Reidar pressed forward, his boots crunching over chitin fragments and pooling ichor that clung like tar to the ground. That was all Reidar's work, but he wasn't done yet.

Clicking ahead, the soldiers and the workers were still surging to block the queen's chamber entrance.

Reidar unleashed another Elemental Storm. Flames whipped through the air, consuming a cluster of workers in a roar of fire that looked like that of a tiger, and the occasional venom sac popping added to the noise.

\[Your Elemental Storm strikes multiple Worker Vorathid Ants for 1245 mixed elemental damage.\]

\[Worker Vorathid Ants defeated. You have gained 198 C.L.A.S.P. Points. You have earned 59 Survival Points.\]

Soldiers charged next, although their target was the puny human riding atop the large wolfish-like monster. They ended up slamming into the Bone Militia.

The skeletons broke apart way too easily under the ants' crushing weight. Bones snapped, ribs caved in, and skulls popped like eggshells as giant armored ants smashed through the dying defenders. Bone fragments flew everywhere in the narrow tunnels.

Even shattered, though, Reidar's minions kept fighting until they could. Finger bones clawed at bulging insect eyes. Broken jaws clamped down on wriggling antennae.

The ants won those fights, but it cost them, and while they'd been busy crushing skeletons, Reidar had already summoned fresh replacements. A whole new squad of skeletons lunged forward, swords hacking at the ants' legs before the last bone chip settled.

Even Reidar's creatures summoned new batches every time one died, which happened frequently, and sometimes, Reidar had to refresh the ones he summoned since either they got destroyed or their summoning time ended. Regardless, the clash made the ground rumble as dozens, hundreds of monsters clawed up from the earth.

Lena leaned against her mount, wide-eyed, as she watched Reidar's army tear through the swarm of giant ants.

Ghostly knights slicing with shimmering swords, wolves tearing into legs and antennae. This kind of power was scaring her because it was simply too much for a human to have, and to have in such a short amount of time.

Even she, Martin's best fighter, couldn't compare, and as Reidar got stronger, even Silas wouldn't be able to.

But a knot of worry tightened in her chest. One wrong move, and he could turn all this against Havenwood. No wall would stop him at that point, and likely, nothing would.

A soldier Vorathid Ant, barreled toward her.

That thing was lumbering down all the defenses he placed between them and the monstrous creatures. Reidar killed the beast with a Void Javelin before it could kill more of his monsters.

\[CRITICAL! Your Void Javelin strikes Soldier Vorathid Ant for 840 Void Damage.\]

\[Soldier Vorathid Ant defeated. You have gained 2047 C.L.A.S.P. Points. You have earned 615 Survival Points.\]

"Let's hope it will work," Lena said in a tight voice. She was starting to doubt her choice of bringing him here had been right. Yet her wish to save Havenwood was too strong, and Reidar wanted to leave the place, so, to convince him to stay, she had to offer something.

Reidar glanced back and saw Lena staring. She noticed there was not a single bead of sweat on his face, since the heavy lifting was being done by the summoned creatures. "I've got this; don't worry."

Lena nodded.

The queen's chamber was in front of them, not just in the close distance. Bioluminescent fungi clung to the walls. These were not made of stone, at least not their surface, but they were made of a lattice of hardened soil, saliva, and chewed wood, forming countless alcoves and passageways from which a ceaseless river of chitinous forms emerged.

A vast cavern pulsed with egg sacs clinging to walls like bloated fruit.

In the center of the cavern, resting on a raised dais of packed earth and gleaming, mana-infused crystals, was the Queen.

She was a horror of biology made manifest, a colossal mountain of flesh and armor easily twenty feet from mandible to ovipositor, her bloated, pulsating sac of a body the size of a small house.

Her carapace was black as midnight, shot through with veins of deep crimson that pulsed with each beat of her massive heart, while the off-white chitin of her distended abdomen throbbed with rhythmic contractions.

Six legs, thick as tree trunks, braced her immense body against the stone floor. Her head, small compared to the rest of her, swayed on a long, snakelike neck. Her eyes burned like fiery gold, full of cold, ancient intelligence, watching everything in her lair.

Worker ants scurried around, snatching up the pearly white eggs as soon as they were laid, carrying them off into the shadows.

"What the fuck is that?"

"The queen!"

"I know!" Reidar said. "It's just that it is too ugly to be real!"

The queen stirred. Her ovipositor whipped out, spearing three skeletons in one lash, acid dissolving them to sludge.

"We can't kill that thing." It wasn't just because of the creature's size. It was because of its level.

—Queen Vorathid Ant—Level 91—

"Shouldn't that thing have been weaker?"

"How could I know?" Lena said. She had been here with Torren, but back then it was the start of the apocalypse. Everything was weaker back then. Besides, these things leveled up fast. "I can only tell you it wasn't this strong the last time I saw it!"

"Fuck…"

Reidar's tactic for killing bosses and stronger monsters worked because he could flood them, but that wasn't the case now.

The monster here, the queen, was protected by thousands of creatures, and whatever Reidar might try to do would not simply work.

There were 20 levels of difference between him and the queen, which meant that without the ability to drown the monster, he could not win against such a powerful opponent.

<If only I could share the Summon Rift-Sprite Contubernium…> In that case, he would have been able to at least attack from a distance.

Reidar gritted his teeth. He fired attacks into the fray of monsters to trigger Arcane Leech as many times as he could.

\[Your Fireball strikes Soldier Vorathid Ant for 920 Fire Damage. Arcane Leech restores 16 Mana.\]

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