Chapter 64: The Queen Has the Better Organ [Review Bonus]

Raven spent the morning trying to prove that he did not need to attack a nest filled with hundreds of giant wasps.

He preferred for that to remain true.

They had returned to the feeding area shortly after sunrise, before the colony’s activity reached the level they had observed the previous afternoon. Roland found a depression between roots about one hundred and fifty yards from the tree being used as a food cache, close enough to lure a worker and far enough away that the nest would not be directly above them if something went wrong.

According to Roland.

Raven had learned that in Sablewood, that last part should always be considered provisional.

In front of them lay a small corpse.

Not human.

A six-legged creature resembling the rabbit they had found the previous day. Roland had caught it with a snare on their way back to camp, and Raven had finished killing it before they began preparing the bait.

Valeria crouched beside him.

"I still don’t understand why you needed my blood."

"I don’t."

She looked up.

"So you made me cut myself for entertainment."

Raven continued wrapping a rope around a root.

"I said I wanted to test whether they reacted more strongly to a mana source than to normal meat."

"Using my blood."

"Three drops."

"It is still my blood."

"You can make more."

Valeria stared at the three crimson drops Raven had mixed into the animal’s exposed tissue.

"That is not how it works."

"I thought you were a blood mage."

"That doesn’t mean I can reclaim every drop I leave behind like lost coins."

Raven finished the knot.

"Then they were three very brave drops."

Valeria stared at him for several seconds.

Roland laughed from behind a root.

"Don’t encourage him," she said.

"I didn’t say anything."

"I heard your face."

Raven checked the position one more time.

They had simplified the plan.

They did not need to kill a Soldier.

They did not need to approach the nest, and they definitely did not need to find out what that higher-caste signature FORGE had detected the previous day actually was.

They needed one mature worker.

One.

Raven had built a small natural corridor between the roots using rope and cut branches.

Nothing impressive.

Just enough to limit the angle from which a wasp could enter if it followed the bait.

Roland would remain thirty yards back with his bow.

Valeria would stay outside the main line and use Blood Magic only if reinforcements appeared.

Raven would kill the worker.

Preferably before it stung him again.

Toxin Adaptation had finished processing the Burstpod toxin overnight, but the memory of consuming enough provisions for three people was still recent enough that Raven had no interest in repeating the experiment.

He checked his status.

«Level: 8

Rank: Common

Mana: 18 / 18

Active Traits / Skills:

Predator’s Instinct

Ember Spark

Stonehide

Burst Step

Kinetic Acceleration

Predatory Regeneration

Toxin Adaptation»

The list was beginning to grow.

Raven did not necessarily consider that a good thing.

Every ability added options, but it also added costs, interactions, and new ways to use the wrong tool at the wrong time.

Stonehide increased weight.

Burst Step burned through mana quickly.

Kinetic Acceleration required contact and control.

Predatory Regeneration could drain his reserves if he abused it.

Toxin Adaptation improved his odds of survival.

It did not replace caution.

Power without understanding was simply a more elaborate form of suicide.

Raven closed the interface.

"Ready."

Valeria stepped back.

"I hope so."

"Your confidence moves me."

"You lost it when you stepped on a plant after spending half the day asking which plants you weren’t supposed to step on."

"It was hard to see."

"It was brown and yellow."

Raven looked around.

There were at least forty brown and yellow things within thirty feet.

Valeria followed his gaze.

"Fine. That was a weak argument."

Roland raised one hand from his position.

Movement.

Raven lowered his body.

The buzzing came a few seconds later.

An Arc Needle Wasp moved through the branches.

Large.

Mature.

The blue lines running through its abdomen pulsed with far greater intensity than those of the juvenile from the previous day.

The creature circled above the bait.

Once.

Twice.

It did not descend.

Raven remained still.

The wasp turned its head.

Its black mandibles opened slightly while all six legs remained tucked against its body.

Its antennae moved several times.

The blood had worked.

The worker descended.

It landed beside the corpse and began cutting meat.

Raven waited.

Ten seconds.

Fifteen.

He touched the rope.

Released it.

A flexible branch he had kept bent snapped free behind the wasp.

It was not meant to hit it.

Only to close off its easiest escape route.

The Arc Needle took flight.

Straight toward the corridor.

Raven moved.

Burst Step.

The distance vanished.

The wasp reacted almost simultaneously.

A blue flash lit the space between them.

Raven had been expecting the attack.

He shifted sideways just as the discharge struck a root behind him.

The wood exploded into small splinters.

Stronger than the juvenile.

The worker entered the corridor.

Raven attacked high.

Not the abdomen.

The neck.

The wasp changed direction midair with far more control than he had expected.

The knife only severed one leg.

The creature twisted and drove its stinger forward.

Raven raised Stonehide over his left hand.

CLACK.

The stinger struck stone.

The electrical discharge traveled through his arm anyway.

His muscles contracted violently.

Toxin Adaptation did nothing against electricity.

Raven filed that under obvious information he would have preferred not to verify personally.

The wasp tried to retreat.

Raven closed his mineralized hand around one of its legs.

Pulled.

The creature lost balance.

A second discharge ran through his fingers.

Pain.

He did not let go.

He turned his body and slammed the wasp into a root.

Once.

The creature tried to take flight.

Raven slammed it down again.

Its head struck wood, and one of its mandibles snapped shut inches from his wrist.

Raven changed his grip, positioned the blade beneath the joint between thorax and head, and drove upward.

The resistance gave way.

The body vibrated violently.

Then dropped.

«Target defeated.

Arc Needle Wasp — Level 13 — Awakened

Experience acquired.

Accumulated experience increased.»

There was no Level increase.

Raven registered that and kept working.

It made sense.

A creature five Levels above him did not necessarily need to push him immediately across another threshold, especially now that each Level seemed to require more experience than the one before it.

The experience did not disappear.

It accumulated.

Valeria stepped out of cover.

"That was unnecessarily close."

Raven flexed his hand.

It was still tingling.

"Next time will be less so."

"You always say something like that."

"It is usually true."

Roland approached.

"Is it intact?"

Raven turned the corpse over.

The abdomen had no punctures.

"Yes."