Honkai: Star Rail — A Nameless Traveler, a New Path Every Day - Chapter 7

Youyan hesitated for a moment, then slowly opened his pair of awe-inspiring mouthparts.

It didn’t contain human teeth and tongue, but rather layers of palatine plates and a millstone-like structure for chewing. March 7th stared at this complex structure, his hand pausing for a moment, clearly pondering how this thing should handle liquid food.

“Pour directly…buzz…”

Youyan reminded her with the sound of flapping its wings.

“Oh! Okay! So I’ll fall then? You…you can catch it, right?”

While muttering to himself, March 7th brought the insulated box close to Youyan’s mouth.

smell……

Well, how should I put it?

Youyan’s compound eyes flickered.

If it were a human, their taste buds would probably be screaming in alarm by now, but to the insect, it tastes pretty good. Although those complex chewing mouthparts aren’t really suited for drinking liquids.

“How is it? Is it good?” March 7th blinked her big eyes, looking at him expectantly. “I haven’t tried it, after all, the color looks a bit… well…”

“Not bad…buzz…”

“I didn’t expect you to have such a good appetite after turning into a bug. If Pam knew, she would be very happy that her newly bought carrot juice wasn’t wasted.”

March 7th spent some time with him, then tiptoed away.

Xiao Sanyue brought him food; Xiao Sanyue is good.

After an unknown amount of time, the hatch opened again.

This time, it was Nguyen Mai who came in.

She maintained her aloof demeanor, holding a palm-sized instrument in her hand, her green eyes gleaming faintly in the dim light. Standing at the doorway, she first glanced at the pile of sleeping True Stinging Insects in the corner, then looked at the Wandering Flame lying in the middle.

“You fed them.”

“Buzz…”

You Yan responded weakly.

Nguyen Mai took a few steps closer, squatted down, and gently touched the remaining fragments of nutrient balls on the ground with her finger.

“You can convert imaginary energy into tangible nutrients.”

The tentacles of the wandering flame twitched, unsure how to react.

“Now you need to do a harmless test: can you command Skarakabaz?”

“You mean… Buzz… Star-Shattering King Insect… Buzz…?”

“That’s right, a simulated entity that can only exist for about 30 seconds after birth, can you command it?”

Even so, Skarakkabaz is still a giant silverfish that inherited the Jaw of the Insect King.

“Don’t worry, if it gets out of control, I’ll deal with it myself. The Black Tower will also be happy to test the limits of the space station’s defense system.”

“This sounds…buzz…not like comfort…buzz…”

Arriving at Ruan Mei’s petri dish, the enormous insect egg was slowly pulsating in the air, and the dark blue giant insect inside the egg was emitting a low hum.

“Are you ready?” Nguyen Mai tapped her finger on the terminal. “I’m going to deactivate the suppression field.”

“Okay…buzz…”

Click—!

With a crisp sound, a deep blue foreleg pierced the eggshell, and culture medium splashed everywhere.

“Buzz—!”

The giant blue worm that had hatched roared.

“Buzz—!!!”

You Yan’s body reacted before he even thought about it.

His elytra suddenly spread open to their maximum size, and the blue-purple fluorescent veins flowing on them burst into a blinding light. His scythe-like forelimbs rose high and slammed hard onto the floor with a sharp, loud thud.

The pair of dark blue giant jaws slowly closed, just as Ruan Mei had predicted. Even if it was a creation of the Envoy, its rank would not be higher than Youyan’s.

A crucial point is that, like other insects, it has no brain.

In less than 30 seconds, the giant insect exploded into pieces before it could even let out a cry of pain.

“…?”

“You gave it a self-destruct command.”

“I…buzz…?”

“It realized that its existence was an offense to you, so it took its own life.”

Youyan’s compound eyes flashed wildly, reflecting the fragments of insect eggs and culture medium scattered all over the ground in hundreds of crystal facets.

“I…buzz…I made it commit suicide?”

“This means that in the breeding hierarchy, your position is far higher than Skarakabaz.” Nguyen May stood up, took out a handkerchief to wipe her fingers, “I can now be certain that you are now the ‘kindred spirit’ that Taizyuros longed for but could never obtain after his ascension.”

“Buzz…buzz?!”

A feeling of nausea welled up inside him. This absolute control over life and death was so heavy that it made Youyan, who was human just yesterday, feel like vomiting.

“You don’t seem happy.” Nguyen May tilted her head, a hint of confusion flashing in her eyes. “From my observation, most people feel a sense of satisfaction when they learn that they are classified as a higher level of being. Your current reaction is not what I expected.”

“This feeling…buzz…it’s like…buzz…I’ve become…buzz…a tyrant…buzz…”

“In the path of reproduction, there is no concept of tyrant, only mother, or more accurately, ‘one’ and ‘all.’ You are ‘one,’ and they are ‘all.’ You are the swarm, and the swarm is you. Would you grieve for the death of the cells on your finger? Or would you feel that controlling your red blood cells to transport oxygen is a form of tyranny?”

Ruan Mei turned around and looked at You Yan.

“To you, they are simply an extension of your body. Letting dead tissue slough off is a perfectly normal physiological process.”

“But I…buzz…no…buzz…I’m a person…buzz…”

Youyan instinctively shrank back, its huge forelimbs pawing the ground restlessly.

“Human? But your current genes are completely those of a Coleoptera insect.”

“……I?”

silence.

The flapping stopped, but then, Youyan opened its pair of ferocious mouthparts, inhaled through its chest, and emitted a sharp, distorted hissing sound.

“I am…human…I have…a human heart…”

Heart……

“But you don’t have the structure of a human heart now; you only have dorsal vessels to propel blood and lymph through your body.”

Ruan Mei’s words made him pause.

“…”

An inexplicable sense of loneliness gripped his thoughts.

“You’re sad, but… since you don’t have a heart, what is this ‘human heart’ you speak of? Is it some kind of metaphysical abstraction, or…”

Nguyen Mai looked at him.

“I need to clarify this concept in order to better understand your situation.”

Youyan’s wings fluttered once, then stopped.

He tried to speak, but found he didn’t know what to say.

What is the human heart?

If you had asked him this question yesterday, he would probably have been able to talk at length about passion, kindness, courage, a sense of justice, and so on.

But he was very timid today.

but……

“I am…human.”

Even if… I am… an insect now…

“I am also…human…”

He slowly stood up.

The power of reproduction gradually flowed through his flapping wings, converging on the lifeless head of the giant insect behind him.

“I am not…a tyrant…not…”