"What are you standing there for? Run!"
Nameless glanced at the man who had wet his pants in terror and snapped.
The man came to his senses. He hurried around Cat Bug and fled down the street. Once he was clear, Nameless twisted his sword with both hands, drilling a hole through Cat Bug's head.
Insects had astonishing vitality. Even a sword through the head had not killed this one.
In fact, humans had truly killed very few of the insects so far. Most merely lost the ability to move after being wounded, then recovered after a while.
Nameless pulled out his sword. Sure enough, strands of Green Silk appeared in the hole in Cat Bug's head and gradually began to mend the wound.
He gently hooked an extremely fine strand of Green Silk with the tip of his sword. It writhed there, then, after about a minute, began struggling violently, like an earthworm wriggling on a fishhook.
He waited a little longer. The strand stopped moving.
Surprise crossed Nameless's face again. Though the strand was motionless, it was not dead. It had entered a state resembling hibernation or suspended animation.
In that state, it rapidly lost heat and moisture until it looked like a dried corpse.
Its vitality is terrifying, Nameless thought in amazement.
He flicked his wrist, dropping the dried strand from his sword tip onto the edge of the hole in Cat Bug's head. Before long, it suddenly came back to life. As it intertwined with the other strands, they supplied it with heat and moisture, and it returned to normal.
"It's a little society!"
Nameless was certain that every strand of Green Silk was an independent individual. Only by gathering together did they form an insect in the first place.
They even seemed capable of research.