Chapter 69: I Sacrificed a New Power for My First Rifle Part

Five blood lances struck the damaged wing. One punched clean through, two tore across the membrane, and the others slammed into the joint.

The Queen tried to take flight, but only one side responded properly. Her body twisted off balance.

Raven used Burst Step and slipped beneath her as Stonehide spread across both forearms.

The Queen brought one leg down.

He blocked.

The impact forced him onto one knee, cracking the stone over his arm and sending pain through the bone beneath it. The leg came down again, but Raven moved aside just before it struck.

CRASH.

The floor caved in.

"Raven!"

"Fine."

"That did not look fine."

"I’m still moving."

"Your standards are absurd."

Then the wasps arrived.

Dozens of them.

Valeria turned toward the entrance, and Raven understood immediately. She could no longer help him directly without allowing the colony to overwhelm them.

"Take the entrance."

She looked at him.

"That leaves you alone."

"Yes."

"Raven."

"Trust me."

The words came out before he had time to think too much about them.

Valeria went still for a fraction of a second, then smiled.

"Try not to make me regret it."

Raven was already moving.

Behind him, the chamber turned red.

Valeria raised a wall of blood between the chamber and the tunnel. The first workers slammed into it hard enough to deform the barrier, but she closed both hands and dozens of crimson needles erupted outward.

Insect shrieks filled the passage.

Shells cracked.

Raven stopped paying attention.

The Queen was his.

The creature charged.

Raven waited until she was close.

Fifteen feet.

Twelve.

Nine.

Her abdomen lit up.

There.

Raven threw the knife.

Not at the Queen.

Upward.

Kinetic Acceleration activated the moment the blade left his hand, sending it through a mass of resin supporting a heavy section of the ceiling.

The support split.

The structure collapsed.

The Queen tried to evade, but she was too large. The falling mass struck one of her wings with a violent CRACK, and the joint gave way.

She crashed onto her side.

Raven moved in immediately.

Not the abdomen.

The thorax.

He drove the knife between two armored plates, but it failed to penetrate deeply enough.

The Queen thrashed and caught him in the side with one leg.

Raven went flying.

His shoulder hit the floor hard enough that something shifted out of place.

Not broken.

Partially dislocated.

Predatory Regeneration reacted immediately, and Raven felt his mana begin to drain along with the pain.

"Not now."

He didn’t know whether he could order the Trait to stop.

It didn’t matter.

He forced himself upright.

The Queen was already on him.

Her mandibles closed.

Raven shoved his left arm between them as Stonehide spread across it.

The jaws clamped down.

The mineralized layer cracked under the pressure.

The Queen was trying to sever the entire arm.

Raven used the trapped hand to hold her in place while his other found the knife.

He stabbed into one of her eyes.

The blade sank in.

Black fluid exploded across his face.

The Queen convulsed violently, forcing Raven to lose the knife. Her mandibles opened and he dropped free.

She staggered backward with half her face covered in dark fluid.

Raven drew a breath.

His shoulder burned. His left arm was nearly numb.

He checked his mana.

Eleven.

Still enough.

The Queen began charging electricity again.

Raven looked at the abdomen.

The organ was there.

He could not destroy it.

That removed the easiest solution.

Fine.

Then he would destroy everything else.

The discharge fired.

Raven used Burst Step and appeared at her side as electricity grazed past him. The air filled with the smell of scorched hair.

He grabbed one of her legs.

Kinetic Acceleration.

This time he didn’t push.

He pulled.

With one wing already destroyed, the Queen lost her balance.

Raven moved beneath the thorax, found the knife still lodged near the damaged eye, and ripped it free.

The Queen turned.

He was already on top of her head.

Stonehide covered his knee.

He drove it down.

The shell cracked.

Again.

The Queen tried to throw him off, but Raven shoved one hand into the ruined eye socket and held on.

Hot fluid coated his fingers.

The creature shrieked.

Raven raised the knife.

Base of the skull.

Not the abdomen.

He stabbed.

The blade sank roughly two inches.

The Queen convulsed.

Not enough.

Raven pushed deeper.

One of her legs struck his back, and he felt something split open beneath his clothing.

Heat spread across his skin.

Blood.

He didn’t let go.

He twisted the knife.

The Queen slammed herself into a wall, crushing Raven between armored shell and resin.

The impact drove the air from his lungs.

A rib protested sharply.

Maybe cracked.

The knife was still inside.

Raven gripped it with both hands and pushed.

The tip tore through deeper tissue.

The Queen began convulsing as uncontrolled electricity exploded from her body in violent blue arcs.

Raven’s muscles seized.

His teeth slammed together.

His fingers nearly released the knife.

Nearly.

"Die."

He twisted.

Something gave way.

The Queen went rigid.

Then collapsed.

Raven fell with her.

For one second, he heard nothing except the ringing inside his ears.

Then the system appeared.

Target defeated.

Arc Needle Queen — Level 22 — Awakened

Significant level disparity detected.

Experience acquired.

Accumulated experience threshold reached.

Level increased.

Level: 8 → 9

Raven took two slow breaths.

Level Nine.

Good.

A red explosion erupted behind him.

He turned.

Valeria was being forced backward. Wasp corpses surrounded the entrance in numbers that were becoming difficult to count, and blood ran down both of her arms.

Her own.

Her breathing had quickened.

"Raven."

"Dead."

"Excellent, because I’m starting to run out of elegant ways to tell you we need to leave."

Raven knelt beside the Queen.

Valeria stared at him.

"What are you doing?"

"Extracting the organ."

"Now?"

"Yes."

"Raven."

"I can’t carry the entire Queen."

She closed her eyes for a moment.

"I hate you a little."

"Get in line."

The remaining wasps slammed into the barrier again.

Valeria raised one hand.

"Thirty seconds."

"Enough."

Raven opened the anterior abdominal plate carefully.

He didn’t cut through it. He separated it.

FORGE immediately marked vessels, nerves, membranes, and the structures he needed to avoid.

Then the organ appeared.

It was far larger than the worker’s.

Much larger.

A blue structure roughly the size of a human heart, threaded with silver filaments. Even after the Queen’s death, small electrical discharges crawled across its surface.

Predation reacted.

So did FORGE.

Both Authorities appeared at the same time.

Trait source identified:

"High-Density Impulse Spark"

DEVOUR?

Potential host application:

Improved neural/mana activation speed.

Minor electrical discharge capability.

OR

HARVEST?

Potential FORGE application:

Precision activation component.

Prototype Rifle compatibility: 93%

Raven froze.

Behind him, Valeria killed another wasp.

"Twenty seconds."

He barely heard her.

DEVOUR would improve neural activation and mana activation speed. Burst Step could trigger faster. Stonehide. Ember Spark. Possibly future Traits as well.

The electrical discharge would give him another close-range option.

It wasn’t useless.

It wasn’t even minor.

He could make himself better immediately.

Then Raven looked at the other option.

HARVEST.

One component.

A single piece of a weapon that still did not exist.

A project sitting at zero point eight percent.

Something that might take weeks.

Months.

Maybe longer.

Raven remembered his first world.

Weapons built by people who had never possessed mana.

Metal.

Chemistry.

Engineering.

Thousands of small decisions combined into machines capable of killing from hundreds of yards away.

Veyr had monsters strong enough to split trees, people who threw magic, and creatures a normal bullet probably wouldn’t stop.

Raven had already decided that adapting did not mean abandoning what he knew.

It meant rebuilding it better.

He looked at DEVOUR.

Then at the organ.

And selected.

HARVEST.

The response was immediate.

Trait source preserved.

"High-Density Impulse Spark" Organ registered as FORGE component.

DEVOUR no longer available from this specimen.

Raven felt something strange.

Not pain.

Absence.

Predation had stopped recognizing the organ as food.

The choice was real.

He could not change his mind later. He could not use it to build the rifle and then consume whatever remained of the Trait.

FORGE demanded sacrifices.

Good.

That meant the decisions mattered.

Raven finished cutting the final filaments and placed the organ inside the prepared container.

The interface changed.

PROJECT: PROTOTYPE RIFLE

Core Component Acquired: 1 / 5

Activation System: AVAILABLE

Completion: 12.6%

Raven stared at the percentage.

Twelve point six.

The barrier behind them exploded.

Valeria stumbled back beside him.

"Raven!"

He sealed the container.

"Done."

"I sincerely hope that was worth it."

"Yes."

"How much?"

"Twelve point six."

Valeria stared at him.

A Soldier pushed through the remains of the barrier.

She launched a blade of blood without looking away from Raven.

The creature’s head separated from its body.

"After almost dying inside an insect nest."

Raven carefully stored the organ.

"We’re making progress."

"Your enthusiasm is disturbing."

"We need to leave."

"Finally, something sensible."

They ran.

Escaping was less elegant than entering.

Raven preferred to describe it as efficient.

Valeria collapsed a tunnel behind them with an explosion of compressed blood, while Raven used Ember Spark on a section of dry resin. The fire forced part of the colony to change routes and bought them enough time to reach the waste conduit.

Three workers still caught up.

Two died before reaching the exit.

The third emerged from the conduit and immediately took an arrow through the head.

Roland was already waiting.

"Does that mean it went well?"

Raven ran past him.

"Run."

Roland asked no further questions.

That was personal growth too.

They didn’t stop moving until the buzzing had faded enough to become part of the forest again.

Only then did Valeria lean against a tree.

Raven checked their surroundings before sitting down.

Everything hurt.

Three cuts crossed his back, one rib was probably cracked, and his shoulder was slowly shifting back into place under the work of Predatory Regeneration.

His mana was low.

And the hunger was returning.

Again.

Valeria looked at him.

"I’m not giving you my food."

"I wasn’t going to ask."

Roland opened a bag.

"I am giving you food because I’d rather not watch you try to eat a poisonous squirrel out of desperation."

Raven accepted the dried meat.

"Reasonable decision."

Valeria pointed toward the container.

"So now you have one piece."

Raven pulled out the map.

"One of five."

"Please tell me the other four aren’t inside giant colonies."

"No."

Some of the tension left her shoulders.

Raven pointed toward the next location.

"The next one is in Mirevale."

Valeria stared at the map.

"The swamp."

"Yes."

"Where the parasitic disease is."

Raven slowly looked up.

"You said ’disease.’"

Valeria smiled.

"I was trying not to ruin the moment."

Raven remained silent.

Roland stopped eating.

Raven looked down at the map again.

Swamp.

Disease.

Parasitic.

Then he looked at Valeria.

"What kind of parasite?"

Valeria’s smile widened slightly.

Raven decided he did not like that smile at all.