The cavern thundered with violence the instant steel met chitin.
Lio and the two masked marauders were swallowed by a maelstrom of claws, mandibles, and wings as the swarm surged in every direction. The ground writhed like a living carpet beneath their boots—thousands of Cave Bugs pouring from the honeycombed walls, shrieking in unison with their bug-men kin.
And towering above it all was the Hive Queen.
She rose from the abyssal pit as if the cavern itself had birthed her, a grotesque silhouette against the glow of the fungal light. Her body was a fortress of armored plates, ridged and glistening, each segment shifting with a sickening flex as if it contained entire colonies within. Her thorax bulged with pulsing sacs of luminous slime, veins throbbing with green bio-luminescent fluids that seemed to pump the hive's very lifeblood.
Two pairs of serrated forelimbs cut through the air and shatter ground like living scythes, dripping with resin and the gore of past feasts. Her wings—ragged, yet vast—unfurled with a scream like metal tearing under cosmic pressure, sending hurricane gusts that rattled the chamber.
Her head was a nightmarish crown of eyes, a hundred black orbs glistening with predatory focus, each reflecting the tiny struggling figures below. And beneath those eyes gnashed her colossal mandibles—jagged enough to cleave steel, dripping with threads of acidic saliva that hissed and burned wherever they landed.
The Hive Queen's roar shattered the cavern, a psychic-laced shriek that hammered into their skulls as much as their ears. The swarm responded instantly—Cave Bugs hurled themselves forward like suicidal drones, and the twisted Bug-Men lunged in packs, their resin-encrusted claws reaching to drag prey down into the muck.
"By Gaia—" the man in black and blue's voice cracked into manic laughter, plasma energy igniting from his bo-staff as he hacked apart a Bug-Man at the waist, ichor spraying hot across his mask. "Now this is a fight!"
The woman in yellow snapped back, her voice crisp over the hum of her jetpack as she ascended briefly to fire bursts of plasma from her wrist-mounted blasters as well as her elbow-blades for close attacks, each shot punching holes through the smaller bugs while the blade cuts through their hard chitinous exo-skeletons like hot blade on butter. "Focus! If we don't cut down the swarm, we'll drown before we even touch her!"
Lio gritted his teeth, forgo his folded pickaxe and utilizing his fist to throw with every strike. He wove through the chaos with deceptive restraint—holding back his true strength even as he shattered carapaces and split mandibles. Every fiber of his body screamed at him to unleash himself fully, but he knew the moment he did, his secret would no longer be his alone.
The Hive Queen lunged forward, one scythe-limb crashing down where he had stood a heartbeat ago. The impact cracked the ground open, resin and bone flying like shrapnel. Lio rolled away, clutching Lynx tighter with one arm while swinging his pickaxe into the leg of a Bug-Man that lunged too close, snapping it off at the joint.
All around them, the chamber was collapsing into war—the stench of ichor thick in the air, the buzzing of wings deafening, and the sheer enormity of the Queen's presence pressing down on them like a living apocalypse.
The masked stranger in black and blue howled with laughter as he waded through the swarm, his iron staff a blur of crushing arcs. Every swing snapped chitin like glass, Bug-Men collapsing under the sheer ferocity of his strikes. "Hah! Finally! Something worth bleeding for!" His voice echoed with savage glee, each crack of his weapon a punctuation mark to his manic joy.
Beside him, the woman in black and yellow was thunder given form. Her twin elbow blades pulsed with a crackling current, sparks hissing in the damp air as she danced through the swarm. Every step was fluid precision, every slash a lightning flash. Carapaces split open with surgical speed, Bug-Men toppled in halves before they realized they'd been struck. Her voice rang sharp over the chaos: "Eyes up, idiots! We're not here to drown in bug guts!"
And then there was Lio.
For so long he had wrapped himself in the disguise of a clumsy amateur, stumbling through the motions of battle to keep his secret buried. But now—now with Lynx unconscious on his back, and the swarm howling for their blood—that false skin burned away. His movements sharpened, his body unleashed.
He weaved between claws and stingers with impossible grace, his feet kicking up sparks as he darted across resin-coated stone. Each fist ignited as it flew, streaks of fiery force striking with the speed of bullets. One Cave Bug lunged, and his punch blasted straight through its skull; another tried to pin him, only to be met with a flurry of blows so fast they blurred into a single streak of flame.
Lynx hung against his back like a burden and a vow, and he fought with the fury of one who refused to let death claim her.
Still, the shadow of the Hive Queen loomed above, her every roar rattling the marrow of their bones. The swarm's numbers were endless, spilling from cracks and cells like an ocean of mandibles and wings. And there—clinging helplessly on the crown of the Queen's monstrous head—was the Shellwalker. Resin pinned his body fast, his synthetic limbs twitching faintly, his human-like face barely visible beneath the slime.
Lio's eyes widened, his gut twisting. Lynx was alive on his back, but the Shellwalker—their comrade, their unwilling hostage—was a prisoner in the very jaws of the nightmare.
The stakes surged higher, the weight of it crashing down on him like the Queen's own colossal shadow.
The Hive Queen reared back, her shriek like a thousand knives scraping steel. Her colossal scythe-like arms swung downward in a murderous arc, cleaving through resin and rock alike. The entire chamber shook with the impact, shockwaves of slime and shattered chitin spraying like shrapnel.
"Move!" the woman in black and yellow barked—though she herself was already a blur, her jetpack flaring as she twisted mid-air, narrowly avoiding the Queen's strike.
The man in black and blue spun his staff, bracing its end into the ground and vaulting backward just as one titanic blade smashed where he had been. He landed with a laugh that dripped with mania. "That's it! Show me rage! Show me BLOOD!"
Lio, burdened with Lynx's limp form, dropped low and darted with inhuman speed, the scythe missing him by a hair's breadth. Even so, the gust of the strike blasted him sideways, slamming him against the resin wall. He tightened his grip on Lynx, teeth clenched. Can't let her fall. Not now. Not ever.
But before they could recover, the true nightmare began.
The swarm did not hesitate. The Cave Bugs poured forward in a tidal wave, claws and mandibles snapping, wings buzzing in a maddened frenzy. And behind them, the Bug-Men surged as well, their humanoid frames hurling themselves without thought for survival. They dove straight into the Queen's massive arms, impaled or crushed without hesitation—yet more swarms trampled over their broken bodies.
"They don't even care if they die…" Lio muttered, eyes wide as he struck a Bug-Man's head clean off with a fiery punch. The insectoid kept twitching as it fell, ichor spraying across the floor. "Their only duty is to protect her—at any cost."
The man in black and blue cackled, his staff whipping in wide, brutal arcs that cracked carapaces and splattered resin across his mask. "Hah! Loyal bastards, aren't they? A hive that would rather bleed itself dry than let us scratch its queen! I almost respect it!"
The woman in black and yellow was less amused. She sliced down a charging Bug-Man with a flash of her tonfa, sparks dancing from its corpse as she kicked it aside. "Less admiration, more killing. They'll bury us alive at this rate!"
And indeed, it was like drowning in a sea of mandibles. For every insectoid Lio incinerated, for every body the strangers cut down, ten more surged forward. They clawed, climbed, and piled over each other, a writhing wall of bodies trying to smother the three intruders.
Lio braced Lynx tighter, fiery fists blazing as he fought to keep the tide at bay. His heart pounded with more than fear—it was desperation, knowing that the Shellwalker still clung helplessly to the Hive Queen's crown. The Queen's scream shook the chamber again, her scythes rising high for another devastating blow.
Lio's every breath burned in his lungs. Not from exhaustion—his body could fight for days without slowing—but from the weight on his back. Lynx's limp form was warm against him, fragile in ways he could never be. She was his anchor, his reminder that though he could walk through fire and not burn, she could be snuffed out in an instant.
Every punch he threw was measured not by what it could destroy, but by how much space it could clear to keep her safe. Cave Bugs leapt from the walls, mandibles clicking, their resin-slick bodies slamming against him like living battering rams. Lio struck them down in blinding flurries, yet each time he bought a second of breathing room, more poured in from the fissures above and below.
The Bug-Men were worse. Towering over the swarm, their humanoid forms moved with cruel precision, blades of chitin glinting in the fungal glow. They didn't just attack—they blocked him, corralling him back into the Queen's domain. Every time Lio hurled himself toward the chamber's resin-coated wall, fists blazing to bulldoze a path through, they slammed into him with suicidal fury, bodies cracking against his invincible frame but slowing him nonetheless. The swarm itself seemed sadistic, as though it knew his weakness was not himself—but the girl on his back.
"Out of my way!" he snarled, plowing through three Bug-Men in a single shoulder charge. The impact shattered their carapaces, ichor splattering across the resin, yet their broken bodies clung to him like living shackles, dragging him down until more Cave Bugs piled on. Lio tore free with a roar, vision searing red as he blasted a thermal beam across the swarm, carving a molten line in the chamber floor.
For a moment, he thought he'd found a gap. For a moment, he thought escape was possible.
But the opening collapsed under another tide of chittering bodies. Resin and carapace sealed the way like a wall of living stone. Lio ground his teeth, every instinct screaming to unleash everything, to break through with speed and force that would shake the hive itself.
Then he looked up—and froze.
The Hive Queen loomed, monstrous and eternal, her grotesque body a mountain of chitin and slime. And there—atop her head, caught in sticky resin like a grotesque ornament—was the Shellwalker. His metal frame twitched faintly, caught between life and oblivion.
Still alive. Still there.
Lio's heart lurched. With Lynx against his back and the Shellwalker clinging helplessly to the Queen's crown, the choice was unbearable. He couldn't bulldoze his way out. He couldn't escape.
So he did the only thing left—he ran toward the monster.
Ducking and weaving through the chaos, fists blazing, he hurled himself toward the Hive Queen's towering form, Cave Bugs swarming his legs, Bug-Men clawing at his arms. He drove forward anyway, his body a comet of fury, every step thundering with the weight of desperation.
The two masked strangers waded into the endless tide, their blades cleaving arcs and blunt force of the plasma-coated staff of silver death through the swarm. Mandibles snapped, wings thrashed, and ichor sprayed into the air in misty bursts, yet their movements never faltered. To the outside eye they might have appeared as seasoned hunters, bodies trained into perfection, cutting through chaos with mechanical precision. But what unsettled more than their skill was the serenity of their voices, drifting calmly through the cacophony. Even here, surrounded by the shrieks of dying drones and the rattling hum of countless wings, they spoke as though seated at a quiet table, exchanging thoughts in measured tones.
Their words carried no panic, no haste—only calculation. Every swing of a blade, every darting sidestep or parry, was paired with observations refined into sharp strategy. Efficiency warred with instinct, survival weighed against opportunity, as if the battlefield itself were reduced to a living chessboard. Where others would scream or curse, they instead discussed tactics with unnerving composure, voices like a counter-melody against the swarm's monstrous chorus.
The one clad in black and yellow moved like a serpent through the tide, her blade flashing and dripping with ichor that sizzled where it fell. As her partner carved breathing room with ruthless strikes, she shifted their conversation to what truly mattered. "The queen," she said, her voice cool even as her blade bit deep into another shrieking drone. "That thing is no simple broodmother."
Her words carried weight, as heavy as the stench that choked the air. She reminded him what they had already seen—the grotesque creature looming at the heart of the hive, its distended body serving not only as mother but as hive itself. From its pulsating sacs birthed abominations without end, each one screaming into life and flinging itself at them with manic hunger. Yet worse still than its vile fertility was the suspicion gnawing at them both.
"This queen…" she continued, eyes narrowing beneath her mask, "it may be a Breacher."
The word lingered like venom, sharp and unshakable. A Breacher—an anchor tethered to the Breachspace, a single linchpin keeping this twisted dungeon from dissolving into nothingness. Should their suspicions prove true, striking it down would not merely end the swarm. It would unravel the entire space, collapsing reality back upon itself within seventy-two hours. Everything—prey, predator, or hapless wanderer—would be swallowed whole in that inevitable implosion.
Her partner, the masked figure in black and blue, had said little until then. His movements spoke louder than words, each strike a merciless execution, each motion honed into simplicity. But at last, his voice slipped through the storm of screeches, quiet and edged with the weight of certainty.
"You feel it too," he said, not asking but confirming. His blade split a shrieking drone from skull to thorax, the corpse crumpling at his feet as though punctuating his thought. "The rhythm is breaking. The swarm grows thicker. Her cries more frenzied. Even the walls—listen—they thrum as though the dungeon itself strains at the seams."
His tone carried no fear, only the gravity of one accustomed to measuring death. The battle was tipping, balance bleeding away by the moment. If they delayed any longer, they would drown beneath the tide.
And so he gave voice to the conclusion they had both already reached, words delivered like a sentence:
"This will end. Sooner rather than later. The sooner we cut her down… the better for all."
From there, the stranger in black and blue shed the faint trace of playfulness that had clung to his voice. His mask turned toward the looming bulk of the Hive Queen, and his demeanor sharpened like a blade drawn from its sheath. Behind those obscured eyes stirred a super-genius mind that wasted no motion, no glance. He began visually dissecting the battlefield—tracing lines of movement, measuring angles of assault, cataloging every twitch of the queen's grotesque form.
His gaze, assisted with his mask's HUD system, lingered on the pulsing sacs stretched along its swollen frame, on the plated ridges that bristled like natural armor, and finally upon its head. The most vital points were obvious, yet their accessibility was another matter entirely. The head was shielded by layers of chitin so thick they gleamed like obsidian stone, and the lower sections—the birthing sacs and thoracic cavity—were draped in grotesque folds of reinforced carapace. To strike there with conventional blasters or blades would be like hurling sparks at a mountain.
Not impossible. But far from easy.
Still, impossibility had never been enough to stop him.
He adjusted his grip on the plasma-coated bo-staff, its edges hissing with radiant heat, and turned his precise calculations into lethal rhythm. Every motion was stripped of excess. His strikes landed with pinpoint accuracy, each one collapsing a Cave Bug's skull or piercing the thorax of a Bug-Man with surgical precision. Sparks of molten plasma and sprays of ichor followed in his wake, a dance of ruthless mathematics turned violence.
But even as he moved, the swarm pressed thicker. Their cries rose in pitch, echoing the queen's frenzied screeches, as though the dungeon itself demanded their demise. The floor quaked beneath the tide, the walls throbbed with instability, and every second dragged them closer to the edge.
The stranger in yellow could feel it as keenly as her partner. Her blade dripped and smoked with the blood of countless foes, yet more bodies filled the gaps before they even fell. The hive was not merely fighting—it was accelerating.
Their voices met again, calm but edged with finality.
"It's time," she said.
The black-and-blue stranger drove his staff through the chest of a Bug-Man and flicked its collapsing body aside. His head turned slightly, just enough for his partner to hear the low rumble of his reply.
"Then we end it. Here and now."
=====
Lio forced his way back through the churning tide of mandibles and chitin, every fiery strike leaving trails of smoke and scorched ichor in the air. Lynx clung limp across his back, her weight pulling at his shoulders, but he refused to let her slip—not even for a moment. By the time he staggered into formation beside the two masked strangers, his breath came ragged, his eyes burning with frustration.
"We're surrounded," he said, his voice sharp, the words half a warning and half a desperate question. "Even if we hold them off—how the hell are we supposed to get out of here?"
The stranger clad in black and blue barely shifted his stance. His plasma-coated bo-staff hummed, glowing arcs splitting the swarm apart with ruthless precision, but his attention was not entirely on the fight. His mask turned toward Lio, as though measuring him—not with the eyes of a comrade, but with the cold appraisal of a strategist sizing up an unknown variable.
"How strong are you?" the man asked suddenly, his tone calm yet cutting through the chaos like steel.
The question caught Lio off guard. "What—?"
"You heard me," the masked stranger pressed. "Outside the dungeon, you held back the swarm long enough for us to arrive and fought with those Bug-Men. Inside, you manage fought tooth and nail while carrying dead weight and still didn't fall. Normal Terrans can't do that. Not even most aliens we've seen. Even Level Three marauders would've been shredded."
Lio froze for a heartbeat. The truth clawed at the back of his throat, but hesitation gnawed harder. What could he say? That he didn't even understand his own limits? That his strength wasn't something he had earned, but something that had simply… awakened?
His grip tightened, knuckles glowing faintly with heat. Finally, with no time for lies or explanations, he spat out the simplest truth he could offer.
"I can jump… really high. And I can punch really hard."
The answer sounded embarrassingly childish against the thunder of the battle, but it was all he could give.
The stranger in black and blue was silent for a moment. Then, with the faintest tilt of his mask, he gave a reply that sounded almost like a verdict.
"Then you'd better hope you can punch very hard."
His bo-staff flared, burning another Bug-Man into molten ash.
"Because my plan to kill the queen depends on all three of us—and you, rookie, will be the hammer that cracks its skull."
The man in black and blue straightened, the faint glow of his mask HUD painting ghostly schematics across the resin-slick floor. For a heartbeat his earlier mania slipped away, replaced by a clinical, cold focus that made Lio's skin prickle. He tapped a control at his wrist and the air above them flickered to life—ghostly wireframes, overlayed heat maps, and a translucent model of the Hive Queen spinning slow as a funeral drum.
"Alright," he said, voice flat with that irritating mix of arrogance and certainty. "Listen up. I ran a quick diagnostic—microsecond tactical sequencing, strain vectors, carapace stress nodes—whatever you want to call it. My HUD picked up three real weak points on that thing." He flicked his hand and the hologram highlighted three pulsing nodes: one at the head, one centered on the thoracic cavity, and another clustered along the swollen birthing sacs. "Head, thorax, birthing sacs."
The woman in black and yellow leaned in, eyes narrowing beneath her visor. "Go on."
He gave a small, satisfied smirk. "The head is the most vulnerable in terms of neural core access—if you smash into the skull at the right angle, you can disrupt its coordination. The thoracic cavity houses the bio-energetic pumps; damage there will cripple its ability to spawn drones and destabilize its power flow. And the birthing sacs—hit those and you stop the inflow of reinforcements. Hit all three simultaneously and you trigger a system collapse."
Lio swallowed. "Simultaneously?"
"Simultaneously." The man's voice sharpened. The hologram tightened the timing lines into a crisp countdown. "They're draped in thick, reinforced carapace. Conventional hits won't do squat unless they're perfectly synced. We strike at the same instant—same microsecond window—and the shock will propagate through the queen's structural lattice. Think of it like cracking a geode: you need three precise blows, and the rock splits." He jabbed a gloved finger at the model. "That's where you come in, kid."
Lio felt his heart jackhammer. "Me?"
"You're the hammer." The man's finger was an accusation and a promise all at once. "Your job is the head. You punch—full force—right into the neural dome to stun and open it. I'll take the thorax with coordinated plasma strikes and sap the pumps. She"—he nodded at the woman—"gets the birthing sacs. Fast, brutal, surgical."
The woman in yellow's tone was blunt but not unkind. "Timing will be everything. We're not just cutting meat—we're synchronizing kinetic energy, thermal shock, and a burst of pressure to make the carapace fail at its seams. Any lag and that shock is absorbed. Any haste and we rip ourselves open on her armor."
The man in black and blue rolled his shoulders, the old arrogance flickering back like a worn mask. "Which is why you'd better pray your punches are worthy of the name." He smirked, then barked, as if issuing them a creed more than an order: "When we go—no second-guessing. No holding back. We go full force."
Lio felt the weight of those words settle in his gut. Full force. It would reveal everything—his hidden limits, the things he'd buried under jokes and half-truths. But there was no time for shame. Lynx and the Shellwalker sat atop that monster. Lives depended on timing, not secrets.
He met the man's gaze, fists tightening around the pickaxe handle. "Full force," he repeated, voice low but steady.
The woman in yellow cracked a grim smile under her mask and clicked her tonfa into ready. "Then let's synchronize—three counts. On my mark."
Above them, the Hive Queen screamed and the whole Breachspace trembled like a dying drum. The plan had been set. Now all that remained was the brutal, perfect instant when three people dared to kill the Queen at once.
<<<[ Arc01, Ch08 - END ]>>>