Another tremor. This time closer to him.
The Voice of the Abyss pulsed with urgency.
[Threat level escalating. Confrontation with Hive Queen is inadvisable in its current state. Escape recommended.]
No need to tell him twice. Aelric surged forward, going as far as he could from the throne room. His claws dug into the cavern walls as he sprinted through the narrowing pathways.
The Gluttony coursing through him enhanced his speed, and his reflexes, letting him weave through the winding tunnels with inhuman precision.
Behind him, the darkness boiled. The first of the Hivelings swarmed into the passage, their elongated limbs contorting unnaturally to squeeze through the tight spaces.
Their wings flickered in erratic bursts, scraping against the walls as they gave chase. Their eyes, dozens of them, scattered along their grotesque forms, shone with a singular, mindless hunger.
But they were not acting alone. They were directed by the Queen. Aelric felt her before he saw her.
A presence far beyond the mindless drones. A mind as vast as the caverns themselves. She is aware of every pulse of blood, every trembling breath that exists within its domain.
Aelric dove through a crumbling gap, twisting his body to avoid a jagged outcrop of bone. His movements were fluid and seamless. But they are not fast enough.
Something came out of the darkness. And the Hive quickly adapts to it. The tunnels themselves moved and extended.
Walls of chitin and flesh erupted from the ground, cutting off pathways and closing off all escape routes. He realized that the cavern was not merely inhabited by the Hive. It was part of it.
Aelric barely managed to halt himself before colliding with a newly formed barrier, his claws skidding against the slick surface.
Then, the Queen slowly spoke. Not in words. But directly in thoughts. A pulse of overwhelming presence, a mind far too vast and alien to be called a mere consciousness.
It drowned the tunnels in raw authority, in command so absolute it felt as though the very air was bending to her will.
"You consume. You defy. You are…wrong. You shouldn't. Exist."
Aelric's body locked. His limbs refused to obey. His breath hitched in his throat. It was not paralysis, it was domination. A force that did not ask, but took.
And slowly, from the far end of the tunnel, she arrived, the Queen.
A silhouette of writhing limbs. A crown of obsidian shards growing from a skull-like carapace. Wings that were not wings, but twisted appendages of dark silk, shifting in and out of existence like something half-formed and half-forgotten.
And eyes. There are too many eyes. All of them locked onto him. The Hive Queen descended.
Aelric wrenched himself free from her hold at the last possible second, his instincts overriding the crushing weight of her presence.
He rolled aside just as a massive talon speared the ground where he had stood, spending shockwaves of force rippling through the cavern.
The fight had begun. She was fast. Faster than something her size had any right to be.
Aelric barely avoided the second strike, he twisted his body unnaturally as the Queen's claws limb scythed through the space he had occupied an instant before.
The sheer force of her attacks was enough to carve through solid stone like paper, reducing the cavern walls to rubble with each impact.
She was not testing him. She was trying to erase him. What should he do Aelric's mind raced. Direct contact with her would be suicide.
She wasn't just physically superior, her presence alone was a weapon, a weight pressing against reality itself.
There was only one chance. Mimic the Hive. He did not hesitate. He forced the Voice of the Abyss into overdrive, opening himself to the fragmented memories he had stolen from the Hivelings.
[Engaging Forced Synchronisation. Warning: Mental destabilization risk….]
The world fractured. For a split second, Aelric was the Hive. He saw through their eyes. Felt their connection.
And in that moment, he understood. The Hive moved as one. Their reactions were not individual, they were synchronized, an instinctual web of cause and effect dictated by the Queen's will. A network of absolute order.
So be did something impossible. He mimicked it. Aelric's body shifted, not in shape but in motion.
His movements aligned with the Hive. His attacks mirrored theirs. He no longer fought as a lone predator, he fought as part of the swarm.
The Queen hesitated. For the first time, her will fractured. Aelric's changed behavior confused her. And Aelric struck, he vanished into her blind spot, his claws igniting with Gluttony as he ripped through her side, devouring flesh, consuming essence.
The cavern shook with her roar. The connection is broken. The Hive reeled for a few seconds. Which gives Aelric a chance to escape. This is not a defeat but a strategic retreat.
He had survived that's what matters. And the Queen knows. The next time they met, he would be ready.
After traveling enough distance. Aelric can't hold it anymore, his body collapses. Especially his mind feels like being bound by chains heavy.
Aelric's body ached. His muscles burned with exhaustion, his mind still reeling from the battle with the Hive Queen. The synchronization with the Hive had given him a temporary edge, but it had also nearly shattered his consciousness.
The connection has been unnatural, forcing his body and mind to move in a way that was not his own.
He could still feel the ghostly remnants of the Hive's will lingering in his thoughts, like an aftertaste of something vile.
He needed some rest. But the Abyss did not grant such luxuries. The tunnels twisted into unnatural angles, the Hive's influence gradually fading as he moved deeper into the caverns.
The stone walls become rougher, and jagged, with streaks of blackened veins pulsing faintly in the dim light. The air was wrong here, it was heavy and saturated with something old, something that did not merely exist but waited. What could it be?