"oh!"
"already?"
"seems like it has gotten bigger"
The new raid team stopped on their tracks sooner than they expected, within the new raid team some of the ones that participated in the original one was mixed in there. This wasn't the correct time, it's supposed to be encountered later and not now.
"ten times bigger, from what I'm seeing"
"I don't sense anything from the inside"
For a hive it was unprotected, it's as if it was a dried out fruit and the insides were rotten but still they heard the familiar heart beat. It's still alive, It could quietly produce a fifty or so demons in mere seconds without the raid team even realizing it.
"should we.. burn it or something?"
"wait"
Everyone on the frontal part of the raid team turned their heads towards someone, they knew who he was, popular among the females and sometimes even males... Someone important, with powers capable of everything that falls in the line of absolute destruction.
Typical and yet not so, black hair, dark red eyes, sharp eyes. That one character you often see in BL (boys love) cartoon, that one hot edgy character that every simps would die for, yes that's the one.
"isn't it weird"
"eek!"
A female mage suddenly screamed as her shadow materialized into a person, she was scared at first but when she looked who that person was, what's the right word? She was fangirling like her life depended on it. As the person went by her, his robes scraped her own robes, just one slight touch, not skin to skin but cloth to cloth and that was enough to make her hug her knees as she desperately hid her red hot face.
Everyone backed off, unintentionally making a pathway for the person walking. His boots silenced the ground, his black robes swayed from the underground winds and his staff that housed some sort of black crystal gave of a powerful aura. As he got closer, his face became more clear. A well defined face, a body that probably contained a six pack, and a fair skin that even a hundred layers of makeup wouldn't mimic it.
"D-Duke Raymond there you are, I wondered where you were" the female knight greeted as she continued to carry Ferris like a luggage
"don't you think it's weird, the fact that we are still standing here peacefully without any resistance?"
"well.. isn't it gre-
"the placement of this hive is illogical, it holds little military advantage because it's very close to the capital so obviously the king would do everything to destroy it, for example right now, we are trying destroy it so all this effort of making an entire hive is meaningless due to its early end because of us"
"w-wai-
"then again... these are demons we're are facing, killing a hundred thousand would be like killing one soldier in an entire army to them. Obviously these demons are smart, there are hundreds of demon wars that already happened, all of them bringing an entire world to its knees, for whatever motive they have for making a hive here, we don't know why"
"you done?... alrig-
"and who is that man your carrying?"
The female knight finally had it, for one second she almost thought of breaking Ferris in half out of sheer annoyance and anger but that wasn't necessary.
"forget it, in one go let the mages fire at the same time so we could destroy it in one shot"
"sounds like a plan to me"
"what spells do we use"
"anything that destroys I guess"
The mages prepared their spells, it seems everyone is anticipating a good result. Three, two, and one, boom. The once massive hive was shattered into many large pieces without any form of resistance, they just stood there, casually prepared their spells and fired. Just like that, their objective was over sooner than they expected, too soon and too easy.
Duke Raymond seemed weirded out, something has to happen, atleast something after that. He checked everywhere for any life signs of demons, none, even if the heart beated inside which indicated that the hive was still operational didn't do anything besides powering the hive itself. Yes the hive could've made thousands of demons the moment the raid team went inside the abandoned mine and yet it didn't.
A nose breaking smell slowly rised up from the destroyed hive like smoke rising from a dead campfire. If anything, this is the only thing that damaged the party, in their nostrils of course.
"tch..the smell... Everyone! Follow me!, oh Duke Raymond carry him for me please"
"why should I?" Raymond asked while taking a single step backwards
"special person, it's an order from the king himself"
"wha-
"you stay behind while we explore the hive" the female knight said as she went inside the broken hive with everyone else
The hive was shattered into giant pieces as if it was glass, chunks of it continued to burn and some straight up turned into ashes. It's big but it shouldn't be too much of a hassle when hundreds of adventurers are exploring it.
***
"hey, don't you think that Raymond is kinda your type of husband?" someone asked
"wha- no.. too much of a bad boy, I prefer cute ones"
"then don't you think that guy you were carrying was kind of cute?"
"yeah... someone like that"
-slice-
"!!"
"!"
Just right in front of them was a sword cutting down the flesh walls of the hive, it startled them but the sword was recognizable. A man in armor ripped through the flesh wall like hard butter and blood splattered everywhere staining the already dirty walls of the hive.
"hey! Don't go and slice everything, you might accidentally hurt someone" the female knight ordered with obvious anger towards the man suddenly appearing
"sorry, couldn't help it.. This hive is huge, it feels like it would take five hours to fully explore even with this large raid team.. Oh! And this"
The female knight's eyes got bigger, it looked like a baby, no and a newborn baby no, something more grotesque than that. A deformed fetus, the man held it from the tail like an apple.
"it's a demon!" the female knight said in surprise
"we've found an entire room filled up with..." these" it's disgusting honestly, I've already asked a mage to burn them all up is that alright?"
"y-yes"
The female knight was hesitant on approving that request, burning fetuses was obviously wrong and disgusting on itself let alone an entire room with just these fetuses but then again, they are just demons to be used as grunts that live to kill and die.
Everyone traveled in random corridors, at the start you always saw a raid member go by but as they went deeper inside the destroyed hive, seeing someone became a bit rare, only seeing a person or two every thirty seconds or even five minutes of walking aimlessly. Even so, It's all fun and games until you come across something that isn't friendly.
[End]