To his senses now, most living things were little more than specimens.
The Insect Race was different. After his earlier encounter with them, Shen Yi knew there was no way to eradicate them without destroying the group consciousness at its root.
Every time he slaughtered those insects, the result was only temporary.
He closed his eyes slightly, and his vast mental power spread through deep space at tremendous speed.
It lacked the effortless flow he felt when using his power on Blue Star. But the boundless Cosmic Void could bear that power without limit. Even if Shen Yi unleashed it fully, he would not have to worry about harming other living beings.
Click—
Click—
They seemed to sense Shen Yi's probing.
Far away,
inside the Insect Race's nest, hundreds of Sentry Bugs stationed on watch raised the antennae on their foreheads. From their three pairs of slender forelimbs sprang tens of thousands of fine, milky threads.
Each thread swept through the nearly depleted air around it, gathering every trace it could touch.
Sound.
Energy.
Temperature.
Scent.
Everything they sensed passed through those threads into the Insect Race's vast stream of consciousness, down to the tiniest detail.
But before that information could be sent back,
Shen Yi opened his eyes a fraction. An almost imperceptible aura of authority spread around him.
Deep space was deathly still.
Only the countless creatures stirring within the nest produced an occasional muffled noise. Swallowed by the vacuum, those sounds echoed only in Shen Yi's senses.
The jumbled thoughts of countless insects flooded into him like the noise once made by billions of lives on Blue Star, all at once.
Confusion.
Anxiety.
Endless hunger.
Those simple, uniform emotions rushed onward like an endless river, leaving no opening for another being to peer inside.
But the one