I Swapped Souls with a Praying Mantis and Evolved Without Limit

Ethan Cole, an ordinary young man, wakes up to find himself transformed into a weak newborn praying mantis in the dark forest of Thornwood. Human rules no longer apply here. The only law is the food chain: small insects are eaten by mantises, mantises are hunted by birds, and the scent of blood attracts even stronger predators. Though Ethan still has human consciousness and the instincts of a former emergency responder, he must accept one terrifying rule: eat flesh, gain biomass, evolve, or die. At first, Ethan is clumsy, scared, and stubborn. With the help and constant panic of his round little companion Milo, he takes his first bite of prey and learns that refusing to eat only means becoming food himself. Soon, he encounters Kain, a powerful black-purple mantis, and is dragged into a deadly struggle involving blue-jawed insects, black-crowned birds, the mantis nest, the ant queen’s egg chamber, and the royal jelly of the bee hive. As Ethan devours stronger prey, he unlocks new evolutions: short-range dash, bird-blood wings, and eventually black-green twin blades. But his real advantage is not just power. It is his human mind. He survives by turning enemies against each other: using birds against ants, bees to disrupt the battlefield, wild boars to break open paths, and stolen bird eggs as bargaining chips. Step by step, he changes from prey into a threat capable of shaking the entire forest. But the stronger Ethan becomes, the deeper the trap grows. The ant queen wants to u