Chapter 1145: Living Barricade
Meanwhile, the situation was actually worse for everyone outside.
Luca, who’d already retreated several paces after his first attempt to approach, stood there looking thoroughly concerned as he watched the swarm. "I think we should stay back," he said. "They’re really territorial right now."
The bees were behaving even more aggressively toward everyone outside than they had inside the room. Hundreds of them maintained an unnervingly disciplined formation in front of the medical bay entrance, creating a dense wall of vibrating wings and tiny stingers that made it abundantly clear they had no intention of letting anyone through.
"Brother..." Ollie looked from the bees to the closed door, worry written all over his face. "Is this actually okay?"
The dungeon owner honestly didn’t know how to answer that.
Fortunately, someone else did.
"D-29," Xavier called from one step in front of Luca, subtly positioning himself between his little wife and the increasingly agitated swarm. "You still have access to their vital signs, right?"
"Yes, Permanent Benefactor!"
"Are they both stable?"
There was a brief pause before D-29 answered.
"Yes! According to the scans, both are stable. Though..." The little system sounded oddly uncertain. "For some reason, one of them keeps having elevated and rather erratic heartbeats."
Xavier’s gaze shifted ever so slightly.
That was... peculiar.
Still, he merely nodded.
"Thanks."
Only then did he turn toward Luca, who looked suspiciously like someone whose intrusive thoughts had just been discovered.
"I have a feeling you’re thinking about porting inside."
The little chipmunk immediately straightened.
"I wasn’t..."
His husband simply looked at him.
The golden-eyed cadet quietly looked away.
"The chances of you getting inside are one hundred percent," Xavier continued calmly. "The chances of immediately getting stung are probably just as high."
He glanced at the swarm.
"Sure, we could repel them with spiritual barriers, but all that’d do is agitate them even more."
Luca’s shoulders visibly drooped.
He really had been thinking about doing exactly that.
Unfortunately, just as the dungeon owner reluctantly accepted that there wasn’t much they could safely do at the moment, Elder Pao Xi suddenly spoke.
"I say we call to warn those two instead."
Everyone turned toward him.
"And hope they’re carrying enough rations."
"Huh?"
Ollie blinked. The moment the word "rations" reached his ears, his back inexplicably tingled.
Elder Wei slowly nodded in agreement.
"He’s right."
Then, looking thoughtfully at the unusually defensive swarm, he added, "Because if it’s already like this... then don’t you think it’s about time?"
"Time for what?"
The question came from the hastily approaching Duke Leander, who’d only just arrived and was still trying to piece together exactly why an entire army of bees appeared to be laying siege to the medical bay.
Not in front of his precious son!
"Papa!"
Luca instinctively started toward his father, only to stop when Elder Pao Xi calmly delivered the sentence that made everyone freeze.
"Well, the Queen Bee is probably about to hatch."
"!!!"
__
Obviously, news like that had to be relayed as soon as possible.
Surprisingly, actually, more like unsurprisingly, the best person to do it ended up being Kyle.
Well, who else?
Among everyone, he would inevitably stay as close to the important parts of the discussion instead of wandering into whatever wild tangent.
Ollie would’ve spent half the call excitedly screeching before remembering to mention the important part, and Luca would’ve probably asked whether there was enough food and water inside before getting around to the actual warning.
Then there was Princess Kira, who enthusiastically volunteered, but everyone silently agreed that the resulting conversation would likely consist of dramatic gasps, excited grunting, and repeated demands that the entire event be properly documented for posterity. As for the Imperial Crown Prince...
Well.
Unless they wanted the extent of his warning to amount to, "She’s coming," spoken like the harbinger of some ancient reckoning, then perhaps it was best to leave him out of it.
Naturally, none of those thoughts were voiced aloud.
Instead, everyone hurried off to notify the others while Kyle took out his terminal and immediately called his older brother, silently hoping Killian would answer before their mother inevitably made her way over to the medical bay as well.
The adjutant impatiently tapped his foot against the ground while waiting for the call to connect.
Come on...
Pick up.
Just pick up already.
Thankfully, the projection flickered to life a few moments later.
Killian appeared on the screen wearing nothing but his pajamas. No suit, no tie, no pins, but his honest-to-goodness pajamas.
"...?"
Kyle actually paused.
His brother almost always looked impeccably put together, saying it was in case he was needed for an emergency, yet the person staring back at him now looked thoroughly disheveled. His long blue hair was completely out of place, as though he’d spent the past several minutes repeatedly running both hands through it.
The younger Nox quickly set that thought aside.
There were more important things to discuss.
"Listen, brother," he said immediately, trying to raise his voice over the incessant buzzing filling the room. "You need to start making preparations right away. The Elders think that with the bees’ behavior, the Queen is about to ha—"
Crack.
It wasn’t particularly loud.
Under normal circumstances, it probably would’ve gone completely unnoticed.
Yet somehow...
The moment that tiny sound echoed through the room, every single bee abruptly fell silent.
The deafening buzzing that had dominated the medical bay only a heartbeat earlier vanished so completely that the lone cracking sound rang through the room with startling clarity.
"..."
Nobody spoke.
Killian immediately turned away from the projection and looked toward Jax.
The hardened shell that had long since become a home atop the redhead’s head had finally begun to split apart.
A tiny fracture slowly spread across its surface.
Nothing else happened.
Well, at least not immediately.
The room remained eerily still as everyone, likely even the bees, unconsciously held their breath, waiting to see what would happen next.
"Is it—"
Jax, however, never finished the sentence.
For just as he spoke, his eyes suddenly erupted with light.
Not merely glowing.
Radiating.
Brilliant light spilled from his eyes before rapidly spreading throughout his entire body until the room was flooded with such overwhelming brilliance that Killian instinctively threw an arm over his face. Even those watching through the call’s projection had to shield their own eyes as the screen became little more than blinding white.
The light lingered only for a moment.
Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared...
It faded.
When everyone’s vision finally cleared, Jax was no longer standing.
He’d dropped to his knees.
"Jax!"
Killian was already moving before he’d consciously decided to, crossing the distance between them almost instantly.
For those witnessing it for the very first time, everything unfolding before them felt uncertain.
Unpredictable.
Almost frightening.
Yet completely unbeknownst to every anxious soul gathered outside the medical bay, elsewhere within the dungeon space, one guardian beast who’d been peacefully lounging around after the exhausting labor of existing for yet another day finally paused in the middle of chewing on his favorite dandelions.
He slowly lifted his head.
Turned toward the direction of the medical bay.
Clicked his tongue once.
Hmph.
Took her so long.
