The Queen's roar split the chamber. It wasn't just a sound—it was a seismic wave. Dust fell from the ceiling. Cracks spidered across stone. The air itself seemed to recoil.

[The Ant Queen has leveled up]

[Ant Queen (General Beast) – Lvl 36]

Luke's breath caught. His eyes locked on her twisted form—no longer bloodied, no longer bruised.

"She's completely regenerated," he muttered, voice barely audible over the chaos.

But it wasn't just healing. He looked around—the shattered remnants of cocoons, the congealed fluids spread across the ground—and realization hit like a blow. She had spent everything. Mana, stamina, even her health pool. All to birth that army. Now, with the level-up, everything was restored. Her body, mind, and reserves—fully refilled. Reforged.

And she wasn't holding back anymore.

"Hold her! Now!" Ricardo shouted, his hands rising in a flurry of arcane motion.

Victoria unleashed a series of fire orbs, streaking through the air.

Luke didn't wait to see the result. He already knew.

It wouldn't be enough.

The Queen burst forward—less a creature, more a force of nature. Her body ripped through rock and corpses alike, carving a path through the battlefield like a blade through silk. She seized a massive boulder mid-charge and hurled it with terrifying accuracy.

Angelica barely had time to shout a warning. It struck an archer square in the chest, lifting him off his feet before slamming him lifeless into a wall.

Three of Bartholomew's soldiers tried to intercept her. They didn't last five seconds—skewered, torn, cast aside like broken dolls.

A new rain of arrows fell from above, but the Queen didn't flinch. Victoria summoned a lightning meteor, the blast rocking the entire cavern. But even through the haze, her silhouette emerged, advancing—unshaken.

Ricardo barely had time to raise his mana dome. It shattered under her assault. One of her limbs drove clean through his chest. His lips parted to speak, to cast, to resist. But no words came. She hurled his body like discarded cloth.

Melina screamed.

The Queen's tail struck her mid-run, slamming her into stone. She collapsed, motionless.

The rear line broke. The archers were exposed.

Cecilia loosed another shot—desperate. It barely grazed the Queen's armor. The tail struck again, scattering the archers like leaves in a storm. Henry and Phillip charged from opposite flanks, blades raised, but the Queen's scream pulsed with bloodlust as she carved through them in a single pass. Their bodies crumpled.

Then she turned her gaze toward the cavern wall—and ran. She scaled the vertical surface in seconds, claws biting into stone, wings spread wide. The ceiling groaned under her weight.

Then the air darkened.

Dozens of bone spines launched from her back, arcing outward in every direction—a deadly storm without aim or pattern.

"Fall back!" Angelica's voice cracked through the panic.

The group turned. Survivors sprinted toward the tunnel, ducking and diving as the Queen pursued from above, tracking them like a bird of prey. Allison moved first. She double-jumped into the air, pushing her body to the edge of exhaustion. Frost formed in her palms—she hurled the spell upward. Luke followed, launching himself toward the ceiling of the cave using his Spider Leap skill. Mid-air, he hurled his kukris, both glowing with dense Force Infusion.

The freezing blast struck the Queen mid-flight. The blades followed a second later—piercing into her torso.

She dropped.

But even as she fell, she twisted in midair and drove herself down with deliberate force.

She didn't crash.

She attacked.

The impact cracked the floor beneath her feet. Luke and Allison landed nearby—but the Queen was already in motion.

Four bladed limbs moved in a blur, carving through the space between them with deadly precision.

Luke tried to parry. One blade clipped him and sent him hurtling across the chamber. He landed hard, rolled through broken stone, and came to a gasping stop. His arms flared with pain. He reached out. The kukris tore through the air, drawn back to his hands like loyal hounds.

Allison rose, blood trickling from a split above her brow. She gathered magic in her palms and fired a freezing beam toward the Queen.

It never landed.

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The Queen's tail struck first, knocking her into the rubble with enough force to dent the stone. She moved to finish her.

Luke's voice broke the moment.

"Charlie!"

She emerged in a blur, spectral energy wrapped around her limbs. The dash struck the Queen with brutal velocity, halting her momentum.

Then Jonathan arrived, sabers dancing like silver fire. He spun through the air, blades striking in rapid succession. Each hit forced the Queen back, foot by foot, cutting tiny slivers from her arms and flanks.

A shadow swept across the battlefield. Angelica descended from the upper ledge, axe in hand, leaping between the rubble with practiced precision. She dropped like a thunderbolt, and with a fierce cry, buried the blade into the Queen's shoulder. The impact drove the monster back, forcing her to roll through the debris—but the Queen recovered quickly, limbs snapping into place like coiled springs.

Angelica had already retreated, stringing an arrow mid-air. The shot split upon release, scattering into five ethereal projectiles—each glowing with condensed mana. They struck with surgical precision. Moments later, fire erupted behind the Queen—Victoria, launching a rapid salvo of spells. Flames burst across the carapace, searing fresh gouges into the armor.

Luke sprinted across the fractured battlefield, blades drawn. His movements sharpened as he activated everything at once:

[Demonic Blade Dance]

[Mimic Dancer]

[Force Infusion]

Refined Perception—perfectly honed.

The world around him compressed. Time seemed to thin. He moved—no longer running, but slipping through space. The Queen's blade descended like judgment. But Luke was already gone—flowing around it like vapor. He reappeared behind her, kukris plunging deep into the flesh between her shoulder and neck.

The Queen screamed in pain, staggering. Jonathan struck from the front, twin sabers blazing with flame. He spun into her with relentless force. Charlie followed close, sliding past the Queen's defenses—one punch, one spinning blade, her every motion fueled by muscle and memory. Then came the frost.

Allison arrived like a wraith of winter, sliding low, and drove her blade into the wound Charlie had just opened. A surge of cold erupted from the impact. Ice bloomed inside the injury, spreading like veins of death. Snarling, the Queen slammed her tail into the earth. The cavern trembled. Both arms raised, and a sphere of dense, viscous sludge formed between them—pulsing. It detonated.

"Fall back!" Luke shouted.

He dove away, but Jonathan was caught mid-stride. The blast hurled him into a side tunnel just before the ceiling collapsed behind him, sealing him off from the fight. The Queen gave chase. She seized a jagged slab of stone, lifted it effortlessly, and hurled it with the force of a siege engine. Jonathan rolled clear, narrowly avoiding instant death—but he vanished beneath the rubble.

Luke sprang into the gap. His blades cut for the exposed flank, but the Queen turned on instinct, catching one kukri with her blade-arm. The recoil knocked him backward. But the mimic behind him struck cleanly—slashing across her ribs, drawing a spray of dark fluid.

They traded blows—Luke fluid, precise, cutting with surgical rhythm. The Queen countered with brute force, each movement a dance of devastation. Above them, Angelica appeared once more, firing arrows from mid-air. Each struck with devastating impact, the final one detonating against the Queen's shoulder. The Queen flinched.

Luke surged forward to exploit the opening—but she spun faster than expected, and her arm struck like a hammer. He was thrown across the chamber, landing hard, gasping, blood staining the dirt. Charlie slid in, shielding his broken form. Her body stood like stone between him and death.

"She's stronger than Morvat now," Luke rasped, spitting blood. His hand trembled as it clutched the handle of his blade. Still, he pushed himself to his feet.

Allison clashed with the Queen again—cutting for joints, aiming for tendons—but was struck aside. The Queen turned toward the archers now. Her instincts had shifted.

She spread her wings. With a single motion, she rose above the battlefield, her shadow engulfing the tunnel entrance. Spines erupted from her back, firing in every direction—each one a jagged spear of chitin and bone. Then she seized another massive rock and hurled it like a missile. The tunnel shattered.

But in that instant, she paused. She sensed it.

A shadow dropped from the broken ceiling above—Luke.

He descended like a blade sent from the abyss, kukri aimed for her skull. The first blade struck clean, burying itself into her forehead. The Queen shrieked. But she didn't fall.

Mid-air, she twisted—one claw catching Luke's ribs. Another struck from below, driving through his abdomen. Pain tore through him. His breath left his lungs. She pinned him to a wall with sheer force. Bones cracked. Blood spilled from his lips. His vision blurred.

The Queen loomed close, mandibles wide. Her breath reeked of rot and death.

Still pinned, Luke smiled. It was a broken, bloodstained grin.

"You're one ugly bitch," he said. And with his stamina, he clenched his fist, and drove it into her face.

The Queen whipped her other three arms around in a fury and drove them all into Luke's body at once.

"AAARGH!!"

Pain exploded through his chest—searing, unbearable. But he didn't let go of the kukri in his hand. With a hoarse scream, Luke extended his arm.

At that exact moment, a sharp whistle sliced through the air. The kukri left behind on the ground shot back, pulled by pure magnetism, and buried itself into the Queen's back, piercing through part of her wing.

The Queen howled, and the two of them plummeted.

Luke wrenched himself free from her claws, spinning through the air, clutching just one kukri. His body screamed in pain, but his mind stayed razor-sharp. He channeled everything—his stamina, his focus—trying to refine [Force Infusion] to its purest form. He didn't think of the kukri as a weapon. He thought of it as an extension of himself.

With a roar, Luke hurled the blade with impossible force. It screamed through the air like a bolt of lightning and tore into the Queen's other wing, ripping straight through. She spun wildly, shrieking, falling toward the ground like a dying meteor.

Luke spread his cloak to slow the fall, but the speed was still brutal. He slammed into the ground, tumbling before finally crashing to his knees, embedded in the dirt.

The kukris zipped back into his hands. Blood dripped from his chin. His vision flickered—but he was still standing.

In the distance, the Queen was rising too. One wing shattered. The other, torn.

Luke stared down at the kukris in his hands. Both blades had struck the Queen using Force Infusion. But only one had caused real damage. The difference? In the second throw, he had poured in more stamina. Much more.

Was there a limit to it? He didn't know. But he knew this: if he didn't do something now—he was dead.

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