Chapter 204 | Swarm: I Became a Cataclysmic Disaster

‘Elise and Kerrigan are still too young. They simply must have whatever toy they set their eyes on. It’s such a headache.’

Lin Miao sighed and shook his head.

The obsession and desire possessed by the Queens were undoubtedly at the core of their nature, serving as the driving force behind their growth.

The problem was that while human children were ultimately powerless, the Queens were different.

They possessed the power to turn their desires and obsessions into reality.

“Stop talking nonsense! Queen, I will die here with you!”

This was precisely the scene unfolding before him.

Kerrigan swung her swords once more, engaging in a fierce clash of blows. Ultimately, she sent Begrun's sword flying, grabbed his body with her remaining arms, slammed him hard onto the ground, and pinned him down.

On the shattered ground, Begrun and Kerrigan were face-to-face, gripping each other tightly as they engaged in a desperate contest of raw strength.

Kerrigan's exoskeleton cracked and broke piece by piece, while Begrun felt his strength rapidly reaching its limit, causing him to cough up blood.

In truth, Kerrigan, who already had the upper hand, could have killed him at any moment.

She did not need to engage in a test of strength; she could have simply altered the shape of her exoskeleton to crush his skull in an instant.

But Kerrigan did not do that. She wanted to subdue Begrun and thoroughly break his spirit.

“H-How can this be...”

Begrun's eyes finally wavered.

The out-of-control energy seeped into Kerrigan's body, tearing her apart and causing her immense pain, yet she continued to smile radiantly. Seeing her like this, Begrun finally broke down completely.

“Ugh...”

Ultimately, Begrun was the first to run out of strength, and Kerrigan's power began to seep into his body instead.

Kerrigan tightly gripped his shoulders and chest. Psionic energy flowed down from her hands, suppressing and extinguishing the blue magical flames that had been burning with his body and life force as fuel.

Afterward, Kerrigan carried the unconscious Begrun over her shoulder as she walked out of the deep crater.

Her own body was fractured and broken in many places, constantly leaking bodily fluids, but the expression visible beneath her shattered mask remained bright and radiant.

“That is so like you.”

Elise had only one comment.

To destroy and crush with raw power alone—this was Kerrigan's way.

There was no compromise or persuasion like there had been when recruiting Lisette.

Nor did she plunge him into inescapable despair as they had done with Celia.

Kerrigan simply fought, won, and claimed her spoils of war.

“The defensive line is about to breach...”

“Run! Everything is over!”

Begrun's defeat did not just seal his own fate of being captured by Kerrigan, trapped in a state where he could neither live nor die.

From a broader perspective, his fall signaled the complete collapse of the Beastkin Kingdom.

Even the warriors of the Great Warrior rank retreated in defeat under the joint onslaught of Celia, Lisette, and the Lictors.

The ordinary soldiers fell into despair over this hopeless war.

The panicked slave soldiers fled in all directions, while the beastkin warriors, who viewed combat as their honor, chose to fight to the death.

“Your Majesty, the enemies surging from the east are already close at hand. We can already hear the sound of their wings beating in the sky.”

“From the... southwest, the enemies who crossed the sea are also heading this way.”

The capital of the Beastkin Kingdom, and the palace where the Beastkin King, Gorzan, resided, was no longer safe.

Gorzan sighed, standing up to pick up the weapon he had not touched in a very long time.

“The God of War said He is proud of us.”

He looked at his weapon, his voice heavy.

In truth, they had long anticipated the arrival of their demise.

Not just them, but even their god, Uria, knew it.

“He granted us immense aid, yet we failed to repay him. It is truly a pity.”

From the distant sky, the faint sound of beating wings echoed.

It was the buzzing of the tiger hornet ants, creatures known by the alias of Wailing Wings.

This massive, distinct sound of vibrating wings had even spread rumors that death and doom were fast approaching.

“So, how can we let our final end be a pathetic one?”

“It won't be! We will follow you to the death!”

The last remnants of the Beastkin Kingdom's resistance, including Gorzan, resolved to fight to the bitter end.

As dawn broke, a black tide swept across the land, leaving nothing but devastation in its wake.

Beholding this overwhelming torrent that engulfed heaven and earth, Gorzan gritted his teeth.

They would show their god this final struggle, staking their honor, dignity, and very lives.

Right then, a powerful beam of light fired from the looming, colossal spinal column instantly engulfed their bodies.

“Kill them. Leave none alive. Slaughter them all.”

The final battle of the Beastkin Kingdom, initiated by the bombardment of the Disintegration Cannon, ultimately turned into an extremely one-sided slaughter following the declaration of Elise, the Supreme Commander of the Great Devourer.

Their carefully prepared defensive strategies and steadfast resolve were utterly demolished under the fierce long-range bombardment.

Just as the soldiers of the Beastkin Kingdom fell into a panic, the Lictors—clad in hard, bizarre exoskeletons and wielding weapons grown from their own bodies—swarmed in.

“Fight... Fight... For our final dignity... Leave no regrets behind...”

Even though Gorzan was wounded by the shockwaves of the bombardment, he issued his final command of resistance while supported by his subordinates.

Of course, at this point, the humans who had been dragged in as slaves to obey the beastkin's orders had no reason to fight to the death. However, the threat of the Great Devourer before them was too immense, leaving them with no choice but to fight.

Although the Great Devourer would ignore those unrelated to the gods, in such a dire situation, they could not simply stand by and watch their colleagues, friends, and family members be slaughtered.

Yet, just as making a decision was difficult, there was a vast gulf between resolving to fight and actually fighting.

This was especially true since the enemies they now faced were not ones they were familiar with or had seen before.

Clad in massive heavy armor, the heavy-armored ants revealed themselves, their rhinoceros beetle-like colossal bodies and immense strength demolishing the thick city walls.

Surrounded by deep blue defensive barriers, they pushed forward with overwhelming defense, swinging the horns on their heads to repel the charging beastkin warriors.

Seeing this, Valdi, a human knight who had started as a slave soldier, collapsed onto the ground.

He was someone who had lived in this vicinity his entire life.

He had never joined the expeditionary force to campaign on the plains; this was his very first time fighting the Great Devourer.

The constantly improved and modified variants of the Great Devourer colony were so bizarre that anyone seeing them for the first time would feel an instinctive terror.

“Move! Those things are starting to swarm in massive numbers!”

However, the heavy-armored ants serving as shock troops were not the main issue.

Along with the countless flying species in the sky, the Great Devourers began to pour out from behind the walls shattered by the heavy-armored ants.

“Aaaah!”

A nimbly crawling creature used its long, sharp pincers to suddenly grab a resisting knight.

The knight was scared out of his wits upon seeing this hideous monster with a spider-like body and long pincers.

In fact, this monster was a variant Elise had created after consuming the whip spider Lin Miao had given her.

Unlike the existing scorpion ants, the whip ants nimbly brandished their flexible, slender pincers, instantly piercing through the knight's armored body with their sharp fangs.

Although the iron breastplate blocked the initial impact, the highly acidic venom dripping from the tips of the fangs instantly melted and corroded through the armor.

‘No, this is unwinnable!’

Valdi watched the monsters that seemed to have crawled straight out of hell, dropping his sword in sheer terror.

Beside the whip ant that had just killed his fellow knight, another variant stepped forward.

It was a magic-type Lictor, possessing a massive scorpion body with a human upper torso creepily attached to it like a mannequin.

Emitting a bizarre noise, the magic-type Lictor glanced at Valdi.

Valdi instinctively looked at the human upper body attached to the scorpion torso. However, the magic-type Lictor's eyes were not on that pale, grayish upper body which had only a mouth, but rather on the scorpion body itself.

The magic-type Lictor seemed to scan him briefly before ignoring Valdi, who was trembling alongside the nearby Great Devourers, and walking straight past him.

Regardless, there were plenty of prey waiting for it to hunt nearby.

‘Oh, my god.’

Valdi buried his face in the ground and lay flat. Caught between invisible allies and the countless rustling Great Devourers surrounding him from all directions, he only hoped this terrifying moment would pass quickly.

“Beastkin King Gorzan is confirmed dead.”

This place had once been the highly revered capital of a brilliant human kingdom, famous for its status as a trade hub and a holy religious site.

Now, it had been occupied by the beastkin driven from the plains, serving as their primary stronghold.

Currently, the city was covered by the Great Devourers swarming from all directions, collapsing and burning.

Celia stood on the back of a colossal heavy-armored ant, gazing at the scene before her.

Yet another country, another civilization, was crumbling.

Wherever the Great Devourer passed, nothing but scorched ruins would remain.

“Is it over?”

“For now.”

Lisette landed beside Celia. Having been active on the front lines and slaying many beastkin Great Warriors, she was now watching everything with a peculiar gaze.

They retracted their black membranous wings and feathered wings into their bodies, sharing real-time information through the hive mind regarding which areas the swarming Great Devourers had consumed and how much they had devoured.

The resistance had practically ended.

Now began the usual routine of chasing down fugitives, searching, and hunting.

‘That person is...’

During this time, Celia spotted a beastkin who had been captured near the palace.

That beastkin was none other than Grimgor, his white beard fluttering as he was bound and immobilized by the webs and tentacles spat out by the spider ants swarming from all directions.

Celia immediately flew over.

“Y-You are the Witch of the Great Devourer!”

With his hair in disarray and panting heavily, Grimgor recognized Celia from within the web and gritted his teeth.

Celia sighed and took off her mask, as she understood why this situation was happening.

“Why! Why won't these monsters kill me?!”

Grimgor pointed angrily at the corpses of the beastkin warriors strewn all around him.

Among them were many of his disciples, warriors who had fought to their last breath and died after battling over hundreds of Great Devourers. Gorzan was among them as well.

Grimgor, of course, wished to follow them in death.

But unexpectedly, the Great Devourers did not kill Grimgor.

They had merely done their best to capture Grimgor alive, and Grimgor, who had lost all his strength after being defeated by Kerrigan, was ultimately captured.