Nuwa explained the competition rules to Lin Xiaohe, but Lin Xiaohe was in a hurry and summed it up by saying, “Kill monsters, earn points, right?”
Nuwa: …
[Yeah, that’s about right.]
Unbelievable. Under Lin Xiaohe’s pushing, Nuwa actually managed to learn chaotic algorithms.
Lin Xiaohe made an OK gesture and told Nuwa to quickly drop her into the competition arena.
Time is points, points are life, and life is money!
In the various live-streaming rooms, everyone was stunned by Lin Xiaohe’s sudden appearance.
[What’s going on? Isn’t Lin Xiaohe mentally disabled? How can she even enter the arena?]
[The competition is almost over. Why is she here?]
[She’s here to feed herself to the big fat bug. LOL…]
[Don’t laugh yet. Let’s wait until she lands and turns into a loot box, then we can laugh out loud.]
Wesley: [What do you guys know? Our party leader loves being the savior! She knows the students can’t win, so she’s here to take on the big responsibility!]
[Star Lotus Party members, have you been brainwashed by Lin Xiaohe? With the situation like this, unless a Federation general shows up in person with a mech or a warship, there’s no way to turn things around! If Lin Xiaohe can actually do it, I’ll eat shit live on stream.]
Ewan: [Who are you? Why would I want to watch you eat shit? That’s an eyesore.]
[Heh, feeling guilty, aren’t you? Trash party leader, trash party!]
In the live-streaming room, Star Lotus Party members were arguing with everyone else, while their party leader was about to descend into the arena!
…
Bastard and the others were piloting their mechs, trying to escape quickly.
The beetles were numerous, but they couldn’t fly.
The fat bug could fly, but there was only one of it.
The sky was the only escape route!
“Bastard, look!” a classmate shouted in surprise.
Everyone turned their heads and saw a scene that made their livers and guts tremble!
The originally airtight mobile fortress automatically split open a crack.
Through the gap, they could see that the fat flying bug’s abdomen had become extremely bloated.
Its small black eyes seemed to be staring at everyone in the sky.
“Oh no, speed up, run fast!” Bastard’s sixth sense was screaming alarms in his head!
Before he finished speaking, the fat bug’s huge abdomen contracted violently, and then a blob of green mucus shot out like a spray toward the sky!
“Ugh! What the hell?!” Evander was at the rear, and a single drop of the green mucus landed on his mech.
Chu Xue asked with concern, “Are you okay?”
Evander checked his instruments and said, “Yeah, everything’s normal. It’s just kind of gross.”
Other students who got splashed with the mucus tried to make light of it: “Good thing we’re in the Star Network. Otherwise, we’d have to wash our mechs eighty or a hundred times.”
As they were talking, Evander felt like something had pricked him in the back.
He frowned. The mech’s cockpit was sealed—nothing could get in.
But the stinging sensation grew stronger and stronger.
Suddenly, his face changed dramatically. Something was moving inside his body!
In a flash, he pulled out a syringe, reached around to his back, and jabbed it in hard!
Clang!
The syringe bent.
The thing inside his body, startled by the stimulation, burrowed wildly toward his heart.
Sweat beaded on Evander’s face like peas, dripping down his cheeks. His whole body trembled with pain.
His mech wobbled erratically in the air, like it was out of control.
A sense of unease rose in Chu Xue’s heart: “Evander?”
Evander said, “The mucus… is trouble…”
Before he could finish, his mech, like a butterfly with broken wings, fell straight down from a thousand meters in the air.
His loss of control was like pressing a button.
Twenty or thirty mechs began falling from the sky, one after another.
“Watch out, there’s something…”
“Don’t let it touch you…”
“It’s a monster…”
A chill ran through Chu Xue’s heart. This kind of attack—invisible enemy, invisible method—left people completely helpless.
“Li Hao, what’s going on?”
Li Hao had just returned from the battlefield. He had fought against Stardust mutant creatures before.
Maybe he knew what this was.
Li Hao’s eyes showed a deadly seriousness: “I don’t know. I’ve never seen a Stardust mutant like this.”
The contestants in the arena had no idea what Evander and the others were going through, but the live-stream viewers could see it clearly.
The green mucus was corrosive. After eating a tiny hole in the mech’s armor, a monster thinner than a strand of hair shot onto Evander’s back.
It bored through his uniform, broke through his skin, and entered his body.
His flesh and blood became its breeding ground, and it grew at a visible speed.
By the time Evander was completely turned into a dried-up corpse, the creature burst out of his chest like a butterfly breaking free from its cocoon.
In the live-stream room, Crazy Old Cao gasped: “It’s a fat bug larva!”
Rio couldn’t help but stand up. His eyes were fixed on the baby fat bug, which was fluttering its wings, as he murmured under his breath.
“This reproduction speed, this growth rate—it’s way too fast! Thank goodness this is just a monster made up by Nuwa. I can’t even imagine how we would completely wipe them out if they actually existed in real life!”
From a hair-thin larva in the mucus to a three-meter-long, winged juvenile—it had taken less than half an hour!
The young fat bugs rose into the air. At first, they flew clumsily, but after only about twenty meters, they had fully mastered the skill, getting faster and faster!
They organized themselves to block Bastard and the others’ escape, their huge mouths wide open, revealing rows of dense, sharp teeth.
Just then, inside the mobile fortress, the fat bug’s abdomen squeezed again, shooting even more green mucus than before toward Bastard and the group.
The students unlucky enough to get hit by the mucus didn’t hesitate—they chose to self-destruct.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Grim fireworks bloomed in the sky.
At the same time, the entire planet Kepler-503 turned into a living hell.
Crowds surged toward the spaceport.
More than half of the ships in the port were already starting up, surrounded by warships from the Kepler garrison for protection.
The surface had completely become a playground for the black beetles. They couldn’t eat all the humans, so they strung seven or eight people together with their antennae and happily carried them off to the fat bug.
The fat bug wasn’t picky. Flesh, blood, steel, and concrete were all on its menu.
Its abdomen swelled up again like it was being inflated, and then came another round of mucus.
The fat bug reproduced at an astonishing rate, multiplying from one into tens of thousands.
Like locusts, they filled the sky, swarming together, trying to devour every warship and mech in the air!
“Ahhhh!” The terrified screams of the crowd were deafening.
Warships fired all at once, and the young fat bugs opened their huge mouths in unison.
They actually swallowed the cannon fire!
Just like that. They swallowed it.
Everyone who saw this fell into despair.
If even humanity’s greatest pride—our greatest asset for racing across the stars—couldn’t stop these monsters,
what else could they do?
Even more despairing: three warships that had barely escaped the fat bug’s attack suddenly found a new wormhole opening up right above them!
The warships couldn’t react in time and flew straight into it. The moment they touched the edge of the wormhole, they were torn apart by some mysterious force!
Burning, flaming debris rained down from the sky, becoming fuel for the young fat bugs to fight over.
This wormhole was even bigger than the first. Inside the pitch-black vortex, flowing purple light flickered.
Neither the black beetles nor the fat bugs dared to get anywhere near this area.
An overwhelming pressure blanketed the entire planet.
Whether inside or outside the arena, when everyone saw that section of tentacle emerging from the wormhole, their minds went blank.
It was a fear rooted deep in their genes, rendering them completely unable to react.
Boom!
Dark clouds rolled, lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled.
The wormhole churned even more violently, as if some enormous creature was about to emerge!
