Chapter 53: Hive Queen

  The tunnels stretched on like veins through a rotting carcass, twisting tighter the deeper they went. Every step was harder now, not just from wounds or exhaustion but from the unknown threat of what waited below. Their steps scraped against stone slick with moisture, the only rhythm to accompany their breathing was the faint, wet drip… drip echoing off the walls.

  Alex walked near the front, his senses wide open despite the constant strain it placed on him. [Aether Sight] painted the way in front of him in threads of faint energy hues. Despite the overwhelming earth aether, lines of other energy ran through the tunnels as well, showing filaments bending toward a convergence further down. Each slow pulse of those filaments was deep, thrumming against his rocky backdrop.

  Whatever was ahead… it was powerful.

  Tom-Tom padded beside him, the little lizard's clawed toes clicking against the stone. The kobold’s snout twitched and jumped, sniffing at each branching passage before grunting and pointing his claw to steer them down one tunnel or another. Alex trusted him, they all did, Tom-Tom’s nose was uncanny.

  But the Hive didn’t give them passage freely.

  The hiss of chitin came from a side tunnel, followed by the wet scrape of claws. Soldier chimeras rushed in, their armored bodies gleaming in the faint aether-glow.

  “Brace!” Eric yelled before firing off a flash of lightning.

  The squad answered, falling into the rhythm of a new battle despite their injuries. Spells exploded, fire lit the tunnels, and shadows carved across the stone.

  Alex surged forward when he saw an opening, [Shield] forming in front his fist as he cracked a chimera’s skull into the wall. It was a move he had tried on instinct. Using the [Shield] spell to turn his fist into hammer blows rather than explosive attacks from [Flare]. It worked rather effectively.

  Despite never getting hit at all, pain lanced up his arm, every tendon shuddering against the strain of his own attacks. But he bit down the groan in his throat and kept moving.

  A cast of [Wind Lance] tore into another beast, distracting it just long enough for Lance’s saber to split its carapace.

  Each clash was short, and costly when it came aether reserves. By the time the last chimera soldier twitched its final death spasms, half the squad was bleeding again. Though nothing mortal, just old wounds being split open and never gaining a real chance to heal completely.

  “Keep moving,” Holly urged.

  “We bleed standing still," Myrae agreed.

  And so they pressed forward.

  Minute by minute, step by step, until time itself seemed to grow weary of their travel. The complex underground hive system may have seemed endless, but it didn’t last forever. The tunnel widened gradually, the walls opening in ridged layers like the ribs of some ancient beast. Then, all at once, they emerged into a chamber so vast it stole their breath.

  A cavernous hollow stretched before them, gargantuan in scale. Stalactites the size of towers hung overhead, each pulsing faintly with veins of aether. The walls were slick with glowing moss and webbed with tunnels, hundreds of openings like hungry mouths gaping into the abyss.

  The squad slowed as they crossed the threshold of the cavern. Their weapons were raised but their feet dragged from the pressure they felt inside the area. The air was thick and damp, alive with a low thrum that seemed to vibrate through the very ground. Every step they took echoed, each sound bouncing in the vastness around them.

  At the far end of the chamber, a raised dais loomed from the stone like it had grown there. Cut steps lead up to a throne carved directly from the rock. The entire area was cast in stark contrasts, deep shadows and bright mosslight.

  And upon the dais’ throne, sat the Queen.

  Her form was disturbing in every way human eyes would attempt to make sense of a person, but couldn’t.

  She had a humanoid silhouette at first glance. But like her captains, her skin was dark chitin ridged with serrated striations that glistened in the light. Spikes jutted from her spine like the teeth of a predator, each one pulsing faintly with aether. Her wings, batlike and leathery, flexed once, stirring the cavern’s air into a stale breeze that carried the stink of rot.

  Her face—if it could be called that—was framed by hair, only each strand shimmered with a faint metallic sheen. When her mandibles clicked open, the smile that spread across her features was ten different degrees of all wrong: twisted, sharp-toothed, impossibly human and impossibly alien all at once. Her arms were like humanoid feline limbs, furred with human hands ending in long sharp nails. Her legs were covered in black serpent scales, her knee joints facing backwards and her feet like eagles talons, ending in thick points. He couldn’t see a tail yet, but Alex assumed she had one of those as well.

  Alex froze. He couldn’t help it.

  Because when her gaze swept the chamber and landed on him, it was as though she’d peeled him open with a glance. The Queen’s eyes were deep, faceted pools of violet light. They pinned him where he stood, feeling as if they were burning through skin, flesh, and bone until he felt as if she was staring directly into his mind, into his Soulspace.

  His chest squeezed on itself and his breath caught. Cold sweat beaded across his skin.

  [Aether Sight] flashed on instinctively, and he instantly regretted it.

  Her aura roared into his senses like a tidal wave. It was bright and dense to the point it dimmed out everything else in his senses, the squad, the chamber, even Obby’s dry voice in his mind.

  The Queen’s aether was a furnace, a small orb compressed into a body of flesh and chitin. He saw the pool of it condense and swim in her chest, seething with violent promise.

  Peak Liquid-stage Adept Tier. Just at the cusp of the breakthrough to late-stage. He realized.

  Alex’s gut clenched, he wanted to throw up already, and the fight hadn’t even started yet.

  The Queen was just barely a step behind the solid-stage of Adept. He could feel there was more potential untapped, and yet despite that her level of power was beyond anything he had ever sensed, beyond the chimera soldiers, beyond the humanoid captains. This thing was dangerous. Honed and perfected by the Hive over generations. He shuddered involuntarily, his fists trembling at his sides.

  Behind him, the squad shifted uneasily, as even without [Aether Sight] they could feel the weight pressing on them.

  The Queen’s smile widened by a fraction, her mandibles clacking once.

  Uhhhh… Alex suddenly felt very unsure about the decision they made to try completing the dungeon.

  The queen stood from her throne, letting Alex get a better look at her. She was still certainly an arcane beast, but the queen had more person-like features than the others they had seen. Yet it was her voice that threw Alex off most, as when she began to speak, her voice was far more human than the captain who had talked before.

  “You have proven yourself quite the troublesome guests,” she stepped forward, nearing the staircase of the dais with casual flair. Her wings fluttered slightly as they settled behind her back.

  “I know you have killed many of my children, I have seen it, and I have felt their pain,” She continued.

  Her words confirmed to Alex what he had been suspecting all along, that the Queen had some sort of psychic connection to her children. Sharing senses and information, allowing every chimera in the hive to learn from the fights of any others, thus why they could learn and adapt to them so quickly.

  “But I will not hold a grudge. There is no need for that. I simply want what is best for my children, and fighting you all is not that.” She stopped at the bottom of the dais steps, placing her on even ground with the rest of the party, though still several hundred feet away.

  She tapped a clawed finger against her hip as if in thought, a surprisingly human gesture that gave Alex the heebi jeebies.

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  Fucking uncanny valley ass bitch.

  Her eyes narrowed, then flickered with life for a bare moment, making Alex flinch, though she didn’t move to attack. “I want to offer you something instead. All of you.” She waved a claw at them. “Direct evolution of my kind requires a physical sample, not just observation.”

  Fuuck! Alex’s thoughts flashed to the three soldier chimeras they fought in the city ruins.

  While they managed to kill two of them, one had gotten away. That chimera had some of his blood on them, and could have collected the spilled blood of a few more of their party as well. And, actually, it was after that fight that they started seeing the humanoid chimera captains. Had they had taken some of the raid party’s blood to continue evolving themselves?

  Shit, Shit, this is bad, we need to be careful.

  “Absolutely. Were you not being careful before? That explains a lot of things, actually.” Obby mocked.

  “We just want to live as you all do. Free.” The Queen spread her arms wide in some sort of a gesture of openness. “We don’t wish to be confined to a dungeon, waiting over decades until the system deems us worthy of a visitor. With you joining us, we can evolve to be recognized as true sentient beings, able to leave the dungeon by the system.” The queens eye lids fluttered over her large, dark eyes. “Please, we are tired of being prisoners. Help us. Join us.”

  Warning bells fired inside Alex’s mind like a fucking rave party.

  There was no way these creatures could just leave the dungeon by getting some of their blood. They would probably be consumed outright, or mutated by the queen herself to give adaptations to her hive. And even if it did work, he doubted the Heavenly System would be happy about such an outcome. Punishment would follow, for certain.

  “You can’t let this happen, you need your flesh-sack.”

  I know, I know.

  He peered into his storage bracelet and stealthily removed the dungeon teleportation coin from inside the item and slipped it into his pocket, keeping it just within reach, just in case.

  “Have your teleportation tokens ready. Use it if you have to,” He whispered behind himself, sure that everyone was listening hard enough to hear him.

  Then he double checked his own body, finding bones still cracked, organs still bruised, and everything still hurt. He couldn’t beat this Dungeon Boss, not as he was right right now. But if they all worked together, if all of them gave everything, then maybe they had a shot.

  Alex straightened the best he could, ignoring the shriek of pain his body sent into his mind.

  “You’re lying. You don’t want freedom… you want to consume us. To spread your hive. The system doesn’t make mistakes. So putting you down here... You’re not prisoners. You’re predators. And this—”

  He raised his hand and gestured around himself, “…this is your cage.”

  The Queen’s expression froze. Her smile didn’t falter, but the air shifted around her. Her wings flared and her body straightened, and the entire cavern seemed to shudder with her restrained power. “Oh…” she crooned softly, and hungrily, “…you chose the hard way.”

  The Queen’s mandibles clicked once, twice, like a signal. The cavern trembled as shadows peeled from the walls. Chitin scraped stone as dozens of legs skittered in unison. The tunnel mouths behind them rippled with motion, and then—like a tide breaking loose—chimera soldiers poured into the chamber.

  Eric took command, “Formation! Don’t let them separate us!”

  Weapons rose, and spells ignited in the darkness. The squad snapped into lines by sheer instinct, even through the exhaustion.

  The first soldier lunged, a hulking wolf-scorpion hybrid, its tail snapping like a whip. Henry caught the strike with his vines, his knees buckling from the force. Cole surged past him with his hammer swinging in a vicious line that crunched into the skull of the lead chimera with a wet thwack.

  And with it, the final battle started.

  Another beast dove from the ceiling, its wings buzzing—a twisted bat-cricket thing shrieking loud enough to rattle one's teeth. Tom-Tom barked furiously and leapt up before clamping down on its wing with his teeth, dragging it earthward. As it landed Myrae’s dagger blade finished the job with one clean thrust through its skull.

  Alex forced himself into motion despite his ruined body screaming in protest with every step. He wasn’t going to waste a use of [Descending Demon Fist] again, but pure aether still burned in his channels.

  He shot the aether outward, snapping an overcharged concussive [Flare] into the charging chimera swarm. The expanding blast shredded the first rank of soldier-chimeras, their bodies skidding back across the stone floor in a hail of limbs and screeches.

  But even a “simple” spellcast drained him now, he was getting low on aether, and his body was getting weak without the energy. His vision blurred at the edges, with his aether channels already straining. He staggered, nearly buckling, and Holly’s arm shot out to pull him backward before a mandible could close around his neck.

  “Careful, Alex!” she shouted, stabbing her sword into the beast’s front leg joint and twisting it until the limb snapped in half, and sent the beast to the ground.

  Allie shouted out. “Potion inventory can’t keep up. Be smart! Fight defensively!”

  But the Queen didn’t care about their wounds, or lack of supplies. She had gone back up the steps and now leaned casually against her throne’s arm, mandibles twitching in apparent amusement as her children died one by one.

  Watching the show. Studying them.

  Every soldier they dropped cost them time, stamina, potions and precious aether reserves. Their resources were bleeding away into the stone as surely as the blood pooling at their boots.

  Finally, the cavern stilled again. The last soldier gave a strangled hiss as Rynel’s arrow buried deep in its chest, splitting its heart entirely. The party panted in unison, most of them bent low, knees shaking. Potion bottles clattered empty to the ground, forming a scattered graveyard of glass.

  Alex’s own chest heaved and sweat ran into his eyes. His arms trembled just holding his fists up. They had beaten the wave, but it had taken everything to do it.

  The Queen moved once more. She stepped from the dais with a grace that belied her size, wings spreading until their shadow blanketed the chamber. Her taloned feet tapped against the dais stairs as she descended, each strike ringing louder than a war drum.

  “I see,” she whispered venomously. “So this is the height of your strength. Fragile and wounded. Still clinging to defiance.” She tilted her head, her hexagonal pupiled eyes glimmering. “Good. Then I will enjoy breaking you all the more.”

  With that, she spread her arms wide and the chamber seemed to breathe. Aether pressure crashed down on them all at once, so dense Alex’s knees almost gave way just standing in it.

  “Worldstriders, time to prove we’re worthy of the name.” Eric snarled through his teeth.

  Everyone’s shoulders squared a little bit more at that remark, even Alex forced himself a little bit taller. It was finally time to truly test themselves.

  The Queen struck first.

  She moved like liquid from a pressure jet. Henry’s vines flew out in attempt to intercept her advance, thick and thorned, but her claws split them like paper. His halberd followed, a clean sweeping strike, but she stepped in close with predatory grace, slipping under the attack. One claw snapped forward in a flash of speed. Henry’s scream tore across the chamber. His hand, separated from his arm, hit the stone floor before he even registered it was gone. Blood sprayed in rivulets onto the ground.

  Henry stumbled back while the Queen plucked the severed hand from the ground and raised it delicately, as though considering fine cuisine. Her mandibles clicked. Then she bit down, chewing the flesh slowly, savoring it, eyes gleaming as crimson trails dripped down her chin.

  Every single one of them watched in horror.

  Henry, face ashen and lips trembling, shoved the haft of his halberd into the crook of his ruined arm, using sheer muscle to keep it leveled. With his good hand, he fumbled for the Teleportation Token. His eyes met Eric’s, then Alex’s, the man's expression sorrowful.

  “Live,” he whispered. Then the token shattered in a burst of white light, and Henry was gone.

  The squad was left with silence, broken only by the sickening crunch of the Queen’s mandibles as she finished her grisly meal.

  Eric’s face twisted in rage and desperation. His voice rang out, emotion lacing every word. “ALL OUT! RIGHT NOW! NO HOLDING BACK!”

  Ghrukk roared his response, tusks glistening, and slammed his chest with both fists. “Yes! No restraint! WE FIGHT TOGETHER!”

  The chamber erupted.

  Selka’s dagger blades suddenly flashed with glyphrunes Alex hadn’t seen before and both weapons split into two copies of itself, each floating by her shoulders and glowing with blue stormlight. She blurred forward with a dancer’s grace.

  Myrae’s chants rattled off her lips quickly, [Barrier] sigils snapping into place around the frontline. Sarson’s body howled with a shimmering coat of aether as he launched into a brutal flurry, each swing of his sword nearly breaking the sound barrier.

  Peter and Allie layered illusions and searing light from behind, their spells streaking overhead in a deadly crisscross. Tom-Tom lunged low, a tornado of scales and teeth and soup ladles, aiming for her ankles. Ghrukk's and Kate’s flames erupted with such heat, the stone scorched around them with every step. Devon’s rifle was already out in his hands, and Rynel’s bow was drawn back with an arrow knocked. Doran and Garret had their shields already up and out.

  And Alex—aching, bloody, and partially broken—drew on every last drop of his [Demon Asura Style]. His martial aura surged around him like a coat of violet flame as he hurled himself forward.

  The raid party became a hurricane. Blades, spells, arrows, fists, and fury.

  The Queen stood a midst it all. She parried Ghrukk’s halberd with one of her wings. She caught Selka’s storm-dancing strikes with lightning fast claw swipes of her own, sparks flying between them. She dodged Alex’s aether-wrapped fist with an elegant tilt of her head, then ducked Eric’s hand right after, his lightning bolt streaking into the ground behind her instead into her chest. A spin dodged Sarson’s sword swipe, letting the attack shatter the stone throne behind her. Cole’s hammer-blow managed to glance across her chitin, barely scratching her. Zach’s spear strike missed completely, deflected away by another slap of her wing.

  And all the while, she moved with eerie calm.

  Every counter from her was light, casual, like a parent swatting unruly children. A flick of her wrist sent Selka tumbling into the wall. A backhand claw ripped open Ghrukk’s chestplate and had him sprawling. A wing-beat blast sent Kate stumbling across the dais steps, blood running from her nose.

  Even Alex’s follow-up strike, a fist laced with the venom of his [Wyrm-Blood] and both [Burning Strike] and [Wrath Siphon] activated for good measure, landed… and guttered out, as if her very body refused to accept the poisonous energy trying to infect her.

  Then, with a voice dripping in mockery, she whispered, “Is that all? How sad.”

  The Hive Queen straightened, letting the last of their combined barrage, a laser beam of light and a bolt of aether from Devin's rifle, fizzle against her carapace. She stood in the center of a battlefield of panting, battered adventurers, her body covered in nothing but scratches and faint scorch marks.

  Her mandibles clicked once, sharp as a guillotine. “Now… my turn.” she cackled.

  The chamber became a slaughterhouse.