Chapter 84 — The Awakening Flame
The moment the system initiated the class switch, the world didn't just change—it retracted.
Peterson felt his consciousness slip from the battlefield like water down a drain. The cacophony of war was the first to go: the shriek of metal, the roar of Kemi's unchecked fire, and the rhythmic thrum of Jean-Daniel's hammer all faded into a dull, pressurized silence. Then, his senses followed. The weight of his limbs, the grit of the cavern floor beneath his boots, even the very air in his lungs—all of it became abstract. Remote.
In that void, a new sensation took root.
It wasn't the wild, frantic heat he'd felt from Kemi. This was internal. A low, vibrating hum of energy gathered beneath his ribs, radiating outward with the steady, inevitable heat of a kiln. It didn't burn; it tempered.
Back in the physical world, Peterson's body became a statue. His eyes remained open, fixed on a point miles beyond the cavern walls.
Beside him, the clone rolled his neck, the joints popping like dry wood. He glanced at the frozen Peterson with a lopsided grin.
"Three minutes?" the clone muttered, adjusting his grip. "Hell of a time to take a nap, Pete."
He turned his gaze toward the center of the chamber. The Ant Queen was stirring.
It started as a sickening squelch. One of her massive, serrated legs punched through the webbing, then another, the silk snapping with the sound of pistol shots. She rose, a mountain of cracked chitin and wounded pride. A low, vibrating hiss rattled the loose stones on the floor.
The Queen lunged.
The clone didn't flinch. He waited until the last possible microsecond, then blurred to the left as a massive foreleg shattered the stone where he'd just been standing.
"Still got some kick in you, huh?" The clone stepped into the cloud of dust. With a flick of his wrist, the Veve Staff appeared, elongating into a massive, soot-stained war hammer. The sheer weight of the weapon caused the clone's boots to sink an inch into the floor.
The Queen's mandibles snapped, a blur of crushing force aimed at his midsection. He twisted mid-air, the mandibles whistling past his ribs, and landed a heavy, experimental blow against her flank.
CLANG.
The vibration traveled up the clone's arms. He shook out his shoulders, his grin widening. "Yeah. You still hit like a freight train."
For the next two minutes, it was a dance of desperation. The Queen wasn't just mindless anymore; she was adapting, weaving her leg strikes with tail-spike thrusts in a lethal rhythm. The clone played with the margin, letting the spikes graze his shadow, measuring her reach, testing the limits of her remaining strength.
He led her in circles, a matador with a hammer.
The Queen screamed, a high-frequency sound that would have burst eardrums if Peterson were still "there." She reared up for a final, crushing blow.
"Predictable," the clone sighed. He swung the hammer upward in a brutal arc.
BOOM.
The impact didn't just stop her; it redirected her entire mass, slamming the Queen sideways into the cavern wall. The ceiling groaned, shedding dust and pebbles.
The clone exhaled, his expression shifting from playful to bored. "You're running on fumes, sweetheart."
He prepared to end it, but then he froze. A prickle of heat washed over his back—not a threat, but a presence. He didn't even turn around.
"Took you long enough," the clone whispered.
The Queen, driven by a final, instinctive urge to kill, lunged one last time. She put every ounce of her remaining life into a desperate, overhead strike.
She never reached him.
Peterson moved. It wasn't a conscious decision; it was an eruption. The Veve Staff appeared in his hand, but it didn't wait to be told what to do. It ignited. A greatsword of white-hot brilliance manifested in a spray of sparks, the flames clinging to the edge like liquid sunlight.
Peterson stepped forward. A single, horizontal stroke.
The blade didn't meet resistance. It passed through the Queen's armored torso like a hot wire through wax.
A heartbeat of absolute silence followed.
Then, the Queen simply fell apart. The cauterized halves of her body collapsed in opposite directions, white flames blooming from the insides of her shell, consuming the carcass before it even hit the floor. Within seconds, only a pile of glowing ash remained.
Peterson stood in the center of the heat, the greatsword slowly dissolving back into the staff.
"...Oh," he said softly. The word felt heavy in his mouth.
Behind him, the clone rested his hammer on his shoulder and laughed. "Welcome back to the land of the living."
Peterson glanced over his shoulder. "...How long was I out?"
"Long enough for me to do all the heavy lifting," the clone teased.
Peterson looked at the ash. "Doesn't look like there was much left to lift."
The system windows flickered into his vision, glowing with a new, aggressive gold hue.
[Ant Queen Defeated: +5000 EXP]
[New Skill Unlocked: Hive Commander (Level 1)]
Type: Summon/Control
Effect: Call 10 E-Rank Ants to the fray.
Peterson scrolled through the progression list, his eyebrows climbing higher with every line. Level 9: King-Rank. Level 10: Demon-Rank.
"That escalated quickly," he muttered.
He noticed the sub-text: [Usage Rule: User may summon any previously unlocked tier. Only one set active.]
A faint, dangerous smirk touched his lips. "So I can play the numbers game or the power game. Tactical."
The system notifications faded, leaving only the dim glow of the cavern and the distant sounds of the ongoing struggle. Peterson turned his head toward the rest of the team, his eyes catching the orange light of the remaining fires.
The heat hadn't left him. It settled into his marrow, quiet and ready.
"Alright," Peterson said, his voice dropping into a focused calm. "Let's go help the others."
End of Chapter 84