush anything.
His decision to stick to the small ship soon proved its worth.
After a few hours of steady flight, a faint, rhythmic vibration began to hum through the deck plates. It wasn’t the engine.
"This isn’t normal," he whispered. He imdiately checked the ship’s shield status.
User Comments
0 comments from readers