After hearing from Conner that he had secured a team, Reever felt a small sense of relief. It was not something he would show, but the thought stayed in his mind. Maybe they could act as meat shields… err… a good defense. Maybe they could help hold the line long enough for them to secure victory. In a place like this, every extra body mattered.
On his side, things were different. He had yet to meet the king of this tunnel. The deeper he moved, the more certain he became that he was getting close. The signs were everywhere. He had already passed several mauled bodies. Some were barely recognizable. The walls and ground were stained. Whatever lived here was not just hunting. It was feeding.
The king seemed to be healing. That was the only explanation he could come up with. The attacks were constant, and players were disappearing one after another. The creature was growing stronger with every meal.
As he moved carefully through the tunnel, he came across another person. This time, the player looked healthy. No injuries. No signs of a struggle. It was as if he had never met the king at all.
The player spotted him almost instantly and waved.
Reever slowed down.
A trap could be at play. In a place like this, trust was dangerous. Slowly, step by step, he shortened the distance between them. His golden trident rested firmly in his left hand. The small bombs floated quietly around him, ready to move the moment he willed them to.
The air felt tense. Still.
Then, in an instant, the ground below the waving player opened up.
A hole formed so suddenly that there was no time to react. A massive head burst out of it. Huge mandibles snapped shut, crushing the player in one clean motion. The sound was sickening. The player didn't even get the chance to scream. One moment he was waving. The next moment, he was gone.
"Sh*t. Guess my luck has come to an end. The king is here," Reever thought as he tightened his grip on the trident.
Moments later, the rest of the creature came out of the hole.
Reever's circuits froze for a moment the instant his eyes landed on it.
It was purple.
Not silver.
That single detail changed everything.
This was not a king. Not a rook. Not anything else he had expected.
The queen of the nest was here.
And she was mad.
The queen did not hurry to get out of the hole. It moved slowly, almost lazily, as if it was sure that its prey would be dead no matter what. There was no fear in its movements. No rush. Only certainty.
"Why did I meet the queen now? She is a powerful creature, and I am all alone," he thought as his eyes scanned the creature carefully, making sure not to miss any detail.
She was massive.
Almost fifteen meters tall while crawling. The tunnel was about twenty meters high. If it had been smaller, the queen would have struggled to move. And that was just while she was crawling. Reever was sure that if she dared to stand fully on her legs, she might collapse the tunnel entirely.
He didn't dare attack.
Maybe the queen hadn't noticed him.
Maybe he could stay still long enough to avoid becoming her next meal.
Moments later, more movement came from the tunnel behind her.
Seven kings appeared.
Then came thousands of rooks.
Then millions of soldier spider ants followed, filling the tunnel like a living wave. More rooks and bishops came after that. The numbers kept growing until the space felt crowded and suffocating.
Reever activated his camouflage.
His body blended into the surroundings, hiding him from sight. These were the moments where he hoped that camouflage hid his scent too. If they could smell him, then it was over.
The queen suddenly turned her head.
Her gaze moved slowly toward the direction where he stood.
For a moment, the air froze.
Time felt stretched. Heavy. Unmoving.
She kept looking in that direction for almost a minute.
Then she screeched.
A sharp, loud sound that echoed through the tunnel.
After that, she turned and began leading her army deeper along the tunnel, away from him.
"I am not sure if it saw me or ignored me, but I am not in the mood to figure it out," he thought.
Another part of him, the daredevil side, whispered something else. It told him to deploy all his explosives. All of them. To send them into the swarm and kill as many enemies as possible.
He rejected the idea.
If the queen survived, it would only make things worse. And if the tunnel collapsed from the blasts, he would be buried alive along with them.
He began walking backwards, slow and careful, putting distance between himself and the swarm.
But it was as if the world wanted him dead.
Crunch.
Crunch.
He froze.
He had stepped on sticks. Dry pieces that snapped loudly under his feet. He was sure they were not there before.
The tunnel turned cold.
"F**k."
Countless heads turned toward his position.
The queen turned again.
Her gaze felt heavy. Sharp. It was as if it pierced through his camouflage and landed directly on him. In that moment, it almost felt like she was thinking, I told you to run, but you didn't.
Screech.
Screech.
Screech.
A battle cry.
The sound spread through the tunnel and stirred every spider ant. At the same time, Reever felt his camouflage deactivate. Just like that. Gone.
Run.
He didn't wait.
He bolted through the tunnel without looking back. Every step was fast, desperate. Just to secure his chance of survival, he deployed all the explosives he had behind him. He didn't even care to see if they hit anything. He just sent them flying and kept moving.
Behind him, the queen reacted.
She threw out a thick, strong webbing. The strands shot forward and wrapped around the floating bombs in an instant, trapping them. The web spread fast, forming layers that almost covered the pathway of the tunnel.
Then came the explosions.
Bang.
Bang.
Rapid blasts filled the tunnel. The shockwave pushed forward, hitting Reever from behind. The force threw him off his feet and sent him sliding across the ground. It increased the distance between him and his pursuers.
For a moment, everything was dust and noise.
Reever slowly pushed himself up and dusted his body off. His systems adjusted, stabilizing.
He was expecting something else.
Countless points.
He had thrown everything he had. Of course he had some explosive remaining, but they were for emergencies only. The damage should have been massive.
But strangely, the system told him that he was awarded only nine hundred points.
Nine hundred.
That didn't make sense.
He turned and looked behind him.
And what he saw felt impossible.
A huge web stretched across the tunnel. Thick. Dense. Layered. It had held the explosion. Most of the blast had been trapped behind it.
There were almost no casualties.
Only the soldier spider ants had died. And even then, it was not from the explosion itself. It was from the shockwave.
The queen and the stronger ones were still alive.
Still there.
Still coming.
"F**k."
He cursed. He already knew that his actions were no different than courting death.