So that’s it—the mist clears, and the chain behind the Insectoids’ birth shows its iron links.

Shock pooled in her chest before thought could rise. As humans stepped into the Hive Mind, they shed skin like old bark and emerged with carapace and claws.

A warborn race was hammered on an anvil of desperation. From day one, they were forged to face an unbeatable storm, so they evolved like wildfire, burning anything for an inch of odds.

To slay monsters, they had to become monsters—face to fanged mirror, mask to mask.

It was the planet’s last vow under a sky of no dawn. If they missed the Hive Mind’s gate, the Shadow would rewind them to the cradle in a blink, leaving no path, no breath, no chance.

With strange bodies and heavy shells, they were given a ward against the Shadow’s conversion. Fragile human flesh was shed like a snake’s old skin; in its place rose bodies stout enough to cross the void.

Their brains and nerves fell silent like a winter forest; in their stead spread a rootlike mental lattice, a web of sap and thought.

Human creativity survived only in the high units, like stars kept in a crown. The swarms moved under a single will, the whole planet turned brood and bastion.

At the last dusk of that ruined age, humanity blew the horn of countercharge, like storm riders lifting shields against night.

Myths walked out of the Hive Mind like dawn from mountain mist—the serpent coiling the middle realm, the Dragon King gnawing the World Tree, the sky‑swallowing demon wolf with jaws like eclipses.

With the Insectoids’ boundless evolution, more legends took wing, leaving the nest to clash with the Shadow in the cold sea of stars.

Most tales ended in ash. Even legends only held the tide a little longer; their strength was iron, but the sea was endless.

Yet hope flickered like a lamp that won’t die. In every battle, those legends devoured a cut of the Shadow, and that stolen dark never flowed back.

Year after year, on a brink like a cliff above storm, the planet held. A Shadow that should be invincible stalled here, like a proud man refusing to bow.

It kept a ring like Origin’s halo hung over the sky, stubborn and gleaming. The Insectoids saw the opening and paid with lives like pouring sand into a breach.

Even Origin can’t hold forever on a bleeding wound. Its power is vast, but it feeds like a maw; when its prey is spent, its weight stops being absolute.

“Looks like you’ve figured it out, Aphelia.”

A soft voice brushed her ear like wind through reeds. At last, the figure spoke, after a vigil measured by heartbeats and stars.

“The Insectoids were born under Origin’s heel. I might have become a Root Executor because Origin swallowed the swarm’s strength and couldn’t digest it. The world Heron reached was likely the one you guarded. As for what came after…”

Aphelia’s voice thinned, then broke off like a line cut. Even with that guardian and the Insectoid legions, Origin pressed them down by some art—sealed them, even bent the mind of the one who led the swarm.

“Right. In the end we still lost. Origin split off beings carrying most of its force to draw our fire. We burned, and we fell.

“But even then, Origin couldn’t wholly devour the Insectoids. If it had, the future’s countless epochs would have been clay in its hand. You wouldn’t be standing before me.”

The figure stayed blurred, like a face behind rain. Her voice was clear as a bell, but Aphelia’s mind couldn’t shape a likeness; the moment beauty gathered, it drifted off like smoke.

The figure noticed and smiled without sound, like moonlight on water, never letting the ripple show.

“You can’t see me. You only hear me because there’s a thread between us. Origin erased my existence long ago with our fall; I remain only in past time and in shards of power.

“If you come to my moment, or master what’s in your hand, you can meet me as I was.”

Her tone held a tired grace, like a warrior resting under frost. To be erased and scattered into splinters—worse than bearing a whole civilization like Heron did—would break most souls.

“Erased existence? Can Origin really do that?”

Surprise stung Aphelia like a spark. If Origin was that absolute, why didn’t it erase Heron’s people outright? Was Origin wary of something, or fractured by its own wound?

“I can’t answer that. I’m barely holding together as it is. Don’t be fooled by the way I can face Origin head‑on; inside this plane, it casts a net over me. Ask another question.”

Her sigh was a falling leaf. Power unmatched, brought to such an end—like a blade buried in sand.

“Then what is this power? It can’t just be a simple core of the swarm.”

Aphelia’s gaze held a question, like a lamp at night.

“Want to know, Aphelia? Let me taste it, and we’ll both see.”

Uroboros laughed at the wrong time, a snake-chuckle in the grass. She wanted a bite, sure—but only in words.

She lived inside Aphelia like a coiled shadow, yet in open war Aphelia would crush her. If Aphelia wouldn’t absorb this power lightly, Uroboros wouldn’t court self‑destruction.

Aphelia met that laugh with a helpless shake, like rain off a petal.

“This power is authority I stole from Origin—one of its core forces. Without this loss, Origin would’ve gripped the cosmos already.

“Take it, and you’ll know why Origin howls like a wounded god.”

The figure leaned to Aphelia’s ear, whispering mischief like a fox. The calm, steady image fell away—the truth was, that poise lived only in Aphelia’s mind.

“So that’s it. It carries Origin’s authority. That’s why Origin could reach backward to my past and put a leash on the swarm, silencing us for ages—cutting us down before any banner could rise.”

A sigh spilled from her, a ribbon of smoke. The Swarmheart wouldn’t be won easy; within it sat a shard of Origin’s dominion.

It was mortals stealing divine fire from a god’s altar. How could heaven not rage?

If she were Origin, she’d hunt that thief to the ends of earth and stars.

“You’re not wrong. Origin came for your past because of that authority. So—will you accept this, or stop here?

“Know this upfront: you’ve touched knowledge at this height. Whether you accept or refuse, Origin will hunt you for as long as suns burn, until you become a shadow of me.”

“I’ll take it. From now on, it’s mine.”

She turned with a smile like a drawn blade. As her will rippled, the scene around her unraveled like silk; streamers of light coiled and poured into her body.

Under that surge, Crimson Fire flared on its own, a scarlet torch in a storm.

Seeing her own image fade like dawn fog, the figure’s smile warmed, like embers in a brazier. She watched Aphelia step away and mouthed one last line.

“...”

Aphelia didn’t look back. She walked out of the “phantom” like a swimmer breaking the surface, missing that final whisper.

The light mote sank into her heart like a seed of sun. Power flooded her limbs and bones, a river breaking dams, while a vast consciousness slammed into her mind like a tide at full moon.

Now she understood why Heron passed this to no one else. That mental shock, that near‑hundred‑million surge of minds, could snap any soul like a twig.

If her spirit weren’t long bound to Crimson Fire, that flood would have twisted and eaten her, body and heart, with the hunger of night.