[Assimilation has reached the heart’s outer membrane.]
The muscles of his left hand lost control. His heart beat irregularly for a moment. The vision of thousands of ants rushed into his mind again.
The Queen tried to take over his body before death, but Lian’s right hand was closed around the core. The object was pulsing in his fingers.
Hard, fast, and anxious. Lian brought his bloody face close to the Queen’s vertical slit.
"You’re too late." He closed his fingers. The core cracked, and the Queen screamed.
But Lian did not stop and applied more pressure. The Parasite Core was crushed inside his broken fist.
All the black threads stopped moving at the same time, then dried up. Those inside Lian’s arm shriveled like burned veins.
The black eyes of the remaining ants returned to their natural red color for a moment.
Then their light went out. The bodies fell to the ground one after another. The black circle under the Queen trembled.
The dark space collapsed in on itself and disappeared with a muffled sound. The Black Brood Matriarch’s massive body cracked from the inside.
Bloodborne Calamity spread through all the connected biomass.
The newly formed armors swelled. Red veins came out from the cracks.
Then the Queen’s entire body collapsed. In her final moments, she stared at Lian with absolute hatred and rage, as if she wanted to tear him apart with her own hands!
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why did she have to face this human? All her efforts, all her ambitions, everything was destroyed by this bastard human!
Her entire colony was destroyed! And now she herself was collapsing!
If it weren’t for this human! If this bastard human had not interfered! She could have reached the peak without any problem.
"Ughhhhhhhhhh" She screamed her final scream of hatred before death... but it was too late.
Lian fell out of the black mass.
His foot could not bear his weight when it hit the ground, and he landed on his knee.
He had no healthy hand to hold himself up, so his shoulder hit the soil, and his body fell among the contaminated moss.
For a few seconds, nothing moved.
Ravian took a step forward. Sera placed her hand in front of his chest.
"Wait." Her eyes were on the collapsed mass of the Queen, they still did not know if the creature was completely dead or not.
"Lian..." Nemi could not wait.
Her voice trembled, but no answer came. She took a step forward.
[You have killed Black Brood Matriarch — Level 35.]
[You have destroyed a Calamity Seed.]
[Emergency Hidden Quest completed.]
[An enormous amount of experience has been absorbed.]
[As quest reward, you have obtained 100 stats points + 50 fragments and an extra life.]
A wave of energy entered Lian’s body.
[Level Up.]
A cold light spread from inside his bones. The bleeding on his side stopped. The broken rib was fixed in a stable position.
The dried parasite threads inside his arm began to burn. The open wounds on his skin closed. The cracks on his shins and torn muscles were fully healed, and the bleeding stopped.
His consciousness returned from the edge of shutdown, and the final message appeared before his half-open eyes.
[You have reached Level 18.]
His body moved away from death, but the pain remained. His mana, which had been drained, was refilled after the level up.
And the pressure of Warrior’s Madness, after turning off, collapsed on his mind all at once.
Lian took a broken breath. The next panels appeared.
[You have obtained 36 stats points.]
Lian could not even check the final stats. Even though his entire body had been healed, he was mentally exhausted.
He had just experienced the most difficult battle of his life. He had to fight a level 35 monster and thousands of giant ants.
Has any other awakened one ever been able to achieve such a feat before their first evolution?
If the world witnessed this battle, they would be shocked and amazed, thinking they were having a nightmare.
Because the potential shown in this battle was enough for everyone to understand that this boy had the ability to destroy all the pillars of humanity that had stood for years.
Pillars built by the most powerful awakened ones, pillars that were the source of their power, and pillars that had established their rule over the world.
No one likes someone who can single-handedly disrupt the balance and equality.
Maybe the Queen was not the real disaster... but Lian was a disaster that was slowly taking shape!
[Glutton activated.]
[High-grade genetic essence detected.]
[Skill extraction failed.]
[Target’s abilities are inseparably connected to its racial structure.]
[Alternative extraction available.]
[Talent detected.]
A dark light came out from the remains of the monster’s crushed core.
Instead of entering Lian’s body directly, it spread in the air for a moment in the form of a network of silver threads.
Thousands of small points lit up in that network, each point connected to another, with information of distance, position, sight, and presence flowing among them.
Then the entire network sank into Lian’s chest.
[Talent detected: Mother Of Colony]
[Rank: S]
Nemi did not wait any longer. She ran toward Lian and knelt beside him. She brought her hand forward, but stopped before touching his bloody body.
She did not know which part was intact. Almost nowhere looked intact, of course, only from the outside.
They did not know that awakened ones heal all their wounds after every level up.
"Lian?" Her voice turned into a whisper, worry was completely evident.
Sera arrived a few moments later. Despite the pain in her shoulder, she sat next to him and placed two fingers on Lian’s neck.
And she was surprised by the result. This boy’s pulse was completely steady and calm, without any problems.
But how? How could his pulse be so steady and calm after such a battle?
However, that didn’t matter now... the short breath she had been holding in her chest for a long time finally came out.
Her shoulders dropped for a moment, and relief was visible in her eyes.
"He’s alive." That was enough, just that their savior was alive was enough.
Nemi lowered her head, her eyes were wet, but she did not let the tears fall.
Ravian stood a few steps away, looking around.
Thousands of ant corpses, frozen and broken mushrooms, reddened moss with poison, craters left from lightning explosions and Lian’s strikes.
And in the center of all of it, the collapsed body of a creature that could have become a Calamity.
If his tribe’s people were here and witnessed this battle, they would choose Lian as their tribe’s god.
"Nothing can ever repay what he has done. We owe him our entire lives." He then said quietly.
Not just once, but this Otherworldly had saved their lives twice! This was no longer a debt they could repay in this lifetime.
"So for now... just help us get out of here." Lian opened his eyes slightly. His gaze was still blurry. His bloody lips moved with difficulty.
His head fell back on the moss. Nemi called his name, but this time Sera placed her hand on her sister’s shoulder.
"He’s just unconscious." The mental and spiritual pressure on him was too much, and losing consciousness was predictable.
In the distance, under the remains of a broken mushroom, one of the Crimson Needle Workers was still alive.
One of its legs was cut off, and its shell was cracked in several places. The creature slowly raised its head.
Its red eyes trembled for a moment, then their color changed.
Not to the Queen’s black, but to a cold silver shine. At that same moment, deep in Lian’s unconscious mind, a small point lit up.
A location, a pair of eyes, and the first weak link of a new colony...