The world of the Insectoids lay far beyond common imagination, like a forest sprawling past the last mountain ridge.

It wasn’t what Heron pictured, not a carnival of grotesques, not a cave of warped colors and mad masks.

Judged by their faces alone, they looked like nightmares, like bonfire tribes gnawing raw meat, minds raging without a map.

But when Heron plugged her will into those braided nerves, like fingers sinking into river roots, she found every guess by the Newborn Civilization was wrong.

Their inner world and structure ran deeper than human dreams, like caverns beneath caverns, the gap born from how humans and Insectoids evolved.

Human thought rose on evolution’s scaffold, like a tower raised plank by plank, not a statue dropped whole from a mother planet’s sky.

That scaffold was traced in the Old Era, like blueprints drawn under oil lamps, not finished until later wars stained the horizon in ash.

The Old Era’s evolution shaped the ages, like a river cutting a canyon, and the one who staked it all was named Darwin.

In his book, he piled data like stones and stood decades against storms, proving beasts weren’t hammered by God but refined by time.

Line by line, he showed life as a tide, the simple flowing into the complex, the low ascending to the high by survival’s sieve.

Why did it cut so deep? Because with mortal hours, he answered a question that cracked the altar, like thunder splitting a cathedral dome.

He spoke straight in a season of shackles, when faith guarded its throne and science limped, explaining why humans climbed this far.

Pure science was still a narrow lamp then, even into the Aether Era’s prelude, when a third world war turned the sky to cinders.

Human probing of genes was a shallow pool, like minnows skimming a lake, no one touching the lake’s cold, true depth.

In Darwin’s time he dared the forbidden garden, like a scholar plucking fruit from a walled grove, breaking dogma with evolution’s blade.

Natural selection and sexual selection became common tools, like twin chisels in life science, cutting into anthropology, psychology, and thought.

He challenged ethics at the root, like an axe to old roots, loosening the grip of priestly power strangling the field.

Heron remembered the origin of that river well, like a map etched behind her eyes.

The core was natural selection: every species on the mother world bred to excess, like vines over a wall, when conditions turned warm.

Offspring kept a piece of their parent’s pattern, like stamped seals, but change crept in, pressed by cramped space, wolves, and scarce fruit.

Space and resources were finite, like a bowl too small for many hands, so every species fought to live.

When Heron studied Aether Evolution, she set that river alongside another, like two mirrors catching the same sun.

If human essence and world rules were Aether, then what engine forged a law of Aether Evolution, and where did both rivers braid?

Then it struck her like a bell: she’d mixed the order, like a cart driven south while the road runs north.

Evolution wasn’t parallel to Aether’s rise; evolution was carved out of Aether itself, like patterns found in the grain, not painted on.

Using evolution to chase Aether’s law was backward work, like rowing against the tide; evolution would always echo Aether because it drinks from it.

The Insectoids didn’t evolve as lone bodies adapting, like leaves in separate winds, but as a species shifting together, roots moving the trunk.

Individual mutations were scaffolds for the whole, like bricks for a bridge, not the bridge itself.

When Heron’s mind linked their thought-net, she saw bug brains were masks, like owls mimicking bark, decoys for enemy eyes.

Their true thinking ran through the forest of nerves, dense as roots under fungal mats, ropes braided beneath the soil.

They looked fragile, like spider silk on a reed, but they held with iron spring; even Aether needed time to tear them.

That sprawling neural web was a courier for one mind, like messengers racing a single banner across the land.

As a human, Heron couldn’t read that body’s intent, like trying to hear fish-song; if it was mere control, why the vast mats and half a planet netted?

Why did their thoughts still hold memories, like keepsakes in a drawer, as human minds do?

To answer, she sank deeper, heart tight like a drum, then moved her link.

Just as she neared the upper neural web, the stream from that independent mind vanished, like a firefly snuffed in fog.

Suspicion pricked first, cold as rain; she cut the line next, sharp as a knife, then slid in through Insectoid nerves and pulled out.

Her gut told her that lone mind was a tyrant, like a mad king on a black throne, the lever that turned a war engine.

Stop that one, and the war might stall; pry that mind, and Origin’s knot might loosen.

So Heron plunged into their heartland again, like a diver chasing a wreck, smashing chamber after chamber that bred war-flesh.

Along the nerves she flung taunts like sparks, and the independent mind hurled back storms; each time she slipped out, light-footed as a fox.

Watching fungal mats and chambers crack under psychic blasts, like clay pots in a kiln too hot, she couldn’t help a thin smile.

Those blasts looked ruinous, like cannon fire, but she had learned: with Aether shielding, she could take them on the chin.

As she went deeper, the ecology warped stranger, like coral gardens under night, yet mammalian organs kept showing through like old seams.

An Ruyi knew they couldn’t be judged by human evolution alone, like weighing clouds with a ruler, yet Insectoids shouldn’t carry mammal parts at all.

When Heron broke their layered defenses and reached the vast system’s root, she finally saw the mind that stood beneath it.

A child?

She stared at the small girl under keratin armor, like a fledgling in rough feathers, and laughed despite herself.

Had the Newborn Civilization fought a little girl from start to finish, and bled so many hands? It was a cosmic joke.

The girl didn’t trade words. She tore free of the meat lattice, like a moth ripping from a cocoon, veins snapping with wet pops.

Amber high-energy fluid poured out, like honey from a broken jar, and a force no weaker than Heron’s flared from that slight frame.

Beast-bright eyes locked on Heron, like a tiger fixing on a deer, pure and merciless.

Damn it, what a monster. What is Origin plotting?

Heron cursed, but heat rose first, like coals catching; she hadn’t met a true match in ages, and battle-hunger burned her bones.

Aether and will roared out in a breath, like twin storms; she shaped two Aether blades and rushed the Zerg Maiden without mercy.

Only then did she taste the truth, like iron on the tongue: she posed as researcher, but her shadow loved the fight.

Under Heron’s hands, Aether flowed like molten glass, shifting forms without losing edge; the Zerg Maiden’s mind-force met it like granite.

They traded finesse, then threw it away; when strength alone chose the winner, the sky seemed ready to tip.

Aether and spirit collided and scorched the space around them, like lightning turning fields to ash.

Driven to its edge, Aether broke matter like ideas undone, while mind-force wrecked inner worlds, storming skulls until thoughts ran to paste.

Their battle lasted three days and nights, like torches burning to stubs, tearing from the Insectoid heartland to the front lines.

If not for Heron shielding her own, losses would have spread like wildfire; the Zerg Maiden had eyes for one prey only—Heron.

After grueling rounds, Heron spent every card, like a gambler at dawn, and finally brought the Zerg Maiden down.