The swarm moved.
Hundreds of translucent wings vibrated at once, the sound rattling the glass panes of the library.
Lothe turned his head slightly toward Seana. "Sorry about this."
He didn’t wait for her reply. Gripping the wooden rung, he lunged forward. His swing was no longer clumsy or hesitant, it was clean, driven by the cold adrenaline of survival.
He ducked beneath the first diving wasp, swung his club upward, and shattered its soft underbelly. Before the carcass could hit the floor, Lothe grabbed it by its wing-joint and hurled it like a heavy stone into the path of two incoming wasps.
The collision disrupted their formation, sending them spiraling into a nearby reading table.
[Kills: 13/20]
To his left, Seana was holding her own. Her rod flashed in the dim light, precise and defensive.
Lothe focused on the three wasps closing in on his flank.
He sidestepped a sudden thrust, grabbed the trailing leg of the passing insect, and yanked it backward, driving his wooden splinter deep into its thorax.
[Kills: 14/20]
Every strike found its target. His movements grew faster, his breathing matching the rhythmic swing of his club.
He broke a wing, crushed a head, and pierced an underbelly.
[Kills: 17/20]
The mechanical voice continued to ping in his mind, but Lothe blocked it out. During a brief half-second of silence, he stood amidst the green splatters, sweat dripping from his forehead, his dark hair clinging to his skin.
He scanned the ruined main hall.
Still no sign of Old B.
A cold weight pressed on his chest. Nothing can happen to him, Lothe told himself, his jaw tightening. He’s survived worse than this. He’s strong.
A sudden chill at the back of his neck shattered his thoughts. He had let himself get distracted.
By the time he turned his head, a wasp was already descending from his blind spot, its dripping stinger aimed directly at his shoulder.
He braced for the impact, swinging his club in a desperate, wide arc.
But the pain didn’t come.
Puchi.
The sharp tip of Seana’s brass rod protruded from the wasp’s head. She stood behind him, her chest heaving, her glasses spotted with green blood. She yanked the rod back, letting the dead beast fall.
"Thank you," Lothe panted.
Seana didn’t answer. She had already turned, her rod raised to face the next wave.
Lothe shook his head to clear the fatigue and stepped up beside her.
They moved in unison, their cooperation instinctive.
When Lothe swung low to break the legs and wings of the charging beasts, Seana followed behind with quick, lethal thrusts to their exposed underbellies.
They covered each other’s blind spots, turning the narrow space between the fallen bookshelves into a fortress.
Suddenly, the frantic rushing stopped.
The remaining wasps withdrew, hovering ten feet away in a tight, silent circle. Their wings beat in a synchronized, heavy rhythm.
Are they... listening to something? Lothe thought.
The question had barely formed when the wasps moved again.
This time, there was no chaotic, individual charging. They advanced in a structured, interlocking wall of wings and stingers.
Lothe backed up until his shoulder blades hit Seana’s.
They stood back-to-back, their weapons raised.
"We need to disrupt their formation," Lothe whispered, his eyes scanning the surrounding swarm. "If we can break through, we can make it to the archives and lock the door to buy time."
Seana gave a short, tight nod. "Okay, I’ll follow your lead."
"Now!"
They charged together. Lothe took the initiative, throwing his weight into a heavy sweep that knocked the front two wasps off-balance.
Seana slid past his shoulder, her rod piercing the throat of a third.
The air was thick with the foul, metallic smell of green blood and their own sweat.
Lothe’s muscles began to burn, a heavy, dead fatigue creeping into his limbs.
But worse than the exhaustion was a persistent, pricking sensation on his skin, as if someone, or something, was watching him from the deep shadows of the room.
[Kills: 19/20]
They killed more, but the swarm seemed endless. The wasps were pressing their advantage, slowly grinding them down, waiting for their movements to grow slow.
Then, both Lothe and Seana froze.
A sudden, primal chill ran down their spines. Deep within the center of the hovering swarm, the wasps parted.
Standing on the central chandelier was a different creature. It was the same size as the others, but its shell was not yellow, it was a dull, oily purple-black.
Its compound eyes glowed with a faint, intelligent crimson.
The purple wasp clicked its mandibles.
The swarm instantly went wild, lunging from all sides in a desperate frenzy. Lothe swung his club, ducking beneath a stinger, but another wasp slammed into his ribs from the side.
The impact forced him to roll across the stone floor to avoid the follow-up strike.
It was a mistake.
The moment he rolled, the swarm surged into the gap, separating him from Seana.
"Lothe!" she cried out.
Six wasps surrounded her, cutting off her escape. She fought with everything she had, her strikes losing their precision as her strength failed.
Tears, hot and silent, spilled from her bloodshot eyes, mixing with the grime on her face. Her brass rod felt like lead in her hands.
Her foot slipped on the wet floor, and she collapsed.
Looking up at the incoming stingers, Seana gritted her teeth. No. Not like this.
Forcing her trembling legs to stand, she looked toward Lothe, who was desperately trying to fight his way back to her. She steeled her heart.
With a final, desperate surge of energy, she ducked beneath a lunging wasp, grabbed its wing-joint, and used its own momentum to fling it into the path of another.
She threw herself forward, rolling across the stone floor until she reached Lothe’s side.
Lothe reached down, his bloody hand clasping hers. He pulled her up, spinning her behind him as he shattered the head of a wasp targeting her back. Seana thrust her rod over his shoulder, impaling another.
For a split second, an opening appeared.
But before they could run, four wasps dropped from the ceiling, blocking the corridor.
Lothe swung his club, killing the first one, but a sudden, sharp pain flared in his calf. A wasp had bypassed his guard, its mandibles biting deep into his flesh.
Puchi.
Seana’s rod pierced the wasp from behind, freeing him, but the strain was too much.
Her knees buckled. She collapsed onto the cold stone, her breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. She couldn’t lift her arms.
The brass rod rolled from her fingers.
Tears pooled in her eyes as she looked at the dark ceiling.
She remembered the last, bitter argument she had with her father before she ran away from home.
She had wanted to prove she could survive on her own. Now, she wouldn’t even get to tell him she was sorry.
She turned her head, her gaze landing on Lothe.
He was down on one knee, using his splintered wooden club to prop himself up, his chest heaving as his dark hair fell over his pale face.
Even now, his eyes were cold and stubborn, refusing to yield.
The purple-black wasp on the chandelier clicked its mandibles again.
Three wasps hovered over Seana, their long, black stingers angling downward.
She closed her eyes, tensing her body for the cold, tearing pain of the stingers.
The milliseconds stretched. But the strike didn’t come.
Instead, a loud, violent hiss cut through the buzzing, followed by a heavy, metallic clank.
Seana opened her eyes.
Standing in front of her was Old Barnaby.
The old librarian’s brown jacket was torn, his face smudged with soot, but his jaw was set.
He held a heavy red fire extinguisher in his left hand, spraying a thick, blinding cloud of white chemical foam directly into the eyes of the hovering wasps. In his right hand, he gripped a thick iron rod.
He didn’t hesitate. As the blinded wasps shrieked and scattered, Barnaby stepped forward, swinging the iron rod with two hands.
The impact cracked the skull of the nearest wasp, sending it spinning into the floorboards.
On the other side of the room, relief washed over Lothe. A breathless laugh escaped his lips. He knew the old man wouldn’t die easily.
The white chemical cloud quickly filled the narrow corridor, disorienting the remaining swarm. But deep within the fog, a sharp click of mandibles echoed.
The purple-black wasp on the chandelier had seen enough.
Angered by the old man’s interference, it launched itself from the brass fixture. It didn’t target Lothe or Barnaby, it recognized Seana as the weakest link and dived straight toward her throat, its stinger poised to pierce.
"Watch out!" Barnaby roared.
He didn’t have the speed to swing his rod, so he threw his own body over Seana, shielding her with his back.
Puchi.
The purple wasp’s massive mandibles bit deep into Barnaby’s shoulder, its dark venom instantly injecting into his collarbone.
The old man gasped, his face twisting in sudden agony, but he didn’t pull away.
Instead, he used the physical contact to trap the beast. He locked his left arm around its segmented neck and jammed the nozzle of the fire extinguisher directly into its compound eyes.
He squeezed the lever.
White foam blasted into the creature’s face at point-blank range. The purple wasp shrieked, thrashing violently as the chemical blinded it.
Seana saw the opening. Ignoring the screaming pain in her muscles, she grabbed her brass rod with both hands, dragged herself up, and drove the sharp point straight into the wasp’s exposed underbelly.
The rod sank deep, green blood spurting over her hands.
The purple wasp let out a wet, bubbling shriek before its legs curled inward, its body going completely limp.
Lothe scrambled forward on his hands and knees, his eyes fixed entirely on his mentor. "Old B!"
But the old man’s arm lost its strength.
The iron rod fell from his fingers, clattering against the stone.
His knees buckled, and he collapsed face-down onto the floor, his breathing shallow and ragged as the dark purple venom began to spread across his neck.
"No," Lothe whispered, his voice cracking as he reached out. "Old B, please..."