Chapter 67
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 67
Chapter Title: Martyr (2)
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‘How could something like this even exist...?!’
Seira, now utterly unable to resist, could only tremble uncontrollably.
All she had sensed from the first worker ant that captured her was a faint ripple.
Of course, she had instinctively realized that this subtle, inexplicable energy wave was how the ants communicated with each other and had poured all her effort into studying it.
According to her plan, this scroll should have disrupted, interfered with, and severed their communication method entirely.
But reality was different.
What she had thought was a simple communication network was actually a vast hive mind—a collective consciousness linking countless minds like an intricate web.
Right now, Seira had been thrown naked into that unimaginable colossus.
‘Could this be the Outer God’s...’
Within the collective consciousness, behind the massive face of Asmora glaring at her with seething hatred, she faintly sensed an even greater presence.
Seira shuddered as she strained her eyes, barely able to make out even its silhouette.
Her mind was crushed outright upon entering the colossal collective consciousness she could never have imagined.
If one were to compare whose ego was more advanced and refined, it would be Seira’s—but the immense force Asmora belonged to was a legion far exceeding hundreds of thousands of individuals.
No single human mind could withstand this.
It was a massive mental entity that only those born into it from the start could endure.
The entire entity was now fixating on Seira, the intruding foreign substance that had flowed in, and directing its hostility toward her.
“H-hngh...”
There was only one reason Seira could thrash about in this hellish abyss without losing herself completely.
It was because her ego was even more steadfast than Asmora’s, the most dominant self in the collective right now.
Yet even the sturdiest rock would slowly erode if battered by the relentless, countless grains of sand sweeping across a vast desert. Her sense of self would inevitably crumble if she lingered here too long.
“Agh!”
At least the scroll’s power had finally run out, snapping her mind back into her body.
In reality, less than a minute had passed.
In that brief time, drained of all will and strength, she rolled her eyes back and collapsed unconscious with a thud.
By now, ants swarmed everywhere, and not a single allied soldier remained screaming.
[Asmora instructs the capture of the archenemy]
The ants, who had been gathering the corpses of defeated foes to convert into nutrients, stepped forward to capture Seira.
Everyone else, including Marquis Lumiern, had paid the price of defeat—not a single one survived, their bodies hacked into bloody chunks on the spot. But Seira was different.
Spider ants bound her thoroughly with their silk and injected just enough paralyzing venom for humans to induce a comatose state.
Even though this was the archenemy she had targeted from the start—the one she hated most—Asmora uniquely spared her life.
“Why... why not kill me?”
Not even Jin-hyuk, who had pointed out Seira as the true enemy to Asmora when it was barking up the wrong tree, fully understood the reason.
Seira came to her senses already being dragged alive into the ants’ lair, in the Primordial Nest within the breeding grounds.
She was in front of Asmora, in the deepest chamber that it had claimed exclusively for itself.
“The true queen of Beelzahad!”
Though she had barely regained consciousness, her body still wouldn’t respond properly. Bound in sticky silk, she dangled helplessly in midair.
At a height matching the eye level of Asmora’s enormous body compared to her own.
In the thick darkness, the only light came from the glowing compound eyes of the ants.
“...”
Seira bit her lip as she looked at Asmora.
In that fleeting moment of accessing the collective consciousness and glimpsing its nature, she knew Asmora’s true identity.
She just didn’t know what to call them.
They surpassed even her wildest imagination of monsters heralding doom, the very beings she had feared and guarded against more than anyone.
“Why... why did you spare me?”
The ants made no sound.
Only the soft rustling of their movements echoed in the eerie silence. Seira, chills creeping up her spine, squirmed and spoke first.
With almost nothing visible, she felt like she’d lose it if she didn’t make some noise somehow.
[Asmora takes an interest in the archenemy]
“Eek!”
Asmora might not understand her words, but it was true that it hadn’t killed her on purpose—and that it was deep in thought.
Asmora’s antennae, longer and more delicate than a whip compared to Seira’s body, slowly began circling her form.
Seira squeezed her eyes shut and thrashed in terror, but she couldn’t escape Asmora’s obsessive curiosity and exploration.
[Sensed power, body composition, scent, sensations]
[All identical to the humans devoured ad nauseam until now. So what makes this one dare oppose us? Why did the great existence single out this human female?]
Asmora desperately sought something special about Seira.
She must be special—that’s why she had tormented it all this time.
In truth, Seira’s data had been etched into the collective memory from very early on.
The mere fact that she kept surviving and clashing with the ants since then had been a persistent thorn in Asmora’s side.
‘If I could uncover that special quality...?’
The most irritating enemy was, conversely, the one who knew its weaknesses best.
Asmora ultimately concluded that her uniqueness lay in her mind—her ego.
She was the first to dare infiltrate the collective consciousness.
[Above all, Asmora does not wish to evaporate this rage and hatred in an instant]
In fact, the biggest reason was Asmora’s own stubborn conviction: simply ripping her apart like any other prey in a fleeting moment wouldn’t sate the massive grudge it harbored against her.
At this point, Seira had become the ants’ first true archenemy—acknowledged even by the great existence in the heavens—surpassing even Asmora itself.
“This is insane.”
Jin-hyuk, pacing aimlessly in front of the breeding chamber, froze solid.
In the thick darkness that Seira’s blurred vision couldn’t pierce, one of Asmora’s new variant strains that it had personally nurtured and experimented on in its nest emerged.
“N-no! I don’t want this!!!! Kill me instead... mngh!!”
Her desperate scream echoed.
A long, slender organism shot from Asmora’s mouth, writhing on its own as it coiled around her body and plunged inside in one swift motion.
I clenched my jaw and squeezed my eyes shut, unable to stop the horror unfolding in mere seconds.
Until her horrific screams and choking gasps faded into silence in the quiet ant den.
Thoughts raced through my mind dozens of times: Should I tear open the breeding chamber and save her now? Or intervene to grant her a humane death?
‘What the hell do you even want?’
I knew Asmora had devoured a whip scorpion and absorbed its abilities, but I hadn’t expected it to use them like this, out of nowhere.
I thought it would kill Seira on the spot once captured, but Asmora’s hatred for its perceived archenemy ran deeper than that.
[Variant Ant Whip takes root in the host’s body]
「Acquired a new type of subordinate through a special method」
And that wasn’t all.
The moment the variant ant whip burrowed into Seira’s body, notifications popped up before my bewildered eyes: I had achieved something new, elevating my deity rank as a result.
‘They even count this as an achievement?’
[Asmora uses the ant whip embedded in the new host’s body to forcibly link the host’s mind to itself]
No time to be surprised. Asmora, apparently satisfied, moved straight to the next step.
“Gah... uueegh!”
The variant ant whip acted as a conduit, a link.
Seira convulsed and retched, her eyes spinning dangerously.
“Kuh!?”
And the effect reached me too.
Connected to Asmora as I was, I staggered from an alien sensation I’d never felt before.
I knew instinctively.
Someone else—Seira—had wedged into the connection between me and Asmora.
“Ou... Outer God...”
Seira lifted her haggard face, her dulled blue eyes staring into empty space as if peering straight at me through a screen.
Her beautiful features, once strong and intellectual, now teetered on the brink of collapse.
“Can you hear me?”
My heart pounding with faint hope, I slowly opened my mouth.
Maybe Seira, forcibly linked to the consciousness that no one else in the ant collective could comprehend, might hear my will.
“Ngh.”
But even that momentary link proved too much for her.
Her eyes rolled back, her head lolled, and she lost consciousness again.
‘If Seira can maintain the connection, it might accelerate communication with the ants far beyond now.’
[Without intervention from the great existence, Asmora wishes to further study the archenemy turned slave of the collective]
Though our emotions and goals differed, my thoughts aligned with Asmora’s in one direction.
We both wanted to keep Seira alive.
Asmora had no intention of letting go of Seira, now puppeted by the parasitic variant ant whip under its will.
It planned to exploit and study her thoroughly for further growth and evolution.
Since I wasn’t showing displeasure or anger to disrupt it, Asmora proceeded as it pleased.
‘Seira has only one choice too.’
And while I hated to say it, for Seira to survive humanely—let alone fulfill her wish to exterminate the ants—she had no choice but to cooperate with them, or rather, with me.
Only when the ants obeyed me perfectly would everything she desired come true.
‘But will it go according to my plan?’
The problem was that for this ideal path, I, Seira, and Asmora all had to mesh perfectly.
If Asmora lost interest and disposed of her, or if Seira broke and went mad, it was all over.
“Guess I should reward it first.”
Muttering dazedly, I hurriedly opened the breeding chamber lid.
I needed to reward Asmora for capturing Seira and turning her into a parasitized puppet—to signal that sparing her was the right call and that I approved.
[Subordinates react to the great existence’s reward]
Thanks to training them to associate food drops with my satisfaction, that issue seemed resolved for now.
But not everything was settled. With a troubled expression, I gazed at Seira, slumbering in one corner of the ant-infested nest.
What a tragic fate.
Over the past month-plus, I’d learned bits about her while she researched beside a worker ant.
I’d bet anything: if not for the ants—or if I hadn’t singled her out—she wouldn’t have ended up walking this path.