Chapter 588 - 390: Enslaving the Mother Insect, the Void Empress’s Imprint

’Next...’ Ian’s gaze swept over the ice field below.

After the recent Domain harvest and the insect tide’s assault, the ice field was already unrecognizable.

Deep, cracked chasms scarred the landscape, along with stretches of vitrified ground that had melted and then solidified, and a layer of gray-black powder left behind by the vaporized Insect Race.

At the edge of this devastated area, Ian’s Perception picked up a strange fluctuation.

On the very outskirts of the ice field, in the areas not yet completely covered by his Domain, several smaller, purplish-black Nests had begun to writhe.

They were retreating. The fleshy tissue on the surface of the Nests was rapidly contracting.

The swarms around the Nests, particularly the massive Level Four Guard Insects, were clustered around several grotesquely bloated Mother Insects, moving away from the ice field.

Their pace was slow, even clumsy, but their objective was clear: to escape this death zone.

’The Mother Insects are retreating, too.’ A glint flashed in Ian’s eyes.

The main Nest had retreated, but these Mother Insects, scattered across the world, had clearly retained their most basic survival instincts.

Or perhaps, before its retreat, the Nest’s Will had issued a command for its subordinate units to preserve their strength.

After all, the Mother Insects were the foundation of the Insect Race’s expansion. As long as they survived, they could endlessly produce new members of their kind.

Ian’s gaze locked onto a particularly large Mother Insect. It was tightly encircled by three Level Four Guard Insects.

This Mother Insect was over thirty meters long. Its Shell was a dark purple, its surface covered in a dense layer of egg sacs, and its bloated abdomen nearly dragged along the ground.

It was completely dependent on the Guard Insects to move, carried aloft on their blade-like forelimbs like a sedan chair.

Within the Mother Insect’s small compound eyes, a scarlet light flickered frantically, betraying an almost human-like terror.

It could seemingly perceive the gaze of the terrifying figure high in the sky.

"So you do know fear, little one." The corners of Ian’s mouth lifted. ’It seems you have some decent intelligence after all.’

He suddenly recalled his previous simulations about enslaving a Mother Insect.

Back then, he had theorized that it might be possible to use the Dream Rule as a medium to construct a false hive consciousness and deceive the Mother Insect.

But the risk had been too high then; the Nest’s Will monitored everything too closely, and the chances of success were slim.

But things were completely different now. The main Nest had suffered a devastating blow and retreated, so the Link to its Will was bound to be in temporary disarray.

The Mother Insects below were isolated, helpless, and fleeing in a panic.

Fear, Chaos, and the instinct for survival—these emotions were the perfect entry point for an invasion via the Dream Rule.

’Isn’t this... the perfect opportunity?’

Light flared in Ian’s eyes. His figure flickered, transforming into a stream of pale gold light that crossed several thousand kilometers in an instant, appearing directly above the large Mother Insect!

VMMMM!

His Domain expanded once more, but this time, its range was precisely controlled to a radius of one kilometer.

The three Level Four Guard Insects had just raised their bladed forelimbs to attack when their movements abruptly went rigid.

They were like specimens sealed in invisible amber; even the light in their compound eyes was frozen solid.

The other Low Tier members of the Insect Race that tried to charge forward were likewise trapped in a state of absolute stillness.

Only the large Mother Insect, thanks to Ian’s "special consideration," experienced a relatively gentle suppression.

Even so, its movements became extremely sluggish. Its bloated body trembled faintly, its small compound eyes staring fixedly at Ian as he descended from the sky.

A thick wave of terror radiated from its Soul.

Ian floated directly in front of the Mother Insect, less than ten meters away.

He caught the scent of a pungent odor—the acid and pheromones being emitted from the surface of the Mother Insect’s Shell.

"There, there. I’m not going to kill you," Ian said, his voice soft and bewitching.

He slowly closed his eyes. The surrounding scene began to distort and fade. The colors of the material world washed away, replaced by a gray, misty expanse.

Upon Entering the Dream dimension, the massive, bloated body of the Mother Insect below took on a completely different form in Ian’s eyes.

It was a constantly writhing sphere of conscious light, emitting cold, mechanical fluctuations.

At the core of the sphere of light was a faint wisp of the Mother Insect’s own consciousness, flickering like a candle in the wind.

And in the deepest part of the sphere of light, Ian saw something.

It was a complex sigil, so profound it surpassed the limits of his comprehension.

The sigil was Dark Gold, its structure like a multi-layered honeycomb. Each layer rotated slowly, emitting a cold, vast aura.

The aura was both familiar and alien to Ian.

Familiar, because it shared its origin with the Will of the Level Five Nest from before.

Alien, because the station this sigil exuded... was far beyond Level Five!

His consciousness merely had to gaze upon the sigil for a suffocating pressure to well up from the depths of his being.

It was like an ant gazing up at the heavens, a mortal facing a god head-on.

’This is bad!’ Alarm bells screamed in Ian’s mind. ’This isn’t the brand of a Level Five Nest’s Will.’

’This is probably... the mark of the Void Empress!’

Aisala’s words surfaced in his mind: the Void Empress was a being of at least Level Seven True Spirit.

Now he knew. Every Mother Insect in the entire universe was likely controlled by a single wisp of Her will.

Any attempt to invade a Mother Insect’s Soul would trigger this supreme sigil.

The very instant Ian realized the danger...

VMMMM!!!

The Dark Gold sigil suddenly erupted with an indescribable light. A cold, ancient, and terrifying Will awakened from its depths.

Ian’s Consciousness Body instantly froze.

Time, space, Perception, thought... everything was frozen in that instant.

He saw his own pale gold Consciousness Body, its expression one of pure horror, frozen in mid-air.