Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 823: Completed Metamorphosis – The Hive Queen

CH823 Completed Metamorphosis – The Hive Queen

***

Alex nodded to himself.

He was extremely pleased that the Nest Queen had evolved towards an external incubation system.

Through his connection to the hive, he could sense that the grey eggs were drone gene cores, each containing the genetic blueprint personally written by the Nest Queen for an individual drone.

Once a gene core had been laid, responsibility for nurturing the developing drone shifted from the Nest Queen to the hive as a whole.

The vulture bee drones ventured outside to hunt before converting the carcasses of their prey, together with the ambient mana permeating the caverns, into carrion honey, which served as a universal food and energy source for the hive.

It not only sustained the mature drones, but also formed the cocoon required to nurture and eventually hatch new drones from the gene cores laid by their queen.

This meant the Nest Queen no longer needed to expend her own energy gestating each drone. Instead, she could devote her efforts to producing more drone gene cores.

With such a system, the hive could rapidly expand its population without placing an excessive burden on the Nest Queen herself.

Zora lacked Alex’s direct insight into the hive’s structure and operations, as she was not connected to the hive network.

That did not mean she failed to draw conclusions of her own.

For one, she realised that the Nest Queen had likely not chosen this mountain on a whim.

The deeper they ventured into the mountain, the denser the ambient energy became.

This was a strong indication that the mountain either contained a Berserk Stone mine or, at the very least, a deposit of some exceptionally valuable resource.

Whichever the case, it was clearly helping the Nest Queen produce more drones.

The second thing Zora noticed was the steadily increasing level of security as they descended deeper into the caverns.

Aside from the drones carrying out the hive’s daily operations, humanoid soldier drones stood guard at various points throughout the tunnels and chambers of the subterranean network.

Their numbers increased dramatically the deeper they went.

From almost none being stationed outside the mountain or around the entrance to the outer production ring, they gradually progressed to dozens of soldiers guarding every major tunnel and incubation chamber further within.

Alex and Zora continued deeper into the mountain, escorted by the two larger, clearly distinct drones that had come to receive them.

Everything they had deduced thus far remained consistent.

Eventually, they reached the innermost ring of the subterranean network—the Core.

The Core consisted of a single enormous cavern.

It resembled a colossal domed chamber, standing well over fifteen metres high and spanning the width of several football pitches.

At the centre of the cavern rested an enormous bee-like creature that continuously laid grey, oval-shaped eggs roughly the size of a chicken’s egg every few dozen seconds.

Before either of them could properly examine the important creature, however, their attention was drawn to the handful of humanoid drones standing along the sides of the chamber like guards protecting the being at its centre.

There were not many of them.

Including the two drones that had escorted them, who quietly took their places amongst the others, Zora counted only a dozen in total.

However, each of these royal guards was incredibly detailed, highly refined, and visually distinct from the rest.

One was enormous, standing nearly five metres tall, with a broad, muscular frame built like a walking fortress. Its exoskeleton resembled the thick plate armour of a heavily armoured knight.

Another possessed a slender, distinctly feminine physique. She had clearly human-like fingers, yet extending from just above each wrist was a flat, bone-like blade that looked remarkably similar to Alex’s wrist blade.

Unlike Alex’s dagger-like weapon, however, these extended into full-length swords.

Another royal guard carried several bone-like spears—or rather, javelins—strapped across its back.

Yet another had a dark, thin membrane draped over its body like a hooded cloak.

‘Heavy-armoured knight, light-armoured knight, swordsman, javelin thrower, assassin, harasser… There’s potentially even an archer. Looks like she created her Royal Guards using warrior templates from my memories that spilled over into her during Orion’s birth,’ Alex pondered.

When he finally turned his attention to the massive bee-like queen at the centre of the chamber, she had stopped laying the grey eggs from her abdomen and was in the process of rising to her feet.

To Zora’s astonishment, as the creature stood, her body underwent a dramatic transformation.

Her colossal insectoid queen form morphed into a distinctly feminine humanoid figure.

‘It can polymorph?’

Zora was stunned.

She glanced at Alex, only to find that he was not particularly surprised.

‘I see…’

Alex received the explanation through the hive link.

According to the memories flowing through the hive connection, during the battle against the Heavenly Tribulation, when Alex drew upon every card at his disposal, he had also opened access to his soul space.

Because of the nature of her Glyph form, both OmniRune and the Nest Queen had been able to connect to his soul.

As a result, when the Heavenly Tribulation rewarded Alex for surviving, a portion of his soul power had flowed back into both OmniRune and the Nest Queen.

In essence, they had each absorbed a fragment of Alex’s overflowing soul.

‘That explains how OmniRune was suddenly able to complete all of its previous protocols and give birth to a consciousness, thus becoming ORION. It essentially imprinted itself onto a fragment of my soul, using my own consciousness as the foundation to awaken its own.

‘It also explains how it was able to integrate with my consciousness so effortlessly and become a subconsciousness. It didn’t ‘become’ one. It was born as one.’

Alex then turned his attention back to the Nest Queen.

‘This also explains why the Nest Queen’s current metamorphosis seems so fixated on assuming a humanoid form. Like ORION, she now possesses a self-aware, non-sentient consciousness—or rather, she possesses one built upon mine.

‘Since that consciousness was born upon the foundation of my human consciousness, the result of their fusion is naturally a humanoid insectoid entity. Hence, the form she has chosen to present before me.’

Alex looked at the towering, roughly four-metre-tall humanoid Nest Queen standing before him, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his lips as a distinctly feminine voice echoed through the hive link.

‘I greet Master Node.’

The Nest Queen knelt and bowed before him.

“Nest Queen… no, that’s not quite right. Hive Queen…”

Alex placed a hand upon her bowed head.

“Since you now possess a consciousness, just like ORION, you need a name.”

He fell silent for a moment in thought.

Then an idea came to him.

“From this day onward, Hive Queen, your name shall be… AVA.”

***