Chapter 89: The Hive

Sector 44-J was a graveyard of rusted steel and shattered concrete.

The squad had spent the last four hours navigating the treacherous ruins of a pre-apocalypse city.

The red fog was thicker here, clinging to the decaying skyscrapers like a physical weight.

At the center of a collapsed financial plaza, buried beneath tons of fallen rubble, was a massive set of reinforced, blast-proof steel doors built directly into the earth.

"Old World bunker," Cole observed, running a gloved hand over the rusted locking mechanism.

"Military-grade. Whatever is down there, they wanted to keep it buried."

"The mana density below us is completely stagnant," Natalie reported, her eyes closed as she pressed her hands against the steel.

Her face was pale.

"But there are signatures. A lot of them. They are small, erratic, and practically vibrating with toxic mana."

"What else could it be other than a monster nest," Aegon concluded. He leveled his spear.

"If we want to map this sector accurately, we need to clear the subterranean zones too. Cole, Lyra. Blow the lock."

"HAHA! Finally," Lyra grinned.

She stepped forward, slapping a palm-sized clump of dark, putty-like explosive directly onto the locking mechanism.

Cole dragged her back by the collar.

BOOM.

The muffled explosion shattered the ancient locking pins.

Looking at this, Draven thought, ’Should I have intervened here? Well, too late! I mean they do not know what is under there... Oh well! Why fear when I am here!’

Bram stepped up and slammed his tower shield into the seam, forcing the heavy doors apart with a harsh metallic screech.

A wave of stale, suffocating air washed over them. It smelled of rot, dust, and something sharply acidic.

"Lights," Aegon ordered.

The squad clicked on their shoulder-mounted Vanguard tactical beams.

The twin beams of white light pierced the darkness, revealing a wide, descending stairwell that led into a sprawling underground research facility.

The walls were lined with shattered glass, rusted server racks, and torn ventilation grates.

But it was the ceiling that made the squad freeze.

It was coated entirely in thick, glistening webs of sickly green silk.

"Venom-Weave Arachnids," Instructor Stonehelm’s lessons instantly clicked in Aegon’s mind.

’Rank-B.’

"Keep your eyes up. They hunt from the dark."

The squad shifted out of their diamond formation. The tight, claustrophobic metallic corridors of the lab didn’t allow for wide sweeps.

"Bram, take the point," Aegon commanded.

"Reina, cover his back. Estella, keep your spells tight. If you use a wide-area blast in here, you’ll collapse the ceiling and bury us alive."

"Understood," Estella whispered, her hands glowing with highly concentrated, localized purple stardust.

Draven walked near the rear, keeping his footsteps entirely silent.

He didn’t need a flashlight. His pitch-black eyes easily pierced the gloom.

But more importantly, his mind was entirely focused on the golden interface of the World Map.

The lab was a labyrinth of dead ends and collapsed tunnels.

But on Draven’s mental map, a single, highly secured room four sub-levels down was glowing with the marker of an unrecorded relic.

’Here it is! The relic that will help in gaining back the Lands of Humanity. Never knew I would be this excited seeing this.’

Right as Draven locked onto the coordinates, a translucent blue screen materialized in front of his eyes.

DING!

[System Alert: Destiny Intervention detected.]

[Target: Sector 44-J Pre-Fall Research Vault.]

[Quest Generated: Steal the ’Hero’s’ Destined Opportunity.]

[Reward: 50,000 System Points & Blueprint Integration.]

Draven’s lips curled into a cold, predatory smile.

"Movement!" Natalie shrieked, pointing straight up.

THWIP. THWIP. THWIP.

Thick globs of acidic green webbing shot down from the darkness of the ceiling, sizzling instantly as they hit the metal floor.

"Shields up!" Aegon roared.

Bram raised his massive tower shield just as three gargantuan, spider-like beasts dropped from the ventilation shafts.

They were the size of small cars, their eight eyes glowing with a toxic violet light, and their mandibles dripping with corrosive venom.

CLANG!

One of the Arachnids slammed into Bram’s shield, the sheer kinetic force driving the heavy-set boy to one knee.

But the wall held.

"Back off!" Reina shouted.

She swung her ice axe in a tight, vertical arc, completely freezing the Arachnid’s front legs to Bram’s shield.

Aegon moved instantly.

He stepped around Bram, his spear igniting in a concentrated beam of crimson light, and drove the blade cleanly through the spider’s clustered eyes.

"They are in the vents!" Cole yelled, firing a rapid burst of heavy caliber rounds into the ceiling.

The piercing shrieks of dying spiders echoed through the tight metal corridors.

"Lyra, no bombs!" Aegon warned, seeing the manic girl reaching for her belt.

"The structural integrity is gone!"

"Fine! Boring!" Lyra complained.

She drew her hand-cannons, firing precise, deafening shots into the dark corners of the room.

The squad moved like a well-oiled machine, slowly pushing deeper into the facility.

Neville stayed perfectly in the center.

The blond boy didn’t draw his sword.

He kept his hands raised, continuously projecting a golden, holy barrier that actively burned away the acidic webbing raining down on them.

"Keep pushing!" Aegon ordered, impaling another spider to the wall.

"Natalie, which way?"

Natalie closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the sheer number of signatures crawling through the walls.

"I... I don’t know! They are everywhere! It’s a maze!"

"Take the left corridor," Draven said calmly from the back.

Aegon didn’t hesitate.

"Left! Move!"

Draven seamlessly guided the squad.

"Turn right from here!" Draven ordered and the Squad followed.

He called out turns, warned them of collapsed floors, and directed them exactly along the fastest, most efficient route toward the glowing marker on his mental map.

To the squad, it looked like Draven simply possessed an uncanny intuition.

---

Twenty minutes of brutal, claustrophobic fighting later, the squad burst through a set of heavy blast doors and into the deepest sub-level.

It was a massive, central server room. The ceiling here was fifty feet high.

And it was completely choked with green webs.

Hanging in the center of the room, surrounded by dozens of screeching Arachnids, was the Hive Mother.

A colossal, Rank-A beast with a bloated, pulsating venom sac.

"A Boss tier," Lucien whispered, his silver eyes flashing with deadly intent as he drew his rapier.

"Finally."

Draven completely ignored the gargantuan spider.

While Aegon barked orders and the squad engaged the massive Hive Mother in a desperate fight for survival, Draven slipped into the shadows along the edge of the room.

He followed the golden ping on his map.

Hidden behind a wall of rusted servers and covered in decades of thick webs was a pristine, untouched biometric vault door.

The metal was an alloy Draven didn’t recognize, completely untarnished by the acid and time.

Draven stepped up to the vault.

He placed his hand against the cold metal.

’The original protagonist was supposed to be pushed against this wall during a desperate fight, accidentally bleeding onto the biometric scanner and unlocking his destiny.’

Draven looked back at the squad.

Neville was currently focused on healing a nasty acid burn on Bram’s shoulder.

Draven turned back to the vault. He didn’t have the Hero’s blood.

But he had an S-Rank System.

’Time to pick a lock,’ Draven thought.