Re:Ant Lord-Chapter 172: A Hope?

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They would never bow to another enemy. Never plead. Never yield. They would rebuild their shattered hive, even if it took a thousand years. Even if they died unnamed, unsung.

And now once again death had come for them.

Forty-five lay fallen, carved open or crushed by the foul monstrosities of the swamp. Blood soaked the tunnel floors. Acid ate through the walls where comrades once stood. The stench of death was thick, heavy enough to choke.

But the five who remained standing... did not kneel.

Not yet.

Their blades were cracked. Their pheromones were fading. But their backs were straight. Their antennae lifted in defiance. They would fight until their last limbs gave out. Until their leader fell. Until every breath was spent.

Their hearts still whispered: Never again. They charge to free their queen. But the results were...

Vel writhed beneath the Frog-Man’s foot, half her thorax crushed. Naaro had crawled to the wall, barely able to lift her stinger. Two more lay twitching in silence, legs crushed, antennae torn off.

"Still proud?" the Frog-Man croaked, his voice wet with glee. "Still royal?"

His tongue slithered upward and licked her cheek.

Akayoroi shuddered, not from pain but from rage and disgust.

"You... disgusting swamp-rot..."

He grinned, yellow teeth gleaming beneath burned lips. "Say that again once my spawn fill you. I’ll carve your nest with eggs and crown myself King of carpenter ants."

Soi Soi Soi! (Laughing)

She summoned what little strength remained. Her claws twitched, and she activated Rootstep one last time but nothing came. Her body had burned out every drop of energy.

She was spent.

"Do it," she spat. "Kill me. I’ll never let you defile me."

"Oh, no no no..." he crooned. "You’ll live. You’ll lay on my bed. And you’ll beg me to do it again."

He turned to the other ants.

"Bind the rest. I want them alive. Especially the ones that screamed." He ordered his servants.

His servants of dozens of bloated, amphibious beastkin crawled from the tunnel shadows, dragging her wounded assassins by their limbs. The nest, once a sacred home, now echoed with the sounds of chains and sobs.

Akayoroi, still held aloft, tried to scream but her voice failed. "Was this it? Was this how we all died? Not in glory. Not in battle. But as trophies?"

She closed her eyes. "Let it be over... I will blast myself. This is my only option. I am sorry mother, I couldn’t rebuild our colony."

Suddenly, the air changed. For a brief moment, everyone froze. The frogs halted mid-step, the Frog-Man blinked.

Something shifted above. A sound like cracking air. Then—!

BOOM

The sky above the forest shattered. A dark blur felt on the ground like a meteor, shearing through the treetops above the Crimson Nest.

A thunderous crash erupted into the center of the clearing. Dirt exploded. Bark split. Tunnels quaked.

The Frog-Man stumbled back, dropping Akayoroi. She hit the floor hard, coughing, eyes blinking toward the shaft of light above.

And through the smoke, through the shards of falling ash and leaf and silence— A single handsome figure stood.

He stood tall. An imposing silhouette carved from midnight steel.

Armored in obsidian black, his battle plate shimmered like volcanic glass under a dying sun, adorned with blood-red gems that pulsed faintly, as if feeding on the tension in the air. Crimson threads ran like veins across his suit, echoing power barely restrained.

His silver-white hair fell like moonlight over his brow, unruly, defiant, sovereign.

Two burning red eyes pierced through the smoky gloom, glowing with an ancient hunger and the calm cruelty of a monarch who knew no equals. They weren’t just eyes. They were verdicts.

His breath steamed. It was hot, slow, predatory and coiling like smoke from the mouth of a beast. And his posture... it wasn’t just regal.

It was absolute. As if the world had already surrendered the moment he stepped into it.

Around him, the air seemed to bend—awed, trembling, as if afraid to touch something so divine and violent.

A predator cloaked in royalty. The heir of annihilation. The king of devourers.

(Akayoroi’s POV-)

She had forgotten what awe felt like. Until now.

He descended like judgment itself—tall, silent, steaming. The broken sky behind him painted his silhouette in molten amber. His body shimmered with obsidian armor, black as a moonless pit, yet etched with living veins of crimson that pulsed... no, throbbed with dominion. Each movement he made across the battlefield was a vow written in silence. Unstoppable. Unchallenged.

Her eyes widened as she drank in the sight. His chest rose slowly, the fabric and metal sculpted against his form like a second skin of war. Runes pulsed at his collar, flickering like heartbeats, as if the armor itself knew it was worn by something more than mortal.

Silver hair. Red eyes. But not just red.

They burned like two infernos shaped into vision. They cut through the smoke, through blood and ruin, and for a moment, she felt... seen. Stripped to her instincts. Her core vibrated. Her antennae twitched. Her knees weakened—not from injury, but from the instinct of a queen who had just glimpsed her rightful king.

His breath steamed like a predator’s exhale.

His posture radiated sovereignty, the kind that demanded no words, no banners, no throne. He stood like he had always belonged, like this world had merely been waiting to be devoured by him.

Her heart fluttered.

"Why?" She asked herself.

She had seen monsters. She had seen many kings. She had fled from the strongest species of this world. But she never felt like this... This was different.

There was no madness in his eyes. Only certainty. As if the death of her enemies had already been written, and he had come to collect.

The Frog-Man turned to mock him. Akayoroi did not hear the words. She did not care. Her mind whispered what her mouth could not:

"He is not prey. He is the end."

He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. The Hive felt him. The Frog-Man’s grin faltered. "What the Fu*k"