Swordsman's Regression: Reawakened as a Necromancer-Chapter 124: Hive of the Forsaken

It was a swirling vortex of deep, angry orange, pulsing like an infected wound in the reality of the world.

Aethelstan walked to the edge of the distortion, his golden armor reflecting the harsh orange light. His interface revealed the Gate World’s details.

⸢Gate World: Hive of the Forsaken⸥

⸢Rank: B⸥

⸢Description: The Forsaken do not fight alone. Power is infinite as long as crowd is infinite⸥

Aethelstan frowned.

"Seems it has to do with beasts that attack in groups" Deron noted.

"Means we can’t let them group up," Nessa said, analyzing the text. "If they swarm us, they become elite units instantly."

"Yeah," Liraeth chimed in, tossing her hair and looking at Aethelstan, "we can just burn them all before they can form any team at all! Right, Aethelstan? A massive firestorm would solve the math problem!"

Aethelstan ignored her. He was staring at the Gate, his mind racing through calculations.

He turned to Omares. The old man was leaning against a dead tree, his white eyes staring at nothing.

"Master," Aethelstan asked. "What do we do next?"

Omares said nothing. He didn’t even blink.

"Master?" Aethelstan pressed, a hint of impatience in his voice. "We need your directive."

Omares slowly turned his head.

"You await me?" the old man whispered, his voice dry as dead leaves. "No. No."

He pushed himself off the tree.

"You are their leader, Prince. It is up to you now to do what is needed. Lead."

Aethelstan froze. He looked at Omares, waiting for the punchline, for the lesson plan. There was none.

He looked back at the team. Nineteen pairs of eyes were fixed on him.

They were waiting for him.

Aethelstan swore in his mind. All he wanted was to become stronger. But that meant he had to lead as well.

It was high time he took that responsibilty seriously.

He turned to the group.

"Listen up!" his voice rang out.

"This is a numbers game. The environmental effect will likely buff them if they cluster. Therefore, we do not let them cluster."

He pointed to the Support Squad.

"Ugmar, Teson, Calarin. You three are heavy plate. You are not fighting to kill. You are fighting to separate. You will form a wedge at the front. Your job is to push the swarm apart."

He turned to the Mages.

"Liraeth, Aelade, Jorik. You are not firing at will. You are zoning. I want walls of fire and earth to divide the battlefield into kill-boxes. Isolate groups of five or less."

"Got it!" Liraeth beamed, saluting.

"The rest of the melee—Bromm, Deron, Vadrian, Strida—you are the grinders. Once a group is isolated in a kill-box, you enter and wipe them out. Ten seconds per group. Maximum efficiency."

He looked at Corisande and the healers.

"Healers, you are mana batteries today. Do not heal minor scratches. Only heal crippling injuries. Save your mana for the tanks. If a tank goes down, the swarm merges, and we all die. Prioritize the tanks over the DPS."

Omares watched from the side, his gaze apathetic as he listened to Aethelstan break down the complex lives of twenty individuals into data points.

Tanks. DPS. Mana Batteries.

There was no "protect each other" in his speech. There was only "protect the winning condition."

It was brilliant strategy. And it was utterly devoid of humanity.

All the Prince cared about was success.

To Omares, that wasn’t a true leader. Still, only time would tell.

"We move in tight formation until the breach," Aethelstan finished, drawing his sword. It glowed with holy light. "Then we expand. Do not hesitate. Hesitation allows them to group. Kill fast, move faster."

He looked at the swirling vortex.

"Move out."

The Awakeners roared—some in excitement, some to hide their fear—and began to march into the orange abyss.

As the rear guard passed, Omares remained by the dead tree.

Nessa paused just before the portal. She looked back at the old scholar.

"Do you not wish to join us, Master?" she asked, her voice cool. "So you can see how we perform?"

Omares smiled. It was a terrifying expression on his wrinkled face, and his white eyes seemed to glint with a reflection of something far darker than the forest.

"I see far more than you think, Shadow Assassin," he whispered.

Nessa said nothing else and joined them inside.

It was only her second time going through a Gate, and she was yet to get used to it. The prickling of the magic on her skin, and the unusual sounds whispering in her ears.

Nevertheless, it ended as fast as it came and she found herself inside the B-Ranked Gate World.

One by one, the rest of twenty Awakeners materialized, stepping out of the swirling orange vortex and onto the spongy, uneven ground of the Gate World.

The checked the map.

⸢Encounter Zone : The Amber Canyon⸥

They stood at the bottom of a colossal gorge where the walls curved and bulged, reaching up hundreds of meters into a hazy, mustard-yellow sky.

The material wasn’t rock either. It was a semi-translucent, hardened resin, the color of dried blood and honey.

Deep within the walls, vague shapes moved—shadows trapped in amber—twitching in a suspended animation that made the skin crawl.

The air was hot, humid, and smelled terrifyingly sweet. It was the scent of overripe fruit and rotting meat, barely masked by a sharp, stinging undertone of ammonia.

"Eugh," Liraeth gagged, covering her nose with a silk-gloved hand. "It smells like... like a perfumed grave. My hair is going to frizz instantly in this humidity."

"What do you think Akuma Island smells like?" Nessa asked her.

Liraeth looked to her side to see the condescending gaze Nessa had on her face. The Shadow Assassin looked away a moment after and stepped forward.

"I heard something," she said, withdrawing her daggers.

The group fell silent.

At first, there was nothing but the wet squelch of their boots on the resin floor.

Then, they heard it too.

Thrummm... Thrummm... Thrummm...

It was a vibration that started in their feet and vibrated up to their teeth. A low-frequency buzzing, like a million fly wings beating in unison miles away.

Corisande looked at the ground and noticed something. The "soil" was actually compacted mulch made of crushed chitin and... bone.

She saw a ribcage, mostly dissolved, protruding from the muck near her boot. It wasn’t human. It was too large. Was it a beast?

"Prince," Deron said, his voice tight. He pointed his sword toward the far end of the canyon.

"Movement. Twelve o’clock."

The buzzing grew louder. It shifted from a vibration to a physical sound, a rising shriek of grinding wings.

From the holes in the canyon walls—the hexagonal pores of the hive—they began to emerge.

⸢Threat Detected: Forsaken Soldier Bees (Lvl 35)⸥