Chapter 246: What are they afraid of? Chapter 246: What are they afraid of? Damn!

The New Federation was raising insects!

In the taxi that had turned around, heading back the way it came, Yang Ming clutched his stomach and groaned softly.

The driver kept glancing at Yang Ming, worried that this passenger might soil his beloved car.

The driver gave a dry laugh, “Yeah, you can’t go soaking in hot springs with diarrhea, even if there’s mixed bathing… Hang in there! You’ve got this, young man! I’ll take you to the nearest toilet!”

Yang Ming forced a smile, yet lines of text appeared on his glasses.

Clearly, Lyu was also frightened by the intelligence Yang Ming had sent back.

[Insects? Are they really the Insect Race, boss? The Space Worm Clan with collective evolutionary abilities?]
[Has the New Federation gone mad? They’re actually doing this in secret!]
[I suddenly understand why they say those things could drain the Sherman Empire’s national power. As long as a Mother Worm begins to breed on an uninhabited planet within the Sherman Empire for over ten years without detection, it will result in a terrifying Insect Race army! The Insect Race feeds on minerals needed for various radiations and curvature engines. They actively attack the Sherman Empire’s Resource Stars!]
[But aren’t the Space Worm Clan humanity’s mortal enemy?]
[Well, that’s humans for you.]
Although Yang Ming wanted to argue, the taxi had surveillance devices, so he could only watch Lyu ramble on while twisting in discomfort, clutching his stomach.

The Insect Race, generally known as the Space Worm Clan, was a type of cosmic organism.

Yang Ming was quite familiar with this entity.

The Insect Race was one of the most frequent antagonists in “Abyss,” termed the second Natural Disaster, highly frequent with extreme destructiveness, second only to sudden strikes from high-dimensional civilizations.

According to the introduction in “Abyss,”
The Space Worm Clan had a strict social system akin to a beehive, with a complete colony possessing extremely high ‘average’ intelligence.

The scale of an Insect Race colony ranged from three hundred million to two billion, capable of self-regulating its size.

Each colony had only one Mother Worm — the queen.

Male worms tasked with mating with the Mother Worm were akin to the colony’s ministers, responsible for managing the entire colony and offering their bodies for the queen’s evolution when needed.

Apart from the queen and ministers, other insects were asexual, without reproductive ability. Individuals could differentiate and evolve in different directions to meet the colony’s needs.

A queen’s evolution signified the Insect Race’s advancement. When a queen evolved to the Third Rank, the Insect Race would possess the ability to traverse space, and ‘mimic warships’ formed by the Insect Race’s bodies would appear in large numbers.

When the queen evolved to the Fifth Rank, the Insect Swarm would produce special individuals capable of carving space wormholes, enabling effortless cross-Constant Star System travel for the Insect Race.

The Insect Race’s activity had cycles, with each active period occurring roughly every four to five hundred years.

They fed on radiation and liked to hide within the mantle of rocky planets.

When a queen evolved to the Sixth Rank and determined no threats existed in nearby Star Domains, she and the male worms would enter a frenzy of reproduction, birthing new queen larvae and spreading the colonies to various star systems.

Yang Ming had a deep impression of several high-rank Insect Race instances described within.

For example:
“The Space Worm Clan is a completely different biological civilization form compared to us humans or humanoid life forms; they are cosmic life in the truest sense.”

“Humanity’s insignificant bodies are nothing compared to their infinitely evolving ones.”

“But in our wars with them, we often win more than we lose because if humanity suffered a single comprehensive defeat, the insect plague would spread throughout the entire Milky Way.”

Or:
“We still cannot understand why the Insect Race’s method of opening wormholes is so similar to our Starship jumps.”

“The Insect Race may migrate across Large Star Systems in the universe using gravity as their guide.”

“We have tried to communicate with the Insect Race since humanity’s greatest art is compromise and negotiation, but without exception, all communications failed because we couldn’t understand each other.”

…
Overall, the Insect Race was the mortal enemy of the human race across the Milky Way.

Yet the New Federation was raising insects beneath Ram Star!

This… Were they not afraid of losing control? There were still millions of retirees here!

As the taxi distanced itself from the town, the unrest in Yang Ming’s heart gradually subsided.

But as soon as he closed his eyes, he saw rows of glowing insect eggs emitting faint light.

These insect eggs were about two meters in size.

Yang Ming carefully recalled the information from “Abyss,” and only now realized how invaluable the ‘game information library’ was back when he played, always ready for consultation.

It was practically the Galactic Encyclopedia.

The presence of insect eggs indicated a Mother Worm’s existence.

The pale green light appeared to be eggs from first-rank or Second Rank Mother Worms, whose hatched insects could grow between half a meter to twelve meters. After birth, these insects would determine different evolutionary paths based on biological signals dispatched by the Mother Worm, supplementing whatever job types were lacking.

Common combat-type insects included close combat insects, long-range fire insects, self-destructing insects, ship-breaking insects, Shield Worms… about a dozen categories in total, which were the ‘monsters’ Yang Ming frequently farmed when playing “Abyss.”

As long as they received adequate radiation energy, they could continuously grow.

If these insects could move freely, they would seek the energy sources required by the Mother Worm and the minerals needed for the Mother Worm’s evolution, rapidly bringing prosperity to the colony.