Chapter 22

Inside the dark, damp, and freezing hive, Ariel the Saint suddenly lashed his tail hard.

The countless eyes covering his body snapped open in response to his intense emotions, casting clusters of faint, cool yellow light into the darkness.

Belatedly, he suddenly realized something.

"All I want is Su Lin. If I kill Blood Wing and don't eat him, I won't gain weight."

In the darkness, Ariel raised his enormous, monstrous body, annoyed with himself.

The mighty hive shuddered at his small movement, and countless tunnels caved in. But the massive rocks did Ariel no harm. The pieces of granite, each weighing several tons, swept like grains of sand across his thick, ink-black skin and his tentacles, which were covered in cilia and fleshy growths. Then his movements crushed them into powder.

A moment later, countless soft tentacles with tough outer coverings suddenly emerged from the jagged rubble left by the collapse on the planet.

They reached farther and farther out, and soon their soft, wormlike bodies occupied the entire area.

The countless yellow eyes covering the soft black matter opened and gazed out at the vast starry sky.

"...I'm not going to eat him anyway."

The Zerg, who had only recently resolved to lose weight, encouraged himself. Driven by his will, part of his body broke away from his overly heavy original body, becoming a mass of dark, fleshy "jellyfish" that rose lightly into the starry sky.

"No... don't come near me... stay back!"

Almost at the same moment, the violent shaking caused by the Security Committee spaceship forcibly breaking away from the fleet's force field jolted Su Lin awake in the cabin Medises had lent him.

He had the feeling he had just had a nightmare.

It must have been a terrifying one. When Su Lin got up, he found himself drenched in sweat. He felt sticky all over, and it was extremely uncomfortable.

Yet even a dream that frightening turned to a haze in Su Lin's mind the moment he woke. No matter how he tried to recall it, all he could remember were densely packed yellow points of light in the darkness and a huge mass of constantly writhing, soft flesh.

Ugh, no, I can't think about it. The more I think, the dizzier I get, and I feel a little sick too.

Su Lin clutched his forehead and let out a pained groan. He drew a sharp breath, staggered out of bed, and stumbled all the way to the washroom in the cabin.

He had planned to take a shower to feel better, but after taking off his pajamas, Su Lin noticed something wasn't quite right.

He knew he had broken out in a cold sweat because of the nightmare, but could someone tell him why the sweat soaking the fabric was a faint milky white, and why it smelled so sweet?

Su Lin stared at his pajamas for a while, then gave them a firm wring, squeezing a palmful of slightly sticky liquid from them.

He held his breath and carefully licked it. It had a faint sweetness, a hint of milk, and a complex fragrance mixed with something like the scent of flowers.

Yes, it was the kind of liquid he would have found very, very delicious if it hadn't come from his own body.

"No way..."

Su Lin instantly realized something and turned around in horror. Sure enough, the liquid seemed to be seeping from the roots of the wings on his back.

The young, unlucky human male suffered a brief mental breakdown.

He did know that a Zerg Queen's wing sacs would degenerate and secrete insect honey, but he didn't know why, when his first wings were clearly still there, part of his wing sacs had nevertheless begun turning into honey sacs.

After finally meeting the perfect girl of his dreams, he had discovered that she was a cross-dressing perverted lunatic. Before he had even managed to put his shattered heart back together, he, Su Lin, a 183-centimeter-tall man, was standing in the bathroom discovering that he had started producing honey.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it-"

Cursing, Su Lin panicked and threw his clothes into the sink. He turned on the hot water and kept rinsing the honey-soaked clothes, his mind in complete turmoil.

He had thought he was probably already epically miserable, but heaven apparently didn't agree.

Heaven thought he could be a little more miserable.

So, just as Su Lin was scrambling to wash the clothes and himself clean, the bathroom door opened without warning.

"Su Lin?"

Medises appeared in the bathroom doorway and locked eyes with the young man inside.

"Senior?"

Su Lin stared blankly at the silver-haired Zerg, his whole body stiff.

The swirling, scalding steam carried the honeyed fragrance he was desperately trying to conceal and enveloped the tall Zerg in the doorway in an instant.

Medises's breathing faltered for a moment.

Chapter 22

The silver-haired Zerg's tall figure was somewhat blurred by the swirling steam, but his pale cyan eyes suddenly turned very, very light, like two silver coins reflecting moonlight.

Perhaps it was because of the moisture or something else, but Su Lin noticed that his senses seemed to have suddenly sharpened. He could smell his senior's scent, the scent unique to the Zerg, powerful and impossible to ignore. After sensing the aura of a high-ranking male Zerg, Su Lin didn't even notice the thin wings on his back begin to tremble slightly of their own accord.

The honeyed fragrance in the air grew increasingly thick and rich as the air stirred.

As for Su Lin himself, he genuinely thought that Medises's sudden appearance had frightened him. After all, people broke out in cold sweats easily when they were nervous or startled, right?

In any case, the moment the silver-haired Zerg appeared before him, he felt the aching pressure at the roots of his wings grow stronger. He secreted more honey, and the thick liquid gathered at the roots of his wings before beginning to trickle down his back, drop by drop.