The hive was silent now, save for the faint crackling of resinous slime dripping from the walls and the distant hiss of steam from Lio's thermal outburst. His chest rose and fell in ragged rhythm, his eyes still wide with adrenaline. He had barely gotten back on his feet, prepared to throw himself against the next wave of monstrosities—when the killing intent he felt just moments ago abruptly vanished.
Not because it was gone.
But because someone else had killed it first.
The five towering Bug Men—grotesque, six-foot-tall hybrids of humanoid musculature and jagged chitin—were sprawled across the hive floor. Some had their heads split cleanly open, some were beaten into twitching husks, and others were still falling apart as black ichor splattered across the resin-coated stone. Their bodies hadn't even cooled yet, and yet the battle was already over.
And Lio hadn't even thrown a single punch.
Standing amidst the carnage were two figures cloaked in black, their forms half-silhouetted in the sickly light of the portal. Both wore strange masks that concealed their faces, lending them an almost otherworldly air.
The male was dressed in black and blue, tall and broad-shouldered, his stance loose but predatory. He spun an iron bo staff in one hand with the casual precision of someone who had used it to kill more times than he cared to count. His voice cut through the still air, deep and edged with irritation.
"Tch… disappointing" his distorted voice growled behind the mask. He flicked insect green fluids off the tip of his weapon with a sharp twist, then slammed it against the floor, resin cracking under the impact. "Is this really all the hive can throw at us? Worthless. And still no sign of that damned thief who stole that relic. Wasted effort."
His frustration was palpable, radiating off him like an aura. Beneath the mask, Lio could almost feel the man's scowl, as though these creatures' existence had insulted him by being too weak.
Beside him, the female stranger in black and yellow crouched lightly, her bladed tonfa gleaming faintly under the hive's sickly green glow. She had struck with lightning speed, her movements leaving only faint afterimages in Lio's dazzled eyes. Unlike her companion, her tone was lighter—cool, pragmatic, almost amused.
"You complain too much. You should be thrilled we stumbled into a Breachspace. Do you know how rare these pocket-reality dungeons are outside Nexus territory?" She gestured to the eerie portal with her tonfa. "Loot for days, unguarded treasure, artifacts ripe for the taking. Who cares about one little thief when we can bleed this place dry while the breach still stable?"
She tilted her head, mask turning toward her partner. "You should be smiling. Opportunities like this don't just fall into our laps every day."
The man grunted, not entirely convinced. His staff tapped once against the resin-coated floor, echoing like a judge's gavel.
Meanwhile, Lio just stood there, stunned. His fists were still clenched, body still coiled to fight, but the battle was already decided before he could even move. The sight of the two strangers—merciless, efficient, unshakably confident—left him awestruck. These weren't random wanderers. They moved like predators, like they owned this battlefield.
And yet, he couldn't tell if they were allies… or another kind of enemy, possibly another rogue Marauders like that Shellwalker party leader Angstrom Matias.
The nasty green fluid, sticky as glue with the scent of decayed feces, still steamed on the hive floor when Lio forced himself forward. His fists trembled, not from fear but from urgency. His eyes darted past the corpses, past the strangers, and toward the portal that pulsed at the heart of the chamber like a malignant wound in reality. That was where Lynx was. And the Shellwalker. He could almost feel it.
His legs moved on instinct, ready to dash.
But something snapped against his chest. The bo staff.
The blue-and-black stranger barred his path with the iron rod as easily as if he were stopping a child. His masked gaze tilted down at him, voice low and unyielding.
"Not a step further. You're not going in there."
Lio froze. The staff wasn't just a piece of metal. Even through it, he felt the crushing weight of the man's intent—unyielding, absolute, and sort of...dread.
"Stay here," the man continued, his words sharp as the resin spikes jutting from the walls. "That place isn't for civilians. You'd only drag us down."
The word stung.
Civilians.
Like he was dead weight. Like he hadn't fought through hell and flame to get this far.
Lio gritted his teeth, heat rising in his chest. "I'm not leaving," he shot back, voice tight, rough. "Not without them. My teammate is in there. Lynx. And that Shellwalker too. I won't abandon them!"
The female stranger let out a sigh, tilting her masked head as though this was all terribly predictable. She twirled her bladed tonfa once before resting it against her shoulder, her tone clipped yet faintly mocking.
"You don't get it, do you? The Breachspace eats amateurs alive. It's not just a hole you stroll into—it's an unstable pocket reality. A labyrinth that shifts, corrupts, and kills without mercy. People like you?" She gestured toward Lio dismissively. "You wouldn't last five minutes in there."
But Lio didn't flinch. He stepped forward, defiant, fists clenched at his sides. His body was still battered, bruised from the last hit that sent him flying, yet his spirit blazed hotter than ever.
"I don't care if I last one minute or one second," he said, voice breaking into a raw shout. "If Lynx is inside, then I'm going in after her! That's not negotiable!"
For the first time, the strangers seemed to pause.
The man in blue exhaled, a sharp, frustrated hiss behind his mask. His grip tightened on the staff. "Tch. Reckless brat…"
The woman in yellow tilted her head again, as though studying Lio's face through the mask he couldn't see behind. There was no malice in her tone this time, only a strange curiosity. "Hmph. You've got more bite than I thought."
The portal pulsed again, casting an eerie glow across all three of them. The air vibrated with an unseen pull, like it was beckoning challengers inside.
The strangers exchanged a glance. Silent, wordless communication. And then their gazes fell back on Lio.
Whether they intended to drag him along, or leave him to his fate, was still unclear.
But one thing was certain.
Lio would not be staying behind.
The chamber was still thick with the stench of burnt chitin and resin smoke. Piles of insectoid husks littered the ground, some still twitching faintly where Lio's fists had crushed them to paste. The portal's glow washed everything in a sickly blue light, flickering like a malignant heartbeat.
The masked man in black and blue had remained still for a while, his bo staff resting against his shoulder. His gaze swept the ground, the corpses, the smear marks scorched across the resin walls. It didn't take long for him to piece it together.
This kid… he thought, narrowing his eyes behind the mask. He wasn't cowering in a corner waiting for us. He fought his way here. And judging by the carnage, he held out longer than most rookies would have.
For a brief second, something almost like respect flickered across his posture. Then it vanished beneath his usual irritation.
"Hmph." He gave the floor a light tap with the butt of his staff and turned back toward Lio. "Fine. Maybe you're not as useless as I thought. You held yourself well against that swarm before we showed up."
Lio blinked, taken aback by the sudden acknowledgment.
The man jabbed his staff toward him, voice carrying a sharp edge. "But don't let it go to your head. You want in? You can join us—but as our pack mule. Carry the gear, haul the loot, and stay out of the way unless you're told otherwise. Understand?"
The woman in black and yellow chuckled under her breath, shaking her head. "Heh. Some promotion. From 'civilian' to 'mule.' Lucky boy."
Lio straightened, brushing dust and resin off his jacket. His breathing was still heavy from the last fight, but his eyes burned with the same stubborn flame.
"…Call me whatever you want," he said firmly. "Pack mule, baggage handler, dead weight—I don't care. But listen carefully." His voice rose, cutting through the chamber like a blade. "Whatever you're after in there, my goal is clear. I'm here to rescue my party members. Lynx. And even that Shellwalker, if he's still alive. That's what matters to me."
The stranger in blue stared at him for a beat, then let out an exaggerated groan. He threw his free hand up in mock surrender.
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Loud and clear." He shook his head. "You don't have to repeat yourself like some broken parrot. 'Rescue this, rescue that.' We got it the first ten times."
The female stranger laughed again, her voice bright with amusement but sharp as a blade. "Heh. Feisty little bird, though."
The portal pulsed again, louder this time. The resin arch creaked as though something immense was pressing against it from the other side. The air grew heavy, brimming with static.
Without hesitation, the two strangers turned toward it. Their movements were casual, almost careless—like stepping through the door of a tavern rather than the maw of another dimension.
The man twirled his staff over his shoulder. The woman spun her tonfa in her hands. Neither glanced back.
Lio's breath caught in his chest. His knuckles whitened, his heart thundered. This was it. No turning back now.
"…Wait for me, Lynx," he whispered under his breath.
Then he followed, stepping into the portal last—
into the darkness that swallowed them whole.
<<<[ @ @ @ ]>>>
Lio's breath hitched the moment he crossed the portal.
Darkness. Utter, suffocating black.
For a heartbeat, he thought he had gone blind. The cold swallowed him whole, the kind of void that pressed against his chest and drowned his lungs in silence. His boots scraped against something wet and uneven, the noise unnaturally loud in the absence of light.
Then—slowly—the dark peeled back.
Faint glimmers appeared like scattered stars: strands of fungus clinging to the walls and ceiling, glowing in pallid blues and sickly greens. Their light shimmered off the resin that coated everything, turning the surface slick, pulsating as if alive.
Two sharp beams cut through the gloom. The strangers' mask-mounted lamps ignited, flooding the chamber with harsh clarity. The sudden brightness stabbed into Lio's retinas, forcing him to squint.
That's when the smell hit him.
A thick, fetid stench that clung to every breath like rancid tar. Sour resin, rot layered with ammonia, the sickly-sweet stink of decay, disgusting bitter smell of mold, and something far worse—the unmistakable stench of decomposing flesh and chitin mingling together into a single nauseating cocktail. It clawed down his throat and nearly made him retch on the spot.
Lio gagged, one hand instinctively covering his mouth. "Dear Gaia…" he muttered, his voice muffled. The stink here was worse than anything he had endured in the chambers outside, heavier, as if it had been festering for centuries in a sealed tomb.
"…Tch. First-timer, huh?" the man in black and blue muttered, his voice muffled behind the mask. "Breathe shallow. Or you'll puke yourself dry in minutes."
"But then again, you should have brough a gas mask." Said the stranger in black and blue, tyring his best to not snicker out loud.
The woman in yellow gave a cruel little laugh, sweeping her lamp across the walls. "Careful, Rookie. Some of the spores here like warm stomachs. Might start blooming inside you if you keep gasping like that."
Lio glared at her, swallowing hard against the bile, forcing his body to obey. He steadied his breathing and followed, though every inhale felt like knives carving down his throat.
The lights revealed a nightmare.
The cavern they had stepped into wasn't just a tunnel. It was colossal, a sprawling hive cathedral carved by something utterly alien, stretched endlessly upward like grotesque beehives. Resin dripped down in thick ropes from the ceiling, hardening into stalactite-like structures. Massive cocoons lined the walls, some still quivering faintly, others split open long ago. The bioluminescent fungi painted the resin in oily sheens, making it glisten like wet flesh.
Scattered everywhere were half-buried in the resin and muck lay the remnants of long-forgotten industry—collapsed mining vehicles crusted in layers of chitin, rusted mining drills, shattered rail carts, and collapsed scaffolding, all corroded and entombed as though swallowed whole. Tools still lay scattered where workers must have dropped them in a panic.
Human skeletons, hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Some sat upright against the walls, clutching rusted pickaxes. Others were strewn across the floor, ribcages cracked open, skulls gnawed clean, others still wrapped in shredded suits. All wrapped in resin like grotesque ornaments.
And mingled among them, mountains of it, scattered like discarded trophies. Shed shells stacked like cairns of bone, cracked husks littering the floor, fragments of insectoid armor crunching underfoot with every step. Centuries of predation and death lay layered upon each other, all leading back to this point of origin.
Lio's heart hammered. His fists clenched so tightly the knuckles whitened.
This… this is their home.
This wasn't just another infestation like the tunnels above. This was the source. The birthplace. A door not into another cavern, but into the very heart of the swarm's world.
The stranger in blue gave the chamber a sweeping glance, his tone laced with irritation instead of awe. "Hnh. Figures. A straight doorway into the Bug's cradle."
The woman in yellow leaned lazily against the resin wall, her lamp illuminating a nest of pulsating eggs. "Lucky us. Rich pickings for anyone brave—or stupid—enough to come crawling this deep."
Lio forced his voice past the tightening in his throat, eyes fixed on the darkness deeper inside the hive. "…Lynx is here. I can feel it. I don't care what you're looking for—she's the only reason I'm here."
The faint hum of the portal behind them flickered and then fell silent, cutting off the way back. The Breachspace had closed its jaws.
But the quiet did not last long.
The resin-coated walls trembled, and a faint skittering echoed through the hive. It grew into a chorus of claws raking stone, mandibles chittering in feverish hunger. Shadows moved across the faint fungi glow.
Then they came.
Dozens of Cave Bugs burst from the tunnels above and below, some the size of large hounds, others hulking with armored plates that shimmered wet in the light of the strangers' masks. The swarm descended like a living tide.
"Here they come!" Lio shouted.
He didn't hesitate—yanking the folded pickaxe clipped at his pants and snapped it open with one fluid motion. Its steel head gleamed dimly, already nicked from hours of use. His heart pounded as instinct screamed to unleash his hidden power, to sweep the swarm away in a flash of heat and speed. But not now. Not in front of them.
He gritted his teeth. If he wanted to keep his secret, he would have to fight the old-fashioned way.
The two strangers didn't hesitate.
The masked man in blue surged forward with a roar, his iron bo-staff spinning in brutal arcs. Each strike shattered carapaces like brittle glass, the staff ringing out like a bell of war as it crushed mandibles and limbs. He moved with frightening precision, every motion a calculated execution.
Beside him, the woman in black and yellow was a blur. Her tonfa-blades hummed as she carved clean lines through the swarm, slicing through joints and necks with surgical grace. She darted from enemy to enemy, never staying still, never wasting a motion. Resin and ichor sprayed like a grisly fountain in her wake.
And in between them—Lio fought.
Every nerve in his body screamed to unleash himself. His fists itched with fire, his eyes burned to let loose their hidden beams, his legs trembled with the urge to move faster than the swarm could see. But he couldn't. Not here. Not in front of them.
Instead, he gripped the pickaxe and fought like the Marauder he was supposed to be. He swung hard with raw desperation, splitting a bug's head in two. He jabbed the tip into another's abdomen, twisting it free as green fluid spattered across his face. He ducked, rolled, slammed the butt of the tool into a set of mandibles lunging for his throat. He buried the pick into the skull of one bug, kicked another off its feet, and yanked his weapon free with a grunt.
Every strike was slower, weaker, less refined compared to the strangers—but it was enough. He made himself look clumsy enough, even as a Rank-F Marauder with Level 3 in Strength level.
The three fought back-to-back until the last of the swarm fell, twitching, mandibles clicking faintly as the resin floor ran slick with ichor. The hive fell silent again, save for the dripping resin and Lio's ragged breath.
The masked man in blue planted his staff into the ground with a heavy thunk, his voice crackling with sarcasm through the vocoder.
"Well, that was fun. In case the newcomer hasn't noticed, we're standing in the belly of the beast. Meaning every second we waste, we're lining ourselves up as the next meal. So—put your guard up. Unless you want to die screaming."
The woman in black and yellow rolled her eyes behind her mask, tone sharp with dry humor.
"Thank you, Captain Obvious. Do you also want to remind us that water is wet?"
She lifted her left arm, and with a soft chime, a cascade of light flickered to life around her left arm, interacting with its interface to activate its geological map system to navigate the Hive-type Breachspace.
Lio froze. His eyes widened in disbelief. A projection—no, not the flat blue holo-displays he had seen in high-end megacorp demonstrations. This was three-dimensional, free-floating, layered with translucent depth. A shimmering map took form above her wrist like a gauntlet, glowing lines tracing tunnels, cavities, and chambers in a ghostly lattice.
Lio's mouth went dry. This was tech that belonged in government war-rooms, megacorp board meetings, the thrones of royal dynasties. Not down here, in the belly of a hive.
"Impossible…" he whispered under his breath, awe flickering across his face. To think these guys possessing a high-end hologram on top of their weapons, and their high-tech suit, one though still remain in his mind since he first me them: who are they?
The woman tilted her head, swiping her fingers across the display, tracing the faint bio-signatures pulsing at its core.
"There." Her voice sharpened, the tone of someone who had found exactly what she was looking for. "a life-signs. Its faint but its there. They're deeper in—clustered near a large chamber."
Lio's heart leapt. "Lynx!"
"And the Shellwalker too, I assume." The woman nodded, then tapped at the projection again.
"Well, rookie," she said, glancing at Lio with a voice like cool metal. "You were right. Your friends are alive. And if they're being kept in that chamber—" she pointed at a pulsing mass deeper within the hive, far larger than the others, "—then it's not just because they're snacks. Bugs don't hoard prisoners unless there's a reason. Meaning…"
Her words trailed off, but the implication carried in her tone.
"…a treasure hoard" the stranger in black and blue continues her words with an unseen grin with a lace of greed. "Treasure. Relics. Loot."
"Or worse, some kind of a fucked up nursery for these creature" rebutted by the masked women in black and yellow, which earns Lio a cold and uncomfortable gut feeling.
Her mask tilted toward Lio, the faint glow of her eyes narrowing behind it. "So if you want your people, then congratulations. We want the same thing. Same destination, different prize."
Lio's knuckles whitened around his pickaxe, his jaw tightening. He hated the way they spoke, as if Lynx and even that damned Shellwalker were just optional bonuses in a loot run. But he bit down his anger and forced himself to breathe.
"As long as we get them out," he said firmly, voice hard as steel. "Whatever's in there—you can take all of it. But they come first."
The man in blue gave a low chuckle, spinning his staff idly across his shoulders. "Fair enough, pack mule. Just don't slow us down."
Lio's teeth clenched at the insult, but he swallowed his pride. If Lynx was in there—he'd endure anything to reach her.
=====
The three of them pressed deeper into the resinous tunnels, every step sinking slightly into the semi-solid floor that pulsed faintly, as though the hive itself was breathing.
The bioluminescent fungi gave off a ghostly pallor, just enough to outline the writhing shadows between the ridges. Every so often, a Cave Bug darted from the walls, shrieking with their saw-like mandibles. Sometimes they came alone, other times in packs of three or four—small swarms testing their presence like nerves of a greater organism.
The strangers dispatched them with their unnerving efficiency.
The man in black and blue swung his staff in fluid arcs, collapsing skulls with a sound like cracking stone. The woman in black and yellow carved through their carapaces with surgical precision, her twin tonfas leaving slashes of ichor across the walls.
Lio kept close behind, his pickaxe ready. He played his part: the Marauder who fought when pressed, who staggered under blows, who gritted his teeth and swung harder than he looked like he should. All while secretly throttling back the storm boiling inside him.
As they reached another bend, Lio finally spoke, his voice low but audible over their footsteps and dripping slime.
"It's… terrifying. And impressive," he admitted, eyes flicking to the twitching carcass of a bug they had just downed. "For these things to have a Breachspace as their hive… It means they're something more. More dangerous than we've ever given them credit for. Compared to them, the Xaians look like civilized saints."
At that, the man in black and blue burst into laughter, deep and unrestrained. The sound echoed through the tunnel, bouncing against the resin walls like cruel mockery.
"These?" he said, kicking one of the dead bug-men with his boot. "You think these glorified termites are terrifying? Kid, I've fought swarms that would make your marrow curdle. Hive fleets that blotted out suns. Armies of things that made Xaians look like kittens playing with string."
He spun his staff lazily, green fluids still dripping from its end.
"These Cave Bugs? They're pests. Nasty pests, sure. Big teeth, ugly faces, sure. But pests all the same."
Lio clenched his jaw, eyes narrowing at the man's flippant dismissal. Pests? Lynx was in here. Miners had died in here. The very walls around them were built from generations of corpses and chitin. Pest was too small a word.
The woman in black and yellow interjected before the silence thickened. Her voice was smooth, measured—though even behind the mask, Lio could feel the sharp edge.
"Don't let his arrogance fool you. Pests or not, a Breachspace makes this hive infinitely more dangerous. The rules shift here. The deeper we go, the worse it'll get. Even the smallest swarm could be fatal if we're careless."
She turned her mask's pale light toward Lio, her gaze locking on him through the visor.
"So, keep your nerves steady, Marauder. Because if you break and scream, they'll swarm us by the thousands."
The tunnel narrowed into a jagged corridor, its walls slick with pulsating amber resin that faintly glowed as though alive. Every step felt like intruding on the breathing throat of some ancient beast. Lio stayed close behind the two masked strangers, gripping the folded pickaxe he'd clipped to his pants—pretending it was the only weapon he had, and not the inhuman speed and fire hidden beneath his skin.
The masked woman in black and yellow broke the silence first, her voice filtered but still sharp.
"Tell me, boy—ever heard of a Breachpoint? Or the Breachspace?"
Lio blinked, adjusting the sweat-matted strands of hair from his brow. "Yeah… Marauder Guild training drills drill it into us. They teach us what we're supposed to know. Stay away from them. Don't approach a Breachpoint, don't intercept without high-rankers. They say only Rank-B and above have the clearance." He chuckled nervously. "That's all I know."
The woman's visor glinted faintly as she tilted her head toward him. "Hn. Sounds about right for guild propaganda."
The man in black and blue snorted, his voice muffled with static through his mask. "Guild spoon-feeding. They'd rather keep amateurs from stumbling in and cashing in before the veterans do."
Her holographic display flickered again on her arm—rotating glyphs, layers of maps, phantom geometry that seemed to warp against the hive walls. Lio stared, caught between awe and disbelief. A three-dimensional hologram, here, in the belly of a monster. Something he thought only nobility or megacorp boardrooms had access to.
The woman continued, tone calm, like a teacher reciting dangerous truths:
"Breachspaces aren't normal. They're… short-lived bubbles of reality. Think of it like soda fizz—you shake the bottle, bubbles rise and pop. Each bubble is a Breachspace, born from the Hollow's influence leaking into our dimension."
"The Hollow…" Lio repeated the word quietly, feeling his stomach twist. He had only heard the name in whispers—stories about a malignant place that was never meant to touch their reality.
The masked man laughed, his tone too casual given the alien surroundings. "Heh. Don't let the fancy talk fool you. In the end, it's just interdimensional garbage dumps. Some are dungeons, some are prisons, some are treasure vaults. All unstable. All hungry."
"Right," the woman agreed, but with more weight. "Each Breachspace fights to exist, clawing at our reality. Without an anchor, without energy, they collapse. But with enough power, or a gateway, they last longer. That's what a Breachpoint is—an open wound between dimensions. You saw it, didn't you? The arch around the portal?"
Lio nodded stiffly, recalling the eerie black archway made from chitinous bodies of the Cave Bugs he'd passed through to get here, seemingly made as a from of a sacrificial rituals. It had pulsed like a heartbeat, like it was watching. He had brushed it off at first as nerves. Now, with their words, it felt like he'd walked straight through the jaws of something waiting to devour him.
He tightened his grip on the pickaxe, trying to distract himself from the unease creeping through his chest. "So… you're saying this whole hive is… what, a bubble?"
The woman's visor angled toward the glistening walls. "Yes. A bubble of unreality… and we're walking in it."
The man in blue chuckled, almost mocking the silence that followed. "Welcome to the Hollow's playground, kid. Try not to pop the bubble too soon."
The sense of being inside an unstable reality make Lio unsettled and anxious, due to the fact that it was his first time being inside the infamous Breachspace Dungeons. If what they say about this interdimensional dungeon is true that it is essentially a bubble, its only a matter of time it would.....pop.
=====
The three of them advanced slowly, their boots squelching against resin-slick floors. The hive seemed endless labyrinth, every corridor twisting and branching into a dozen more, like veins carved into the flesh of a beast.
Countless pathways branched off, some spiraling down into pits, others curling back into themselves. To keep from losing their way, the masked man in black and blue scored deep jagged slashes into the resin walls with his blade, leaving raw gouges that oozed faintly in the amber sheen. "In case this place tries to turn us around," he muttered, his voice half-bored, half-amused.
The woman in black and yellow traced her holographic map again, occasionally adjusting her path. "The chamber's further ahead… but this hive keeps shifting. We'll need redundancies."
Lio followed suit, dragging his pickaxe to mark turns, the rasp of metal against hardened resin grating in the silence.
He followed close, breathing through his teeth. Every so often, he would glance into the resin walls. Some were thick and opaque, others translucent enough that faint shapes flickered within—half-seen husks, old prey, corpses that looked too human. It made the silence heavier.
They searched as they went, the strangers glancing into alcoves and chambers for anything of value—rare chitin, eggsacks that might be harvested, traces of Hollow-forged crystals. The strangers rummaged where they could, but even their practiced hands found nothing worth pocketing. Only the crawling echoes of Cave Bugs stirred the walls.
Lio's pulse spiked when he caught a flicker in the wall. His vision sharpened instinctively, the world peeling back layer by layer until the resin was no longer solid, but transparent under his gaze. His eyes burned faintly as though with inner light—his cursed gift, the one he couldn't show them.
And there she was.
Lynx.
Her body suspended inside the resin of a massive chamber, curled and unmoving but alive. He recognized her wiry tomboy frame, even her perpetually disheveled hair. His throat tightened.
The urge slammed into him like a hammer blow. He could do it—he could rip the walls open, tear his way through the resin, break into the chamber in a blur of motion and strength. He had done it before when the Marauder party was trapped, when the swarm nearly overwhelmed them. He remembered Corrin's sharp eyes, narrowing with suspicion; Lynx's jaw slack, a rare glimpse of her startled side; Arlin, the Drexxan warrior, staring with warrior's respect; and Nushi'Zom, the Xaian, clicking her mandibles in analytical fascination.
He had exposed himself then, but it had been necessary. Life and death left no room for masks.
But now… with these two strangers? He didn't know if he could afford it. Trust was thinner than the resin under his palms. For all he knew, the moment they realized what he was, they'd turn blades or worse—report him to those who hunted anomalies like him.
His hands trembled, itching to dig, to smash through and get Lynx free. Every second he delayed felt like betrayal.
"Steady," the woman in yellow said without looking at him, her visor reflecting the map. "We're almost there."
Lio swallowed hard, forcing his expression neutral. Inside, he whispered to himself like a prayer:
Not yet. Not here. Not until I have no choice.
=====
At last, the claustrophobic tunnels opened.
The three emerged into a cavernous chamber so vast it felt less like a cave and more like a cathedral built by monsters. The air was thicker here—humid, sour, and clinging with the nauseating stench of resin so potent that Lio had to clamp his teeth to stop himself from gagging.
A warm, eerie glow bathed the chamber. Bioluminescent fungi clung to the stone like lanterns scattered by careless gods, their amber and green hues fighting against the oppressive darkness. Mixed in were strange Cave Bugs—mutant variants with soft-glowing abdomens, drifting sluggishly across the air like living embers.
Bioluminescent fungi sprouted in clusters along the walls and ceiling, their glow a ghostly green and soft amber, casting uneven shadows that crawled across the slick surfaces. Stranger still were the insects themselves: a breed of Cave Bug that pulsed with faint internal light, like living lanterns drifting across the chamber. Their eerie glow danced with the warm shimmer of the fungi, creating a dreamlike—no, nightmarish—atmosphere.
At the center of it all yawned a massive hole. Its edges looked melted, as though something had burrowed through in an instant, or a massive maw that is endlessly hungers, leaving scorched and warped resin behind. Around it lay a grotesque tableau: piles upon piles of Cave Bug corpses, their chitin cracked and split; brittle human skeletons half-devoured, posed forever in their final, frantic struggles; rusted mining equipment, the steel twisted and gnawed; derelict crawler-vehicles slumped into the resin like beasts frozen mid-death.
But it was the walls that made Lio shiver.
They weren't smooth like before—they were carved into honeycomb-like hexagonal cells, stacked endlessly like some sort of a beehive nightmare. Some were sealed shut with hardened resin. Others yawned open, their contents long picked clean.
In some of the cells, faint human shapes slumped inside. He could see them even without his special sight—bodies desiccated into mummified husks of the miners and whoever unfortunate to be caught, their flesh long consumed, their bones hollowed out.
Lio's gut twisted at the sight. It wasn't just a nest. It was a mausoleum.
He forced himself to look away.
And then he saw something else. Something that made his heart hammer for entirely different reasons.
Scattered across the resin-encrusted floor, gleaming in the glow, lay countless valuables. Precious minerals fused into the resin like jewels trapped in amber. Abandoned toolkits—mining drills, cutting torches, and something that looked like a plasma cutter—lay scattered like forgotten relics of a doomed expedition. Glittering piles of rare ore that miners had clearly unearthed but never escaped with. An ancient exosuit, collapsed but recognizable, leaned against a mound of chitin husks. Even weapons and armored crates, intact beneath thin sheens of slime. The whole chamber was a tomb, yes—but also a treasure vault, untouched for centuries.
The man in black and blue gave a long, low whistle with his tone equal parts impressed and greedy, tapping his staff on the floor. "Now this…" he muttered, voice colored with greed. "This is more like it."
The woman in yellow swept her visor across the chamber, her hologram flickering faintly as she catalogued the finds. "Resources. Equipment. Untapped minerals. Whoever this hive swallowed… they left behind a fortune."
Lio's eyes, however, never left the resin walls. Somewhere beyond, deeper still, he could feel Lynx's presence like a drumbeat in his chest.
"Alright," the woman in black and yellow said briskly, scanning the chamber with her mask's glowing lenses. Her tone sharpened with command, like someone used to having her words followed. "Start digging. There's loot buried under that mess—I can smell it."
The man in black and blue chuckled, rolling his shoulders before twirling his iron staff onto his back. "Finally, something fun." He dropped into the piles of resin-coated corpses and broken machinery without hesitation, kicking aside skeletons as if they were nothing more than driftwood. With each sweep of his hands, fragments of resin shattered, spilling faint glimmers of crystalline ores and old gear.
He laughed, holding up a rusted blade in one hand and a shimmering mineral cluster in the other. "Ha! If I find anything I like, it's mine. Finder's keepers."
The woman groaned, exasperated, folding her arms. "Greedy ass," she shot back, her voice flat but tinged with annoyance.
"Better greedy than empty-handed in a deathtrap like this." He smirked behind his mask, already diving back into the heap like a wolf sniffing out bones.
Lio, however, wasn't paying them any mind. His pulse quickened as his eyes locked on a faint shimmer inside one of the higher cells along the wall. His vision sharpened—X-ray sight piercing through layers of hardened resin. There she was. Lynx. His Marauder comrade. His friend. Her body was half-encased in slime, cocooned in a resinous shell that pulsed faintly, as if preserving her like meat stored for later. Her prosthetic was gone, her frame limp, but… seemingly alive.
The breath left Lio's lungs. His fingers twitched, aching to smash through the wall right here and now. But before he could lunge forward with great strength, a sharp whirr broke through his focus.
The woman in black and yellow came from his back, and had flicked something on from her palm. Twin flares hissed from the small, wing-like jetpack strapped to her back, the exhaust spitting blue light into the chamber. She landed beside Lio, her head tilting as if she'd noticed his fixation.
"You want her?" Her words were blunt, matter-of-fact. She jerked a thumb upward at the cell. "I'll give you a lift."
Before Lio could even answer, she grabbed him by his waist. With a sudden burst of thrust, the two of them shot upward, resin dust whipping past as they ascended. Lio's stomach dropped for an instant—then steadied by hugging the mysterious woman, his eyes fixed solely on the cocoon above.
When they reached it, Lio cut through the cell's covered membrane with his foldable pickaxe, tear open it with lack of effort.
When he tear open the cell's membrane, he saw Lynx up close for the first time since she'd been taken. The sight made his blood boil and his chest ache all at once. Unconscious. Bound by a glistening sheath of slime, threads of resin clinging to her hair, her left cybernetic socket where her prosthetic arm should have been, her right arm slack against her side. Yet… her chest rose and fell, slow but steady.
"Still breathing," the masked woman muttered, her visor glowing as she scanned Lynx's vitals. "Lucky girl."
Lio pressed his palm against the resin. It was warm. Alive. His voice cracked when he whispered, "Hold on, Lynx. I'm here."
The faint rise and fall of Lynx's chest calmed him for only a moment before the panic came rushing back. "She's alive… but why isn't she waking up?"
The woman in black and yellow landed gracefully beside him, her wing-pack hissing faintly as the jets retracted. Without wasting words, she raised her left arm and activated her scanning rig.
Thin, golden lines flickered into the air. A holographic lattice spread across Lynx's cocoon, dissecting its layers. Streams of symbols and glyphs scrolled down her visor display, and the projection hovered with pulsing points of light where her instruments detected something of interest.
Lio watched, half desperate, half in awe. Her technology was leagues beyond anything he'd ever seen—even the Guild didn't have interfaces like this.
"Vitals detected. Low pulse, no trauma," she muttered. "But her brain activity… suppressed."
"What?" Lio asked worriedly.
She adjusted her gauntlet, enlarging the projection. "She's in some sort of stasis; induced sleep-like state, slowed down cellular activity, as if she was... preserved."
Lio's throat tightened. "Stasis? Preserved? For what?"
The woman tilted her head, silent for a moment. Then she flicked her fingers, the hologram shifting to highlight other nearby cells. Each one revealed a grim picture—shriveled corpses, skeletal remains still half-bound in resin, eyeless skulls staring through the slime. Some even have their ribcage burst open from the inside. Their bodies were twisted, dried out husks, their mouths open in silent screams.
Her voice was calm, but it carried a razor edge. "What do you think? It's obviously not a sleepover." She gestured at the hollow-eyed mummies frozen in their cells. "This hive doesn't keep them alive for hospitality. They're stored. Preserved. Waiting for… whatever comes next."
The air grew heavy. Lio felt his throat tighten, bile threatening to rise. He turned back to Lynx. No. She wasn't going to end up like them.
He pressed his shoulder into the resin, grit his teeth, and with a muffled crack ripped it open with his bare hands. Splinters of slime scattered as he pulled Lynx free, her limp body collapsing into his arms, still coated in strands of half-solid goo. She was warm. Alive.
Lio held her close, his expression hardening. "I've got her." His voice carried a sharp resolve. He adjusted her weight carefully, cradling her like something fragile yet irreplaceable.
The woman folded her arms, visor gleaming with reflected glyphs. "Count yourself lucky. Most don't get this far. Your friend is either chosen for something… or just the next meal kept fresh until the bugs feel like dining. Whatever was gonna happen, you got her before anything terrible happens."
"Thank you,... kind stranger. I couldn't gone this far without both of your help." Lio appreciated by her assistance, willing to help despite their diffrent goals.
The woman in black and yellow gave him a brief nod, then powered down her scanner. "Its nothing. Just don't slow us down."
Lio gave her a brief nod as well, then shift his focus solely on Lynx. He had her back.
The woman in black and yellow stretch herself, her voice calm yet edged with urgency.
"Alright, time to move. We've got the girl. Now let's get down, grab what loot we can, and move before it comes."
Lio froze mid-step, Lynx's limp body still in his arms. His head snapped toward her, brow furrowing behind his dust-smeared face. "It? What do you mean by—"
He never finished.
The chamber shuddered violently, like the belly of some enormous beast had convulsed around them. Resin walls trembled, chunks of dried slime and fractured stone raining down like sickly snow. The hexagonal cells rattled, brittle skeletons inside clattering against their resin prisons.
Lio staggered, tightening his grip on Lynx, but the footing beneath him dissolved. The resin-coated wall split, the smooth surface turning slick under his boots.
"Dawk it—!" the woman in black and yellow cursed, her small wing-like jetpack flaring instinctively, but the sudden quake threw her trajectory off balance.
Both of them slipped.
Lio fell backward with Lynx held close, the resinous slime of the hive wall smearing against his back before they hit the ground below with a nauseating splorch. The impact forced the air from his lungs, and sticky filaments clung to his arms and legs like glue.
Beside him, the woman crashed hard, her shoulder driving into the slick floor before she rolled into a crouch, hissing beneath her mask. Her jetpack sputtered, dripping with slime, unable to ignite.
The quake didn't stop. The entire chamber groaned as though the hive itself were alive—deep, guttural, almost like the chittering of a million unseen mandibles reverberating through the stone.
Lio pulled Lynx tighter against him, heart pounding. Whatever "it" was… he had the dreadful feeling they were about to find out.
=====
From across the chamber, a guttural groan echoed.
"Dawk it," the masked stranger in black and blue growled, slamming the butt of his iron bo-staff against a pile of half-melted mining gear and chitin husks while still on the ground of the chamber. "Swarm's coming in, and all I've dug up is junk metal and old bones." His voice cracked with both frustration and exhaustion, the sharp echo bouncing along the cavernous walls.
Then—his staff struck something different. Hard. Resonant.
The sound wasn't the dull clink of rusted ore, but the crystalline ping of something impossibly pure.
The stranger froze, tilting his masked head down, and brushed aside the resin-slick rubble with sudden feverish movements. His breathing grew shallow, sharp, like he already knew what he had stumbled upon.
And there they were.
Five shards, no larger than a man's palm each, half-buried in the slime. Polished rice-shaped fragments that pulsed with a dim, steady glow—like slumbering stars waiting to be awakened. Their light reflected across the chamber, cold diamond hues tinged with a soft radiance. A fragrance, faint but intoxicating, filled the air—the sweetness of ripe pear, the freshness of peach, utterly alien in the rot of the hive.
The masked stranger in black and blue went still for a heartbeat. Then a sharp, manic laugh broke free. "Oh-ho-ho… jackpot." He snatched them up one by one, greed practically vibrating in his voice. His gloved hands trembled as he tucked the crystals into his storage case, each shard clicking into place with reverent finality.
"Five Eirenith Crystals…" he whispered, awe dripping behind the distortion of his mask. "Queen's gonna be jumping with joy when she sees this haul."
Even through the helmet, his excitement was palpable. He almost sounded drunk on it.
>>>>>>>>>>[ Item ]>>>>>>>>>>
[
The Eirenith Crystal is among the most coveted relics known, a palm-sized shard that glows with the luster of diamond tempered by starlight and carries the faint fragrance of ripe fruit. Its composition defies classification—neither purely mineral nor organic, it is believed to be the fossilized nutrient-core of a once-living world, a cosmic crystallized remains of once flourish world as one of the stellar phenomena woven with life, seemingly extinguished long ago. To hold one is to feel the pulse of an entire planet in your hand; to consume it is to gamble with divinity. When fractured and ingested through ritual, the shard dissolves seamlessly into the body, granting staggering physical strength, heightened cognition, regenerative prowess, and a fleeting taste of transcendence—but only if stabilized through meditation. Yet its gifts come chained to peril, for only disciplined meditation can stabilize the influx of alien vitality; the unworthy fall swiftly into mutation, madness, or death. Wars have been waged over single fragments, empires reshaped by their possession. the Eirenith Crystal is revered as a sacrament, feared as a forbidden relic, and worth more than fleets, cities, and even more highly than nuclear arms.
>>>>>>>>>>[ Item ]>>>>>>>>>>
=====
The walls of the hive pulsed as though the colossal structure itself had a heartbeat. A thunderous vibration rippled through the air, making the organic resin webbing quiver like a drumskin. It felt less like a building and more like the stirring breath of some colossal beast.
The masked woman in black and yellow wasted no time. Activating the compact jetpack mounted on her back, she flared its thrusters, steadying herself in the quake. "Hold on," she barked, extending a gauntleted hand toward Lio.
Lio shifted his grip on Lynx, cradling her resin-coated form close, her face slack in her unnatural slumber. With his free hand, he clasped the woman's outstretched arm. The engines roared, and the two of them descended in a controlled drop, weaving between ribbed pillars of glistening slime and bone-like ridges that jutted from the hive's interior. They landed hard, boots sinking slightly into the wet, pulsating ground, the stench of fermentation wafting up like sour rot.
Lio adjusted his grip on Lynx, brushing the resin strands that still clung to her like a grotesque shroud. Her breathing was faint but steady. *Preserved. For what?* The thought chilled him, and the answer the woman had given earlier gnawed at his mind.
Before Lio could catch his breath, the other stranger—the one clad in black and blue—skidded down a nearby slope, his voice rising in a frantic shout. "We've got to book it! Whatever's waking up, we're not sticking around for curtain call. We cut and run, straight out of this Breachspace dungeon—NOW!"
Both strangers in black, blue, and yellow start to run, where Lio also follow them on cue.
But before he could sprint, Lio snapped his gaze toward him, voice sharp.
"Wait—there's someone else. The Shellwalker. He was with her when they dropped into this cavern… if he's still alive, he's trapped here too."
The others hesitated, but Lio's tone left no room for dismissal. His mind burned with the image of the Shellwalker being dragged into the hive's depths, helpless despite his synthetic frame and the corporate eternity wired into his existence. Subscription immortality meant nothing if your consciousness was eaten alive inside a digital prison.
And then, before the masked woman could respond, the hive screamed in a deafening roar.
A fissure ripped open in the middle of the chamber with an ear-splitting KRSHHHHHH! Slime and resin burst outward, coating everything in a glistening spray.
Then the swarm came.
The floor ruptured with an ear-splitting crack as the resin ground caved inward, while the massive hole within the chamber blast a geyser of slime and shattered chitin spraying skyward.
Out of the wound in the earth surged the swarm—Cave Bugs in uncountable numbers, their serrated mandibles clattering like a storm of knives. Behind them came the Bug-Men, their humanoid silhouettes twitching, crooked, and jagged.
They did not crawl or march—they erupted, bursting out with the momentum of a flood released from a dam, swarming through the chamber like a column of enraged wasps under unbearable pressure. The stench of acid and rot filled the air, and the hive shook harder than ever, as though the swarm itself were only the herald of something far, far worse.
From the abyss, Cave Bugs erupted in a tide, countless wings buzzing like a thousand razors grinding together. Chitinous bodies slammed against each other as they poured out, their screeches shrill enough to pierce bone. Behind them, lumbering out of the abyss, came the Bug-Men swarm—towering humanoid forms with creepy insectoid heads, their mandibles clacking as they clawed their way into the chamber.
Before Lio or either of the masked strangers could make a move for escape, the hive answered with merciless precision. The tunnels above and around them writhed alive, the exits sealing as the swarm poured in like black liquid flame. Countless chitinous bodies piled over one another, forming a wall of living armor—mandibles gnashing, legs clawing, wings buzzing with a deafening resonance.
In moments, the passageways became clogged, barricaded not by stone or resin but by the hive itself. Their every exit vanished beneath the writhing blockade, an unmistakable declaration from the swarm: This is where you die. This hive will be your graveyard.
The woman in black and yellow raised her weapon, her visor flickering warnings across its HUD, but even she faltered at the sight. The stranger in black and blue swore under his breath, hand twitching toward the satchel of crystals as though they could buy his survival. Lio only tightened his hold on Lynx, his heartbeat thunderous in his ears as he realized they were cornered.
And then, things grew worse.
From the gaping wound in the hive's floor—the one that had vomited forth the swarm—came something far greater. The ground split wider, resin snapping like brittle glass, as a monstrous silhouette clawed its way free.
With a thunderous crack, an insectoid colossus erupted into the chamber, each movement sending shockwaves through the trembling hive. Its carapace shimmered with resinous sheen, its jagged limbs crushing the swarm beneath it like ants. The sheer size of it dwarfed everything in the chamber, blotting out the fungal glow as it rose higher, higher, until its shadow consumed them all.
Its maw opened, serrated mandibles clashing, and a roar unlike anything human or insect bellowed forth—so raw, so ancient, it rattled the marrow in their bones. A sound of rage, of dominion, of hunger unending.
"The… Hive Queen," the black-and-yellow woman whispered, her voice breaking as the colossal entity's eyes glowed with feral light, locking onto the intruders.
What had been a death trap before now became a nightmare without end.
The ground was still quaking from the Hive Queen's arrival when Lio's eyes sharpened. Amid the gleaming ridges of the beast's headplate, something clung stubbornly like a parasite refusing to be dislodged. His breath caught in his throat—the Shellwalker.
The synthetic frame was half-sunken into hardened resin, its mechanical limbs twitching feebly against the Queen's movements, as though it had been claimed as little more than an ornament. The glowing sensors of its helmet flickered dimly, drowned beneath layers of secretion that glued it to the Hive Queen like a grotesque crown.
"Well I'll be damned…" the masked stranger in black and blue gave a low whistle, raising a hand to point. "Rookie! Is that the shiny Shellwalker you've been going on about? Guess he's… riding the Queen now." His voice was laced with mockery, but there was a nervous crack at the edges.
Lio's grip on Lynx tightened, jaw clenching. The Shellwalker was here. Alive, perhaps. But in no condition to help. His gut twisted with the cruel irony—he had charged into this hive hoping to save his comrades, only to find them turned into trophies.
The masked woman in black and yellow glanced at him, her visor reflecting the emerald glow of the Hive Queen's compound eyes. "Forget the commentary," she snapped at her companion. "That thing's not going to let us stroll out of here. The swarm's boxed us in. The Queen herself is awake."
For once, the man in blue didn't argue. He hefted his metalic bo-staff—smooth, humming faintly with plasma heat—and looked out at the tightening sea of mandibles and skittering limbs.
Lio inhaled slowly, fire flickering in his chest, the familiar ache of restrained power begging to be unleashed. His instincts screamed at him to blast through, to tear the swarm apart like he had before. But now—facing the Hive Queen, the bug-men, and the endless tide—escape was no longer just about survival.
It would be war.
The woman in yellow lowered beside him, jetpack whirring softly, shapeshifting both her arms with elbow blades and blaster barrels while enveloped with static-like energy field. The man in blue spun his bo-staff in his plasma-like glowing grip, grinning through his mask though the sweat on his temple betrayed his nerves.
Three strangers. Different motives. Different secrets. Yet in that moment, they were united in one unspoken vow:
If the only way out was through the Queen, then they would fight together—against the swarm, the bug-men, and the hive's monstrous ruler.
The Hive Queen loomed above, mandibles gnashing, wings unfurling with a sound like tearing metal. The swarm screamed in chorus, a tidal wave of bodies rushing in from every side.
The chamber became a battlefield.
They have no choice but to do one thing:
Fight!
<<<[ Arc 01, Ch 07: END ]>>>