Chapter 178: The Queen’s Larder

The dawn in Mourn-Hold was not bright. It was a gradual lightening of the grey fog until the shapes of the trees became visible against the slate sky.

Vane stood at the edge of the Deep Woods. His boots were coated in mud. The air smelled of wet pine and the chemical tang of the Grain-Maws.

“Tracks,” Vane said. He pointed to a scarred patch of earth. “Heavy drag marks. They are moving something big.”

Isole knelt beside him. She touched the slime left on the crushed grass.

“It is acidic,” she noted. She wiped her glove on her cloak. “And fresh. This trail is less than an hour old.”

“Then we are close,” Vane said.

They moved into the treeline.

The woods were silent. The grey rot that afflicted the fields had spread here too. The trees were leafless. Their bark was pale and flaky like dead skin. There were no birds. The only sound was the snap of twigs under their boots.

They followed the trail for two miles. The terrain grew rougher. Rocks jutted out of the earth like broken teeth. The fog collected in the hollows, turning the forest floor into a maze of white pools.

“There,” Vane whispered.

He stopped behind a massive oak.

Ahead of them, the earth opened up. It was a collapsed sinkhole near the foundation of an old, ruined windmill. The stone structure had fallen inward, creating a jagged maw that led deep underground.

A steady stream of Grain-Maws scurried in and out of the hole. They carried clumps of grey soil and petrified root in their mandibles.

“A worker line,” Vane observed. “They are feeding the nest.”

“It looks like an ant hill,” Isole said. She gripped her staff. “But bigger.”

“We go in,” Vane said. “We find the Brood-Mother. We kill her. The colony collapses.”

He checked his gear. He pulled a flare from his belt and cracked it. The red light hissed to life, cutting through the gloom.

“Stay five paces back,” Vane ordered. “Watch the ceiling. They like to drop.”

He stepped into the sinkhole.

The tunnel sloped downward at a steep angle. The walls were lined with a resinous substance that hardened the dirt into a concrete-like surface. It smelled of ammonia and rotting vegetables.

The red light of the flare cast long, dancing shadows.

They passed worker Maws. The insects ignored them. They were single-minded drones, focused entirely on their burden. Vane didn’t waste energy killing them. He stepped over them.

The tunnel opened up into a massive central chamber.

It was a cathedral of mud and resin. The ceiling was fifty feet high, hung with stalactites of hardened slime. In the center of the room sat the Queen.

She was monstrosity.

She was the size of a carriage. Her abdomen was swollen and translucent, pulsing with a sick, white light. Her upper body was armored in thick, black chitin plates that looked like polished obsidian. She had six legs, each ending in a serrated claw the length of a man’s arm.

She was eating.

Workers dumped the grey soil in front of her. She shoveled it into her maw with frantic, twitching movements.

“Target identified,” Vane said. “Rank 4. High-density armor.”

The Queen stopped eating.

Her antennae twitched. She swiveled her massive head toward the tunnel entrance. Her multifaceted eyes reflected the red flare.

She screamed.

It was a sound that vibrated in the teeth. It was a command.

The worker Maws in the room dropped their loads. They turned. Hundreds of them.

“Isole,” Vane said calmly. “Clear the trash. I have the Queen.”

“Understood,” Isole replied.

She slammed her staff into the ground.

“Solaris!”

A wave of blinding white fire erupted from her position. It wasn’t a beam. It was a ring of expanding light. It washed over the smaller Maws, burning their sensory organs and cooking them in their shells. The room filled with the stench of burning chitin.

Vane moved.

He launched himself off a resin ridge. He used the chaos of Isole’s spell as cover.

[Skill: Flash Step]

He appeared in the air above the Queen.

He drove the spear down.

Argent Horizon: Falling Star.

The Queen was fast for her size. She reared up. She caught the spear shaft with her two front claws.

CLANG.

The impact stopped Vane’s descent. He hung in the air, grappling with a monster that outweighed him by two tons.

The Queen hissed. A gland in her neck swelled.

“Acid!” Vane shouted.

He kicked off her carapace. He twisted in mid-air.

A jet of green liquid shot past him. It hit the wall where he had been a second ago. The stone hissed and dissolved into sludge.

Vane landed in a crouch.

The Queen charged. She moved like a battering ram. Her legs churned the mud.

Vane didn’t block. He couldn’t block that mass.

He slid.

He dropped to his knees. He let his momentum carry him under her raised claws. He slashed upward as he passed beneath her.

The [Silver Fang] bit into her soft underbelly.

Blue blood sprayed. It coated Vane’s armor. It sizzled against the mana-dampening plates.

The Queen shrieked. She spun around, lashing out with her rear legs. One claw caught Vane in the side.

He was thrown across the room. He slammed into a pile of hardened eggs. The breath left his lungs.

“Vane!” Isole shouted. She was holding back a tide of workers with a barrier of light.

“Focus on the add-ons!” Vane wheezed. He stood up. His ribs ached. His armor was scored.

The Queen was hurt. But she was angry. She gathered mana in her throat. The air around her distorted. She was preparing a massive acid burst.

Vane looked at the distance. He couldn’t close it in time.

“Isole!” Vane roared. “Flashbang! Now!”

Isole didn’t hesitate. She pointed her staff at the Queen’s face.

“Nova!”

She dumped half her reserve into a single point of light. It detonated right in front of the Queen’s eyes.

It was brighter than the sun.

The Queen recoiled. She was blinded. The acid burst misfired, spraying harmlessly into the ceiling. She thrashed, smashing into the resin walls.

Vane saw his opening.

He channeled every drop of silver mana into his spear. The weapon hummed. It turned into a streak of pure rejection.

He sprinted. He leaped.

He landed on the Queen’s back.

He reversed his grip.

“Die,” Vane whispered.

He drove the spear through the back of her neck. He aimed for the nerve cluster.

The [Silver Fang] punched through the thick chitin. It severed the spine.

The Queen went rigid.

She shuddered once. Then she collapsed. Her massive bulk hit the mud with a wet thud that shook the entire cavern.

The worker Maws stopped moving. Without the Queen’s pheromones, they were lost. They chattered confusedly and began to retreat into the shadows.

Vane stood on the carcass. He wrenched his spear free.

He looked down at Isole.

She was panting. Her barrier flickered and died. She looked exhausted, but she was smiling.

“Is it done?” she asked.

“The head is dead,” Vane said. He hopped down. “The body will rot.”

He walked over to the egg piles. They were translucent sacs filled with writhing larvae.

“Burn them,” Vane ordered.

Isole nodded. She cast a low-intensity fire spell. The dry resin caught instantly. The eggs began to pop and hiss as the flames consumed the nest.

They watched the fire for a moment. The orange light illuminated the cavern, chasing away the shadows.

“That was a Rank 4 Alpha,” Vane said. He wiped the blue blood from his visor. “You handled the crowd control perfectly.”

Isole beamed. “The Nova spell. I learned it from watching Valerica. She uses gravity to condense light. I just used raw output.”

“It worked,” Vane said. “Good adaptation.”

He checked his compass.

“We head back,” Vane said. “We send the signal. The mission is complete.”

They walked out of the sinkhole. The sun had risen above the fog layer, casting a pale, watery light on the grey woods.

It felt like a victory. The monster was dead. The eggs were burning.

Vane relaxed his grip on the spear. He allowed himself to feel the fatigue in his muscles.

They walked back to the village. The farmers were waiting. They cheered when they saw the black smoke rising from the woods.

Vane accepted a cup of water from Alden. He drank it in one go.

“It is over,” Alden said, clapping Vane on the shoulder. “You saved us.”

“Just doing the job,” Vane said.

He looked at Isole. She was laughing with the village healer. She looked happy.

Vane allowed himself to believe it.

It was a good hunt.

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