The sea of insects expanded until all I could see was a wave of fluttering wings, eyes, and limbs. As they came closer, the bodies piled onto each other. A wall of them came crashing onto me as if the whole body of insects was a shifting liquid.
I trembled from the surging mana, and my armor shifted like waves across a stormy sea. Releasing a burst of energy, I slammed my hand into the stone beneath me. Spikes from my armor reached through rock and ripped out of the brick ground. They impaled into the floor and walls of insects.
As they tried ramming through the barricade, they tore each other apart. The bodies mounted, their weight building in front of me. Several crawled through, but my armor snapped at the mass as if alive. The ground beneath me cracked. Seconds later, it shattered, and it was everything.
Frenzy. Fury. Rage.Wrath. Even Power. I drilled several telekinetic blasts into the incoming swarm. Bursting bodies rained their insides upon me, and my skin fed on the fuel. It soaked into my skin, amplifying a palpable regeneration. Broken bones in my hands healed in seconds as I fired telekinetic burst after burst.
Seconds mounted like tiny eternities. Insects clawed onto my back. They bit into armor, and my skin erupted spines into their jaws, eyes, and bellies. Gore poured from me, piling at my feet as I roared. I raged against the tide, and wounds piled onto me like the stories of a warrior. I told tall tales with my wounds, and I proved myself through the bodies that surrounded me.
As exhaustion crept into my limbs from blood loss and wielding all my power, the surging mana dimmed. Sanity returned, and I took a steadying breath. I had to be rational. I almost couldn’t move from how dense the cluster of bodies became near me. After firing another telekinetic punch, I turned and charged through the wall of bodies behind me.
I rushed up the stairs, running from the insects. As I ran up the spiral staircase, the insects poured in. A few mandibles and claws nipped my back as my feet smashed into the ground. The violent echoes of the footsteps drowned in the outcry of hissing and clicking. A clawed arm latched into the side of my shoulder, but I pushed onward before tearing the creature’s head from its body.
The light of the stairs’s entrance shined like salvation before I jumped out of the staircase. Althea stood beside it, her stomach swollen and her mouth elongated. With a disgusting retch, she vomited gallons and gallons of acid down the stairway. As the acrid stench of corroding flesh filled the air, the hiss of melting shells turned louder than the bugs' own hissing.
Their death sung out as a harmony of slaughter. As they melted, I breathed out a crimson breath, mana still saturating my body. I lunged down, my breathing ragged. Before catching my breath, I lodged my hands back into the stone. Exerting myself until my nose bled, my armor grew into the stone, digging deep into the maze of brick.
Sharp spines elongated out into the stairway, testing the limits of my control and focus. My mind threatened to unravel as I held onto the barricade. As the acid wore off, the insects coursed into a world of pain. Pushed by the insects behind them, a wave of beetles and worms slammed into the sharp swords embedded in the walls.
As the beetles, crickets, worms, and millipedes died, I pushed myself even further. Another tendril from my armor built out of my knee and mopped up the mess of bodies. It consumed the bodies of the insects as they came, gorging on the remnants of their bodies. In that strange malformation, I stayed stone still.
I was at the absolute limit of my endurance, and I could bear no more.
Althea fired her cannon into the trap, piercing through dozens of insects with each bladed spear. Even as I ate the corpses, they piled up within a minute. I grit my teeth, forcing my armor to hold steady and eat more. The ascendant mana rippled from my armor, bending the air around me.
My hands shook with fury and struggle.The tide of insects flowed without waning. Althea’s shots grew more distant as she struggled to unload more and more ammo. She took pieces of her arm and fired it. She threw acid at the creatures before chugging water to refuel herself.
The process exhausted her, yet the effects were undeniable. A second after her bolts landed, the insects fell apart as if reality hadn’t caught up to them being sliced apart. She waved her enlarged arms, waves of needles erupting out into the incoming horde. Each one pierced a dozen insects.
Many passed her destruction, and they crashed into the spines I put forth. Blood and bile piled beside my feet. Most of it was from the insects, but part of it was my own. I had clenched my fists until blood poured from them, tearing through my armor. From exertion, blood poured from my nose, dripping into my armor before evaporating in the torrent of ascendant energy. Even my teeth cracked at my clenched jaw.
Despite the struggle, I kept calm. Surrounded by chaos, I was composed and cold. I found a means of funneling mana straight into my magic, and it let me avoid as much of the mental strain. Before, it was like connecting two live wires of electricity using my body. I found a way to pull them together without being the bridge, and it gave me a far greater mental allowance.
It required practice as the mana still leaked into my body instead of my magic all the time. Despite my own failings, I reduced a portion of the emotion and rage. That gave me an asylum in the storm. In tandem, Althea’s body faded back into her normal, lithe self. Her expression remained harder than iron and fierce as fire.
We kept our focus against the never-ending flood. No amount of pressure could stop us. We were made of metal in mind and spirit. In that battle, most would hold their will with strings. We held our will with cables of metal. Despite our alignment after all these battles, the fight wore on us.
My body fell apart as the mana required to hold the trap turned into more than I could create. The torrent dimmed for a moment, just long enough for me to catch a few breaths. Althea already tore a portion of the staircase to rubble. The grabbed a loose stone before hurling the rock down the stairway.
A cacophony of crunching ensued before the boulder slid to a sickening stop. Ten seconds later and my resolve strengthened. The squirming, giant insects ate through the piled-up stone before bursting out of the trap once more. Althea’s ammo type changed on the fly. Instead of lobbing single spears, she launched numerous pellets.
The bullets took down dozens of insects at once, turning them into mush. It looked like her armor piercing abilities weren’t affected at all by the size and shape of the bullet. Whatever it was that gave her that ability, it ignored a few rules of physics. She abused that fact while using smaller projectiles to save her healthpool.
Glad she was on my side, I grinned with my helmet. The entire time, I held back the mass while she unloaded. Any insect that crawled through leaped at me. They chewed on my face, chest, and arms. I chewed back, my armor’s helm devouring the tide. By taking on that burden, Althea had plenty of time to rest up when needed.
A few minutes later, and the torrent of insects turned into a steady stream. Not needing it anymore, I retracted the trap back into my armor. I ripped off twelve insects in a series of swipes, their bodies splattering beside me. After doing so, I stepped forward. Blood poured from my open wounds, and I collapsed onto my knees.
Still fresh from her breaks, Althea reformed her left arm into a monstrous forearm and shoulder. The hulking limb smashed several beetles, her fingers spread out on the ground. She lifted her biotic rifle and unloaded four more shots, giving me a few seconds of relief. I took a deep breath,
“Hell yeah, Althea…Kicking ass…We’ve got this.”
She grinned, the alteration of her left arm reaching her lower left cheek,
“Thanks.”
My injuries and exhaustion faded in realtime. I watched for a few seconds as she held back the swarm. With a biotic rifle in her right arm and a giant monster arm as her left, she wasn’t trying to be pretty or cute. She was a malevolent force as if some war goddess came to life to enact revenge.
Seeing her take control of herself and use her potential was priceless. It inspired me. Her powers made her nigh unstoppable, but they required constant creativity. She usually avoided using them, probably from some long-term hatred of her abilities and out of fear. I couldn’t say for certainty. In fact, I had next to no idea how her abilities came to be.
They came from Yawm’s experiments, but I couldn’t say what or how that process took place. Still, something changed in this battle. She had wielded something much closer to her full potential. It opened my eyes to how powerful she could be, and I couldn’t help but beam with pride.
Even as she fought, she snuck glances back at me. At times, she seemed more aware of her appearance, and that blossomed an apprehension. I could understand that. Her powers deformed her, and she wanted to be and look a certain way. In many ways, that desire crippled how she fought until now.
Being able to push past that was pure, palpable progress.
However, I didn’t have time to dwell on those thoughts. They popped in my mind, appearing and disappearing like some sort of wisp. The insects flushed back but without the relentless outpour of before. Having healed, I stood and dashed in front of Althea. Our eyes met, and we nodded.
A worm covered in thorns, large as a dog, leaped toward me. I sidestepped, stomping my heel and slamming my fist into the worm. It sheared in half, the telekinetic points tearing it apart. Another beetle flew at me, but I grabbed it in my palm. It cracked its skull on my outstretched hand before I enlarged a dozen spikes through its body.
Using its corpse, I smashed a praying mantis the size of a man. Althea laid the rifle on my shoulder, and I covered that ear using my armor. She fired three rapid fire sprays. A dozen insects died before I grinned at the sight of the rest of them.
I ran forward. Ascendance floated off my armor, filling the runes as I ripped and raged among the insects. I kept my steps steady, each movement turning into a rhythmic pulse. It was nothing like the blind wrath of overwhelming mana. I chilled my thoughts just as the blue magma cooled the ground under our feet.
Every movement was vicious yet compact. Every strike was violent yet intentional. I never wasted a movement, all my skills molding me into a killing machine as I blended the wave of insects into a thick, chunky mass of cadavers. By the time the queen finally got the picture of what was going on, the dead slopped down the mountainside like melting ice cream.
Still, the insects swarmed. Althea heaved for breath, exhausted and ready to collapse. After another minute of fighting, she fell onto her knees. Leading against her rifle and embedded in a patch of ice, she awaited the incoming tide of writhing limbs. I pulled her up and leaped away. After sprinting downhill, I set her down.
She still heaved for breath, blood dripping from her eyes, nose, and ears. Steam rose from her, the heat in her body cooking her whilst alive. She gasped,
“I’m…I think I pushed too far.”
I panicked, thinking of what to do. The insects rumbled nearby, so I sprinted further away. A few seconds later, I approached the edge of the frozen part of the mountain. I set Althea onto the ice, and her body chilled. She let out a gasp of relief. As the insects came nearby, I sent a silent prayer to anyone that would listen.
I covered Althea in ice before dashing to the writhing swarm. We collided. Mandibles, spines, and blades covered me. Unable to retreat, I released more mana, burning my life for power. I gave more and more of my flesh, and energy returned in force. They clawed, chewed, and tore me apart. I stood in the storm, holding them back as Althea recuperated.
Time passed, each second becoming a lifetime. I pulled every bit of my learned techniques from telekinesis to armor manipulation to shifting my momentum. They piled around me, the insects becoming a growing tomb as I kept them at bay. My body weighed me down as limbs and muscles burned. My vision narrowed, the insects taking my blood and flesh into their mouths.
I kept fighting, my breaths deep and ragged. My voice wheezed. My arms arched. My feet grew numb. I stumbled between my punches and bites, my body crumbling. As they amassed around me, fear spurred in my chest. A terror that was liquid, palpable, and thrumming surged through me. I pushed out a growing despair as I choked.
My throat filled from bile and blood. I reached a limit as if trying to breathe underwater. I grabbed an insect, wrenching it apart before stomping another. Three jabs killed three more before I slammed a telekinetic punch forward.
Three more bugs died before I collapsed. The ice surrounded me, and a desire to sleep arose. Exhaustion wore on me. It grated my resolve. Unable to move, insects crawled atop me, their legs skittering. They chewed at my back, and the pain began to mount as they kept wrenching into my wounds.
Sitting there, I waited for a slow, grueling death. I tried standing, but my legs didn’t respond. After a minute, the insects burrowed slightly deeper, and I caught some of my missing breath. My mana remained depleted, but I swiped at my back, killing one of the creatures. I grabbed a second one, crushing it in my palm.
I swung my arm at another, but none met my fist. Unable to breath, I stared at my surroundings. Piles of the dead surrounded me. Their congealing blood painted the mountaintop in all directions. However, all was still. When I collapsed from the mound of bodies, only two insects had remained.
And because of my durability, they couldn’t outrace my regeneration. I had won.
A surge of victory erupted from my chest. It was followed by a stream of vomit. I expunged the liquid from my lungs and throat. After several minutes of trembling, I stood. I couldn’t stop the emotions swarming through me, but with shaking hands, I turned to the mountain’s peak. I had to move.
Despite my gut feeling, the queen gave us a few minutes of respite. In the ice, I found Althea where I left her. She cooled down while her body reformed back to normal, and she wiped blood from herself before sitting upright. On that bloody mountaintop, I stood over her, guts and gore drenching my footprints.
Emotions raged through me in an unbridled wave as my hands jittered like leaves in the wind. I could hardly restrain myself, but I held it down to stop Althea from worrying. Still, they raged at me, asking for a reply, begging for something. I gave them silence.
My armor soaked the blood coating me, the splotches of blue and green evaporating. Althea gave me a weak smile,
“We made it…And, uhm, are you ok?”
She saw through me.
I said, “Of course. What makes you think otherwise?”
She frowned.
“You look…Happy. Really happy, actually.”
I smiled, the grin sincere yet starving.
“That’s because I am.”
Despite everything, a euphoria coursed over me. It was a palpable jubilation, and I held it in for a moment. I relished the battle. I enjoyed the fight. It had been invigorating in a way few things had ever been. It also wasn’t from my armor or some infection like mana. At that moment, I was sane and calm. What had overtaken me was a rapture from within.
My armor rippled before I laughed like an ode to joy.
“Now, are you ready? Because we have a queen to kill.”