Chapter 452: Chapter 452

The Queen of All Bees happily danced about, for things were going well. A bunch of powerful gods were now working to protect her dungeon, the God of Light herself had even expressed her intention to preserve Belissar’s dungeon. Belissar had secured the assistance of the Compact and powerful allies among the fair, while the God of Fire was working on convincing the Conclave to back down. Additionally, one of Belissar’s bees had finally accepted the monster bee empress evolution, which would greatly improve their ability to coordinate the hive of hives they were trying to build. She greatly anticipated what they would now achieve with such an unprecedented hive.

In any case, the Queen of All Bees could now rest assured in the safety of her main hook onto World One, as well as her oracle dwelling within. As such, she could finally turn her authority to other uses.

For example, spreading bees back throughout the world. The God of Trees had gifted her with authority for a promised spot as Belissar’s secondary patron once the Heart of the Forest sufficiently grew, while Belissar accepting the spiderkin, which were then affected by the mana of the hive of hives, had resulted in a new group of sapients naturally inclined to the God of Bees. Thanks to this, the God of Bees now had enough authority that she could add some bees back into the areas purified by the God of Fire’s dungeons, so that his dungeon masters could finally progress on her mission to them.

This, of course, required permission from the God of Fire since she had no authority over his dungeons, but that wasn’t a problem since this was by his own request…and to help him fulfill his end of the bargain to begin with. But it did reveal a benefit of being a dungeon patron, the dungeons naturally channeled the divine powers of the gods to reclaim the world from the corruption. As such, the gods found it easier to act upon those parts of the world. A god’s presence even as a secondary patron could lead to greater ability to shape the world beyond.

And a dungeon she was the primary patron of? Well, with her power flowing through the area, she naturally found it easy to exert her authority there, and with an innate precedence over other gods. She could, if she wanted, begin shaping the area in her image, encouraging the mortals who ventured there to acknowledge the aspect of reality she represented.

That was precisely what the God of Bees started to do with the surplus authority she now had access to. Besides, she knew her best dungeon master would not mind finding some additional bees in his vicinity. A better disciple of bees she could not ask for…

The Inferno Empress let jets of flame snort out of her nostrils. Finally, finally, one of her minions had done it! She looked down at the armored wolfkin holding his hands out. On top of his palms, a fuzzy little bee cleaned its antennae.

She finally acquired a bee! This mission for some minor god she never heard of somehow proved more difficult than any of the ones she had received from the God of Fire himself! Though, perhaps it would have been easier had an entire clan of wolfkin not turned traitor and abandoned her Sacred Den! She had been forced to deploy her imperial guards, the only non-monster minions to remain loyal!

But now…finally…she could complete the mission. She closed her eyes and slowly exhaled her breath to let her anger subside. Now, she could be done with this and get back to…

Her eyes shot open. No message appeared before her, nor did the gods grant her any rewards. She double checked the message once more.

She flared out her bat wings to either side before clutching her head.

“Just HOW am I supposed to evolve this little insect into a rare monster?! And what does it even mean, make it happy?!”

She let out a screech. This mission…had apparently only just begun.

An animal has evolved into a monster!

Monster Bee Queen now available!

Mission: Raise Bee-type monsters of Rare or better rarity and make them happy completed!

The God of Bees offers a minor blessing.

Mission: Complete the God of Bees’ mission completed!

General Rippotis saluted the gods as they rewarded him for the mission completions, then turned his attention back to the present. He smiled as he watched his first monster bee queen crawl out of her hive and look around with her newly evolved eyes. The moment she saw him she stopped, then took to the air and began to zip around. The Tower seemed to identify this as a coherent language and translated for him.

“Queen! What want do?”

General Rippotis’ smile grew. A bee who had just gained enough intelligence to speak with him directly…and the first thing she did was salute and ask for orders. She was apparently born with more discipline than half his soldiers!

“Call me General. For now, continue to build your hive. Help the others evolve if you can and inform me when they do.”

The queen gave another salute and then immediately zipped back into her hive. Now that General Rippotis could understand her language, he could see she was dancing her own orders to her workers, moving to fulfill his commands will all possible haste. He chuckled, if half his soldiers were so eager, perhaps they might have purified the Hunger from the entire world by now.

He then let out a sigh. It was just about time for yet another meeting of the High Council. Where, contrary to his newest soldier, they would not be eagerly getting work done. No, they would, yet again, debate the same topic: what to do about the fey, as revealed by his mission from the God of Fire. The God of Fire, along with the God of Water and God of Flowers, wanted them to make peace, apparently…but the potential danger of the fey was so great that even the missions from the gods could not make the High Council rule out war as a potentially necessary option. That numerous other gods, including the God of Light herself, had not weighed in further complicated matters, since they could not claim with certainty the gods were united on this. As such, the High Council had made very little progress towards an actual decision and probably wouldn’t today either, even as the Grand Subjugation marched on and likely brought them ever closer to encountering the fey…

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But well, at least he had some good news today, the first in quite some time.

The Fourth of the Seventh happily zipped through the shortcuts leading outside of the Tower. Everything was amazing recently! First of the Fifth’s First Daughter had evolved and made all the hives joint hives! Now the Fourth of the Seventh could dance with any queen in the hive of hives whenever she wanted! It was amazing, incredible!

Part of her wanted to stay and help First Daughter strengthen the hive of hives, but it was time for her to go scout again! She had spent a lot of time helping First Daughter’s Third Daughter in the flower one’s realm, but now Third Daughter had taught the bees there about the hive of hives, so it was fine now! Then she had stayed to watch the joint hive while First Daughter evolved, but she was evolved now! First Daughter and the Fourth of the Seventh’s communer also wanted to see if they could contact the Fourth of the Seventh outside of the Tower now, so it was time to resume scouting the Beyond!

The Fourth of the Seventh flew out into the Beyond once more and then reached for the mana of the hive of hives. The mana of First Daughter.

“Am in Beyond now! Can hear?”

The mana shifted almost immediately.

“Can hear! Can dance with Fourth of the Seventh even when in Beyond! Amazing, incredible!”

The Fourth of the Seventh joined in with an “amazing, incredible!” dance of her own. Now she could stay connected with her and First Daughter’s hive even while scouting! There was now no reason for her to hesitate.

So, she didn’t! She began to beat her wings and stir up her mana, causing the wind to blow all around it. She was soon joined by her hive, which she had evolved in the meantime to be full of nomadic and breeze bees! The breeze bees, in particular, gathered in the bee-shaped mobile hive King had built for her and began directing the wind around the hive, while the Fourth of the Seventh used her mana to make the mobile hive move. Soon, the big wax bee lifted into the air. The Fourth of the Seventh did another quick “amazing, incredible” dance before leading her hive off into the sky!

And so they soared through the sky, the nomadic bees flying and gliding as escort while the breeze bees and the Fourth of the Seventh directed the mobile hive. In the meantime, the two newest members of the Fourth of the Seventh’s hive climbed out of the mobile hive and down its legs. They were smaller than even regular soldiers, but still had the big wings of other nomadic bees, along with really big eyes! They were the nomadic monster bee assassins!

The Fourth of the Seventh evolved them because she thought those really big eyes would be good for scouting! Now it was time to find out! The assassins focused their mana around their eyes and directed it downward. The Fourth of the Seventh linked to them, finding it easier than ever before thanks to the First Daughter strengthening the mana of the hive, and looked through their eyes.

“Amazing, incredible! Can see ground from all the way up here!”

She was flying so high the trees looked like flowers, but the assassins could see the leaves as if they were hovering right next to them! It was amazing, incredible…

The Fourth of the Seventh suddenly stopped and her whole hive stopped with her. She wasn’t sure of what she saw, so she asked the assassins to focus in on the area in question. They confirmed what she had seen.

“Wow, new bees! Amazing, incredible!”

The Fourth of the Seventh saw bees! Bees that weren’t part of the mini-hives she left in the Beyond, or part of the Fourth of the Fifth’s digging scouts underground! She wasn’t sure where they were from, so she had to go find out! She immediately began diving towards the bees.

“Queen mother, wait!”

Much to her hives’ consternation. The nomadic soldiers quickly dove as well, trying to form a protective screen around their queen. But the Fourth of the Seventh didn’t slow down. She was aware, of course, that not all bees were as friendly as the hive of hives, flower one’s bees had proven that much. But she wasn’t worried in this case.

She began slowing down as she approached the trees so that she wouldn’t kick up too much wind, then gently lowered herself through the canopy. She landed on a branch before a small cavity in the tree’s trunk, where the bees were flying in and out of. The bees turned to her and buzzed in warning…but the Fourth of the Seventh wasn’t deterred. After all, these bees were tiny! They were even smaller than monster bee workers were, though not as small as the monster stingless bees. And strangest of all, the Fourth of the Seventh could barely detect any mana within them! They were like the Conduit’s queen mother’s hive, though even those had more mana than these!

But the Fourth of the Seventh could see them dancing, so hopefully they could dance with her too!

“Hi! Am Fourth Queen of First Dynasty of Fourth Spawner, first of her line! Am queen of King’s hive of hives! Want to join hive of hives?”

The First Daughter had spent much of the day in “amazing, incredible!” dances. Her new, more powerful hive link could remain connected even to bees in the Beyond! And that meant she could stay connected to the Fourth of the Seventh even when the nomadic queen when scouting! That alone made her beyond ecstatic with her evolution!

She and the Fourth of the Seventh’s communer were both even more pleased to discover the link was strong enough they could watch the Fourth of the Seventh now and see what she saw as she scouted. They spent much of the day just watching the queen happily zip about, testing the King’s mobile hive and the new nomadic assassins. Even then, they made sure to pay attention to report to the rest of the hive of hives, the mobility of the flying hive and the distance at which the nomadic assassins could see would surely be of great help to the other…

Both of their minds froze as the Fourth of the Seventh came across bees. Bees in the Beyond that did not belong to the King or the hive of hives.

The First Daughter and First Communer immediately fell into a panicked discussion on the implications of such a thing. There were bees in the King’s lands that had not been spawned by him?! This was a critical moment, an overturning of all that they knew. The First Daughter was about to convene a joint dance of the hive of hives, this was something they must all discuss and decide what to do together, after careful consideration…

“First Daughter…queen mother already dancing with new bees…”

…and the Fourth of the Seventh had already moved in and introduced herself while the two were panicking. The First Daughter was about to warn the Fourth of the Seventh to be careful…when she froze once again.

She now felt a new hive in the hive of hives. She slowly turned her sight to the new hive and quickly deciphered what had happened. The new bees the Fourth of the Seventh encountered were mundane honeybees, the unevolved ancestor of monster bees like herself. They were simpler than the monster bee hives were and possessed no mana save that inherent to living things. The Fourth of the Seventh had then requested they join the hive of hives and exposed them to her mana. Mana which, thanks to the joint hive with the Fourth of the Seventh and the new hive of hives mana link, now carried the First Daughter’s own.

The honeybees immediately submitted to her, their more powerful kin, and joined the hive of hives. The Fourth of the Seventh, through boldness, friendliness, and a keen eye for the nature of the new bees, had instantly expanded the hive of hives. The First Daughter had only one response to this event:

“Amazing, incredible! Fourth of the Seventh, amazing, incredible!”