Two large pillars reach high up into the ceiling, with some fancy fire pits and molding, it really looked nice and modest. Two large bees guarded the front entrance, they were ones Lux saw before. They wore black obsidian scaled armor that went up to their wings and had clad-like antennas.
With thick sharp stingers and muscular legs, they were practically super bees. Lux scratched his head but was determined to kill the queen.
He knew it was going to be tricky to get rid of them but Lux had a plan. He walked up to the two giant bees, face as calm as ever. He placed himself around 20 meters away from where the giant bees stood. The bees looked at him with a confused face, they raised their stingers and buzzed at him.
Lux let them run at him but the second they got to the 5-meter mark, a whole group of pellets ran through their armor as if it was like water. The pellets didn't do much except anger the bees but they heavily damaged their obsidian armor. The bees ran at him with their stingers in a rage.
Lux was forced to dodge.
But it was fine, he moved to the side and used Swipe to see their weak points. There were only two points of weakness on each of them. Unfortunately, they were on the shoulders, the hardest place to reach. The bees turned around swiftly and rushed Lux from the air with their clad armored wings.
They crashed into the floor like anchors and swung their heavy stingers at Lux. He ducked and jumped up and in between their legs. They jumped back swiftly before he could do anything.
"Dang! I'm going to need to go even faster" Lux clenched his fist.
The bees smashed the ground as flying rocks flew in the air, they smacked them into flying bullets. They shot directly at Lux, he tried to dodge but was still hit by multiple rocks. Blood dripped from his calves and arms.
One bee screamed as a golden ball formed from its mouth.
Boom!
A golden beam shot across the area, cutting through anything that it touched like a rail gun. Lux ducked the incoming bee but was worried Aria wouldn't know what to do.
But he was wrong, Aria summoned her white quartz knife and created a giant gust of wind that repelled the beam of gold. A small barrier was created from the gust of wind that formed around Aria like a shield, outside the shield small lines of quartz white shot like thin knives.
Another windshield formed around Lux that protected him from the white lines. They penetrated through the tough armor of the bees like jelly. Golden blood ran down the broken obsidian armor.
"Screech!" Both of the bees screamed in pain but were ultimately fine.
"Woah, that was amazing!" Lux stared back at Aria in awe, he wondered what type of rune would be that powerful enough to work as an offensive and defensive spell cast.
Lux didn't linger around and jumped out of his windshield and ran at the bees in confidence.
He reached a close distance and leaped forward at the bee, it tried to block but Lux broke its defenses with a mighty blow. He brought his body closer to the bee. He was now in their face, one slip up and he would be skewered. He reached with both hands and summoned the dragon tooth dagger.
His brain screamed from overuse and his muscles ached from the position he put himself in. His heart pumped like an engine and his eyes dilated in the midst of adrenaline.
Bam!
He stabbed the sharp dagger into the shoulder of the bee and unsummoned it. Hand in its shoulder bones, Lux summoned the squid dagger and used Water Slice.
Shing!
The bee fell to the ground, blood exploded from its side as a jumble of guts ran like water out of its abdomen. Lux rolled over it to dodge another attack from the other guard. Lux's body spun at extreme speeds as he flipped over the dead corpse.
But its stinger was still in course to hit Lux fatally.
Another group of pellets ran across the other bee but its stinger still didn't slow down and reached down onto Lux's side. Lux raised his hand and yanked the dead corpse of the other bee and threw it at the bee assaulting him.
Clack!
A deep cut opened from Lux's hip, fortunately, it wasn't fatal. Lux kicked his legs up and jumped back in pain. He groaned in pain but stood firmly, his eyes flickered up and down in the middle of a trance. He breathed in and out and gripped his dagger at hand.
He slashed at the bees, its stinger clanged against Lux's weapon.
Clang!
Clack!
Clang!
Lux fought the elite bee in a rough sword duel, it flew around in the air which made it difficult to keep up with but Lux managed. His muscles were strained to the absolute limit, he couldn't keep fighting. He jumped straight towards the bee which took it by surprise, he jabbed his dragon tooth dagger at the insect's head.
It dodged and kicked Lux back, maintaining its distance while it recovered from its surprise. Lux clenched his gut but didn't stop. He lashed out in a different manner of ways but never got close enough to actually hit the bee.
Lux furrowed his brows, he couldn't kill the elite bee.
He signaled to Aria and now she entered the fight. Lux wasn't keen on using her since she was a little girl and by no means did she need to fight but after her demonstration of how powerful her knife was, he let his morals slide.
Aria summoned her pure white quartz knife and readied herself.
More clanging was heard, Lux and Aria both attacked from different angles but the bee still was managing to keep up with the both of them. Aria had very smooth swordsmanship, dancing around like a ballerina with her pure white knife flashing up and down like lightning.
Lux admitted that even though he wasn't that good with a knife or dagger, he envied Aria and strangely felt proud.
Lux and Aria weren't swinging at the bee in vain though, Lux was waiting for his water slice to cool down and possibly waited for the rune Aria used to cool down also. But for such a powerful rune to cool down so quickly wasn't very realistic, anything that was very powerful always had a downside to it.
So the hope of the rune cooling down wasn't very high. Lux was already in much pain and exhausted, he felt like gravity was pulling him down.
More dodging and swiping were heard, the bee seemed like it could keep on fighting all day moving around at very fast speeds with no sweat. Lux and Aria were actually still losing to the bee, its speed was too fast and its strength was very high. It had perfect stats.
Lux clenched his fist, he just had to wait a little longer. The longer he stalled the higher chance he had of killing the bee.
Lux's body ached, but he still waited. He dodged every attack from the bee and endured the exhaustion of his own body.
"Just a bit longer" Lux muttered under his breath.
Aria slashed away elegantly, with a weird look on her face. It seemed like she was worried. The bee attacked and defended at the same time, it was astonishing. If Lux didn't have Aria's help he would have already died to the insanely powerful guard bee.
Lux was lucky to kill their partner but that was only because of Water Slice, without it, he was a pebble in comparison.
The grueling battle didn't seem to end for Lux's mind at all, he felt if he stopped at all he would surely break down.
It was now time.
In a moment's breath, a steamy piece of meat appeared in the air. Lux jumped at it with his mouth open, his eyes pierced right through the piece of meat like daggers. He nabbed the piece of meat right out of the air.
The disgusting taste of the fish filled Lux's mouth, almost making him barf it out, he cringed for a second and swallowed the disgusting meat. A surge of energy rejuvenated Lux's body, almost completely healing the deep cut on his side.
"Alright you damn bee, now we can fight with our strength par on par!" Lux's dagger sliced around at high speeds which took the oblivious bee by surprise.
With Aria and his energized body, Lux was now able to do some damage to the bee. They were just small cuts but there was some progress. Lux chipped away at the bee, the bee was now enraged.
Its strikes were more aggressive, Lux smiled, his theory was correct. The two guard bees weren't actual bees and were just empty shells controlled by the queen. The reason he knew this was that he couldn't sense them when using Swipe.
For the whole battle, Swipe was rendered useless against the bees. At first, Lux didn't understand why but if his theory proved to be correct, it would make a lot of sense.
But what didn't make sense was why this guard was more powerful than its partner, it was as if the queen didn't want to lose it.
"There must be something special about this one" Lux fell back from the fight, trying to observe more of the bee.
As before, the bee didn't follow and stayed right at the gate. It starred Lux with great hatred.
"I don't understand, what's so special about this one other than its partner?" No matter how much Lux starred he couldn't see why the bee was any different than its comrade.
Then he focused on the bee's worn-out armor, it was filled with tons of holes. It was useless to still wear it, the only thing it did was serve as a burden in their battle. Yet the queen never let its pawn take the broken armor off.
"Hmm, I wonder…" Lux thought, he turned around towards Aria.
"Hey Aria, can you shoot some rocks at that bee over there" Lux pointed.
She nodded and shot a dozen rocks at the bee, the rocks were incredibly fast and hit the bee at an alarming rate. It wasn't fast enough to dodge all of them because of the armor-wearing it down.
"Heh, there must be some goodies in the armor" Lux scratched his chin.
The best part of it was that the bee never followed him any farther than the gate, so Lux was always free to flee if it got too hot.
A few days passed of continuous fighting the bee, at this point the queen had a very strong hatred for Lux but never went out of her domain which was even more convenient to Lux. But he still thought it was strange that none of the other bees had come to defend the queen.
He first thought that maybe they were searching for him but wouldn't the first thing to do is check if the queen was okay? The queen had been shut up on her throne so how would she eat? All these questions ran through Lux's mind but he had to set them aside.
It was now the third day of fighting the queen's pawn, Aria had already given up and only ever fought when Lux was in a pickle. But now because of all this fighting helped Lux develop a strange fighting style that made it easier to fight the bee.
And after some more adjusting, it was formed into a unique skill called Rant.
It was much different to Swipe, having strange statistics next to it almost like a ranking system.
It read:
Fighting Style: Bee Lightning Flight- Class: Unique
Power: Bronze rank-252P
Defense: Bronze rank-111D
Movement: Silver rank-541M
Footwork: Bronze rank- 125F
Coordination: Bronze rank- 187C
Fighting style ranking: #17113- Mediocre
…
"Bee Lighting Flight? That's the fighting style I just created?" Lux scrolled down.
"17,113? Hmmm, this must be a whole new part of skills" Lux scratched his chin while reading the text.
Lux closed the tab while thinking, it didn't really matter what it said. Lux got up and looked back at Aria sleeping in a small sleeping bag.
"Meh, I don't really need you for this" Lux patted Arias's head and jumped down from a small cave. He walked in front of a hall of pillars leading down to a big gate.
The guard sat there in the front like always, staring at Lux with hatred. Lux casually walked up to the bee with an emotionless face.
The bee swung its stinger at Lux madly, Lux dodged easily and summoned his dragon dagger. With great precision, Lux jabbed the dagger at the bee with great speed. The bee dodged and turned its stinger around towards Lux's direction charging up some golden yellow particles.
"Shit".
Lux ducked really quickly as a golden beam shot over his head. The bee moved its stinger around following Lux. Lux moved around like he was flying, not bound by the laws of gravity.
The beam died down and the bee backed down to regain its energy, Lux didn't stand idly and dashed at the bee. Then 13 white streaks broke through the air, Lux's heart leaped. He was forced to dodge, the bee seemed content with Lux's decision to fall back.
BLAM!
A large bright golden beam shot through the air towards Lux unexpectedly, Lux was now about to get incinerated into ash. The beam shot at the speed of light, there was no way to dodge the attack, he was going to die.
Nothing ran through Lux's mind, he was in a total white expression.
The queen laughed to herself.
"Stupid human, even an Origin can't dodge this attack, he's nothing but a small rat" She had been saving up her mana to cast this spell, thanks to the human taking breaking every so and then she was able to gather enough to create such an advanced spell.
Then the queen's eyes dilated, Lux smiled.
"He has the gall to smile right to his death!? what a little…" The Queen gritted her teeth.
"No, you can't dodge that. There's no need to worry about some petty smile".
And yet.
Lux dove around the beam and ran around it, running towards the bee.
"How!? Ther… You can't dodge that! That's not possible!! They can't do that!" The queen shouted, clenching her fist.
She couldn't deny what she was seeing, they had really dodged her spell. Lux jumped at the bee and summoned the squid dagger.
"Checkmate"
Splat!