Chapter 116: Old Acquaintance
Aksel had been part of the Biohive Defense Squad for three years now.
Three long years of smoke, blood, and bootlicking. He had climbed the ranks not through valor or strength, but by claiming the achievements of his more capable teammates. He told himself it was cleverness—strategy. Why break your bones when someone else could bleed for your promotion?
And it had worked... until now.
Now, that same teammate he once overlooked—mocked, even—had become the Prince of the Fiefdom. A living legend. Worshipped by the masses. Adored by the peasantry. Feared by the aristocracy. Nioh, the boy with the quiet eyes and cracked hands, was now a name sung in war chants and whispered in prayers.
And where was Aksel?
In the slaughter pit.
Sent to die on the outskirts with the rest of the expendables—mostly warriors from the outer districts, whose only crime was being born on the wrong side of the hive wall.
He chuckled bitterly, raising his greataxe as the horizon pulsed with a hellish yellow light. The sky shimmered, and the swarm poured over the horizon like a plague given wings.
"Life’s really funny," he muttered to himself, sparks flying as he split an Electric Bee clean in half. Its charred wings twitched spasmodically before the rest of its body hit the ground.
"They just keep coming! Thousands of them!" he roared, spinning to cleave through another wave.
A sharp zap cracked against his armor, followed by another. One of the warriors in his unit dropped, screaming as two bees latched onto his leg and shoulder, discharging raw current into his body.