As the massive swarm of hundreds of tunnel bees flew out of the nest Marcus called over Blitz and Roxene who had been resting nearby for backup.
'Well, their response escalated a bit faster than I thought it would.'
The massive swarm of bees soon grew to cover the entire sky as over a thousand of the large tunnel bees began grouping into formations as they prepared to attack the intruders that had killed their brethren.
However, even in face of the massive swarm Marcus only smiled as he looked at each bee as if they were floating experience points.
Soon Blitz with Roxene still on his back arrived and as they did the swarm of bees began their assault. Except, unlike before the bees split into twelve distinct squadrons each lead by a captain and began attacking from different directions.
Marcus was actually pretty impressed by their tactics since it made it much more difficult to kill them all with one big attack.
'Blitz and Roxene make sure Lilia stays safe but allow a few bees to attack her, I am going to take out the general.'
And with that Marcus grew six wings made of iron feathers and flew up into he sky to take out the biggest threat.
Of course, the tunnel bee general was not going to allow Marcus to just come and kill it and one of the squadrons went to intercept him.
'As if that will stop me.'
Alas a single squadron of only around a hundred bees was not going to slow down Marcus as he began spinning and enveloped himself in darkness as he cast his tier four spell darkness drill.
Cutting through the bees like they were made of paper, Marcus sliced through the entire squadron in his way before appearing in front of the general bee that was around the size of a rhinoceros.
Seeing this many of the bees stopped their attack on Marcus' companions, turning around to defend their commander from the threat that had just blown through one of their squadrons.
The general tunnel bee now facing off against Marcus began beating its wings rapidly as a wind barrier formed around it and two wind blades flew towards Marcus.
Seeing the wind blades coming for him Marcus simply swung his scythe once and cut through them thinking they were far weaker than the ones he had to deal with when fighting against Jared.
The general tunnel bee seeing that its first attack had failed, reared back and charged at Marcus.
At the same time the bees that had diverted towards Marcus to back up their general had arrived, and many of them were coming at Marcus stinger first.
Except as the bees closed in on their quarry Marcus suddenly disappeared, leaving many of the bees to crash into each other some even stabbing their stingers into their allies.
The bees then began looking for the enemy that had attacked their nest but found nothing.
With Marcus having vanished the bees redirected their attention back to the three beings on the ground that were currently fighting off their comrade's attacks.
However, as the bees began to fly back towards Lilia, Roxene, and Blitz, Marcus reappeared right next to the tunnel bee general and with a slash of his scythe cut right through its barrier and cleaved it in half from head to stinger.
As the bees' leader fell, they turned from an organized army to a frenzied swarm most of them trying to kill Marcus for the death of their general.
Unfortunately for the angry bees coming after him, Marcus simply shook off a few of the iron feathers from his wings and began slicing down dozens of bees every second, not a single one getting within ten feet of him.
At the same time Roxene had jumped off of Blitz's back and was firing out barrages of darkness bullets, killing any bee that got close to her.
Blitz for his part had erected a type of lightning barrier around himself and Lilia, though a few bees would slip through and come after them only to be killed by Lilia's punches or Blitz's antlers.
Soon the battle came to a decisive end as every bee that had come out of the hive was scattered across the ground dead.
Landing back onto the ground, Marcus walked over to the exhausted Lilia and Blitz who had gone all out to keep up with the bees and gave each of them a stamina and mana recovery potion.
Marcus then turned his gaze towards the tunnels that were the entrances and exits to the hive and waited for the next wave of enemies.
However, after five minutes no other bees came out and Marcus figured they realized attacking them was suicidal.
'Guess they are hoping that we will just go away now, or maybe they want to fortify the hive and make sure the queen stays safe.'
"Lilia, you go ahead and take a long break out here, Blitz you keep Lilia safe, and Roxene you are coming with me to finish off the rest of these bees."
Lilia who was still extremely tired slumped down onto the ground while Blitz came and laid down next to her giving her something to lean against.
Roxene then came up to Marcus and jumped back into his companion storage and he floated back up to the tunnels of the hive where he let her back out.
"Oaky let's go pay the queen a visit."
Walking down the tunnels, Marcus and Roxene met no resistance for quite a while until they came to a sweet-smelling room that was covered in honeycomb and had hundreds of bees moving about.
The bees not willing to allow Marcus and Roxene to trespass any further flew down towards them buzzing angrily.
Unfortunately for the bees, their attacks never got close as Marcus was able to repel any of the low-level bees with a swing of his scythe and Roxene just shot them with darkness bullets or tore them apart with her claws.
The pair continued on meeting little to no resistance as they walked into the depths of the hive and Marcus kept wondering where the remaining tunnel bee general was.
That was until they walked into, the chamber right before the queen's, which was a large, cavernous space where the bees raised their young.
Inside this space was nearly ever bee left in the hive and they had been waiting for the intruders in order to spring and ambush.
A cacophony of angry wing beats soon filled the entire area as over a thousand bees swarmed towards Marcus and Roxene intent on killing them no matter the cost.
"Awooooo."
Bending her head up and releasing a loud howl, the visage of the sun appeared above Roxene as she used her howl of day unique skill.
The bees not wavering in front of this, continued to fly forward until the visage of the sun in front of Roxene burst into a massive blast of light that engulfed the entire area.
When the light cleared a few moments later it revealed hundreds of bees that were dead, instantly killed by the powerful attack caused by Roxene's unique skill. In fact, the bees closest were completed turned to ash leaving nothing behind.
Panting a bit after using the taxing unique skill, Roxene looked next to her as Marcus reappeared after having gone ethereal to avoid being caught up in the attack.
'I have to say that was an impressive attack, probably close to a tier five spell in terms of power right now. Though it appears to be harder on her than I first anticipated.'
Roxene after unleashing that attack looked quite haggard nothing like her usually haughty and confident self.
However, Marcus did not have long to worry about his companion's condition as a number of the bees had survived the attack including the tunnel bee general.
The remaining bees loyal to their queen, instead of fleeing like many creatures would have in this situation began their assault anew with more fervor than before.
'Laser.'
A beam of light firing from Marcus' finger sliced through dozens of bees and quickly impacted the barrier around the tunnel bee general cutting through it like butter along with the general behind it.
The level difference was just too high, and the bees were unable to apply any resistance against Marcus now that Roxene had lowered their number by ninety percent.
It was not long until every bee that had once made furious noise were now silent, strewn around the large cave dead.
'How are you doing Roxene, your unique skill seems to have taken more out of you than I thought it would. Did you want to go back into the companion storage and rest while I take out the remaining bees and the queen?'
'No after resting a bit, I am doing fine. I just got a bit unlucky; it must be night outside. It is so hard to judge what time it is down here. As long as I avoid using howl of the day again, I should be fine.'
Nodding his head Marcus understood, Roxene had told him before that the stress of using her unique skills were lessened when they were used in their corresponding times or heightened when not.
'Okay we can push on; the queen's chamber is just beyond this one so we will probably face some fierce resistance, but since she is only level thirty-two it should not be too hard.'
After making sure that Roxene was still fit for battle Marcus led the way into the chamber of the queen, where they both saw fifteen of the captain bees along with around a hundred warrior bees surrounding the queen.
It was actually far less opposition than Marcus was expecting to see, and he realized that the mass of bees in the last room had been the majority of their remaining forces.
The bees began shacking angrily not initiating an attack but trying to intimidate Marcus and Roxene to leave.
'Roxene, you take the queen I will keep all of the others off of you.'
Marcus then shot forward as he unleashed a couple of fire balls towards the bees in the chamber garnering their fury.
Most of the bees then moved to engage Marcus while Roxene let out a low growl and grew to twice the size of a normal wolf.
With her supreme skill now in effect Roxene leaped forward towards the queen bee who had yet to make a move.
Sensing the impending danger, the tunnel bee queen flew into the air and a torrent of wind swarmed around her wings and two mini twisters began flying towards Roxene.
Stopping her charge Roxene deployed a wall of darkness in front of her as the two mini twisters tried to rend her apart.
Fortunately, her spell easily took the attack from the queens bee's innate wind ability and Roxene's body soon became covered in darkness as she continued forward.
The queen bee continued to throw out wind-based attacks at Roxene, but she either dodged them or used a defensive skill or spell to push forward.
Soon Roxene was within striking distance of the queen bee and leaped towards her, jaws wide open.
In a last attempt to fight back he queen bee met Roxene's charge, her large stinger in front ready to skewer Roxene.
The two clashed in the air, the queen's long stinger having the reach advantage and reaching Roxene first.
However, Roxene spun her body to the side and batted the stinger away with one of her paws throwing off the queen bee's balance allowing Roxene to sink her teeth right bellow the queen bee's head.
With a loud tearing sound Roxene ripped off the queen bee's head, and the once powerful monster fell to the ground still and lifeless.
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