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I Became an Ant Lord, So I Built a Hive Full of Beauties-Chapter 227: Telling Truth!
Chapter 227: 227: Telling Truth!
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But before anyone could fully register what they were seeing— Akayoroi tucked gently into the arms of their Monarch— Kai slowed and stopped at the edge of the meeting circle. Then, with the calm of a sovereign, he bent and eased her to her feet beside a smoothened shellstone pillar.
He held her steady. Just for a second. Then he stepped back. Not into darkness, but into the margin of command. The place where a ruler lets his equal speak.
Akayoroi slowly adjusted her stance, it was deliberate. Her limbs held rigid composure. There was no limp, no flicker of pain. Only focus. Her carapace still bore the sheen of her wash, but her inner glow had faded to a low, warm pulse beneath her lower thorax. A glow only the closest might sense, but one none would dare question.
She looked across the room. Her assassins sisters. Her council. Only surviving legacy of carpenter Ants.
Sha lowered her head first. A subtle, silent bow. Then Vel. Then Naaro, and all the others in slow succession.
Five sisters standing. Four resting. Together, they bowed, not just to her title, but to her presence.
The soft sound of claws meeting soil and chitin shifting in unison filled the room like a ceremonial drumbeat. Then a voice broke the stillness.
"You smell different... my Queen." Vel’s voice was soft but not uncertain.
Naaro’s gaze flicked toward her with narrowed eyes. "Not just power. Something else. Something new."
Akayoroi did not flinch. She stepped into the circle fully, letting the filtered light fall across her. Her antennae rose, not in defense, but pride.
"Yes," she said clearly. "I carry the beginning of something greater. Something that will increase the numbers of our people back to the old days."
She lifted a claw and pointed back—just briefly—to where Kai stood motionless against the wall.
"And the one who will help us create it stands there. But this... this is not about him. This is about us."
A pause.
She let the silence fall long enough to let their thoughts swirl. "We survived when others did not. We survived because of each other. Because of unity. And because we chose to flee instead of bow. That must mean something. And I will make sure it does."
Her voice never wavered. Even as her hand drifted —almost absentmindedly— to rest just above her lower abdomen, where the echo of unborn life pulsed faintly beneath her armor.
The warriors watched. No one interrupted.
Sha shifted slightly forward. "What happens now?"
"You’ll all receive new roles," Akayoroi said. "New duties. New command posts until the journey. You will not be forgotten. Neither the fallen... nor the living..."
She looked to the alcove where the four injured ants lay breathing softly, half conscious but listening. "...Nor the unborn eggs."
A gentle tension rippled through the room. No one questioned her. They wouldn’t dare. The scent of her pheromones had shifted too drastically, she no longer released just the dominant tone of a Queen. She now bore the deeper undertone of a fertile matron. It was a signal only possible after the true Royal Union had occurred.
Sha stood taller, her blade arms folding across her chest in salute.
Vel nodded, antennae pressed forward in submission.
Naaro gave a subtle tilt of her chin. Quiet. Calculating. But loyal.
Kai watched it all without a word. But inside, something burned bright in his chest. Not pride, Not satisfaction, Something older. It was a kind of belonging.
She was no longer just the Queen of a ruined nest. She was the future mother of an empire. And this... this was only the morning of the first day.
Akayoroi stood at the chamber’s heart, straight back despite the faint ache gripping her lower limbs. Each breath she drew released a ripple of commanding authority. It was no longer the sharp, battle ripe scent of exile, but something deeper, tempered with maternal warmth. It pooled through the air like perfume none could ignore.
She raised a clawed hand. "Sha, Vel, Naaro," her voice rang, firm as obsidian. "We depart for Monarch Mountain in two days. Begin preparations: rations, resin packs, stretcher for wounded, combat gear. No warrior sleeps unarmed on the night of the journey."
The named trio straightened. Sha, was tall and lean, big chested, her blade arms still holding the feeling from the frogkin kill. Her eyes snapped to attention, though her antennae betrayed her curiosity. They flicked once, twice, toward the faint glow beneath the Queen’s abdomen. The radiance had dimmed since dawn but it remained like an ember lodged behind armored plates.
"Yes, my Queen," Sha said. She hesitated, mandibles parting with uncharacteristic timidity. "Permission to speak freely?"
Akayoroi arched a brow plate. "Granted."
"It’s just... you’re faintly glowing on your belly. And you’re walking a little... odd. We heard some noise coming from the queen chamber last night. The way sir Kai carried you. Did he—"
Akayoroi says, "I am his woman now. The noise you can guess what that was." she says with a straight face.
Sha coughed into a fist, eyes darting. "I mean, Kai— you really take our queen. By the looks and her walking it looks intense. Was it really that intense?"
A slow smirk traced Akayoroi’s mandibles. "That intense? My dear sister, I left the chamber using sheer pride and a wall for support."
Vel’s voice floated from the other side of the table. "What wall?"
"Exactly," Naaro murmured, not looking up from sharpening her bladed forelimb.
The chamber rippled with soft, scandalous gasps. Even the four wounded ants, nestled on stretchers near the rear alcove, twitched antennae in curiosity.
A sudden hush fell as a burst of displaced wind rattled the moss curtain. "Where is he?!"
Azhara stormed in, her muscles and chest bunching beneath tawny fur, breasts heaving under improvised leather straps, eyes smoldering with outrage and envy. She jabbed a clawed finger. "You! Queen Legs! Don’t play coy— I smelled it halfway across the canopy. You mate with him!"
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