I Am The Swarm

Luo Wen reviewed his brief “insect life” in detail. Thankfully, his experiences weren’t extensive—he could recall everything from “birth” to now in just a short time.

Could it be that some dormant genes in his body had been activated? Like his digging limbs? That wasn’t impossible. But what was this new appendage good for?

The inability to consciously choose which genetic fragments to activate was indeed frustrating. Now he was stuck with something that gave him a headache. At this moment, Luo Wen yearned to grow up and reach maturity, but that was impossible without significant time and energy.

Reflecting on his experiences, Luo Wen realized the variety of bugs and food he’d encountered was pitifully small: root sap, White Grubs, Black Moss, ants, Black Beetles, and Camouflage Bugs…

Wait. Ants?

His thoughts paused, rewinding to a potential clue: the ants.

He also remembered tasting a bit of that foul-smelling earthworm. Although he spat most of it out, who knew if he might have absorbed some strange genetic fragment from it?

But no, the earthworm didn’t have anything resembling this appendage, and they were clearly different species. He dismissed the possibility.

As for the ants, they didn’t have anything like this either. The trail went cold again.

Luo Wen refused to believe this oversized rear had appeared for no reason. There had to be a clue somewhere.

He recalled that every evolution gave him something he desperately needed. Did he need a giant rear end right now? That was absurd.

Suddenly, Luo Wen thought back to the day he witnessed the Camouflage Bug stealthily kill the Black Beetle. That had prompted him to ponder a philosophical question for a long time. Could that be the source of his problem?

Could an individual alone ever reach the ultimate pinnacle of strength, one that transcends all limitations? On the journey toward such strength, vulnerabilities would always exist, exploitable by various means. So before reaching that ultimate state, did one need the power of a collective?

Those questions had left him dizzy back then, and he hadn’t arrived at an answer.

But if he followed that line of thought further, he came to a terrifying conclusion.

Deep down, Luo Wen’s subconscious seemed to have answered the question: the power of a collective.

Yet here he was, a solitary bug, without even a glimpse of his kind. Where could he possibly find a collective?

And so, the answer became clear…

But Luo Wen didn’t want to accept it. This wasn’t the path he wanted.

Looking back, it seemed his predecessors had all pursued the path of individual might. He, on the other hand, had no guidance, no teachings—just trial and error. It was no wonder he’d gone astray.

Since his predecessors hadn’t ventured down this path, there wouldn’t be any genetic fragments left behind for it. That meant the problem lay entirely with him.

He realized the most likely culprit was the ants. During his encounters with them, he had first picked up the nearest body, then a head on the second trip, and finally, the largest one on his third and final attempt.

Could that have been a Queen Ant’s body? Luo Wen wasn’t sure, but he knew queens were usually hidden deep within the nest and rarely ventured out.

However, he had heard that ants carried dormant Queen Ant genes. When a queen died, and the suppressive pheromones were no longer present, some ants could transform into new queens.

Alternatively, it might have been a queen that had left the colony with her followers, only to be bisected by the Black Beetle “War God.” That could explain why the ants had launched a suicidal frenzy to avenge her. This scenario was dramatic enough to be a novel plot.

Still, that was how ants behaved back on Earth. Who knew what these local ants were like?

Speculating further yielded no definitive answers. And even if he figured it out, the reality remained: it was too late to change anything.

Deep down, Luo Wen had chosen the power of a collective. His body, ever so considerate, had solved his problem of being a solitary bug…

By giving him a reproductive organ to create his own companions.

What Luo Wen truly rejected wasn’t the idea of collective power. Honestly, he had grown tired of his cautious, perilous existence and wouldn’t mind having a few companions to keep watch for danger.

But he couldn’t accept the method. Didn’t this mean he had become a female bug? This was a blow to his masculine pride, and he refused to compromise!

Yet what could he do? The deed was done. Luo Wen felt utterly baffled.

The mental effort of grappling with these questions left his head aching. Intellectual work seemed to consume a lot of energy, and he had only just woken up, so he needed to replenish himself.

“Let’s find some food first. Thinking requires energy,” Luo Wen muttered.

Although he resolved to think after eating, controlling his thoughts was easier said than done. The more he tried not to think, the more his mind wandered.

As he dug, Luo Wen’s thoughts kept circling.

If he were in his mature stage, this would be easy to solve—he could simply regress the organ. But as a juvenile, he lacked that ability.

Still, the successful replacement of his siphoning mouthparts with chewing ones gave him hope. Back then, he had loathed his mushroom-like siphoning mouthparts. When new genetic fragments became available, they were immediately replaced.

Now, if he rejected the reproductive organ strongly enough, could it regress back to its original state?

With a clear plan and goal in mind, Luo Wen’s eyes brightened, and he dug with renewed vigor.

He avoided the surface. In his current bloated, clumsy state, going above ground would be a death sentence, inviting predators to pounce.

Instead, he scavenged some plant roots underground. With his shrunken stomach, he didn’t need much food. After quickly filling up, he returned to his makeshift burrow.

Still wide awake after his recent sleep, Luo Wen lay on the ground, unable to doze off.

He wondered whether the evolution process required sleep to trigger. Could it not activate while he was awake? His mind spun with questions.

As the saying goes, “True wisdom is concise, while ignorance fills volumes.”

With a mountain of questions needing answers, Luo Wen lamented that if someone could offer even a shred of guidance, he wouldn’t have ended up in this mess—where even his gender had been changed.

Bored and unable to sleep, he decided to study the new organ. If it couldn’t be regressed, he at least needed to understand it.

Truth be told, Luo Wen was curious.

Curiosity is the driving force of development. For a girl, it’s the first step toward liking a boy. For a bug, curiosity about a new organ might lead to surprising discoveries.

Driven by this curiosity, Luo Wen lightly probed the organ. It was attached to the end of his abdomen.

There was a small opening there, which he had previously assumed was an excretory hole. However, he’d lost the final three abdominal segments in a fight, and the hole had disappeared when the wound healed.

Now, the hole had inexplicably reappeared, though Luo Wen had only ever expelled water from a hidden opening in the middle of his abdomen. He had never used the one at the rear and had no idea what it was for.

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