The god of the beastkin had departed on his own.
However, he had not abandoned his servants.
Grimgor understood his god's will and intentions. Ultimately, he accepted the burden of responsibility, deciding to unite the survivors and lead them as they prepared for a new future.
Everything had unfolded exactly as the Great Devourer desired.
In the end, Lin Miao's Great Devourers had once again banished another deity from the land of Terra. They had taken yet another step forward to make their god, Lin Miao, the sole deity of this land.
“...”
But right now, none of this mattered to Begrun.
Near the capital of the Beastkin Kingdom, where the fierce battle had raged...
Begrun simply sat slumped in a terrifying nest made of sticky cobwebs, mucus, and secretions from the Great Devourers. His body was broken, his expression completely blank.
“Why?”
His hair had turned completely white, and he mumbled to himself in a hoarse voice.
He instinctively tried to move his body, but it refused to listen.
To protect those he cared about, Begrun had burned his magic power and pushed past his limits, ultimately incinerating his own body from within. He was, for all intents and purposes, already a dead man before he even lost to Kerrigan.
It was Kerrigan's power that had suppressed the magical flames consuming him from the inside. In essence, Kerrigan had saved his life.
The tips of his limbs were charred black, and with only his torso remaining intact, he was barely clinging to his last breath.
In fact, without the help of the Great Devourers, he wouldn't even be able to breathe, let alone survive being rescued.
“Why didn't you kill me?”
The Great Devourers had forcibly extended his life. Having developed a deep understanding of the human body, they were currently stitching Begrun's damaged organs back together and providing him with the necessary nutrients to keep him alive. His own wishes in this matter were entirely irrelevant.
And the one who had given this order was none other than Kerrigan, who had defeated Begrun and personally brought him here.
Having skipped even the final stages of the war she loved so much, Kerrigan now sat in front of Begrun, staring blankly at him.
“Currently brainstorming plans to repair and modify your damaged body.”
Of course, the reason Kerrigan had not participated in the final battle was simply because she hadn't seen any powerhouse more interesting to play with than Begrun.
Instead, Kerrigan was now busy deep in thought.
She was contemplating how to modify and strengthen her trophy, Begrun, to make him cooler and more powerful than the Legion Commanders under Elise, who had already demonstrated outstanding performances multiple times.
“You want to make me a part of you? To... to turn me into a monster like you?”
Begrun naturally found it absurd.
After all, Kerrigan's way of thinking was far beyond the comprehension of ordinary humans.
“Yes.”
Seeing her nod with a bright smile, Begrun was left utterly speechless.
The smile hidden beneath her rugged, menacing exoskeleton helmet was pure, without a single hint of deceit.
With their fundamental ways of thinking being so different, a rational conversation was completely out of the question.
Moreover, the one who now held the power over his life and death—and even owned this forcibly revived body of his—was Kerrigan.
Looking at the strangely beautiful face before him as Kerrigan stared intently at him, Begrun realized he was entirely powerless and shut his eyes tightly.
“Look at this.”
Of course, Kerrigan had also taken some notes from Elise.
Specifically, that getting an absorbed Legion Commander to fight willingly was more important than anything else.
When the originally ordinary Great Devourers awakened as servants of their deity, they gained the unique ability of the hive mind. However, a “sense of self” that could reside within the hive mind was something originally possessed only by the pure-blooded queens.
Allowing the Legion Commanders to possess a limited sense of self was purely for the benefit of the colony, serving to enhance its overall combat strength.
Kerrigan gestured to the Lictor beside her to cast a spell.
The Lictor mage projected a flickering screen into the air, causing Begrun's eyes to fly open.
On the screen, Grimgor was surrounded by Great Devourers, directing the surviving beastkin and humans to transport necessary supplies and handle the aftermath of the battle.
The Great Devourers merely monitored them, making no move to attack.
“Master!”
Although they hadn't known each other for long, Begrun was deeply grateful to Grimgor and truly regarded him as his teacher.
Kerrigan had harbored a deep hatred for Grimgor, so Begrun had assumed his teacher was a dead man. He never expected Grimgor to not only survive but also look after the very people Begrun had been willing to sacrifice his life to protect.
Seeing his reaction, Kerrigan's eyes sparkled. As expected, she found this new toy far more interesting than the already broken Grimgor.
“If you don't do it, you will die, and so will everyone else. I'll hack off your limbs, rip open your bellies, tear out your organs, slice off your heads, crush your skulls, and mash your brains to pieces.”
Kerrigan delivered these words in an incredibly innocent, cheerful voice.
Begrun froze in shock. “How can you say such horrific things so casually...”
【Elise scoffs in disdain】
Hearing this through the hive mind, Celia, Lisette, and even Elise found it utterly absurd and were left speechless.
Since the stage had already been perfectly set to win him over, there was absolutely no need to pressure him with such crude threats.
But this was simply due to Kerrigan's personality.
For Kerrigan, whose very foundation was built on violence, there was no such thing as a complex or delicate negotiation.
She simply crushed everything with raw power.
If she wanted something, she would claim it herself through victory.
The victor held all the rights, and the defeated had no choice but to obey.
“So, you went through all that trouble to keep them alive just for this? To use them as leverage to threaten me?”
Fortunately, Begrun saw through to the core of the matter.
Whether it was used as an incentive to win him over or as leverage to threaten him, the methods might differ, but the objective was the same.
As long as Begrun willingly joined the colony and cooperated, everything would be resolved.
‘To think my destiny would unfold like this.’
He was temporarily at a loss for words.
Just a few years ago, when he was still an ignorant prince, this was something he wouldn't have dared to even imagine.
His homeland had been trampled by the beastkin pouring in from the eastern plains, yet he had learned the true realm of martial arts from one of those very beastkin.
Then, he had fought side by side with them, only to be consumed by their common enemy, the abyssal demons.
‘But my ultimate goal hasn't changed.’
Whether he fought against the beastkin, or alongside them against the Great Devourer, his purpose had always remained the same.
He reasoned that if fighting alongside the Great Devourer still served that same purpose, then there was nothing he couldn't do.
Because he believed this was his destiny. He had already offered up his life to protect others; his body and soul were things he could cast aside at any moment.
“My body is already completely ruined. How do you even plan to use it?”
Ultimately, he gave up his resistance and lowered his head. Kerrigan's smile grew even wider.
Kerrigan finally had a toy of her own, one that could rival those enviable ones her sister Elise possessed.
“Then let's begin!”
Upon receiving Kerrigan's command, the Lictor cast a spell aimed at Begrun.
This spell was one Celia had created back when she was still a human mage, during her foolhardy attempt to invade and connect to the hive mind. It could forcibly integrate an external consciousness into the Great Devourer's hive mind.
His consciousness drifted away from his physical body, and Begrun screamed in agonizing pain. Just like his predecessors, Celia and Lisette, he was cast alone into a vast void.
At first, as he wandered through the void, all that greeted him were echoing howls amidst the mist.
The screech of scraping metal, the clash of hundreds of swords, and the raw, agonizing din of a battlefield erupted, as if painting a vivid picture of war.
As the noise coalesced into a massive, visible storm in the distance and began to take a concrete shape, Begrun felt utterly microscopic before this sheer magnitude, and he instinctively grit his teeth.
Blades swirled like dust storms, accompanied by countless eyeless yet smiling faces, joints that tore apart only to reassemble, and weapons protruding from between parted lips—all sweeping toward him like a howling gale.
At the heart of the storm, a colossal beast strode forward like a god of the battlefield.
A black exoskeleton covered its entire body like heavy armor, while countless limbs of beasts, insects, and humans writhed upon it.
Between the gaps of its massive-jawed helmet, its eyes gleamed with the primal instinct to hunt living prey.
This was a consciousness completely different from Elise's, who insisted on maintaining a human face even within the hive mind. This form was the very essence of the other queen, Kerrigan.
‘Could... could that be...’
Behind Kerrigan, another massive consciousness watched him in the form of a blurry, looming shadow.
If Kerrigan was a storm, then that consciousness was an existence akin to the sun, far beyond what any storm could ever reach.
That absolute consciousness looked at Kerrigan, who was currently rejoicing over her new toy, and then turned its gaze toward Begrun.
Begrun faintly sensed the will of that being, and he fell silent in sheer bewilderment.
He did not sternly interrogate Begrun, nor did He put him on trial.
He did not test Begrun with questions like “What are you?” either.
On the contrary, what Begrun felt was more like a father worried about his daughter, gently instructing him to take good care of his mischievous child.
Unlike Elise, Kerrigan actively sought out dangerous places to fight.
Just as she had once been slain by Grimgor, perilous moments were not entirely absent from her life.
Lin Miao, who worried about this side of Kerrigan, had always hoped someone could support her.
Begrun was the perfect candidate.
Just as Kerrigan had said, for a knight who had awakened for the sake of protection, there could be no better purpose than dedicating his strength to protecting Kerrigan.
【Kerrigan is filled with anticipation for the newly created body】
While Begrun's consciousness was adapting to the hive mind, his physical body was undergoing a complete reconstruction under Kerrigan's direction.
That battered human body was no longer needed.
The only reason Kerrigan had chosen a human form in the first place was to steal their techniques and make them her own.
It didn't have to be a human body, as long as it was stronger and cooler.
“It is too alien. There is a risk of adaptation failure.”
Unable to watch any longer, Elise interjected.
In terms of mutant creation and genetic design, Elise held an unrivaled position within the colony.
For while Kerrigan focused on heading out to battle, Elise dedicated all her capabilities to directing the massive colony from the nest and engineering new variants.
The issue Elise pointed out was that if Begrun's new body differed too drastically from his previous one, he might fail to adapt and be unable to unleash his true strength.
In fact, it was precisely with this in mind that Elise had allowed both Celia and Lisette to retain their original bodies, merely covering them with the carapace of symbiotic carapace ants to solve the issue.
“This is my own way.”
However, Kerrigan simply smiled at Elise's criticism and dismissed her opinion.
She believed that by using her own method, she could resolve the issue Elise raised while successfully completing the modification she desired.
‘What in the world is that...’
Lin Miao watched the new body of Begrun taking shape inside the massive cocoon, letting out an exclamation of awe.
As the body, which had consumed a massive amount of nutrients and resources, rapidly took shape and revealed itself, Begrun finally opened his eyes. He tore open the giant cocoon filled with viscous fluid, revealing his new form.
“Perfect.”
Her face cast in shadow, Kerrigan threw her head back, looking up at the colossal figure that finally stood before her, and let out a smile.
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