It may be in one or two hours, or possibly three or five days, but Bck would die.

  Her time of death wasn't very far away...

  More than a month earlier, System had strengthened Little Bck's [Pupation] talent to the point where she could pupate a second time.

  Although Bck had been born with deficiencies, System had still spent a lot of his experience points strengthening her until he'd finally succeeded.

  However, the strengthening of Bck's [Pupation] talent wasn't the only important thing. Bck's level had been stuck at 10, and reaching level 11 was the minimum requirement to undergo a second pupation. No matter how much nutritious food she ate, her level simply wouldn't increase.

  At this point, the only way to prolong Bck's life was for her to undergo an incomplete pupation, just like the second pupation that Shava had been forced to undergo back in Lilt Forest. Only in this way could Bck have a glimmer of hope.

  However, System didn't know how to stimute an incomplete pupation, and compared to Shava, Bck's physique was too fragile.

  If there had been a thirty percent chance of success for Shava's incomplete pupation, then Bck's odds of succeeding were less than one percent.

  ...

  Even after learning that she was going to die, Bck's behavior hadn't changed much. She was still working in the nest like usual.

  In the early morning of the next day, much earlier than System was expecting, the butterfly that seemed to be the residual soul of the Lord of Gciers finally started breaking out of his chrysalis.

  Because of the chrysalis' strong frost aura, when the butterfly tried to break out, a strong cold wave began spreading out. System was forced to move the chrysalis, which had turned into a ball of ice, out of the nest.

  He could feel the butterfly's excitement. Accompanied by the sound of ice breaking, the butterfly that had been trapped in the chrysalis finally began struggling to get out.

  However, the butterfly's attitude after he'd crawled out of his chrysalis was quite a bit different from before.

  The butterfly had been calling System "great one" while inside the chrysalis, but when he finally saw System's appearance and his own wrinkled body, his joy at escaping immediately disappeared, and he was filled with disappointment.

  The remnant soul of the Lord of Gciers, who had been praising System as a "great one," only sent a very disdainful mental message to System after escaping from the chrysalis.

  "Tsk."

  It sounded like a very disdainful clicking of the tongue. After making the sound, the butterfly turned his head to the side and stopped looking at System.

  However, the compound eyes of insects have 360-degree vision with no blind spots. No matter how the butterfly moved his head, he couldn't look away from System.

  The butterfly seemed a little upset. The difference between beautiful dreams and harsh reality could be too big sometimes.

  The Lord of Gciers' remnant soul seemed to be wondering how things had turned out like this. He y motionless on the ground and fiddled with his proboscis.

  Although the Lord of Gciers' remnant soul had always known that he was a butterfly, the image of a butterfly in his head had been very different from the butterfly that he'd become.

  System had sent him video footage of ordinary butterflies breaking out of their chrysalides, but Aura had always pictured himself as a giant butterfly close to ten meters long. He had also assumed that System was a great insect who could control the power of space.

  However, in reality, he was only a small butterfly not much bigger than a human hand, while that "great being" was just a garbage monster less than half a meter tall.

  However, that monster's eyes seemed very familiar and special...

  ...

  The butterfly was behaving very strangely after breaking out of his chrysalis.

  System had imagined many scenes of what the Lord of Gciers' remnant soul would do after getting out.

  Sometimes the remnant soul silently turned into a butterfly and flew away without a word. Sometimes he recovered his memories. Sometimes he remembered System's help and expressed his gratitude. Sometimes he suddenly went insane, used his power recklessly, and started killing people...

  But System had never imagined the remnant soul having such a self-destructive reaction. The Lord of Gciers didn't even seem interested in shaking and stretching his wings.

  It seemed like he just wanted to stay where he was and gradually turn into a deformed butterfly that could never fly.

  System knew that if things continued like this, after only a dozen minutes passed, the butterfly's wings would never be able to open. He sent a mental message as a reminder.

  "Hurry up and move your wings. If you don't, you'll never be able to open them."

  "Tsk."

  The butterfly's response was the same as before, and it held the same sense of disdain.

  Aura no longer fttered and praised the "great one" like he had before. He just id there quietly and poked his proboscis into the soil from time to time.

  A butterfly's straw-like mouthpart was only used to suck nectar. Even for a butterfly that had undergone a second pupation, these mouthparts were very soft, so even if the soil was also retively soft, the butterfly's proboscis couldn't penetrate it. Instead, the soil bent his proboscis...

  System felt the butterfly's emotions become extremely sad the moment his straw bent. A moment ter, the butterfly seemed to go crazy, poking the soil with his proboscis frantically, as if only by doing that could he vent his dissatisfaction.

  System thought that the butterfly's proboscis might break, but it didn't. Even though the butterfly's head was shaking violently, his proboscis wasn't damaged.

  Although a butterfly's proboscis was soft, it was something that butterflies relied on for their survival. It was both soft and tough.

  System looked at the state of the butterfly and shook his head helplessly.

  If this was just an ordinary butterfly that didn't have any retion to the Lord of Gciers, System might kill it for food, or at least grab it with his tentacles and toss it away due to Ying's request. He'd never waste any time on a butterfly.

  But now...

  "There's no use being angry like this. You'll regret it if you don't stretch out your wings."

  System sent another mental message to the butterfly, but Aura didn't seem to hear him. He just kept poking the soil with his proboscis, only at a much slower frequency.

  "Hmph!"

  After a long while, the butterfly transformed from the Lord of Gciers' residual soul responded to System with a cold snort.

  As if to oppose System, the butterfly that still hadn't spread his wings suddenly started rolling on the ground. His wings inevitably stuck to some soil and dead grass, and his wrinkled wings became even more wrinkled.

  After a few minutes, the butterfly's wrinkled wings had dried and solidified, and many of the blue scales on his wings had fallen off.

  System knew that the butterfly had already become permanently deformed and would no longer be able to fly, but the butterfly still kept rolling around in the soil without caring at all about the current state of his body.

  Just as System was considering how to deal with the butterfly, Bck suddenly ran over. She seemed to have witnessed System's conversation with the butterfly.

  She rushed angrily toward the butterfly that was rolling around on the ground and bit the butterfly's abdomen with her mandibles.

  This was the first real contact between the ant that was about to reach the end of her life, but still wanted to live, and the butterfly that had lived a long life, but had a heart that was already dead.