In a cave that had witnessed the formation of a teleportation array, a Hive Queen's attempt at succession, and her spiritual death by an arrow forged from darkness, a new transformation had begun.
After twelve days of terraforming, the cave had become a vibrant sanctuary filled with blood-red roses, lilies, and hellish shrubs.
Their leaves rustled with ash. Humanoid figures were strung among them, tangled in barbed thorns.
Multiple demon corpses lay bound or half-buried.
Their blood flowed into the soil as the roots below drank deeply, drawing every scrap of vitality back toward the chrysalis at the garden's center. A woman's pale face was faintly visible within it, vines pulsing as they funneled the stolen essence directly into her.
The vines shifted, creeping higher to cover her face. The woman—none the wiser to the outside world—rested peacefully within the expanding garden.
Despite its current expanse, it still yearned to grow.
Vines spread down a nearby tunnel, clinging to every surface, drawn by a steady pulse emanating from the depths of the underground labyrinth.
They passed a massive stream of azure flames and a chasm filled with several dozen captured Dao Fiends, watched over by wyrm guards.
Some Dao Fiends were spared the full restraints of captivity.
Unlike the others—bound with their arms wrenched behind their backs and chained to the ledge walls—these had their hands freed from the wrist down so they could butcher animal meat.
A long fiber-strip rope was tied around groups of five worker demons, each group fastened to a wyrm's clay-ox collar.
Every worker was tethered to its collar, making the wyrm the warden of that group. There were currently four such teams stationed along the ledge.
The wyrms supervised individual teams of five, making reports and relaying information to higher command easier in case of foul play—such as stealing meat, fighting, or knife-related injuries.
The workers labored for a minimum of half an hour before being led into side tunnels burrowed into the walls, descending toward different ledges crafted to shorten travel time.
The tunnels were monitored by additional wyrms.
They had carved small nests and watch-posts above the tunnel roads and were responsible for collapsing entire tunnel systems if any true captives escaped.
For now, they simply observed a group of skin and blood collectors departing the meat-processing cavern.
The group moved farther from the chasm, away from their kin, until they reached a fork in the path.
The party split. Two wyrm leaders guided the blood collectors to the right.
Their workers clutched jars filled with blood, holding them tight.
A single group of skin collectors headed left. Both routes eventually led to spiraling slopes descending into separate storage chambers.
Far deeper, the underground nest truly came to life.
Deeply interwoven tunnels. Torch-lit passages. Moving wyrm guards—smaller than those stationed near the chasm—prowled. Each was coated in black, a distinct camouflage that helped them hide in the dark unnoticed.
An array housing a radiant fruit, surrounded by ten piles of bones that formed a ring of bound souls.
And a massive hatchery littered with writhing larvae-filled eggs.
Pulse. Pulse.
This was where the third generation of wyrms prepared to be born.
"See? I told you the lord would pick my eggs~ "
A beautiful voice cooed.
"You practically made him choose your cluster by throwing yourself at him the moment he arrived, cheat." Another voice rippled out.
"No, I didn't. And what right do you have to call me a cheat? You tried to swindle him into fertilizing your eggs. Don't think we didn't see the way you wiggle your tail."
"Right, girls?"
"Yeah!" (×3)
A fight broke out as Qiren sat near a cluster of eggs. His eyes teared up—tch—he bit his lower lip in frustration.
What have I done to deserve this?
He had slaved away in a marriage, devoted to one woman for half a lifetime, only for it to end because he tried to curb her monthly indulgences.
And now, in my next life, when I want to be pampered—arms outstretched to a number of beautiful women as compensation—this is what I get?
A comatose new lover within the first three weeks of my second chance. Ugly demon-children I have to clothe and feed so they can later serve my future demon army. And a bunch of worms trying to seduce me!!
Qiren cried out, shivering as he felt a wyrm slither along his back.
"Ha, that doesn't change the fact I'm the Hive Lord's favorite. Ever since the queen died, I've been able to produce tons of eggs for him."
Qiren closed his eyes.
It's okay. You can do this.
He tried to calm himself.
You've done the impossible time and time again. You can imagine them all as sexy nurses. Come on. This is just like a nursery—they're just nurses helping take care of newborns.
Newborns that were larvae… larvae that required fragments of his spirit to be born.
He opened his eyes and turned his head.
A woman in a hospital outfit held his shoulders. Her skin was fair, softly luminous.
"Right, Hive Lord. I'm the best, aren't I~?" she cooed, her tail tightening around his waist.
It nearly shattered the hallucination—but he forced it to hold, imagining her busty chest in sharper detail.
"Yeah," he reassured her. "Keep up the good work. The more eggs you lay, the better our chances of survival."
He wished her luck, and she purred sweetly.
Her imaginary cheek brushed against his.
"I'll try my best to give you high-quality heirs."
Qiren shivered and turned back to his "heirs."
His expression went blank.
This really isn't how I thought I'd become a father.
A cluster of translucent orbs lay before him, each filled with a viscous, slimy liquid. At the center of every one lay a nucleus.
It was his duty to make them hatch—to form and shape them into embryos.
Inhale. Exhale.
He stretched out one arm. With the other, he grabbed his bicep, his palm pressing into the muscle as he pictured a strand of his spirit peeling away and whispering down his arm.
The misty ribbon traveled through tendon and bone, slipping out through his palm and into the nucleus within the egg.
The spirit fragment coiled inside it.
The nucleus shone with an ethereal shimmer as Qiren felt an invisible link form between them. It was similar to talisman crafting—by severing pieces of his spirit, he could mold the embryo however he saw fit. He began by channeling the Hive properties of the Infernal Bite Dao.
He painted the image of a flame-covered wyrm larger than a two-story building.
I need more guards… but I can't infuse that much Qi into you.
A mental value appeared before him.
100,000 Qi.
Let's strip away some flames, he thought.
He reduced the blazing inferno around the giant wyrm until it resembled a roaring bonfire. The cost dropped to seventy thousand—but that was still too high.
Is its height the real issue?
He shrank it down to the size of a one-story building. Instantly, the cost fell to thirty thousand.
Now for your abilities…
He'd planned to turn it into a living wall of fire, but with the flames stripped away, that idea was no longer viable.
He tried giving it fireball attacks—but that pushed the cost past fifty thousand, well beyond his reserves.
Should I reduce its size further?
That would let him add the ability—but it would defeat the purpose. He needed it large enough to guard and attack with sheer mass.
What can I do?
He envisioned its armored plating, then replaced it with iron.
If I strip away its natural exoskeleton and forge iron armor and weapons instead… That would strengthen its defense without keeping the innate cost.
The moment the thought formed, the visual iron plating vanished—and with it, the wyrm's natural exoskeleton—leaving the creature bare, its body now resembling a massive lamprey eel.
He then added the ability to launch fireballs capable of engulfing a man whole.
He altered the flames into poisonous variants and added a secondary mode that expelled toxic gas instead.
He considered granting it a camouflage ability but decided against it when he saw the cost—five thousand Qi, even when limited to nothing more than darkening its body rather than a full terrain-shifting disguise.
The total stabilized at 30,000 Qi.
Satisfied.
The nucleus shifted and writhed, elongating into a wormlike shape.
Qiren exhaled sharply, accidentally opening his psychic bridge.
"Maybe then I could make trinkets and novelty items worthy of being trophies," he muttered.
"Collecting them from corpses isn't working anymore… and I doubt that'll change until I can get a high-ranking demon's full karmic wheel and frame it in my vault or something."
"Hm? What are you talking about?" a nurse asked.
"If you need something, tell me. I'll get it."
Was I transmitting my thoughts again?
Annoying.
He spoke aloud out of habit, still leaving the bridge open. "No—just thinking about a future venture for our guests to try later."
He turned back to the eggs. "For now, I need to make more worker drones."
He focused on another orb, this time using a human silhouette as reference and shrinking the creature down to only a leg's length.
Its jaw protruded far beyond normal proportions.
The human diagram stepped forward and stomped—
The wyrm bit down on the leg with bone-shattering force.
The human reacted, lifting its other foot and crushing the tiny wyrm's fragile body with ease—
A wave of gas burst outward.
BOOM.
A suicidal explosion.
Cost: just over two hundred Qi.
He repeated the blueprint eight times, then stopped.
"Slow and steady," he murmured, stretching.
"In a few hours, I'll finish the rest of the clusters."
He said his goodbyes and left the hatchery, watching his second-generation drones march through the tunnels in unison, alert for anything out of place.
Small foot soldiers—ready to give their lives for the nest that birthed them.
"Skree~ skree~"
They chirped cutely when they saw him, surrounding him playfully.
Qiren chuckled. "Are you all my good little soldiers?"
He knelt and patted a wyrm barely five days old.
It rubbed against his palm—only to be shoved aside by another vying for attention.
He laughed, scratching and patting the dog-sized demonic spawn.
I really didn't imagine becoming a father like this.
"I was going to deliver some fertilizer to your auntie's garden," he said lightly. "So how about we stop by the chasm and get you all a soul as a treat first?"
"Skreeee~!"
They grew even livelier at the mention of souls.
They traveled joyfully as Qiren's thoughts turned inward.
"Yīnluò's appetite has been growing," he murmured.
"Her garden needs half a dozen juvenile demons now just to drain enough vitality."
He sighed. "Suppressing it isn't my concern anymore—keeping up is."
"There are over forty Dao Fiends chained up that I can feed her… but at three to five bodies a day, that'll only last a week at best."
"And if her hunger keeps growing… I'll need to step up my captures instead of waiting for strays to wander into my dream catchers."
He glanced down as a wyrm brushed against his ankle, gazing up at him reassuringly.
He almost laughed again. "Don't worry. You'll still get your souls."
One of the wyrms was suddenly lifted into the air.
"But you'd better grow up big and strong when I give them to you," he said, setting it on his shoulder.
"So I can explore the Demon Realm knowing any would-be Hive Queen or Abyssal Adept will think twice before touching my territory."
The wyrm purred as he stroked its neck, nestling into his grasp and nearly losing balance.
Qiren's wings caught it before it fell.
...
🎉 Chapter 30 Milestone! 🎉
Wow… we actually made it to Chapter 30.
To everyone who's been reading, commenting, liking, or silently following along — thank you. Seriously. Every view, every bit of support, and every moment you spend in this story means more than you probably realize.
What started as an idea in my head has grown into a journey I get to share with all of you, and seeing people stick around this long is incredibly motivating.
Here's to more chaos, more growth, and many more chapters ahead.
Thanks for walking this path with Qiren so far — the story is only getting started 🔥
— See you in the next chapter 👋