36.

My bare feet slapped on stone as I raced up the ramps. The passage of so many of the bugs had destroyed what was left of the silken roadblocks. Every step furthered the rage beating in my heart, my newly made skill urging me to lose it. I wanted to snap, to lose myself in the frenzy of the violence, to become nothing more than a bloodlusted killer. I had to appease myself, whispered promises that soon the veil would be lifted. I wouldn’t have to play these games much longer.

My arms pumped, the shield on my left arm my only weapon. I was a knock off superhero. Superhuman abilities, an impractical weapon, racing to go and fight some alien bugs. Check, check, and check. All I needed to have was some chiseled abs and stunning good looks and I could take my place in the annals of comic book history. It’s strange, the thoughts that float through your head in stressful moments. I’m sprinting faster than humans should be able to, on my way to go and fight a sentient, telepathic bug that had used me as a stress ball. The only thing I could think of was that I was in the same tier as brightly colored spandex wearing fictional characters.

It was a relief when I felt sunlight on my face, the ramps opened up to the pale gray sky and the sounds of battle drifted to me. Plenty of screaming and battle cries. With the bugs relying on their natural abilities, there was no epic clash of steel on steel. It was a more primal conflict, something humans were well suited for. We were the apex predators for a reason. We could be petty, vindictive, and gluttonous. All things these bugs could let us be. I could already feel the welcome warmth of kill energy, the notifications of level increases, the surge in my strength.

I shot out of the tunnel like I had been blasted from a cannon. The courtyard, once empty, was now filled with spiders. The long limbed beasts scurried and climbed over everything, clinging to remnants of walls as they raced to escape. Miguel and the mountain squads were lost in the melee, but Luke was easily discerned. He stood in the middle of it all like a primordial god of war.

His spear was a blur of wood and severed limbs, blood coated him from head to toe, and a violent smile had carved its presence on his face. A chill rolled through me as I watched him unleash himself, aiming for the large ants that huddled around the Queen. Two of them divert, trying to pincer him as the rest form a wedge and push through the scattered human fighters.

Luke takes them both on without hesitation, leaping above snapping mandibles and slashing out with a burst of speed. A mandible separated with a burst of blood and viscera, the ant stumbling sideways. Luke kept up his attack, each blow taking crushing and severing limbs. He’d cut them to pieces in moments. The rest of the Queen’s retinue don’t wait for Luke to kill their sacrifices, they shove their way toward the broken walls.

Stone crumbles under my feet, the stray broken pieces of stone pulverized beneath each of my heavy footsteps. I hardly noticed, eyes locked on the Queen and her bulging stomach. In the light of the day, I can see her clearly. She’s long like the ants, her body having multiple segments with the grotesque sack attached to her third and final segment. She’s a royal blue so dark it borders on black, with folded wings on her back. She turned her head, pinning me with a glare from one of her wide eyes.

“Cease this resistance. Know your place, primates!” The Queen's voice boomed in my mind. I lost my balance for just a moment, staggered to the side just as the Queen and her party were engaged. The brief distraction of her yelling at me was enough for Dan, Miguel, and some of Dan’s soldiers to meet the remaining two guardians and halt them. The Queen turned to them, the wings on her back began to vibrate, whether in irritation or she was going to try to haul her bulk up and off the ground, I had no idea. I wasn’t going to let her escape though. She had smacked me like I was a pesky fly, she was going to die for that.

I picked up speed again, legs stretching as I put everything I had in closing the distance. I was going to snap this bitch like a twig. I was going to bathe in her blood and cackle while I did it. I will rip her wings off and heat her fucking heart. I lost my temper. The blinding red overwhelms me, the inferno that perpetually sat contained in me explodes. Decades of crawling, of being subservient, of appeasing my lessers, it all comes up in a rage of hate.

I screamed, a sound of pure and raw anger and hate. My new and improved body makes it sound greater than it is, the echo bounced around the courtyard and stilled the fight. Eyes turned to watch me as I leapt, everything hidden behind a red haze as I hover over the Queen, the impetus of my jump fading. I hover there, suspended for a moment, a weightless vessel of rage. Then I began to fall.

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I was only twelve feet up, the fall was quick. My bare feet impacted with the weight of the meteor. Chitin cracked, sharp blades that sliced into my skin. I keep my legs straight, determined to punch straight through the bug. Her legs buckled, her great body collapsing to the ground as I was thrown off.

I rolled to my feet, staring at the Queen as she struggled to rise. Her many legs scrambled to find purchase. Her back legs, the ones around her distended stomach, don’t move. I had broken something there, severed part of her. A vicious glee rose through me and I charged without hesitation. Bloody footsteps left behind me, hardly noticed as the thrill of the fight floods me. My skill had overtaken me, consuming me, but I couldn’t care. The rage was finally allowed out, in view of everyone as I showcased my superiority.

I ducked under a sweeping mandible longer than I was tall. My metal rimmed buckler slammed into her jaw. Chitin broke and blood flowed out, joining the other things that had accumulated on me. The eye, the turtle's innards, the dirt, stone dust, and spider silk. I was a mess and dind’t care. My vision had become red, everything seen from a great distance as I cackled, the joy of being free mingling perfectly with the anger.

I stay closer to her, slamming the shield over and over into her face. The mandibles are too long to be used, her jaw too small to do anything to me. I pummeled everything I could reach, each blow sending waves of blood over me. I refused to let go of her, clinging like a pitbull. I jumped up to slam the battered buckler into that arrogant eye that had the audacity to look down at me. To judge me.

She screams, a trilling sound that freezes everything once again. I don’t let her just keep caterwauling, I keep up my offensive. I snapped a leg, crushed the delicate membranes of her wing, and broke one of her mandibles. I feel high, floating on the energy of the berserking skill. A niggling thought wiggled it way into my mind. I was hurting her, but I couldn’t kill her. I didn’t have the right tools. I could use my mana, that metaphysical muscle inside of me. I rebelled at that.

Some tendril of sanity held me back from using my new magic in front of everyone. I could kill the bug with it, shatter her with ease with that power. Yet, Luke remained in my mind, a specter of skill, the pinnacle of the represented humanity. I needed every single weapon I could muster against him. I fought down the urge, and succeeded. Something faded though, some edge the skill had been providing for me. The red faded away, the courtyard came in clearly no longer hidden behind a haze.

I hadn’t slept in two days, this was my third fight in that time, and second time using the berserking skill. I was exhausted in a way I hadn’t felt before. Without my skill, I slowed and one of the Queen’s legs caught me. The blow crushed me, knocking the wind from me and hurtled me across the courtyard. I landed on something, or someone, and struggled to my feet. The battle was over for the most part. The ants who had accosted Luke now lay in neat pieces of oozing meat. Miguel and Dan, with his cronies, had managed to kill the last two guardians. I had distracted the Queen long enough that she hadn’t been able to flee.

Her guardians were dead, her army in shambles, and she herself was bleeding everywhere. Luke moved forward cautiously, the small smile on his face still on his face. Dan and the rest formed a wide circle around her as she moved in cautious half circles, keeping her remaining eye on Luke.

She screamed, not of rage and pain, but of sorrow this time. An ache formed in my chest at the sound of loss that penetrated through my mind. Telepathic sorrow, weaponized and sent all around her. She shuddered, body shaking in increasingly violent moves. Her back third, still attached but limp, snapped side to side like lose meat. With a tearing rip, the sound forever destined to haunt me, she flung her limp broken body with a twist.

The bulging sack hit the ground and split like a rotten watermelon. Half formed larvae spilled out in a tsunami as the Queen continued to cry out. I staggered forward, wading through the warm fluid unleashed by the Queen’s womb splitting. It was gross, if I wasn’t so absolutely burnt out I would be horrified. As it was, it wasn’t even the grossest thing I had to do today.

Luke and Dan managed to keep their feet and were ready to fight the much reduced Queen. She had severed a third of her body, but she wasn’t bleeding from the missing segment. Clotted blood already sealed that wound, and now she wasn’t disabled by my strike. If anything, she was more dangerous now than she had been before I hit her. I looked around for Miguel and spotted him. He was far off to the side, tears streamed down his face as he ran towards one of the few standing walls and got away from the fight. Smart kid.

I took a deep breath and looked around the ruins. Corpses lay everywhere. We had finished them, there was no doubt about that. Aside from a handful of the spiders, the rest of them were dead. The two assaults, the tutorial and now us, had been enough to break this faction. Still, as I saw still human shapes mixed in with the spiders, they might have finished us off too. We had so few numbers and even though our dead were greatly outnumbered, this might be the end of our push for supremacy.

I sighed, just ready to get this over with. I grabbed a loose spear and hefted it up. It was one of the reinforced weapons, I could feel the Weight of it, the mana hearts sacrificed to give it strength. One of Dan’s elites had died then. Only they had access to these weapons after I had shut down their sweatshop factory. That thought would have made me a bit happy some other time, that he had lost a support pillar. Now though, I could only think of the loss of my army, of how I would have one fewer piece to aid me.

I started to walk forward, empty of every emotion. A burnt out hulk of a human moving from pure determination. It had been a long time since I had felt this unburdened, not constantly repressing who I was. I had vented it all out, let out that pressure of decades of societal strain. It had felt good, but now I was just empty. Tomorrow, I will regroup, plan, and try to recover from this disaster. In the meantime, I planned on taking the Queens head.