There will always be people and things that move you. Shen Cong shook his head and put those feelings away.

He left the stone chamber and went over to Demon Bighead. "Demon Bighead, tell me what it feels like to soak in the magma fire river."

Demon Bighead's feelings turned wistful. "It's a wonderful feeling, though a little hot. I don't dare stay down there long; I have to come up every ten minutes at most, or the heat would kill me. But in those ten minutes, I can clearly feel countless bits of essence entering my body."

"What kind of essence?"

"I don't know, but it feels great. My body fills with essence, and I get stronger."

However he put his questions, he couldn't get anything more of use out of it. These locust demons were astonishingly intelligent, but under the nameless scientist's guidance and his divide-and-rule, pride and prejudice had taken deep root in them. The way they put their intelligence to use was completely warped. Even if Shen Cong had never shown up, the swarm might well have collapsed on its own within a few years.

"You won't be getting any stronger, Demon Bighead."

"Why not?"

"Because you're about to die."

"Don't kill me. I'm Demon Bighead. I'm going to reign over the earth... Chirr! Human, you're nothing but my food!"

Shhk.

Shen Cong drew the Locust-Plus Radiative Core Blades, thrust them into Demon Bighead's mouthparts and ground everything inside to pulp, so that it could never make that ugly chirping again. Then, section by section, he cut its body away from its head.

Demon Bighead died twitching.

Shen Cong's blades kept moving. He meant to dissect Demon Bighead and see how far its brain had evolved. With the skull opened up, a mass of oddly shaped matter lay bare before his eyes. This was Demon Bighead's rough form of a Superbrain.

He drained the small amount of blood-gold out of it.

Then he analyzed it carefully.

"Which way does a brain evolve? A biological brain masters Activity waves more easily, but it needs blood-gold to supply…