I was forced to dive to the side in order to avoid the queen's charge. Her armored, crested head smashed resin and secretions, shattering the brittle substance that was used to weave her hive. With a guttural hiss, she turned to glare at me.

Adopting a defensive stance with both of my swords, I meet her eyeless gaze.

"Get away from me, you bitch!"

As if it understood me, the queen screeched in rage before charging at me again. Her massive talons stomped over the broken, frozen remnants of her shattered eggs, sending crystalline frost flying about. I dodged to the side while slashing her flank, but other than drawing a thin line of acidic blood, I didn't do much damage.

Damn. I was going to need a lot more firepower if I wanted to take down a queen of her size.

Snarling, the queen whirled about, her tail whipping toward me. I had to duck under it or get scythed down. At the same time, I struck out experimentally with my swords in an attempt to cut her tail off, but didn't achieve much.

The queen's tail was made of pretty tough chitin, much like the rest of her exoskeleton.

I was forced to dodge once more, her claws raking the air where I had occupied moments before. I parried her next strikes with my swords, only for her to lean close with her had. Her secondary inner jaws erupted from her maw, trying to bite my face off, but I dodged to the side while slashing her crested head with my swords.

She snarled in pain and anger, trying to claw me again, but I dove to the side and rolled away quickly.

Hopping back to my feet, I raised Blood Angel and imbued it with more mana.

"Bankai," I intoned. "Minazuki."

For a moment, nothing happened. I cursed myself for trying to rip off one of my favorite manga and quickly corrected myself.

"Divine Ascension. Night of the Blood Armageddon!"

Blood erupted all around me, washing across the hive and destroying everything, including the corpses of the xenomorphs.

"You think you're the only one with acidic blood?" I asked with a smirk. "Let's see how well you fare against this."

The queen flailed about and screamed as she was bathed by crimson corrosive blood. It was probably not as potent as the xenormorphs' acidic blood, but it was a different kind of acid. Well, just call it magic acid if you need to. In any case, it wasn't as effective against the queen as it was against others.

I continued to hammer her with more blood spears that were capable of punching through her exoskeleton. Even though she took a lot of damage, she didn't go down. If anything, the queen grew infuriated with my strikes and went berserk.

"Whoa!"

I was forced to jump back and escape when the queen launched yet another attack. Rolling across the ground to avoid her tail, I suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

"Come on!" I shouted, jumping back to my feet and racing toward one of the corridors. The queen snarled furiously and pursued, her tail and claws lashing out and wrecking everything in her path. In fact, she was dealing more destruction to her hive than I ever did.

With a snicker, I rushed toward one of the corridors, casting a blood spell to augment my speed and allowing me one final spurt. The queen lunged at me, but wasn't able to keep up with my abrupt acceleration. Instead, she whipped her tail about to impale me.

Kicking off the ground, I threw myself into the corridor, rolling desperately to put as much distance between us as possible. The queen's tail sn.a.k.e.d toward me at incredible speed, following me into the corridor.

At the last second, I reactivated my laser mine. The laser net immediately came on, turning into a net of superheated ruby beams that crisscrossed each other. The tail went through the laser net and was immediately severed into many pieces.

The queen recoiled with a scream of agony. She lashed out with her claws, only to have one of them sliced off by the laser net.

The queen was smart. Knowing that she couldn't get past the laser net without injury, she hung back and observed.

I turned away and began to run. Honestly, I didn't need to kill the queen. I just needed to confirm her location, and then cast the nuke spell. I felt sorry for the residents of Gunnison Town, but I didn't have a choice. If I didn't blow the whole place up, the queen and her brood of drones would propagate and overwhelm the whole of the Havan Kingdom…and then the world.

I needed to destroy the entire place and made sure there were no survivors. The only regret I had was that I didn't find Flynn. I was so sure he was around here somewhere, but it was possible that he had left this place to his newly created bugs and was on his way back to the Demonic Empire to lead his insect legion.

Besides, the queen was clearly stronger than I was. Despite using Night of the Bloody Armageddon, the queen had survived whatever blood spells I had thrown at her. Then again, I should have expected it. These things had acid for blood. Why the f.u.c.k would my own acidic blood spell work on them? Granted, it did damage her considerably, but

Whatever the case, I needed to contain the queen and her hive here before nuking the whole place into oblivion. I couldn't let even a single one of these things survive. Exterminate with extreme prejudice. We could not possibly coexist.

With a snarl the queen smashed through the wall. I felt the reverberations and spun around in shock. The queen, realizing that she couldn't get through the laser net, had instead resorted to smashing through the walls.

A smart move. Unlike the laser nets, the walls wouldn't damage her. And they weren't exactly sturdy. The queen could easily demolish the structure. The laser mine was a potent device, but it was dependent on being attached to a surface…and if that surface was destroyed, then the queen was free to make a detour where the laser nets wouldn't reach.

I watched in horror as the wall to which my laser mine was attached collapsed and my device was buried beneath the rubble. Shaking my head, I cast a shadow spell to retrieve the device before it could get crush beneath the queen's massive talons.

Freed from the place, the queen then continued to follow me, pursuing me with a bloodcurdling screech.

"Fine, then," I said in resignation. "Follow me if you want. But it will be your funeral."

Exiting the hospital, I stumbled into the open. The queen burst out with a shriek, more of the structure collapsing around her as she inadvertently demolished it. Snarling, she closed in on me, her talons leaving deep tracks in the ground.

Flinging what remained of her severed tail, she tried to hit me with acid, but I dodged. Then she slashed at me with a claw, but I also ducked under it.

Despite her relentless assault, I couldn't help but smile. The queen might have the edge in size and strength for now, but in the open, I had the overwhelming advantage.

In a flash, my ice dragon materialized behind me. Several times taller and much more massive than the queen, he towered over her. The queen paused momentarily to size up her new opponent, only to be crushed to the ground by a single claw.

She wailed and thrashed about, shattering the ice dragon's claw with her own. Her inner jaws burst from her maw and smashed another hole into the ice dragon's frame, causing him to recoil. With a bellow, the ice dragon swiped at her with his other claw, sending her flying into the side of the hospital. She vanished under a pile of rubble.

Emerging from the debris, the queen shrieked defiantly, only to watch, stunned, as my ice dragon recovered. His broken claw reformed as water froze and ice mended. Within seconds, the icy limb was completely restored.

As long as there was moisture in the air, I could indefinitely restore and regenerate my ice dragon until my mana ran out.

The queen turned to retreat, but she was too slow. My ice dragon let out his freezing breath and entombed her in ice. Lumbering forward, he swung his claws and obliterated her frozen form.

The once majestic queen shattered into countless frozen fragments, all of them tumbling onto the ground like ice from a fast food chain's do-it-yourself drink machine.

And just like that, the queen was dead.

"Huff…"

I shook my head and observed the surroundings. Even though I had eliminated all of the xenomorphs in the vicinity, I wasn't sure if there were more in town. There were still shapes here and there, darting about in the shadows.

Seemed like there were more than I realized. Even though I had slain their queen, the hive was far from finished. Perhaps, in time, one of the drones would molt into a queen. Or maybe several of them would molt into a praetorian, from which one of them would eventually transform into a queen. I had no idea how the life cycle of a xenomorph worked.

Like I said (or Stella, actually), it was best to nuke them. It was the only way to be sure. Unfortunately, I couldn't do it from orbit. Well, I could do it through magic, which was the next best thing. Blow a crater the size of Nebraska in Gunnison Town and wipe these things out once and for all.

Unfortunately, I didn't get very far. Something massive crashed into my ice dragon and sent him bowling. I was forced to dive to the side when a scorpion-like tail stabbed through the space where I had been standing earlier.

Rolling to my feet, I tapped my glasses to get a better visual. As expected, my assailant was a familiar figure.

Well, not exactly, but I recognized him still.

"Flynn."

The Lord of Flies had greatly mutated since the last time I had seen him. For one thing, he was no longer the size of a human. He was larger than the queen, about a meter taller. His originally thin insect limbs had been replaced by muscular humanoid arms and legs that ended in wickedly curved talons. His stinger had elongated into a large, scorpion-like tail. His body too…it was more humanoid and sleeker than the wasp-like abdomen and thorax that he originally possessed.

He looked like a rogue…uh, I mean king.

"What the f.u.c.k did you do to yourself?" I demanded. Flynn chuckled, a disturbingly guttural sound that still retained traces of his old voice.

"I evolved."

"Uh, congratulations, I guess?"

Shaking my head, I drew Night Fang and whipped him, but he batted the mystical weapon away with a muscular arm before it could coil around him. Before I could attack him again, his stinger crashed down onto the ground, forcing me to evade.

Clipping my whip, I drew both swords and readied myself for another battle.

Flynn had gotten a lot faster too. He zipped in and slashed at me with his claws, and I only just barely managed to parry them. Then his stinger streaked toward me in a deadly arc. This time, I didn't bother to block his stinger or evade it.

A second later, a gigantic claw smashed into Flynn and sent him flying. The Lord of Flies flew across the road and crashed into a house, demolishing a wall and finding himself buried under debris. He coughed and fought his way out, his wings buzzing but unable to support his weight and allow him to fly now.

Raising his head, he glared at me with his compound eyes. I had no idea how he failed to see my ice dragon in time when he had compound eyes capable of seeing multi-faceted images from all directions. Perhaps he got too distracted by me.

Flynn always had a single-track mind.

"As expected of the Demonic Emperor," he said, his mandibles clacking. "I didn't think you would be this much of an adversary…but I guess there's a reason why you now command four out of the twelve demonic legions."

"I assume this is treason, then?" I asked, c.o.c.king my head to the side. "A coup d'état? You wish to usurp the throne from me?"

"You can interpret it however you want," Flynn replied. "But one thing is for sure…I am going to kill you, and then I will be the new Demon King."

His wings buzzing, he charged toward me once more with an incredible speed that belied his massive size. Before he could reach me with a strike from his scorpion-like tail, though, my ice dragon swatted him. He tried to alter his trajectory at the last moment, but he wasn't fast enough.

"Ugh!"

Flynn was once again sent hurtling into another house. I watched as he struggled to claw his way back up to his feet, and then I smirked as I pushed my glasses up my nose.

"You're welcome to die trying."