I Became an Ant Lord, So I Built a Hive Full of Beauties-Chapter 518: After the Blood

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Fist and claw met....

Clash!!!!!

The impact did not sound like a punch or a rake. It sounded like two boulders dropped into each other. Air buckled around them in a dull, heavy thump that made nearby banners snap and the dust ring jump.

Pain went white.

Kai’s claws tore across Vorak’s chest plate, ripping three parallel grooves through scarlet enamel and the first layer of metal beneath. Hot blood splashed his arm in a thin, high arc.

Vorak’s good fist crashed into Kai’s ribs, just under the heart, in almost the same instant.

Something gave.

Kai felt it as a series of sharp, cracking protests deep in his side, like someone stamping on a basket of twigs.

[Ding! System notification-

HP: 230 → 01.

Aura: 1300 → 240.

Status: critical systemic overload. Apex Plus lattice collapsing.

Emergency protocol: forced skill termination. Host unconscious.

Core integrity: barely stable.]

The world tried to tilt.

Apex Plus went out like a doused flame. His frame shortened. Plates compressed. The aura lattice that had been holding too much together let go.

He did not feel himself fall.

Vorak’s body registered the damage a fraction later.

Kai’s claws had not cut deeply enough to gut him, but they had found the seam where breastplate met stomach plates and bitten through. They had torn skin and muscle, sheared through part of a rib, and skated along the outer curve of a very important organ.

His own technique, already bled dry through the shattered spear, had left his internal defenses thin.

Pain roared through him in a hot, nauseating wave.

His knees hit sand.

For an instant he hung there, fist still buried against Kai’s ribs, Kai’s claws still pressed into his side, two men propping each other up by the damage they had done.

Then gravity remembered both of them.

They went down almost together. At first Vorak fell to the ground then one second later... Kai followed him.

The circle received them, sand puffing up around their bodies. Kai rolled once and ended up on his back, head lolling to one side, eyes half open but seeing nothing. Vorak landed on his side, one arm curled protectively over his torn chest, breath rattling.

Silence fell.

It was shocking after the roars.

Drones froze on the ramp, spears half raised, mandibles open.

Scarlet soldiers locked in place on the flats, shields braced, eyes wide.

The dust cloud settled slowly, revealing both men lying motionless in the churned center of the dueling ring.

For a heartbeat, no one moved.

Parley rules and raw instinct wrestled in ten thousand heads.

On the ramp, Shadeclaw’s snarl broke the paralysis.

"Guard the Lord," he snapped, voice cracking across the Net. "Ring One, forward one step only. Shields locked. No one breaks the circle."

Silvershadow was already moving before the order finished. He hit the base of the ramp in a sliding step, boots skidding, spear in one hand and the other up in a fist.

"Hold," he barked at the scarlet line nearest the circle. "Our Lord is down. So is your general. Anyone takes one step into that ring and we stop pretending this is parley."

Scarlet officers were shouting similar orders.

"Defensive lock. Defensive lock. Do not advance. You there, hold your place. You, spear down. If anyone charges, I will cut your legs off myself."

Elites moved, not toward the prone forms, but around them.

Scarlet veterans jogged forward in a tight, disciplined line and planted their shields in a rough arc facing outward, backs to their fallen general. Spears rested low, angled toward the outer world, not inward.

On the mountain side, drones surged forward to the upper lip of the ramp and did the same, their plates clicking as they fell into an improvised ring at the edge of the flats, points down, shields up.

No one stepped into the circle.

The only ones in that raw patch of sand were two broken men and the faint heat of the blood seeping into the ground.

On the trees beyond, Ikea let out a tight breath she had not realized she was holding.

"Good," she muttered. "At least they remember the part about not stabbing the treaty in the back while I am watching."

On the mountain edge, Miryam made a sound that was not quite a word, not quite a growl. If Luna and Akayoroi had not already shifted to either side of her, a hand on each arm, she would have dropped straight from the lip like a thrown spear.

"His heart is still beating," Luna said along the Soul Road, voice harsh but controlled. She had one hand pressed flat to the stone under her, feeling the faint rhythm that echoed through Lord and mountain both. "Slow. Ugly. But beating."

"Mine too," Miryam said, though it felt like a lie. "It will stop if they do not get him soon."

"They will," Akayoroi murmured. "Watch. Their line is as scared as ours."

Down on the flats, the first movement came from Vorak’s side.

One of his officers, an older woman with gray at her temples and a slate still dangling from her belt, took two slow steps forward.

She stopped at the edge of the circle, lifted both hands, and turned in a slow circle so both armies could see her gesture.

"By order of General Vorak under the parley flag," she called, voice carrying, "no man crosses this line with hostile intent. We form a ward, not a slaughter."

She knelt carefully by Vorak without fully stepping over the ring’s rough boundary, stretching her arm to touch his throat.

He was breathing.

Barely.

She did not try to drag him out. Not yet. She only glanced up at the ramp.

"Lord Kai," she called. "If you hear me, give your folk leave. We will pick our general up. You may pick up your Lord. No tricks. No strikes. The duel is done."

Kai did not answer.

He lay on his back, eyes closed now, chest rising shallowly.

The answer came from the ramp.