Chapter 173: Chapter 173

Belissar watched as eight lancer bees climbed high into the sky. They then angled themselves so that their stingers were facing down, and then began beating their wings in the other direction. They fell from the sky like arrows from a bow, plunging down as fast as they could. In but a moment, they struck and plunged their stingers deep into the ground.

Belissar crossed his arms and grunted. This was what he said he was waiting for, and indeed the lancers seem quite powerful. They were far larger than any other bee, even the bumblebee queens. They were even as larger or larger than the mini-shades that the karnuq challengers faced. He guessed they could match any shade he’d seen before…most likely. They might have trouble hitting a cat or bird shade depending on how fast it was moving. But anything they did hit would likely not survive…or at least not emerge unscathed.

And yet, he couldn’t rid himself of that last, lingering anxiety. Every expansion purification shade was a shade he had never seen before, so who knew what this next one would do? Would it be another shade that could defeat everything he could throw at it?

But he shook his head and forced himself to uncross his arms. The fact was he didn’t know, and couldn’t. His bees and his Tower had reached the point he had wanted, so there was nothing for it but to trust in them now. He turned to Niobee and the Firstborn and nodded.

“Well done, I wasn’t expecting you to evolve these until later so, um, nice work. We’ll go ahead and fight an expansion purification then, let’s tell everyone to prepare. Now…um…do your best.”

Belissar was about to warn the Firstborn that this would be a shade they had never seen before and to be careful…but he decided against it. The Flower Meadow queens were the experts at this point and had seen more than enough new shades to know that would be the case. So, he decided just to trust them to know what to do.

The Firstborn danced a solemn salute dance and flew off to the Bee Barracks, while Niobee flew off to inform the Orchard and Apiary bees. Belissar himself went to speak with the karnuq and let them know as well.

He hoped they wouldn’t need Chief Rohsuak’s help this time, but he was going to make sure they had were ready for anything.

Later on in the day, everyone finished their preparations. The soldier bee army was arranged in front of the first floor Flower Meadow’s entrance, while Beero and her wounded lightning bees stood on top of their platform. Chief Rohsuak and the karnuq were waiting by the Bee Barracks, with Chief Rohsuak standing next to a couple mana honeycomb trays delivered by the Apiary queens. The Second of the Sixth, the medicinal queen, had brought most of her hive and was waiting on standby with medicinal honey.

Expansion purification begun. Remaining hostiles: 1

The shade let out a roar and then began scrambling across the ground. Black flames were left in its trail, appearing to scorch the very dirt as the Hunger spread where the flames burned. Belissar held his breath as the shade approached the first Pit Trap. If they were lucky, maybe it would fall in…though he might not be able to set this shade on fire even if it did.

But he wouldn’t find out. Upon stepping into the Pit, the shade just placed its feet on the walls…and stuck right to them. It thus crawled along the walls over the pit without slowing down. It seemed they would have to fight after all…

Belissar began to confer with Chief Rohsuak, Metsaitti, and the bees as the shade made its way through the Dirt Tunnels. It was faster than the turtle shade…but slower than all the rest that had come before it, so they had plenty of time. Chief Rohsuak stated she had burned Fire typed creatures in the past, so it wasn’t guaranteed it would be immune to her…but that was in her prime, and always took a lot out of her even back then. Her latest blessing from the God of Fire aside, she couldn’t state with confidence that she’d be able to deal with this shade. So, it might be up to his bees to handle it.

Belissar wasn’t sure if they could. He wasn’t sure how powerful those flames were in general; the first floor Dirt Tunnels didn’t have much flammable material in it so they had no baseline. At least, not until the shade passed by one of the wall-mounted Sticky Honey Traps. The shade was not moving fast enough to escape the flow of honey and so was caught dead on.

The honey caught fire and began to burn before it even touched the shade. Some of the honey managed to splatter on its body, causing it to growl, but was quickly burned away. The shade was only slowed down for a moment…and showed no signs of intoxication from the loaded maddening honey as it continued through the Dirt Tunnels.

Belissar was not encouraged by this turn of events.

Eventually, the shade made its way to the final stretch. As it neared the exit to the tunnels, a squad of sprayers took up positions and launched their attack across the entire tunnel. Once again, even their venom started to burn in the air as it approached the shade. And since they sprayed less and less thick fluid than the Sticky Honey Traps, none of it managed to hit the shade proper.

And then the shade responded by unleashing an attack of its own. It opened its mouth and a clone of black flames filled the tunnel. The sprayers were forced to flee at maximum speed as the fire burst from the tunnel, setting the Flower Meadow beyond ablaze. A brush fire started up and was soon spreading across the first quarter of the Flower Meadow.

The Flower Meadow queens were all gathered together. Since each queen could order her soldiers through her communers now, they all worked together to command the soldier bee army during battle, with one queen appointed to make overall decisions. They all danced their commands and all the sprayers in the army pulled back. The soldiers bees moved forward in their place.

Soon, the shade stepped out into Flower Meadow itself, wading into the burning flowers without pause. A squad of soldier bees attempted an attack run and managed to push through the smoke, their new fire resistance proving invaluable. But it was fire resistance, not immunity, so once the bees approached the shade its own flames began to assault them. The soldier bees did not immediately burn or catch fire, but pulled back as they realized the danger.

The Flower Meadow queen in charge for today, the First of the Fourth, turned towards Belissar and began to dance.

“Soldiers can’t reach without taking losses. Want to send lancers but might get hurt. Can?”

Belissar frowned as he watched the shade crawl through the burning Flower Meadow. So, the soldiers couldn’t approach and the sprayers’ attack couldn’t make it through the flames. There was still Beero’s lightning bees they could try. But that was risky as well since the shade could breathe fire at a distance. If the wooden platform caught fire, Beero and the others would not have much time to even flee, much less pull off their lightning dance.

“Do you think the lancers will survive?”