"Let's start with the conclusion: killing the swarm consciousness is absolutely impossible."
To outsiders, Lu PingAn merely seemed to have spaced out for a while.
But in truth, he had gained a great deal this time. It might not have noticeably increased his strength, but it had broadened his horizons beyond comparison.
If anyone else had been in his position, let alone "listening" and "observing," they would not even have been able to establish an effective "connection."
Only now did the power of those Eyes That Saw the Truth truly reveal itself. At Lu PingAn's current level, he finally had the qualifications to glimpse the form in which so-called truth existed.
He gathered his thoughts. He was still far too distant from beings like that. He did not need to grasp truth itself; he only needed a rough understanding of its state of existence within the limits of his own level, then make rudimentary use of it based on its outward manifestations.
".Just as expected, their souls are already in the same state."
How could different individuals merge into a single whole? And why could that collective consciousness think with such precision?
In fact, Your Excellency Xiu Yi's "metaphor" had already provided the answer.
"Every insectoid—no, every King Worm—is a cell, while every ordinary swarm is a cell of the King Worm."
Cell was only a metaphor, but it was quite fitting, because a single cell contained most of an organism's genetic information.
In a sense, one cell could potentially "restore" the entire organism.
One was ten thousand, and ten thousand were one. That was Lu PingAn's "understanding," and also the "fact" he had observed.
"This shouldn't be a permanent alteration. More precisely, if it truly underwent a qualitative change to that extent, life itself should have died."
There was