Like a peach torn open, a huge gas planet split in the middle, breaking into two halves.
The interior of this planet did not have a core, nor was it entirely hollow; a giant spherical organism had broken free from the confines of the gas planet and was now exposed in the vacuum of space. This creature, the size of the moon, had a bright and even tender white body, with layers of folds on its surface, a red, bud-like organ at one end, and a yellow, horn-like tail at the other.
As if opening its eyes, this eyeless giant creature saw the world for the first time. The world was not a beautiful place, only filled with various cold starlight, the extreme cold, floating among various meaningless and unattractive celestial bodies.
She felt disappointed.
Soon, the planet-sized giant creature felt a strong hunger. She wanted to eat, to consume living carbon-based organisms, a craving for DNA. She knew that this feeding was beneficial for her; it would allow her to evolve and become more powerful.
For an organism, being more powerful meant having more chances to survive.
The universe was now full of dangerous radiation storms, rogue black holes, and supernova explosions. She knew these were dangerous and could kill her while she was still young, but instinctively, she chose a safer way to move. Not far from here, there was a planet that seemed teeming with life, and she felt a wave of hunger and excitement.
Not understanding exactly how she propelled herself, the worm-like giant creature began to travel toward a planet 15 astronomical units away.
The Yudagen civilization was merely a primitive civilization. Before the Yudagen people truly stepped into space, they had already discovered visitors from beyond their world, but they were constrained by the laws of the High Council from interfering with their own natural development before they had the capability to leave their planet.
Only after the Yudagen people made active contact with a mid-level civilization were they recognized as an interstellar civilization. But tragedy had just begun. The Yudagen civilization was threatened into becoming a vassal by this mid-level civilization and subsequently had to provide various services and resources to them, receiving only scraps from the mid-level civilization.
After the galaxy merger, the Yudagen planet completely separated from the influence of that mid-level civilization. The billions of Yudagen people rejoiced, believing their luck had turned.
However, one day, a rain started in the sky of the Yudagen planet. Unnoticed by the people, tiny insect eggs mixed with the rain fell down. These eggs, upon contact with human skin, entered the body and very actively absorbed nutrients, growing inside the humans. Eventually, they emerged from the body, transformed into semi-human-height insect-like creatures.
A great panic occurred on the Yudagen planet. Though they possessed advanced weapons, they could not effectively kill these arthropods. The creatures were savage and adept at fighting; they did not kill humans, but rather clutched at their faces with two short forelimbs below their necks, and then laid eggs in the humans' mouths.
In fact, these creatures laid eggs not only in humans but in all living beings they encountered; the larvae grew by feeding on the hosts' nutrients, eventually consuming the hosts and turning into adult monsters.
With each new generation, the creatures became harder to defeat. A month later, nearly all life on the Yudagen planet had been slaughtered and devoured by these creatures when the giant white worm landed on the planet and swallowed nearly half of the insectoids. Instantly, the white worm underwent drastic changes; not only did it grow much larger, but even intricate and mysterious patterns appeared on its white skin.
The white worm engulfed many items from the Yudagen planet, including spaceships and various minerals. When the white worm left the Yudagen planet, the planet had turned into a desolate and abandoned dead star, completely void of life.
With no living beings, the planet's ecosystem could no longer be sustained and would eventually become uninhabitable.
The now even stronger white worm continued her journey, now faster and able to travel further. Whenever she came to another life-containing planet, she would stop and repeat the process, releasing a large number of eggs into space that could withstand extreme environments.
Most terrifyingly, when the giant white worm reached the size of Earth, she released several Jing of eggs at a time, these eggs even traveling through space at warp speed.
Within just a few months, this white worm had destroyed dozens of middle- and lower-level civilizations. Regardless of their formidable technological capabilities, these civilizations were ineffective in the face of such an unpredictable foe.
On the one-hundredth day after her birth, the white worm released even more eggs, now capable of absorbing energy shields and penetrating physical armor. While each egg would die after performing a little task, other eggs completed their mission. Floating in the air, the eggs infected lifeforms, then used these hosts to brew the next generation of insectoids.
Following the rule, each new generation of insectoids became stronger, smarter, and more lethal.
On the two-hundredth day after her birth, an insectoid killed a Star Warrior. After consuming the body of this warrior, a miraculous change occurred.
"I..." it developed a sense of self, something that had never existed in the swarm before.
There had never been a soul or consciousness in the swarm aside from the Empress, but today, a seemingly insignificant insectoid mysteriously gained its own consciousness.
This did not anger the white worm; rather, she was curious and intrigued. She had annihilated hundreds of planets, averaging two per day, and during this process, she had also received immense knowledge, recognizing the differences between herself and the other interstellar civilizations.
She sensed that the naive insectoid possessed loyalty and awe towards her, so she said to him, "You are my servant, my warrior. Your name is Ailan Dong."
Ailan Dong's compound eyes glowed with extraordinary excitement; being an insectoid, he was unable to blink.
"Empress, Ailan Dong is honored to fight for your dominance over the Galaxy." Ailan Dong was pleased, having a name from that day forward.
To her own surprise, the white worm reminisced her servant having a name when she herself did not; thus, she named herself "Yi Nu," because she was female, deciding to be the only powerful female in the Galaxy.