Lohan and Lisa continued to advance silently, sensing that the atmosphere on the fourth floor was much denser and more oppressive than the previous ones.
The air there was not only humid like the previous floors, but saturated with a sweet and intoxicating smell of Mana, which made Lohan’s core vibrate in an uncomfortable resonance.
At the same time that he felt very uncomfortable there, something in him also felt very good, as if he had entered a perfect habitat for him.
As they glided through the shadows, Lohan’s [Spatial Echo-Location] revealed the macabre architecture of the place.
The fossilized wooden walls were no longer smooth, but served as supports for dozens of silk cocoons that hung from the ceiling like rotten fruit. Inside some of them, he could distinguish, through [Thermographic Perception], small figures of fairies, goblins, kobolds, wolves, and other creatures whose heat signatures were almost extinct, their wings and bodies withered by constant drainage.
In nearby niches, pulsating eggs awaited the transfer of these creatures’ vital essence so they could hatch as new soldiers, while others appeared to remain static, as if merely storing that energy for someone else.
Seeing those eggs, Lohan felt that uneasy feeling within him grow even stronger, as if those energy-charged eggs were great delicacies to him.
The movement of the beetles around him was what caused the most chills.
They acted as extensions of a single will, moving robotically in a way that Lohan now understood perfectly after reading the memories of the previous beetles... the Queen had completely crushed the individuality of her subjects, turning them into puppets without a life of their own, moved only by absolute orders.
"Lisa, we’re close. I’m sensing the smell of mana and the energy density in the environment much stronger than anywhere else in this tree," Lohan warned through the mental link.
Finally, as they crossed a colossal opening adorned with hardened resin, they saw her.
Dominating the center of the incubation chamber was the Glass-Shell Queen.
She was a vision of terror and metallic magnificence, possessing a size that made the Elite beetles look like common beetles. Her carapace was not gray like the other beetles, but iridescent, reflecting the light from the surrounding mana cocoons like a polished prism!
She was connected to several silk filaments that extended to the upper cocoons, acting as a biological processing center that drained the life essence from the captured creatures, controlling the essence through her body, then transferring it to other nearby beetles, strengthening the beetles connected to it and causing them to grow at a speed visible to the naked eye.
At the center of this network, one cocoon glowed with a bluish light more intense than the others, the shape of that creature’s body very familiar to Lohan.
Looking more closely, he realized that this creature was like the little fairy they had found outside the tree... Elle!
Considering that the mission she had given them was to find and save her brother, and seeing the physical resemblance between her and the fairy being fed by the Queen’s life essence, their situation became a little difficult.
The moment they entered the Queen’s field of vision, the air seemed to freeze. A powerful and overwhelming consciousness tried to invade Lohan’s mind, bringing a mental command that attempted to crush his will, just as it had done to the other beetles.
"INTRUDERS!!! BECOME MY FOOD AND DIE!!"
Lohan felt his [Magic Core Lv 11] pulsing violently, and the new feature of [Parallel Processing Core] acting as a mental shield to block the Queen’s intrusion while he maintained control over his own body.
The mental strain he was feeling just to avoid this control was the same as if he were controlling two clones at the same time, while still controlling the main body!
"Lisa, we have to act now!
Don’t give her time to coordinate with the rest of the hive!" Lohan shouted mentally, as the hexagonal plates of his [Obsidian Exoskeleton] glowed with an absolute black-purple light, deactivating the mimicry so as not to waste Mana, now that he knew the Queen could see them even with it active.
Lisa shot forward like a reddish-white blur, propelled by [Spectral Step], as pure flames enveloped her paws.
The impact against the Queen’s iridescent carapace produced a deafening metallic sound that reverberated throughout the incubation chamber, but to Lohan’s surprise, the creature didn’t even try to dodge.
Although she possessed formidable physical resistance, the Glass-Shell Queen proved to be extremely slow and clumsy, her massive body adapted much more for biological processing and essence drainage than for direct physical combat.
"Lisa, she’s an immobile tank! Focus on the cracks in her shell while I focus on holding off the swarm!" Lohan transmitted, feeling the constant mental pressure from the Queen demanding a large part of his parallel processing power so as not to lose control of his motor functions.
Surprisingly, Lisa seemed to be completely unaffected by it.
The Queen, realizing she couldn’t hit the fox with her heavy limbs, issued an absolute order to the hive.
From the side cracks of the fossilized tree, dozens of beetles began to emerge, acting in perfect synchronization, moving like puppets under her will.
Lohan acted instantly, using [Partial Division Lv 7] to expel three clones that slid across the ground with [Viscous Flow] at high speed.
Having to use part of his parallel processing, he could only control one clone with high efficiency, while the other two had to act under more basic commands.
Fortunately, creating webs in a specific location was not a very advanced command, and with the large amount of biomass he had stored, the consumption to make multiple webs was not an unaffordable amount for him.
Since the queen had to control each of the beetles manually, just as Lohan had to limit the complexity of his commands to the clones, she also had to do the same for the beetles.
As a result, the beetles had a much harder time escaping the trap he had set!
Upon touching the high-adhesion magic webs, the beetles were instantly trapped, while Lohan’s [Bio-Synthetic Mana Circulation] kicked into operation.
Every bit of biomass that the clones began to digest under the [Hemolymphatic Tissue Lv 11] was converted into pure mana and injected back into his core, allowing Lohan to keep the [Obsidian Exoskeleton Lv 4] active without depleting his reserves, while still taking advantage of the excess biomass to attack the queen!
Lisa took advantage of the distraction created by the clones and leaped toward the cocoon where Pip was trapped, but the Queen blocked the way with a wall of hardened silk, much like that of the cocoons.
Seeing that fighting style, Lohan had a strange feeling arise in his chest.
’Why do I feel like this fighting style is so familiar?!’ He thought as he analyzed how the queen fought.