---
She vanished in a flash by using her Rootstep skill. The next second she reappeared near the upper arch, breathing hard. "Heal the wounded," she ordered. "Everyone else... attack him from all directions."
The Frog Man looked up at her, blood trailing from his leg, tongue lashing wildly now. "You’re quick," he crooned. "That makes want you more."
"I’m not prey," she said, her chest heaving. "I am the master of blades."
He grinned. "Then let’s play, blade master. I’ll split you open nice and wide... and bury myself in the warmth you deny ."
A group of frogkin soldiers behind him. They were grotesque, oily skinned servants wearing armor made of swamp shells and bone. They stepped forward, muscles tensed.
"Master, allow us," one of them croaked by cracking his knuckles. "We’ll butcher these insects for you."
Another added with a rasping chuckle, "Young Master loves to play with weak won. He’ll break her bones, then break her mind."
The leader raised a slimy hand without turning. "No."
The soldiers froze.
"I will deal with the blade queen myself," he said, voice low and dripping with lustful nace. "I like it when they squirm."
One of the older servants laughed from the shadows. "The Young Master’s in his mood again. When he toys with females, not even bones remain. Poor little ant bitch. She’ll scream before the end."
Another spat toward the ants gathering below the arch. "Oi! You worthless bugs! Slender yourselves and crawl to your new master!"
He puffed his chest mockingly. "It’s an honor to be crushed under a great prince of the swamp! Now kneel and watch your queen get split open!"
The other frogkin jeered, their voices echoing across the chamber.
The FrogMan leapt. The ugly fat frog ca like a boulder dropped from the sky. It was huge, wet, and full of malice.
His leap shattered the bark ceiling of the upper hive, his bloated fra crashing through reinforced roots and fungal support pillars. The very floor of the Crimson Nest cracked beneath him, sending a tremor through every tunnel.
Akayoroi spun, landing low in a defensive crouch.
Around her, half her assassins repositioned with trained precision. Not one scream, not one wasted breath. Only sharp clicks of mandible-speech and antennae signals flickering in the dark.
The Queen’s war-command had been given. And her assassins would die for it.
"Flank formations. Divide and bleed him!"
Six ant wons dashed forward with thin, shadow painted limbs slicing toward the intruder from both sides.
The Frog-Man croaked, his stomach bulging grotesquely. He rotated, sweeping one arm and smashing two attackers into the wall like pulp. Another leapt toward his face—only for his tongue to lash out, curl around her waist, and slam her into the floor hard enough to splinter chitin.
He bit down on a third assassin mid flight.
CRUNCH.
Green fluid burst from his mouth. He chewed twice and swallowed her chest.
"Too easy," he spat, licking his teeth. "You’re sending snacks. It would taste better if she had so milk." The ugly fat frog says with a lustful face.
Akayoroi snarled. "Draw him out. Trap Corridor Seven. Prepare burst lines!"
The hive’s roots trembled.
Three of her best warriors—Vel, Shae, and Naaro led him deeper, backward through the defensive tunnel. They bled deliberately by dragging crimson trails across the walls.
The Frog-Man followed, laughing between slaps of his belly and tongue. "Little ants run so fast. All I want’s a cuddle... Just one. Maybe a lick too."
He turned suddenly and spat. A thick, toxic blob of bile slamd into the wall near Naaro.
HISSSSS!
The fungus blackened instantly. "Rot-spit," Shae growled, eyes narrowing. "Toxic class confird."
Naaro spun back in Akayoroi’s direction. She was breathing heavily. "Queen, I am sorry, I can’t fulfil my promise. I will die with dignity. This ugly bastard has long range acid."
"I saw it," Akayoroi called back, already weaving hand signs. "Get him to the burstline. I’m ending this. I won’t let my people die."
The trap corridor was old, hidden. It looped behind the honey thorned roots and connected to the larva vault.
Dozens of explosives had been planted there just last season. They were enough to blast half of the tunnels, but Akayoroi had practiced a forbidden technique called Broodburst.
Brood Burst – Active
Forces larvae shells to rupture on contact.
Range: Local tunnel network
Collateral: High
"Now," she whispered, closing her eyes. Her abdon tensed. Her glands flexed. She triggered it. Dozens of unseen eggshells shimred along the tunnel wall.
Then it ignited.
BOOM
A cascading chain of biological detonations ripped through the Frog Man’s position. Mucus. Fla. Chitin. Screams. The Hive shook.
Smoke choked the air. Cracked walls glowed red. The floor of the tunnel hissed and stead with ruptured egg shells mist.
Silence followed. For three seconds. Then ca the voice. It was Low. Wet. Laughing. "That... that tickled."
Sothing massive moved in the smoke. A shape limped forward. It was Burnt, Bleeding, But alive.
The Frog-Man staggered out of the inferno, steam rising from his oozing fra like smoke from a dying furnace.
Half his chest was gone, not just burned, but ripped open down to the ribs. The scorched flesh on his left side was blackened and bubbled, patches of skin completely gone, exposing raw, twitching muscle that sizzled with every breath. Bone glead beneath the carnage—cracked and charred. His ribs were visible like ivory spears poking through lted at. With blood a thick, jelly-like fluid leaked from his open wound, reeking of decay and pond rot.
His right eye had been reduced to pulp, boiled within its socket, the orb collapsed inward, leaving behind a crater of scorched tissue and glistening pus. The skin around it was peeled back in blistered ribbons, nerves twitching uncontrollably as if screaming without sound.
His tongue, that monstrous slab that had mocked and violated the air just monts ago, now hung in two shredded pieces. It was split down the center like a serpent’s forked tongue. It dangled limply from his gaping maw, twitching spasmodically, trailing blood and viscous spit onto the floor with each wobbling step.
User Comments
0 comments from readers