The cavern was still, entirely blanketed in silence. There were no plants, no movement, and seemingly no life. Save for one creature.
A large Hive Queen still stood in the middle of the grand cavern, looking tired. As she began moving, a second figure also let itself be known. Cracks spread all over a statue of a smaller termite, the Hive King wrestling itself free from the petrification.
This was naturally to be expected. As the spawn of the Hive Queen, the Hive King was nearly immune to her magic. The fact that a layer of rock had still covered the King’s body was proof of its power. It was a spell the Queen had used to slay many whenever she had delved deeper with the Hive King to conquer more area for the hive. However… it had not been enough.
The Hive Queen sent a mental command to the King to find and kill the human. The lack of notification was proof of life, even if his survival surprised her.
A shame, the Hive Queen thought. The seed of a powerful human such as him would have helped create a far more powerful generation, practically assuring their conquest of the planet. Such a shame indeed that he proved too volatile to control.
Searching the room, the Hive King soon came upon a large ball of stone, one large enough to contain one of her Guards. The Queen frowned upon seeing this. Was it the barriers of the human? The barriers should not have been petrified, but then again, he did have an interesting form of magic the Queen’s innate knowledge did not shed any light on.
“Destroy the rock and the human within. Hold nothing back,” the Queen commanded her King as she assisted by empowering her ward further. If the human was truly trapped within, it would be best to-
*Crack*
The Queen rushed to attack, but it was too late as the sphere of stone exploded, sending rock shards flying everywhere. Normally, these would be of no consequence, but the Queen felt an odd energy within them. As they flew through the air, the rocks slowly dispersed into nothing, and left standing at the epicenter of the explosion was a single human who looked more broken than whole.
Petrification had set in on different spots of his body, and the earth mana had invaded his body deeply… yet she felt it all slowly disappear. Be destroyed. Purple cracks lined his skin, seeping out energy, including the destroyed energy of her attack.His body was overflowing with power, and the Queen knew it spelled trouble. The King moved, but the human reacted and side-stepped the attack, kicking the Hive King away, displaying more power than at any prior point in the fight.
The human’s gaze then turned towards her as he grinned, his lips cracking and blood flowing out from the act. At that moment, the Queen understood. Understood how he dared delve deep into her nest.
“Nice skill.”
He was insane with enough power to survive his own insanity. He was too dangerous. An eternal threat to the hive if he survived. She knew he had been in the hive before, only a D-grade then, and now he had grown powerful enough to battle her and the King. There was no other choice, he would have to die now, or there would be no future. Even if she died, other Queens lived and could take up the mantle.
All for the hive.
Jake had felt the earth affinity energy invade his body, turning him to stone from the inside as he struggled against it. The energy was powerful and overwhelming, but it still found trouble when it got inside him. It tried to petrify his blood but found the toxic substance resist heavily, his veins serving as purifying streams as the poison killed the energy wherever it passed.
Even then, it would not be enough, and Jake would have found himself unable to move for too long. His Sphere of Perception remained active, and he saw the Queen and Hive King both move towards him, going for the kill. That is when he knew he could not hold anything back.
Energy welled up from within his soul as he flooded his body. Pink-purple sparks appeared in his blood, stability and destruction mixed, and he pushed Arcane Awakening to its full potential. It felt like he set his own body on fire as his skin cracked and began peeling off. He hurt all over as the boost actively harmed him with every passing second, but he also felt what running pure destruction through your own body did to any foreign energy.
Whatever parts of him had been petrified were quickly purified by the baptism of destruction, his arcane energy passively flooding it and overwhelming it. With an internal groan, Jake released his energy outward, blowing up the sphere of stone. The King tried to attack Jake, but he easily kicked it away as he looked toward the Queen and grinned.
“Nice skill.”
He wasn’t joking either; that had been a damn powerful skill. The entire cavern now had the same brown color, and the explosion had even gone up the tunnel towards the upper reaches of the hive, turning anything and everything it passed over into stone. However, as with many other ultimate attacks, it lacked proper direction and focus.
If the Hive Queen had been capable of focusing all of the energy solely on petrifying Jake, the outcome would have been a lot different. Sadly for her, she was far from skilled enough to do that and probably also lacked the stats to even pull it off. Looking at the Queen, he felt how tired she was after using that skill. It was not the kind of thing she could do twice, and from the looks of it, the skill even included a period of weakness or something similar afterward. That, or she had just blasted through most of her resources to pull it off.
Jake pulled out his bow and was about to attack as the Queen suddenly regrew her humanoid upper body and looked towards him, her eyes serious and… determined. He felt unsure of what she was planning when she finally spoke.
“For the hive… at all cost, you must die.”
Then, she did something Jake had not expected. Her eyes glazed over, and her humanoid upper body fell forward, limp. Her presence was entirely gone in the very next moment, as Jake got a notifications that made no sense to him.
*You have slain [Isoptera Hive Queen – lvl 272] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level*
*’DING!’ Class: [Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge] has reached level 202 - Stat points allocated, +50 Free Points*
*’DING!’ Race: [Human (C)] has reached level 201 - Stat points allocated, +45 Free Points*
Jake stared at the dead Queen, his mind blank. What the fuck?
Had she just… killed herself? It made no bloody sense, and Jake was still utterly flummoxed as he felt something behind him. A towering presence sent a chill down his spine, and Jake barely managed to sway to the side before it struck.
A line cut through the cavern, space warping in its wake. It flew straight by Jake, impacting the cavern wall next to the Queen, sending spider-web cracks across it. Jake’s mind was still processing what had happened as he felt warm liquid run down his arm. The entire thing nearly severed at the shoulder.
On the cavern wall was the Hive King. All traces of external energy were gone. No golden lines marred its body from the Queen’s empowerment, no golden aura lingered around it, and not a single trace of mana was anywhere near it. Yet Jake knew.
This was a whole other beast compared to the Hive King he had faced before.
To make matters worse, Jake was not in peak condition. He should have dodged the attack before, but the petrification skill affected him, even if it was slowly being cleansed with every passing second. Jake knew he needed to buy some time, but the Queen had been decisive and made her move immediately, resulting in Jake now facing a massively empowered Hive King.
A Hive King that did not give any pause as it leaped at him.
Shi-
Jake blocked with both katars as the mandibles tried to crush him, his arms creaking from the pain and his skin cracking open, spewing out blood. He did not have time to brace himself as a leg slammed into his side, sending him flying through the air. Jake wasn’t even allowed to slam into the wall as the Hive King caught up, smashing him down into the ground.
A crater formed on impact, and Jake struggled as he rolled to the side, avoiding having his chest impaled by a powerful leg stab. He rolled several more times as the Hive King tried to stomp on him, each stomp sending explosions of rock and dirt flying while making the entire cavern shake.
After the sixth roll, Jake could not keep up, and he turned his head towards the termite just as it lifted its leg. Gaze of the Apex Hunter activated, freezing the Hive King long enough for Jake to blast himself up into the King and slam both katars into its underside, sending it flying in an explosion of arcane energy.
The Hive King hit the ceiling of the cavern, jumping off it like a spring to launch itself down towards him as it let out a deathly screeching sound Jake had never heard before. For a moment, he thought it was some kind of attack, but it truly was just a screech of pure unadulterated anger.
Jake was not gonna let it get the upper hand again, so he teleported away, trying to buy enough time for the petrification to be properly dispelled. The Hive King chased him, displaying speed far above what it had been capable of before, clearly not holding back an iota of power. He understood why too. The Hive King was already a dead creature walking, and from the poison in its system, he felt its life force drain.
He also now finally understood why the Queen had done what she had done. In retrospect, during the fight, he noticed the King sometimes getting stronger or slightly weaker based on how much damage he did to the Hive Queen. It had to be some kind of berserker-like skill by proxy, not triggered by the Hive King being injured but by the Hive Queen. With the Queen’s death… the full power of the King was unleashed.
But Jake had also grown stronger with the full activation of Arcane Awakening. It flooded his system with enough destruction to dispel the earth mana far faster than the Queen could have possibly predicted. It was helped along by Jake summoning new scales that absorbed some of the mana, his blood constantly draining it, and even Palate trying to get involved when his blood mixed with earth mana, turning it into an earth-like poison for him to absorb. In conclusion, she had taken a calculated risk but fucked up the math.
Jake would be back in top form far faster than she could have ever expected, but for now, he was still on the back foot. The Hive King capitalized fully, its attacks swift and deadly. Spurts of red began painting the monotone ground, cuts marring Jake’s body as he minimized his injuries.
The termite was relentless, its mandibles snapping after Jake constantly, legs flying out with insane speed, and sometimes it used its near-indestructible body simply to ram him. It pushed Jake further than he felt comfortable with, and even if he got faster and faster with every moment, it also felt like the Hive King wasn’t entirely out of potential.
Jake did slowly become able to fight back as they exchanged hundreds of blows. He tried to cut the Hive King but found its natural armor had also only grown stronger, so he began aiming for the termite’s joints, finding minor success here and there.
The problem was that it wasn’t enough. If the fight continued like this, Jake felt certain he would eventually find himself on the losing end. The Hive King was also more than happy with mutual destruction. Something Jake was categorically not.
That is when an idea appeared. Jake quickly dismissed it, but it promptly resurfaced as he considered it. His guts told him it should be possible… even if it seemed dumb. He had the tools, the concepts aligned…
Let’s fucking give it a go.
Jake and the Hive King clashed as Jake used Gaze on the King, followed by a massive blast of mana, launching the insect to the other side of the cavern. He then changed his stance as he dismissed Eternal Hunger. He stared at the Hive King as he pointed the Blackpoint Nanoblade in its direction, bent his knees to brace himself, and used his entire body as leverage to keep his hand still and arm taut.
Mana flooded the surface of his body, stamina his inside. In the distance, the Hive King hit the back wall and, like a bouncy ball, sprung straight back toward Jake. Jake stood unmoving as the creature flew towards him, crossing the several kilometers long cavern in a couple of seconds.
Jake still didn’t move.
The termite reached him, mandibles-first ready, to strike. He still did not react as his danger sense screamed at him… screamed, and then triggered a certain skill. Time slowed, and Jake knew this was his moment. An Eternal Shadow appeared, dodging the attack as the real Jake remained unmoving. The arcane energy flooding his body on the inside and outside suddenly changed as Jake shifted it from its balanced form to pure stability. His body became as if frozen. Stiff, powerful, resilient.
At the very last moment Jake could move, he angled the Blackpoint Nanoblade a bit to aim straight at the forehead of the Hive King. The insect had tried to avoid the blow as expected, but it had no time to react as Jake had claimed time itself. Even if it could dodge, it likely wouldn’t have wanted to. Jake had given it exactly what it wanted.
Time resumed just as the impact happened. The tip of the Nanoblade hit the forehead of the Hive King, and Jake’s entire arm buckled, but it was as if he was an immovable object. The arm bent slightly, bones shattering within, but the katar remained straight.
The blade finally found purchase as it penetrated. Cracks spread all over the forehead of the Hive King as it, too, attacked. The mandibles snapped shut, the King’s momentum continuing as its entire body also slammed into Jake. The sharp natural weapons of the Hive King cut through Jake as his entire upper body was torn apart; the momentum of the Hive King continuing with Jake’s arm now embedded in its skull.
It hit Jake as his body began shattering. He was bisected at the waist by mandibles, and his entire body got torn asunder from the body slam, flesh and blood flying everywhere like he was an average human hit by a car going two hundred kilometers an hour. His health points dropped alarmingly fast, the arm and katar also penetrating deeper into the body of the Hive King.
Jake’s consciousness remained stoic, but his eyesight was odd as suddenly it shifted. His head was no longer attached to the rest of his body, and his health points dropped to a dangerous level. He would have no way to heal from this wound… so he didn’t.
Two realities, with only one made true for him. His eyesight shifted again, this time to see his own broken body disperse into black smoke, the Hive King continuing its trajectory, now with a massive hole in its forehead.
Jake had still lost nearly all his health points and quickly consumed a health potion as things had gotten a bit spicier than he had planned. He still felt some phantom pain from the severed limbs, but he pushed through it as he took out his bow.
He saw the Hive King smash into the wall at the far end of the cave as Jake took out the Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter and began charging Arcane Powershot. Despite the massive damage he had done to the Hive King – at the cost of his own health getting dangerously low – he did not expect the fight to be over yet.
His expectations were proven true as the termite got back up, blood streaming out of its forehead, and the carapace cracked in several places, all originating from the hole. It looked a bit unsteady on its feet, much of its brain damaged from before. Yet it still had enough instinct to locate Jake and attack once more.
However, Jake was ready as he pushed himself.
One became two as his Shadow once more manifested. The Eternal Shadow charged directly at the Hive King, with energy revolving around both katars. The second reality continued charging Arcane Powershot to new heights, the Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter humming with energy.
Then, one flash and two massive explosions.
The Eternal Shadow clashed with the Hive King, and just as it did, Jake triggered the Arcane Charge from the Mark of the Avaricious Arcane Hunter, making the termite flash with energy. This distracted the King, allowing the Shadow to release everything in one blow. An explosion of arcane power and curse energy ravaged the Hive King, blasting it upwards as its coordination was clearly damaged from its half-missing brain and Arcane Charge. The Shadow had barely dispersed as a giant arrow slammed into the Hive King, the impact launching it into the roof of the cavern, making the entire thing shake.
Just as the Hive King was about to collect itself, a second arrow hit, blasting an even larger hole in the cavern ceiling and embedding the termite’s body even further. Jake did not let up as he released another shot, followed by another, and then another.
The ground beneath him cracked and moaned, forming a crater all around him. He blasted himself deeper with every shot as the King was blasted upwards, the entire roof of the cavern beginning to break apart. His arm hurt, and blood vessels burst as Jake just kept shooting, refusing to let up.
He felt his arm begin to give out, but before that, he felt something else begin to fail. He had pushed the legendary D-grade bow far beyond what it could handle, and he knew it was at the end of its lifespan. With a final push, Jake used his final trump card.
One last shot was released, this one empowered by all the Hunting Momentum Jake had built up during this entire hive dive. With a yell, he released the final arrow, the bow cracking just as he did. It flew up and struck the Hive King, resulting in a colossal explosion. Massive fissures formed all over the cavern wall, and the very next moment, it began collapsing.
Jake lowered his arms as he breathed heavily, both of them feeling heavy at his sides and both of them dripping with blood from overextending himself. Rocks began falling all around him, but amongst the falling rocks, he saw a black shape.
The Hive King landed not even five meters away from him, its armor broken all over and blood everywhere. Jake stared at it in disbelief as the insect began standing back up.
Fucking hell.
Jake tried to muster anything he could to fight. He had luckily not deactivated Arcane Awakening yet, so maybe he could still do something. He saw the termite stand up, only one mandible still there. He felt its attention and bloodlust for a moment until suddenly it dispersed. The Hive King’s aura faded, its body still standing even as the notification came.
*You have slain [Isoptera Hive King – lvl 272] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level*