Boulder Town, the Underworld of Belobog — Natasha's clinic.
The cramped room reeked of disinfectant mixed with cheap herbal medicine. On several makeshift beds—really just simple cots—lay four figures, all unconscious:
Star lay with her eyes closed, breathing steady.
March 7th's pink hair was a mess across the pillow, her mouth hanging open as a thin line of drool threatened to escape.
Dan Heng's face looked calm and stern even in sleep, his breathing deep and even.
Bronya lay in her silver-gray uniform dusted with grime, brow faintly knit as if she were still fighting something in a dream.
"Oh come on, Boss Natasha!" Sampo rubbed his hands together, pacing in frantic circles between the beds like an ant on a hot pan. Every few steps he'd lean in, trying to gauge whether any of them were waking.
"How long has it been now?! Give me something—anything! Don't tell me my little gadget was too strong this time. Normally it knocks out a couple of Guards and they're groggy for an hour or two, tops. There's no way it should last this long!"
Natasha—Boulder Town's respected doctor, gentle-eyed but unbreakable—was checking Bronya's pulse. She glanced at Sampo with tired patience.
"Sampo. Quiet."
Her tone carried a hint of resignation.
"I tested the compound in your smoke. It's nowhere near a lethal dose. They simply inhaled too much. Their nervous systems are deeply suppressed, but their vitals are stable."
She released Bronya's wrist and swept her eyes over the other three.
"They need time to metabolize it. Panicking won't help."
Just then, a soft, delicate voice joined their conversation.
"Doctor Natasha… Mister Sampo… maybe I can try?"
The speaker sat on a chair beside Star's bed.
Firefly.
Her eyes were full of worry, as if they were glued to Star's sleeping face. Her fingers twisted together in her lap—tight, anxious, desperate to do something.
Natasha looked at her.
Firefly had appeared out of nowhere last night, right as the clinic received an emergency influx of injured. Back then, she'd stood quietly in a dim street corner outside, polite but distant—so distant that Natasha could tell at a glance she wasn't a girl raised in the Underworld. If anything, she seemed like she came from the sealed-off Overworld.
What concerned Natasha more was the faint pressure of a Pathstrider's aura inside her.
When Natasha had probed gently, Firefly hadn't tried to hide it. She'd admitted she possessed a healing-type power.
In a place like the Underworld—where medicine was scarce and injuries were constant—anyone with healing ability was priceless.
Out of protection, and out of cautious supervision, Natasha had kept Firefly in the clinic to help.
Firefly lightly took Star's hand. Her fingertips were cold.
She looked at Natasha, earnest and unwavering.
"My Path allows me to enter other people's dreams. Maybe… I can enter Star's consciousness and wake her up? If she wakes, maybe the others can follow—maybe we'll have options."
There was uncertainty in her words, but the urgency was real enough to hurt.
Sampo's eyes lit up like someone had just handed him a rope while he was drowning.
"Oh—oh wow! My good sister, this is the kind of thing you should've led with! This ability is practically custom-made for right now. We're saved, we're saved! Go on—go on! Try it!"
Natasha watched the sincerity in Firefly's expression, then glanced at the beds again—especially Bronya. Keeping the Acting Supreme Guardian unconscious in an underground clinic wasn't just risky; it was a ticking bomb.
The longer it dragged on, the more the situation could spiral.
Natasha exhaled and pinched the bridge of her nose.
"…All right. Firefly—try, but be careful. Don't force it. If you feel anything wrong, stop immediately."
Firefly nodded hard, took a steadying breath, and closed her eyes.
She pushed aside stray thoughts and began to draw on the new power inside her—still unfamiliar in places, still settling into her body.
The power of the Path of Propagation.
And without meaning to, her thoughts drifted back to yesterday.
To that mysterious "group leader," Eisen—who had stepped into the room and then transformed so violently it was almost horrifying.
His body had surged upward to over three meters tall, reshaping into a dark-skinned, voluptuous, lazy-leaning woman—an impossibly full, mature figure.
She'd sat casually on the floor, idly patting her soft, lush thigh as she let out a low, magnetic chuckle.
"Using the Authority of Rebirth… this form really is the easiest to handle."
Firefly had removed the armor that suppressed her Entropy Loss Syndrome and collapsed against Eisen's abnormally soft, abundant thigh.
Eisen had looked down, red lips curving into a smile that could have bewitched a thousand worlds.
Then the Authority of Rebirth activated.
Firefly felt herself sink into a void—featureless, infinite, indifferent.
When she clawed back a thread of awareness and tried to understand what had happened to her, terror swallowed her whole.
She had no senses.
No limbs, no skin, no eyes—not even the concept of "looking."
She was—
a maggot.
The sheer absurdity of it, the humiliation, the primal panic—everything crashed down at once. She writhed wildly, trying to escape the shape her mind couldn't accept.
"Don't be afraid."
Eisen's mental presence arrived like a warm hand on her head—gentle, strong, calming the chaos inside her.
"During rebirth, you'll temporarily remain like this. Your old flesh, your bones, your memories, your power—everything will dissolve and restructure from within. You'll emerge again, like a chrysalis turning into a butterfly. Like a larva waiting inside a cocoon."
Eisen's voice carried an odd curiosity.
"Normally… only failed rebirth produces a maggot-man. But you… you lost all human traits and became a pure insect. Interesting. For you, that might actually contain an unexpected advantage."
Firefly froze mid-wriggle.
In that instant, she felt something inside her—something fundamental—flip over completely.
The essence of her Propagation power underwent a violent metamorphosis.
The Glamoth Iron Cavalry had been bio-weapons created by an empire that mimicked the Swarm and the Path of Propagation. They were born able to draw vast energy from Propagation as fuel for their armor.
And after Firefly had grasped the true meaning of Propagation as a refusal to die alone, the distance she'd advanced on that Path was second only to the existence seated on the Aeon's throne itself—
Tayzzyronth.
But Tayzzyronth's very existence distorted the Path.
In the past, Firefly possessed an ocean of Path power, yet she could not truly touch the core swarm abilities: splitting, proliferation, breeding, hallucinogenic scales, biomimicry—those miraculous gifts rooted in flesh and genes.
She could only ram her power into armor and brute-force her way forward.
But now, inside a body that was purely insect—
the invisible shackle imposed by Tayzzyronth's "rank" loosened.
Those instincts and talents that had been locked deep in her soul stirred, like seeds waking under spring rain—awakening inside her new life-form.
In the short time she'd been helping at Natasha's clinic, she had already begun testing it—carefully, cautiously.
She could sense an injured person's genetic blueprint, guide her own cells into rapid proliferation, "print" living tissue that perfectly matched a wound, and graft it seamlessly into place—instant healing that bordered on the impossible.
She could also release an almost undetectable hallucinogenic scale-powder to soothe agony, easing patients into painless sleep.
After what felt like an eternity—ten minutes that, for her, might as well have been ten years—Firefly had emerged.
The shackles of Entropy Loss Syndrome were shattered completely.
In their place was a new body—perfect, as if crafted by a creator's own hands.
And beneath that flawless exterior, she retained a portion of the swarm's traits and abilities.
Swarm powers were now hers—natural as breathing.
Now she would use that power to enter Star's dream.
Firefly steadied her mind, narrowed her intent, and focused.
Propagation flowed through her, docile and obedient.
Her goal was simple:
To weave a small dream world belonging only to her and Star—and within that private space, gently wake the person she treasured most.
Carefully, she began to gather hallucinogenic scale-powder. Countless tiny particles, each carrying her intent, formed silently at her fingertips.
She imagined them wrapping around Star like the lightest feathers, guiding her into the two-person world Firefly had prepared—
But maybe it was inexperience, a fumble at the critical moment.
Maybe it was her body still adapting to brand-new power.
Or maybe fate simply decided to laugh.
At the instant she released the powder—meant to cover only Star—it detonated as if an unseen finger had flicked a switch.
The glittering dust burst open, like imprisoned light suddenly freed.
In the space of a heartbeat, the entire clinic drowned in dreamlike, eerie, dazzling powder.
Firefly was the first to fall.
Her body swayed; all strength vanished from her limbs. She tipped forward, her forehead lightly bumping Star's chest.
Her cheek rested against Star's warm heartbeat.
A small, satisfied smile curved her lips as she sank straight into the dream she'd woven.
"—!"
Natasha reacted instantly. The moment the powder burst, she moved to check Firefly—
Then froze.
A crushing drowsiness seized her consciousness as if countless gentle hands were dragging her down. Her vision blurred, spun—
She let out a short, broken sound and collapsed onto the floor, unconscious.
Beside her, Sampo—still grinning, still rubbing his hands—went stiff.
"Uh…?"
The confused syllable barely left his throat before he toppled forward like a felled log.
Thud.
His forehead smacked the floor with a dull, ugly sound.
For a moment, only the powder remained—casting shifting, unreal light across the clinic like a gorgeous nightmare.
Then—
BANG!
The clinic's old wooden door was blasted open by rage that had been building for far too long.
The door slammed into the wall and rebounded with a tortured creak.
A young woman's voice exploded into the room, blazing hot.
"SAM—BO—!"
"I heard you brought the Silvermane—"
The furious shout cut off mid-sentence.
Fresh air poured in through the open door, stirring the thick dream-dust—and the dust found a new target the instant she stepped inside.
Seele.
Her eyes—burning with fire, hunting for Sampo so she could tear him apart—lost all focus in the moment the powder touched her.
Her pupils dilated. What remained inside them was only a gorgeous, meaningless chaos.
Her body locked up.
Every curse in her throat was strangled by an invisible hand. She couldn't even gasp.
Her strength vanished.
Seele fell forward, stiff as a puppet with cut strings, and hit the floor hard not far from Sampo. Dust puffed up around her.
"Seele—?! Seele, what's wrong?!"
A small, terrified voice followed.
It was Hook—the great Pitch-Dark Hook the Boss.
Her face turned white in an instant, huge eyes filled with disbelief and fear. She shot forward on short legs like a black lightning bolt, charging toward Seele without thinking.
"Don't scare Hook! Seele's down! Somebody help—!"
She screamed for help, voice cracking into tears—
And the moment her tiny toes crossed into the edge of the shimmering powder—
Her scream was cut cleanly, like a blade through thread.
Her mouth stayed open in the shape of a shout, but no sound came out.
The light in her eyes went out, replaced by blank confusion.
Her sprint froze mid-motion. Momentum carried her half a step—then she collapsed silently, soft and small, landing on Seele's back.
Only then did two breathless, tearful shrieks arrive outside the door.
"Boss Hook!"
"Boss—Boss, what happened?!"
The other two Moles finally caught up, panting at the doorway.
They saw their unstoppable boss and the fearsome Seele sprawled on the floor, and their tiny brains simply refused to process what they were seeing.
They burst into terrified wailing and rushed in—
But at that exact moment, the hallucinogenic powder finally exhausted the last of its potency and vanished into the stale air, leaving no trace of its dreamlike beauty behind.
On the floor, Sampo—face pressed to cold boards—cracked open one eye.
Blurry shapes swam in his vision: two small figures kneeling beside Hook, shaking and crying helplessly.
The chill against his skin cleared a sliver of the fog in his head.
He coughed—once, then violently.
"Cough—cough—COUGH!"
With a groan, he forced himself upright, swaying as his skull throbbed. His gaze slid past Natasha's unconscious body, then to the far side of the room—where Firefly lay with her face against Star's chest.
Sampo's mouth twitched.
Finally, he managed a helpless, crooked grin.
"…Sister, your 'try' was a little… too enthusiastic."
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 139)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter171)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter100)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter184)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 168
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 156
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 105
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 185
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 160
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 150
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 76
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 97
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 66
Uma Musume: From Beginner 116
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 75
Uma Musume: I Want All 93
I Can Copy Unique Skills 79
Summoning an Evil God, but the 55
Supernatural Multiverse 75
My Harem Is Indescribable 68
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 70
"I'm just a Valkyrie passing through." 66
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 69
Still playing traditional Honk 49
The Most Filial Son Under Heav 53
What Should I Do After Switchi 42
Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 50
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 38
Transmigrated as Sukuna 35
Checking In in Demon Slayer 40
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 55
My patreon : patreon.com/queen_sin