CHAPTER 79: PENETRATING THE QUEEN...’S NEST — PART 2.

"That’s not a titty, that’s a parasite."

"Still. Girl-shaped. Kinda hot in a horrifying way."

Johnquis gave him a dead look. "Savier, if you get horny over an ancient flesh-spider fused to a wall, we’re gonna have to reevaluate your taste."

"I’m not saying I am, I’m just saying... if you squint..."

Johnquis sighed. "You want me to cut your eyes out for you?"

Savier held up his hands. "Hey, don’t judge me, man! She’s got curves under all that armor. And if this is a low-tier Queen... what about the evolved ones?"

Johnquis smirked. "Yeah. The high-level nests. You’d love those. More humanoid. Bigger chest plates. Silkier hair. Sometimes they even develop full vocal cords."

Savier’s eyes widened. "Wait, what?!"

"I read a log once. Deep Northland, high-tier nest. The Queen evolved into a full female. Voice, body, everything. She had it."

Savier whispered, "...I want to go there."

Johnquis facepalmed. "Of course you do."

"She naked?"

Johnquis turned. "Are you seriously—"

"Hey. I’m asking for science."

"She doesn’t have clothes, if that’s what you mean."

Savier rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "So... if I gave her my jacket, would that count as proposing?"

Johnquis laughed. "You are so deeply broken."

He glanced back up at the Queen’s web. "Look at those threads. Some of them burrowed deep. I bet she’s draining whatever’s left underground. Even the water. That’s how she keeps pumping out Abnormals. No food? She turns to earth. Metal. Oil. Acid."

"Like a junkyard womb."

Johnquis nodded. "Yeah."

Their conversation cut off.

Something shifted.

A breath...soft, wet, and deep within the chamber.

The Queen twitched. Threads in the walls jerked tight. Amber fluid dripped from the ceiling.

Johnquis’s eyes narrowed. "She’s waking up. Let’s end this before she fully does."

Amber threads snapped tight, and a low groan echoed through the chamber—a sound like rusted pipes twisting under pressure. The strands hanging from the walls glowed faintly, vibrating like a plucked web. Her long, bladed limbs curled inward. The figure in her chest stirred slightly, her head tilting... as if waking from a terrible dream.

Johnquis shifted, raising his hybrid chainblade. "Alright. Let’s end this."

But before he could move—

"Wait."

Savier stepped forward, hand raised.

Johnquis stopped mid-step. "Wait what?"

Savier’s eyes were locked on the Queen, wide and curious. "I... I wanna see how she moves first."

Johnquis blinked. "You what?"

Savier nodded slowly. "Yeah. I just... It’s my first time, you know? First Queen’s nest. I wanna study it. Watch the form. The technique."

Johnquis squinted at him. "No. You want to fantasize."

"What?! Nooo," Savier said quickly, too quickly. "It’s purely academic."

"You’re drooling, Savier."

"It’s... field research drool."

Johnquis sighed and slowly turned to the Tanker. "Why do I bring him anywhere?"

The Queen twitched again—barely.

But something changed. The air thickened. The amber glow faded. A cold, wet pressure crept through the chamber, like mold seeping under skin.

Then came the whisper.

"John...quis..."

A voice—no, voices. Dozens. All mimicking something familiar, something from memory. Friends. Lovers. Lost ones. It slithered through the air, curling around their minds.

Johnquis gritted his teeth. "Mental attack. Damn it. She’s not fighting, she’s messing with us. Classic low-tier Queen defense. Mind fog."

"You have been capturing my children..."

The Queen’s whisper oozed through the chamber. "Turning them into pets. Into tools. Into things that obey you."

A sick warmth dripped into Johnquis’s skull, memories twisting, distorting.

"You were never meant to command them," she said softly. "You were meant to kill them. Rip them apart. That is your design. That is your purpose."

The threads pulsed above them, amber veins glowing faintly. Her voice slithered deeper.

"But now you collect them. Make them follow you. And soon, it will take its toll."

Her words tightened like rope."Because you are not a king, Johnquis. You are not a savior. You are a fraud standing on a throne made of monsters that should’ve killed you."

Johnquis stood still. He heard her. Felt her. Tasted a fragment of truth in her venom.

"If you strip away your... slaves..." she hissed, dripping with a smile. "You’re nothing. Just a bloodless little boy hiding in a shell of borrowed power."

That one struck harder than the others.

Johnquis didn’t react at first. He just stood there, eyes flat, shoulders squared but something behind his stare faltered. A flicker. Because it almost sounded like truth.

Almost.

But then...

"No," he muttered.

He blinked once, sharply and the violet glow in his irises snapped back to full focus.

"They were born in your filth... raised in your lies. I didn’t enslave them. I freed them."

He whipped his chain. "You taught them to kill and eat everything. I taught them to choose."

Then, his voice dropped cold: "I don’t command monsters. I break the ones who pretend to be gods."

A pulse of blood-red light burst from his blade. He cut the nearest web-thread in a clean, angry arc.

Johnquis exhaled. Steady now. The fog was gone. He stood still, chest rising and falling, eyes locked forward.

"I fucking hate mind attacks..."

He looked to Savier.

Savier wasn’t moving.

He stood there, slack-jawed, blade lowered, pupils wide and glassy. A faint trail of drool dripped from the corner of his mouth.

Johnquis’s expression shifted from concern to confusion.

"...Savier?"

No answer.

"Savier?!"

The man’s lip curled into a half-smile. A weirdly satisfied one.

Johnquis took a cautious step closer.

"What are you seeing right now?"

Savier whispered, dreamily, "...She’s... she’s saying she wants me..."

"Oh gods, he’s gone full stupid," Johnquis muttered.

Stop here.

Savier continued, eyes glazed. "She’s tall... like really tall. Hair down to her thighs. Soft skin. Horns but, like, the sexy kind. She said she wants to make me her king..."

"She’s literally a spider-flesh horror melted into a wall, Savier."

"In my head... she’s offering me a throne. Made of silken bedsheets and whipped cream..."

Johnquis pinched the bridge of his nose. "You’re being seduced by a crusty meat-witch."

Savier let out a small moan.

"Oh hell no—" Johnquis uncoiled his chain.

One of the Queen’s web-threads—thicker than the others, barbed and twitching, was slowly coiling around a jagged piece of sharpened rebar, just above Savier. It was drawn back, like a loaded trap ready to launch straight through the back of his head.