Chapter 9

It was not until much later that Su Lin would learn that even aboard a large, fully equipped warship, access to these disposable treatment supplies made entirely of biological materials was highly prized. Carlos really had given him exceptionally preferential treatment.

But at that moment, Su Lin naturally had no mind to investigate where the unfamiliar high-ranking Zerg officer's kindness had come from.

Once the treatment pod had closed completely, the former human let out a sharp breath, then began breathing rapidly, as if he were starved of oxygen.

Those Zerg soldiers actually mistook me for an underdeveloped larva?

What on earth is going on?!

Su Lin desperately thought back over everything that had happened. Suddenly, his body stiffened.

The program I casually activated before jumping into the storage vessel... seemed... seemed to have the word "fusion" in it?

Bits and pieces of his past work flooded Su Lin's mind, and he finally remembered. Those ancient, obsolete experiment records did document the various attempts the research institute had made on the remains of that Zerg Queen embryo.

One of them seemed to have been an interspecies fusion experiment between humans and the Zerg Queen. Of course, that fanciful experiment had ended in failure countless times.

How ridiculous. If humans could fuse with the Zerg Queen so easily, the war between the Zerg and humanity would have ended long ago...

There's no way it could have succeeded.

That experimental program should have been deleted ages ago...

Su Lin kept reassuring himself, but his hands gradually moved toward his body.

As he began to panic, he felt two shallow indentations on his back.

The sensation beneath his fingertips made Su Lin's breathing grow labored-the Zerg Queen embryo's remains had two indentations on their back.

The Zerg Queen had no need to fly, so her wings and carapace would degenerate.

But the wing pouches that housed her wings remained.

Based on years of research into the remains of the Zerg Queen larva, humans could more or less conclude that the two wing pouches on the Zerg Queen's back would transform into nectar glands as she matured and emerged, secreting nectar to nourish newborn high-ranking Zerg.

These nectar glands were organs unique to the Zerg Queen.

For among the countless billions of individuals in the entire Zerg, none but her possessed an instinct to nurture their young.

That was why only the Zerg Queen could bring forth lord-class high-ranking Zerg.

Ordinary Zerg needed only to lay countless eggs before leaving the nest without hesitation.

As for the newborn Zerg, they could rely only on themselves-after hatching, they devoured their siblings, and the strongest and hardiest among them would naturally survive. But after receiving the Zerg Queen's nectar, the newborns, though Zerg all the same, would undergo an entirely different transformation. They would become the most elite beings in all of Zerg society. They would be the most fearsome vanguard, the unstoppable elite of the Zerg, the "lords" who controlled all of Zerg society.

And then they would make the Zerg Queen "produce" more and more of their kind.

"This can't be..."

Su Lin trembled uncontrollably inside the treatment pod.

He felt as if he were about to go mad. But in the end, he had no choice but to face reality. Yes, the fusion experiment the human research institute had attempted for decades had succeeded with him, for some unknown reason.

Now Su Lin... had become half human, half Zerg.

And the Zerg half was a Zerg Queen.

As everyone knew, the Zerg had always been vicious toward humans.

At the height of the war decades ago, every human prisoner had ended up as a horrifying, semiliquid mass of remains in a Zerg hive.

The Zerg had never left a single survivor.

It was equally well known that the Zerg Queen was the Zerg's breeding machine.

To maintain the diversity of genetic samples within the population and keep the species stable, she would be inseminated by multiple male Zerg without interruption throughout her breeding cycle.

Su Lin recalled what he had learned in his Zerg general knowledge class and fell into a profound panic.

Oh, right, had we mentioned that Su Lin particularly disliked drawing attention because of certain "special reasons"?

Perhaps it was time to explain that.

The reason Su Lin hated being noticed so much was that he had had enough of being pursued-or rather, harassed-by other men.

If there really was some power in this world that science could not explain, then Su Lin thought he had probably been cursed by someone.

He easily attracted the affection of men.

In the harassing letters he had received, some people had gone on at length describing Su Lin with nauseating words like silk, ivory, cream, flower buds, and nectar...

If the letter had not also been filled with a great many obscene fantasies too filthy to read, Su Lin would almost have thought that the pervert was describing some ancient milk-and-honey pastry.

Unfortunately, Su Lin was no pastry. He was just a hard-bodied straight man who was deeply troubled by the advances of other men.

Yes, although he might not have looked it, Su Lin really was a thoroughly straight man.

But no matter how much he stressed that point, his damned constitution kept attracting wave after wave of troublesome men. Su Lin had no prejudice against love between men, but he truly could not stand other men putting their hands on him.

After experiencing several particular crises, the mere thought of someone doing this or that to him made the hairs on Su Lin's body stand on end and his stomach clench.

Later, after he fled to the border and joined the research institute, a special institution that protected its employees, he had thought he had finally escaped the fate of being pinned down by men. But now the heavens were telling him that half the flesh and blood in his body came from a Zerg Queen.