The instant effect of the pike’s launch was like nothing Rohan had experienced before. At over double the speed of sound, something that he should be impossible to produce at his level of strength, the pike flew through the air at the four Awakened barely a few metres away from him.

At the speed it was delivered to them, none of them had the time to react. They were barely able to sense it at all, as their eyes couldn’t possibly keep up with a projectile at those speeds.

At the very least, they’d have to be E rank Awakened for that, and likely one at the peak.

The impact came first — then the shock wave resulting from the sound barrier being broken.

The Poison Rocksnake Pike crossed the few metres between Rohan and Rudith’s group so obscenely fast that nobody there truly registered it while it was still in flight, even Rohan, whose hands it originated from.

There was only a sudden blur of motion, a ripping distortion through the air and then the violent sound of flesh, bone and stone all being struck in the same instant.

Rudith felt the breath of death pass her by.

Literally.

The pike missed her body by less an a centimetre, close enough that the compressed air rolling around the pike completely quenched the flames around her shoulder and left a deep compression on her, shattering her shoulder blade and nearby bones into pieces from the pressure of the pike’s launch alone.

For the briefest moment, she didn’t even understand what happened — only that something terrifying had just flashed past her face.

Then came the wet, brutal crunch behind her.

Noa and Niko never stood a chance.

Standing slightly behind Rudith and offset to her left, they were directly in the path of the pike once it narrowly failed to take her head off. At that insane speed, the thing might as well have been a railgun shot.

It drove straight through Niko’s left shoulder first, exploding through his flesh, muscle and bone with enough force to spin his entire upper body sideways, and even after that, it didn’t even slow in the slightest.

The pike punched out the other side in a shower of blood and shattered bone fragments, then slammed straight into Noa’s left-side of his chest.

The two men’s bodies jerked violently, and neither of them remained conscious to witness the gruesome scene that just happened to their bodies.

There wasn’t even any need for the poison to act, as they were already dead before they’d hit the ground, but it continued to regardless. Whatever Stella called the Poison Rocksnake’s "Venom" was a complete understatement of its effects.

The stuff moved like liquid death, and in less than a second, Niko and Noa were turned into two shrivelled-up corpses, like they’d gone through a year of decomposition already.

The sickening sounds following their impalement and death was not something any human should ever have to listen to.

Rohan felt a savage thrill rush though his chest, even though the pike didn’t reach its intended target.

’Holy shit...’

Up until now, the power contained inside an Elite tier Poison Rocksnake Pike was purely theoretical — this was quite literally the first time this Genetic Armament had ever seen combat.

"Y-you... what—"

Rudith stammered, unable to speak a coherent sentence. The faint breath of death that she’d just avoided, combined with the sight of what would have happened to her if the pike hit its intended target, left her gut wrenching with shock and fear.

That thing was the stuff of nightmares.

Her back remained turned away from Rohan, and he seized the moment to charge in towards her while she was distracted.

For a single, perfect moment, the chamber should have exploded into motion.

...It should have.

Right as Rohan was mere inches away from piercing his spear through Rudith’s exposed neck, an ear piercing roar erupted from outside the entrance of the beast nest, followed by a pressure wave that sent him, along with Elane, Joe and Rudith tumbling through the air and landing on the ground in a heap on top of each other.

Rudith instinctively deactivated her flames before the rush of air caused her to explode and collapse the tunnels in on her, saving the others from a scorching hot person landing right on top of them.

But that didn’t stop any of them from fear rushing from their core and ingraining itself in every little aspect of themselves.

Contained within that roar was pure, unadulterated rage.

Rohan was the first to realise the source of that roar when its owner’s aura hit him. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

The boss had returned.

And it wasn’t alone.

A second aura spread out and hit him and the others, just as strong as the first one, that left Rohan and Elane in despair.

They understood why the E rank Elite had been missing from the chamber, making the Lava Hellebore as easy pickings for them.

...It left the beast nest entirely.

Searching for a mate.

Beforehand, Rohan never even questioned or considered this a possibility, due to the nature of the beast’s species. It was an Ant, which made it a hive type species headed by queens.

All along he just assumed that this same fact would apply to the E rank Elite, as it was quite literally the queen of this beast nest.

’Unless it wasn’t a female in the first place...’

Everything fit into place if the E rank Elite turned out to be a male Ant.

And judging from the second aura that just hit him, it was safe to say that it found its queen.

’You have got to be shitting me...’

As if to confirm this nightmare was reality, a pair of vast shadows moved across the entrance. The weak daylight filtering down into the crevice darkened as something massive stepped into the light of sight outside.

Then another.

The first shape emerged partially into view.

It was the E rank Elite, as he’d already figured out. But the expressions on Rudith’s and Joe’s faces showed that they didn’t follow until now.

After all, they were unaware that the E rank Elite was missing from the boss chamber in the first place.