Deep beneath Horta's corrupted surface, in a cavern that stretched for miles in every direction, something ancient feasted.The Hive Mother was massive—a bloated, segmented creature the size of a large building, her pale chitinous body pulsing with the rhythm of constant egg-laying. She barely resembled the cosmic termite species she'd once been, transformed over eons into something singular, something vast. Around her, countless workers and soldiers moved in perfect synchronization, their minds nothing more than extensions of her own vast consciousness.The cavern itself was a monument to consumption. The walls were lined with the partially digested roots of face-trees, some as thick as ancient oaks, others thin as spider silk. All of them screamed. The faces embedded in the bark twisted in silent agony as her children devoured them, eating both the physical wood and the trapped consciousnesses within. The screams were soundless but somehow audible in the psychic space where the Hive

The termite dove, its wings a blur of translucent death, both stinger-tails leading the charge. Kenan barely managed to Quick Step away, his injured shoulder screaming in protest. The stingers punched into the ground where he'd been standing, and where they struck, the earth sizzled and bubbled, venom eating through soil and stone. Kate fired an Earth-Fire Bullet combination, but the termite was too fast now. It banked in mid-air, the projectile passing harmlessly beneath it. The creature circled them like a predator, searching for an opening. "It's too fast!" Kate shouted, already gathering mana for another attack. "I can't hit it!" Kenan's mind raced. His Mental stat was pushing his mind while processing the situation, trying to calculate trajectories, predict it's patterns. But the termite's flight path was erratic, unpredictable. Every time he thought he saw a pattern, it changed. The creature dove again, this time aiming for Kate. She thrust her staff up, an Earth-Electric bu

DAY 15:Kenan looked at the pylon as if it was something evil. Perhaps it was. Yet at the same time, he was unable to get the thought of dying out of his head.He shifted his attention away. Kate was level four now, and their fights with the earlier waves had raised a lot of her skills. She'd been able to make up the difference after leveling up, raising her Elemental Mastery skill to level five and gaining a boon.This at least proved that just like the structures in their territory, they could also gain boons at skill level five. Perhaps the same would happen once they got to level five too. Kenan sighed. He shifted his gaze toward his garden—or rather, a farm now. Kate had done her best to tend to it while he was unconscious. But it had been hard, and not because she had no idea what she was doing, but because of how heartbroken she'd been. Kenan sighed again.This time he moved his gaze in the direction of the cabin. Kate was asleep, and that had been hard enough to accomplish wit