Chapter 147: Chapter 147: The Hive Empress

Chapter 147: The Hive Empress

The Progenitor Queen did not blink. Her pitch-black insectoid eyes stared directly into my glowing red visor.

"Rip off my crown?" the Queen repeated.

Her telepathic voice did not just echo in my mind. It physically multiplied. It felt like billions of crawling insects were suddenly chewing on the inside of my skull.

"You are a primitive mutation," she broadcasted, the psychic pressure multiplying exponentially. "You belong in the dirt. Submit to the Hive. Become my favored drone."

The sheer telepathic weight of her ancient Hive Mind slammed down on me.

Anise gasped and dropped to her knees, clutching her temples. Nyssa cried out in pain, her glasses cracking from the sheer psychic frequency. Even Rolf staggered backward, his golden eyes dilating in pain.

She was trying to overwrite our souls. She wanted to erase our individuality and turn us into biological puppets.

I did not fall to my knees. I stood perfectly straight.

"I bow to no one," I rumbled.

I unleashed the absolute maximum capacity of my Domination Aura.

VWOOM.

The heavy, suffocating magenta mist exploded from my heavy Ironclad armor. My 6,500 points in Domination Aura violently clashed with her ancient telepathic web.

It was a battle of absolute, conceptual wills. The Hive Empress demanding submission, and the Sovereign King demanding obedience.

The air between us literally began to warp and distort. The dead fungal stalks around us shattered into dust under the sheer mental gravity.

"Get out of my head!" I roared.

I visualized her psychic grip as a physical chain, and I violently snapped it.

CRACK.

A sound like shattering glass echoed through the entire strata.

The Progenitor Queen violently flinched. She stumbled backward, her sleek humanoid body trembling. Thick, dark blood leaked slowly from her black insectoid eyes. I had completely broken her telepathic connection. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

"You broke the network," the Queen hissed. She did not sound curious anymore. She sounded absolutely enraged. "Then I will dissect you myself!"

She vanished.

There was no blur of motion. There was no wind. She simply ceased to be in front of me.

"Above!" Kaelith warned from the shadows.

I raised my heavy brass gauntlets instantly.

CLANG!

A terrifying impact slammed into my forearms. The Queen had teleported directly above me. Her delicate, razor-sharp scythe-legs lashed out with the precision and speed of a master swordswoman.

Sparks violently showered the dark cavern as her chitin blades completely bypassed my Aegis Rating, carving deep, glowing gouges into my brass armor.

She moved with impossible, terrifying speed.

SWISH. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

She blinked around me, striking from four different angles in a single second. I threw a massive, steam-powered punch, but my gauntlet only hit empty air. She was already behind me.

SQUELCH.

One of her scythe-legs pierced the thin joint behind my knee.

I grunted, dropping slightly as dark blood leaked from my leg.

"You are too slow, metal beast!" the Queen mocked, appearing ten feet away.

Rolf roared and launched himself at her. His silver armor pulsed with kinetic hunger. He swung his massive double-bladed axe, aiming to cleave her perfectly in half.

The Queen did not teleport away. She simply raised a single scythe-leg.

She parried the massive Silver Wolf with casual, terrifying elegance. Her bladed leg deflected the heavy axe, and she instantly spun, delivering a brutal roundhouse kick with her chitin-plated heel directly into Rolf’s chest.

BAM.

Rolf was thrown backward, crashing heavily through three dead fungal stalks.

"Your kinetic reflection requires an impact," the Queen analyzed coldly, blinking to his side. "I will simply cut you into pieces too small to reflect."

She raised two scythe-legs, preparing to instantly dice the Vanguard.

Suddenly, the shadows beneath the Queen’s feet actively rebelled.

The darkness ripped upward, wrapping around her ankles.

The Queen looked down in shock.

Kaelith emerged seamlessly from the pitch-black floor. The Noctharion Empress did not hold daggers. Her hands were completely engulfed in the starry, absolute darkness of the void.

The Queen instinctively swung her scythe-legs down to execute the Elf.

"Your armor means nothing," Kaelith whispered, her voice devoid of all emotion.

Kaelith did not dodge the massive, razor-sharp blades. She simply raised her void-coated hands and caught the scythes mid-swing.

The Law of the Absolute Void activated.

It did not cut. It erased.

FWOOSH.

The moment the Queen’s impenetrable chitin touched Kaelith’s hands, the matter was entirely deleted from existence.

The Queen’s two primary scythe-legs cleanly vanished from the mid-joint downward. There was no blood. There was no resistance. They were just gone.

"SCREEEEEECH!" the Queen shrieked in absolute, agonizing physical pain.

She lost her balance, stumbling onto her remaining two legs. Her flawless, arrogant composure was utterly shattered.

"Sovereign! Now!" Kaelith shouted, sinking instantly back into the shadows.

I was already in the air.

I had ignited the steam-thrusters in my boots the moment Kaelith struck. I closed the distance before the Queen could even process her missing limbs.

I crashed directly into her sleek, humanoid body.

THUD.

I pinned the Hive Empress to the stone floor. She thrashed wildly, trying to spit corrosive acid into my visor, but I clamped my left gauntlet directly over her terrifying jaws.

"The Hive is dead," I growled.

I grabbed her jagged, crystallized crown with my right gauntlet. I channeled all 3,500 points of my Kinetic Force into my arm. My mechanical gears screamed with absolute, maximum pressure.

I pulled.

CRRRRACK. SQUELCH.

I violently ripped the crown, and the entire upper half of her skull, completely off her neck.

Dark ichor exploded across my Ironclad armor. The Queen’s sleek body seized violently, her remaining legs twitching in the dirt before finally going completely limp.

The Progenitor Threat was dead.

DING!

[System Alert: Progenitor Hive Empress Annihilated.]

[Strata 5 completely cleared.]

[Legendary Loot Acquired: Royal Telepathic Core.]

[Item Description: Allows the Sovereign to establish a permanent, limitless telepathic command network with all marked Pack members and Vanguard Generals.]

[Material Loot Acquired: S-Grade Sovereign Chitin.]

[Material Description: The absolute apex of biological metal. Completely nullifies all A-Grade and below magic. Indestructible by standard kinetic means.]

I dropped the severed head onto the ground.

I held up the glowing, iridescent Royal Core. It pulsed with a pure, refined telepathic energy. It was no longer a weapon of suppression; it was a tool of absolute command.

"Nyssa," I called out, my chest heaving as my stamina recovered.

The architect ran over, her green eyes wide with sheer awe.

I pointed at the sleek, headless corpse of the Queen.

"Harvest every single inch of that S-Grade chitin," I commanded. "We are going to melt it down. We are going to forge armor that makes us absolutely immune to human magic."

"It is a masterpiece of evolution, Master," Nyssa whispered, running her hands over the pitch-black shell. "With this, the Forge will become truly invincible."

Rolf pulled himself out of the fungal debris, cracking his silver neck. Kaelith materialized beside me, her void aura slowly fading back into soft twilight shadows. Lysandra immediately cast a wide wave of pink mana, healing the deep gouge in my leg.

"We did it," Anise breathed, looking around the silent cavern. "The Continental Threat is gone."

"No," I corrected coldly. "The Labyrinth Threat is gone. The Continental Threat is still waiting for us up top."

We rapidly harvested the massive S-Grade chitin plates and the Royal Core. The sheer volume of high-tier materials in our spatial rings was staggering. We had enough power to sustain a global empire for millennia.

We marched back to the iron elevator.

CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

The heavy metal doors closed. The gears engaged, and the cage began its long, rapid ascent back to the surface of the Velkrath Imperium.

"As soon as we land, Nyssa, you install the Aegis Shield," I ordered as we shot upward through the dark shaft. "Then, you begin fabricating the S-Grade armor."

"Understood, Sovereign," Nyssa nodded sharply.

The elevator burst past Strata 1. The air began to warm. The smell of fresh ozone and smoke returned.

SCREEEEECH. THUD.

The elevator violently slammed to a halt at the surface. The heavy iron gates opened into the central courtyard of my capital city.

The moment the doors parted, a terrifying, deafening sound assaulted our ears.

WHEEEEEE-OOOOOH!

The warning sirens of the Velkrath Imperium were screaming at maximum volume. The entire city was bathed in flashing red emergency lights.

The sky above was not dark with Wyverns. It was pitch black with pure, suffocating necrotic magic.

"Sovereign!" Prime Minister Hardsteel shouted, running across the courtyard. The old Orc was fully armored, his face pale with absolute dread.

"Report!" I demanded, stepping out of the elevator.

"The border!" Hardsteel pointed frantically toward the Ashfall Marches. "The dead are marching! All of them! The graves of the old world have been opened!"

I looked up at the massive Kinetic Dispersion Dome hovering over the city. It was holding, but massive waves of black, starmetal magic were slamming into the shield.

"Archlich Malacor is here," Anise whispered, trembling as the sheer aura of death washed over the walls.

I gripped my heavy brass fists. The blood of the Hive Empress was still fresh on my armor.

"Let him come," I growled, looking toward the burning horizon. "I need new bones for my throne."