There was only the sound of blood gushing from Ma Dong-wook's severed arm, along with everyone's heavy breathing.
Then came Choi Joong-in's furious roar.
"Where's the enemy?!!"
The fire mage had already pushed his magical power to its limit. Six blazing fireballs spun wildly around him, sending the temperature in the cave soaring as the air warped from the heat.
But his Spiritual Power scan found nothing.
No enemy.
No magical fluctuations.
No target he could lock onto.
It was as if that streak of black light just now had been a collective hallucination.
But Ma Dong-wook's severed arm, along with the shattered shield on the ground, coldly reminded them otherwise.
Everything that had just happened was real!
"Above us!"
Che Huiyi suddenly cried out. Her longsword was already drawn, its tip pointing toward the cave ceiling.
Everyone looked up at the same time.
Then they saw it.
That figure.
Standing atop the Ant Queen's enormous corpse.
Black.
That was everyone's first impression of it.
Black carapace covered its entire body, gleaming with a metallic luster in the cave's faint light.
The lines of its carapace were smooth and elegant, as though it were some work of art that transcended human aesthetics. Yet at the same time, it radiated a terrifying sense of violence.
Then there were its eyes.
Scarlet compound eyes, like two clusters of burning flames, flickering with a cold light in the darkness.
They were not the eyes of a beast.
A beast's eyes held only hunger and bloodlust.
But these eyes held intelligence, emotion, and something complex that resembled a human soul.
And at that moment, visible grief filled those eyes.
Hatred.
A rage bordering on madness.
It lowered its head and looked at the Ant Queen's shattered skull beneath its feet, at the enormous body