The room is engulfed in darkness as the demon prince screams. The air compresses around me, trying to compress me to death. Luckily my armor is strong enough to hold up.

  But when I try to step forward I am met with heavy resistance, like the air has gone liquid.

  I feel a stabbing sensation in my side and throw a burst of light. Nothing is there, in fact, I was not even harmed.

  “Screw this shit! Princey fella, come out and fight us face to face you coward!” Liv taunts.

  I come up with an idea. “Moxie, throw some healing my way.”

  She complies and I feel the healing surge through me. Suddenly, the darkness and resistance in the air goes away. I can see the prince and it turns to look right at me.

  I Blink towards the monster, aiming my dagger right for its throat.

  The prince’s eyes pulse with power briefly and I am instantly hit with an intense shockwave. It seems it does have attacks that aren't illusionary. I get thrown backwards and flip repeatedly until I collide with one of the columns, falling to the ground with a thud. Moxie’s healing fades, sending me back into darkness.

  “So good news.” I announce. “Moxie’s healing removes the illusion’s effects. Bad news, it has the ability to actually attack.”

  “Great work, Maka. Now how are we going to fight that thing?” Stephen asks, “I don’t think Moxie can heal all of us at once, and I doubt that thing is going to sit back and poke at us forever.”

  “I can heal two. Plus explosions.” Moxie says cheerfully, she always gets excited about explosions. Which is something I can understand. After all, who doesn’t love explosions?

  “Well then, what are we waiting for?” Violet asks. “Liv is too slow to get in fast enough. So it must be myself and the idiot, unfortunately.”

  “Hey! I am not slow. I am simply careful!” Liv quips back. Stephen offers no protest in being completely ignored.

  Moxie sends some healing to Violet and I turn to Violet, a large smile on my face. She scowls at me and runs away towards the prince. I feel kinda hurt that she would rather fight the prince than smile at me, but oh well.

  The prince seems unfazed that we were able to break out of its bindings. It simply watches as we approach it and I swear it is smiling.

  I throw a Fireball at it, just for it to be shot down with a pulse of air. Violet leaps towards the prince and manages to get within a meter before she is abruptly flung away. It is almost like the demon reached out and simply picked her up, and flung her away like a piece of trash.

  A smidge of rage wells up within me as I Blink right in front of the prince. I seem to take it by surprise and scratch its leg before I am violently flung away. I spin wildly through the air until I hit a wall and my ears start ringing very loudly.

  Within a few seconds I am back up and running thanks to the healing. A ray of light blazes past me as Moxie manages to locate the demon somehow.

  For the first time, the prince moves.

  It moves its head a few centimeters to the side, dodging the ray of light.

  Violet seizes the opportunity and manages to land a critical strike right to its chest. A blue light flares up at the point of contact and she screams in pain as she lights up like a miniature star.

  A sizzling sound can be heard, and then she is thrown backwards and does a flip, but manages to land on her feet. Though she seems a bit unstable, and I can see a faint wisp of smoke escaping from her armor.

  Seems like attacking the prince directly is a recipe for a nice shock. With that in mind, I Blink next to the monster and create an enhanced fireball. The fire rushes over the prince and I can see its armor start to sizzle slightly. But then it turns to look me in the eye.

  Our eyes meet, and I feel as though all hope is lost. Dread fills every fragment of my mind. My legs, rather my entire body, lock up out of fear.

  Violet appears to my side and pushes me to the side. I snap back to normal instantly and turn to look as she cuts one of the prince’s arms off, careful not to make contact for too long.

  I have learned an important lesson, that being: do not look it in the eyes. It felt so real though, this monster is just plain terrifying. All the more reason to slay it right away of course.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Despite Violet’s best efforts, the monster seems completely unfazed by the attacks. It simply regenerates whatever damage she does and then throws her away.

  I can feel Dimensional Shift at the edge of my consciousness. Almost as if it is making itself known to me, and saying that I should use it.

  Before I can entertain such thoughts, it seems Violet has plans of her own. She stands up after being thrown away, looking quite mad. Then, I feel a surge of aether in the air as she begins to chant.

  “Vixelos, o grand nature of space. I request that you lend me a fragment of power such that that which is can be unmade.”

  I watch as a faint red glow gathers along the edge of her saber, I get a very deadly sense from it. Though it seems she has managed to remain in control of it this time thankfully.

  She takes a single step forward, and a shockwave ripples out behind her. As she launches herself towards the prince, it feels as though a minor quake goes through the room, and I barely manage to stay on my feet. Stephen, Liv, and Moxie dozens of meters away actually fall down.

  The prince suddenly stands up and seems to panic as it launches itself away from the throne. I can see the shimmer of a barrier appear between it and Violet, but she is like a monster-seeking missile and hits it dead on.

  The barrier shatters in an explosion of red light, and her sabre goes right through the prince.

  The demon lets out a blood curdling screech that echoes around the room. The red energy seems to wrap itself around the demon, and I watch as its armor is slowly dissolved.

  The light fades and then Violet promptly collapses.

  Snapping back to reality, I channel a ton of aether into a Blink and move right next to her. Just as the prince sends a lightning bolt right for her, I manage to deflect it with a wall of stone.

  The demon is still alive, but barely. It has been reduced basically to a torso that barely protects its core. It looks quite pathetic. I guess it really was relying on its illusions quite a bit. I imagine if we didn’t figure out the healing trick, we would be dead right about now.

  I create a large fireball and put the poor thing out of its misery.

  A few system messages ping in my mind, but I pay them no mind. Instead I make sure Violet is okay.

  I see the faint fogging of her faceplace, so she is at least breathing. She doesn’t seem to have lost any limbs, thankfully. Though her nose is bleeding quite profusely. Though she does have a cute smile on her face. It is nice to see that she at least enjoyed the power trip, even if it came at a cost.

  Moxie, now freed from the illusion, quickly appears beside Violet. I can feel as she stops healing me and pours everything she has into Violet’s limp form. I watch intensely for about a minute before Moxie turns to me.

  “She is fine, just tired. Maka, you are just a reckless fool.” I sigh in relief at Moxie’s assurance. Though I am not sure I agree with her expert prognosis of me being a fool.

  I now take a moment to glance at the system messages.

  [Queen Defeated]

  [Hive Completed | All Bonus Objectives Achieved]

  [Completion Rewards: 10 Augment Crates & 7 Gear Crates]

  [Bonus Rewards: 3 Gear Crate & 2 Augment Crate]

  [Time Until Rift Destabilization: 6.7 Hours]

  [Scout has leveled up! Lvl 181 -> Lvl 201]

  [Mage has leveled up! Lvl 184 -> Lvl 210]

  [Average Level is now 206]

  [Lemon has leveled up! Lvl 162 -> Lvl 182]

  Woah, that is a lot of levels. Unfortunately, Stealth, Blink, Spell Book and Magic Fundamentals have already hit the cap of level 25. Though I am getting awfully close to level 250. Though it has been getting a lot harder to level.

  Which makes sense, the higher level I get the less of a gap there is between myself and the monsters. The smaller the gap, the less exp that is granted. I am pretty sure slaying anything below level 150 is going to give me basically zero experience now.

  I turn to look at where the demon prince was. Surely enough, there rests 22 crates, containing augments and gear pieces of course. But on another note, “Hey guys, so uh, what do we do now?” I ask.

  Stephen bursts out into a fit of laughter for a few seconds before collecting himself. “Sorry, just kinda funny, didn’t realize you actually don't know what happens after the queen dies… To put it simply, we book it out of here as fast as we can while not dying.”

  “I take it that is not going to be an easy feat?”

  “Well, we did it while lugging your sorry ass with you bleeding everywhere. So it should be doable. The monsters seem to get severely weakened when the queen dies for whatever reason.” Stephen explains.

  “I see. Then I guess we should get going huh?” At that moment, the FAUD walks into the room as if nothing has occurred. Then it scoops up the crates and I swear it turns to look at me, asking if we are going now.

  I bend down and pick up Violet very securely. I am sure if she was awake she might punch me, but it’s not like Moxie can carry her easily, and Liv would likely drop her into a pit of monsters or something like that.

  With that, we quickly exit the room and make our way back through the long tunnel. It is quite uneventful, and is much more fun to run at full sprint when we aren't being cautious about random attacks.

  We descend the stairs back onto the second floor, and end up encountering a few monsters. But we basically breathe in their direction and they die. They just amble around and do not even try to attack us. It is sad in a way, I kinda hoped for a bit more fighting.

  The first floor is much the same, though the pathway we initially took collapsed. So we had to take a detour. Apparently the whole tower is basically one large maze, but thanks to our drones surveying it, we were able to take the most direct route.

  With two hours to spare, I jump into the rift that takes us back outside. I hold Violet tightly in my arms, careful to be mindful of certain areas.

  One more hive down. Only countless more to go.

  Next Chapter: Not The Bellyrubs!

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