The Legendary Beekeeper-Chapter 52: Metamorphosis (1)

Now more than ever, Beelathorn wished the supermind would say something.

However, despite his best efforts... despite how deeply he searched the confines of his mind, he could not locate it.

He could feel its heavy presence weighing down on his head, but no voice came in reply when he screamed for help.

He was... alone.

His mouth opened to answer her, but his will was not so easily dominated. He pushed back against it... gnawing down on his tongue till his mouth was filled with the flavour of blood.

Surprisingly, this brought a smile to the Shadow woman’s face. "No one’s ever fought back like this," she whispered, bringing her face close to his. "From the moment you got past Vira’s truth-say, I knew you’d be the one," she said, before licking the blood that dripped down his lips.

The contract began flashing a deeper shade of red, and the grip it exerted over Beelathorn’s body increased twofold.

As her tongue played around the edge of his lips, his mouth slackened to the contract’s will, and from it, words began to pour out.

"It’s an evolution of my trait skill. I was transformed into this..." he said.

The shadow woman smiled at that. "Good boy."

A wave of embarrassment washed over him as she patted him on the cheek.

However, the feeling was short-lived. If he were to make it out of this without revealing too much, he would have to change tactics.

Her mention of Vira brought a thought to mind. Just like with the truth-sayer trait, the truth here was but a subjective thing.

All he had to do was find the right way to speak half-truths while answering her questions.

"Hmm... so this really isn’t a suit?" the shadow woman asked, snapping her fingers. With that, a needle crafted itself from the wisps of her shadows.

"So, can you feel this?" she asked, before slowly pushing the needle into the space between his chest.

The needle exploded inside him, sending tendrils into his chest, so that they wreathed like worms under his skin.

It hurt... it hurt more than anything he had ever felt before. But his mouth was no longer his, and he had not been permitted to scream.

Instead, his vision blurred as the pain intensified, and just when it felt like the heat of the thrashing shadows was about to reach his brain, they stopped.

"Answer me. Do you feel it?" she asked.

"Ye... yes," Beelathorn strained.

The shadow woman went silent, and her eyes studied his face with a newfound interest. "A transformation at level 6..." she whispered.

Where she had found out his level was beyond him. However, it wasn’t too hard to imagine that she had taken a look at the extension station after knocking him out.

Yet another mistake on his part.

"I couldn’t see your trait rank on the extension station. It was blurred out," she said. "How did you do it?" she asked.

He was still recovering from the needle; however, the contract demanded a response.

"I don’t know," he replied, breathing laboured.

The shadow woman stared at him for a moment before lying down on the bed. "So then, what rank are you?" she asked; however, she didn’t seem too interested in the answer. "S-rank, no doubt?"

Right as Beelathorn was about to answer, a knock came on the door.

"Must be our guest," she said. "Be a dear and answer the door."

Beelathorn obliged, staggering in pain towards the door.

Behind the door stood a hooded figure in worn, grey robes. "Is the mistress in?" the figure asked, voice a whisper.

Beelathorn turned to look at the shadow woman.

"Klein, come in," she said.

The hooded figure stepped past Beelathorn, their eyes meeting for only a second.

’Purple eyes...’ he thought. Odd, he didn’t think humans had purple eyes. But then again, anything was possible in Apocalypse, wasn’t it?

"Han, this is Klein, one of my other... assets," the shadow woman explained. "Unlike you and me, he’s from a planet called Solaris, aren’t you, Klein?"

The hooded figure nodded.

"Surprised?" the shadow woman asked, staring at Beelathorn with an amused expression.

And indeed he was.

Humans from other planets... he’d never even entertained the thought. Though perhaps it should’ve been a little more obvious to him, what with the way the shadow woman had reacted when he first mentioned he was from Earth.

"Humans from Solaris have traits specialised in transfiguration and psionics," she explained. "Like Vira... like Heron."

Beelathorn nodded at this, having recovered a little.

The information was all well and good, but he struggled to understand why she was telling him all this.

"And as expected, Solarians hold most of the political power here," she said. Klein fiddled with his robes beside her before pulling out a vial containing a blue liquid.

"Humans from Earth can’t so much as gain citizenship in High Central unless they’re S-rank... and even then, we’re tasked with the dirty jobs: Scouting unclaimed territories, assassinations... tower fodder," she said.

"What happens to those lower than S-rank?" she asked to no one in particular. "The stuff of nightmares," she answered.

Beelathorn wanted to open his mouth to reply... to ask her more about what was really going on in Apocalypse.

For instance, why were Earthlings being treated this way? Why, if the world right now seemed so organised, had the tower not been completely defeated?

However, the contract did not permit him to ask her a question, and so his mouth didn’t move to voice the words.

"You’re wondering what this has to do with you, aren’t you, Han?" she asked, showing him the vial. "Well, you haven’t earned that information yet," she smiled.

Shaking the blue mixture within the vial, she turned to Klein. "Make the necessary preparations," she ordered. "And there’s been a change of specification. He’s... bigger than I initially thought," she said, looking Han up and down.

Klein merely nodded and began fishing through his robes before pulling out a massive needle and a scroll.

"Klein here is going to help us make you unrecognisable," she explained. "Can’t have someone handing you over for the bounty, now can we, dearest?"

Beelathorn’s eyes were glued to the needle, if it could even be called that. It was a long thing, as long as a sword, and as thin as a strand of hair.

He didn’t dare imagine how much pain he would go through; he knew that was a useless task.

As Klein and the shadow woman began painting blood symbols onto the scrolls, Beelathorn thought of all the ways he would torture them once he finally gained his freedom.

Because to him, it wasn’t a question of if, only when.

When the two of them had finally finished drawing their symbols onto the scrolls —a massive circle with odd-looking runes around it— they laid them flat on the ground.

Beelathorn was instructed to lie in the centre of the arrangement, with his stomach to the ground.

"What is this?" the shadow woman asked, poking at the bulging pouch at the base of his neck.

’The sentinel,’ Beelathorn remembered, before quickly changing the wording in his mind. "It’s a defect," he replied... a half-truth.

The shadow woman nodded. "Okay, darling. This’ll hurt a little. Can you be a big boy for me, and not make too much noise?" However, even as she asked this, Klein stuffed his mouth with a bundle of cloth.

He watched in mind-numbing anxiety as Klein loaded the blue vial into the needle.

"Close your eyes," Klein said... and from his tone, Beelathorn could tell he felt pity for him.

The last things he remembered were Klein whispering "Metamorph"... and molten iron being pumped directly into the base of his spine.

His mind didn’t make it past the first few screams...

And the darkness was welcomed as an old friend.

*