I Became an Ant Lord, So I Built a Hive Full of Beauties-Chapter 194: No Name?!

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The newly mutating Toad-beast convulsed, inflating with obscene speed. Muscle balloons swelled beneath splitting skin, eyes budding like tumors, and ribs cracked outward to make room for yet more rage-flesh.

Kai didn’t give it the courtesy to finish.

He moved.

A single flash-step put him inside the fog of rupturing tissue. Obsidian claws carved a crimson wake in the air. Mid-mutation limbs flailed, but they were still half-formed—and half-formed things die fast.

SHRIP—SHRIP—SHRIP!

Three incipient arms hit the mud before they even understood pain. Kai’s aura flared ivory-hot, cauterizing the splash of acidic blood before it touched him.

Azhara, battered and limping, let out a breathless laugh. "He’s not letting the ugly blossom."

Akayoroi’s antennae quivered. "He’s... pruning the bud before it blooms."

Vel shuddered. "That’s poetry and terrifying."

The Toad-beast roared, voice doubled as two throats tried to synchronize. "STAY... STAY BACK!"

Kai ignored the words. He ducked beneath a half-grown tail swipe and vaulted up the creature’s torso, boots punching footholds into pulpy hide. Reaching the upper chest, he drove both forearm spikes through the rib junction and tore it apart like splitting wet bark.

A cavity opened—glowing green, pulsing with toxic light.

There. The core.

Glossy-black crystal, shaped like a swollen heart, beating with corrupted aura.

Kai jammed one clawed hand into the pulsing sac, molten veins flaring along his wrist. His fingers closed around the throbbing crystal.

The world seemed to freeze.

Blood dripped. Steam curled. A single spawn insect flitted past, then exploded from a stray aura.

The beast screamed. "M—MY HEART—!"

Kai didn’t speak; he compressed aura. Violet arcs danced down his arm, searing the fat around the core. Corrupted veins hissed and burst.

Pain or not, the monster’s instincts kicked. It flailed, unmutated arms slamming Kai’s back, auxiliary tendrils thrashing. One blow would have pulverized stone but Kai anchored, embedded to sternum cartilage like a rivet.

A leg-sized tongue, recently regenerating, shot up to whip his face.

Kai’s mandibles snapped down, biting the tongue clean in half.

Green ichor rained.

"Disgusting," he muttered, voice echoing inside the chest.

He squeezed.

The Prince squealed—part amphibian shriek, part child’s sob. "S-STOP! DO YOU... DO YOU KNOW WHO SENT ME?!"

Kai’s claws tightened. Micro-fractures spider-webbed across the black heart-crystal. "I will give you Three seconds. Tell me who sent you."

The Prince spasmed, vomiting acid across his own stomach. "YOU CAN’T MESS WITH THEM!"

Kai’s jaw set. "Two."

Outside, Akayoroi tried to step forward—but Azhara caught her wrist. "He’s interrogating. Let him squeeze." She thinks with a lustful face, "I would love it if he squeezed my chest like that. Sir! When will you squeeze me?"

From the sidelines, Sha whispered, "If he cracks that core, the blast might level the cave."

Vel answered, "At this point, I’ll accept that risk."

The Frog-Prince gurgled, spit and bile frothing. "They—! They told me to kill the little ant queen, b... but I asked—HAACK—asked to keep her. Pretty thing, right? I only had to kill her guardians, damage her core—"

Kai interrupted, voice flat. "One."

The claws sank deeper. The crystal shrieked, shimmering veins splintering. Acid steam poured around Kai’s forearm like boiling dry ice.

The monster’s remaining eyes bulged. "WAIT! If you kill me they’ll come for her and they’ll hunt you. YOU CAN’T ESCAPE!"

"Names," Kai demanded.

Twitching flesh quaked around him. "TH-THEY—They can’t be named! They are the True Rulers! Speak their name and your species is erased!"

Kai exhaled. "Zero."

The grip tightened. CRACK—

"W-WAIT!" the Prince screeched, voice climbing several octaves. "I don’t know their names! Only my father... he’s eight-star... only he spoke to their servant! T-That servant... stronger than my father! He made my father lick his boots and made the whole court kneel! Now you know how strong they are! Let me live!"

Kai paused, squeezing just enough to make fracture lines glow. "Still nothing useful."

He withdrew the second hand, drove it in beside the first, palms bracing the crystal core like a vise. "Last chance."

Sweat? No, not sweat, but flecks of their mixed blood—slid down his jaw plates.

Azhara’s claws dug furrows in a stump. "Finish the fat bastard!"

Even Akayoroi, eyes like burning rubies, hissed, "End him, take my revenge."

The Prince whimpered, voice now childlike. "W-WAIT! I only know that They are eternal. They—live since the birth of this planet! They can’t die! Let me go!"

Kai’s head tilted, predator-curious. "Eternal? Immortality bores me."

Kai’s claws sank deeper into the throbbing crystal inside the monster’s ribcage.

The swamp pulsed with crackling energy—corrupted aura radiating from the nearly torn core. Black and green veins squirmed like worms, struggling to repair themselves as Kai’s grip crushed tighter.

The Frog-Prince convulsed, his limbs twitching uncontrollably. He screeched, eyes rolling in pain.

"WAIT—STOP—!"

Kai didn’t pause. His aura flared hotter, turning the chest cavity into a furnace. "Keep talking, or this ends now."

The Prince choked on his own spit and blood, then gasped with wild eyes, "Y-You—you don’t have to do this!"

Kai’s voice was quiet, deathly calm. "You killed her subordinates. I am sure you hunted them like a sport. You think there’s a deal that can unspill that blood?"

The toad-beast thrashed. "LISTEN! I was merciful! I BEGGED the servant not to kill her. I chose her as my consort!"

Kai’s head tilted. "Consort?"

"Yes!" the Prince shrieked, his eyes glowing brighter. "I told the ones who sent me—’Let me keep the ant queen! She’s exotic. Worth breeding.’"

Akayoroi flinched. Her lips trembled but she didn’t look away.

The Prince wheezed. "I was going to keep her by damaging her core just enough to submit and turn her into my royal licking woman. Isn’t that a kindness?! I would’ve made her a Queen!"

Kai’s grip on the heart twisted.

CRACK!

The Frog-Prince screamed as a fracture split the upper vein cluster. "AAARRGH! STOP! LISTEN TO ME!"

Kai snarled, "That’s your kindness?! Killing her people, breaking her body, and calling it mercy?! You’re filth."

But the monster wasn’t finished.

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