The Killer of the Nomadic Elves
The queen's pheromonal power and the fiery mana clashed head on.
Large armored insects, blessed with bigger brains, obeyed the queen's orders first. But the smaller, arrow-like bugs gladly hurled themselves into Vesta's flame barrier.
Even the mere swing of Vesta's blade sent them plummeting like leaves.
“Wanting to kill me with fire?”
“Exactly?”
Ushun’s words spurred Vesta to surge his sword’s strength higher. He recalled the memories of his earlier clash with Narinhoon.
He hurled a burst of flame into the empty air. The bugs crashed to the ground, charred and shriveled into nothing.
Ushun laughed heartily and cheered.
“Amazing!”
She was not standing idly by.
A medium-sized armored insect lunged at Vesta’s side. Ushun watched it intently and, the instant it charged, swung her heavy club with perfect timing.
—!
The insect’s head exploded. Her heavy club carried a force that outstripped the spear tips of cavalry.
Ahor fought desperately to protect Vesta’s flames.
“Block them before they can summon a sandstorm!”
As the bugs swarmed toward Vesta, Ahor’s forces moved with flexible precision.
“I won’t let that fire extinguish. That is my role, Vesta.”
Ahor, now free, had targeted the bugs fleeing the battlefield to create a sandstorm.
—Simple enough.
She had imagined they would bury the flames under a sandstorm.
Tack—tack—
The sound of shells parting and wings clashing. Thankfully, she had arrived in time.
The large-winged insects that could generate a sandstorm possessed shells of remarkable toughness. Their smooth slopes made piercing them with arrows nearly impossible.
That was why Ahor had circled back to strike them from behind.
Whoosh.
“Captain, they’re launching!”
“I see. Wait a little longer.”
The bugs began pelting Vesta with sand.
Yet the flames still burned. A miracle continued to illuminate the elves.
“Save your arrows. Ready.”
The archers drew their bows.
“Fire.”
Peew—!
The moment the elves released the strings, they knew the arrows would strike true.
The arrows sliced through the sand and dust.
The retreating bugs’ wings were shredded to ribbons.
“Direct hit!”
The armored insects slammed their heads into the ground.
Ahor had succeeded in sniping the sandstorm.
The sand settled.
Ushun spat on a dead insect’s corpse.
“Ptooie! There you are—bugs, just like you are: on the dirt or in a hole.”
She grabbed the jaw of one medium-sized specimen mid-charge.
Quickly, she used her left leg to kick up one of its legs.
Screeech—!
The bug flipped over. She brought her club down without mercy, finishing the wriggling creature.
While she stood guard, Vesta was safe. After all, she was originally the Khan’s protector.
“Oh, so you’ve finally come out to fight yourself?”
The queen had learned of this and sent a large specimen. The massive bug closed the distance, slamming its twin jaws together.
Ushun, drawing on body vision that transcended mammals, monitored every life reaction. She approached the predator that had no fear of anything in the desert, earning their awe.
She did not move rashly either. The creature was simply too fast.
—Beyond speed, it was too difficult.
Imagine a giant moving as quickly as them.
Ushun could see the contraction of their thighs and the powerful clenching of their jaw muscles as they prepared to strike.
She could predict their movements. Thus, she would swing her club and shatter the giant’s head.
But the insects were different. Their muscles were hidden beneath smooth shells. No expressions or tells appeared on their faces.
No forewarning. Unpredictable movements. That was what sealed their fate.
Whoosh.
The creature vanished. A cloud of sand rose. Ushun swung her club, striking with surprising accuracy, but it did not kill.
The insect forced its jaw toward Ushun’s neck.
But Ushun lowered her head and countered with a gauntlet punch.
Crash!
Ushun wrapped the creature’s neck in her arms. The iron armor scraped with a bone-chilling sound. The insect tried to fly free.
Whoosh.
Suspended in the air, attached to the creature’s neck, she became an obstacle. The archers could no longer aim.
She moved her legs and climbed onto the creature’s head.
“I said not to waste spirit arrowheads.”
She had used one on a larva, not a mature insect—it was a waste. But she had set the larva’s head and let the lightning fall.
It was a regrettable decision.
—But, hey, what could you do?
Ushun was the kind of woman who never regretted her actions.
Even in this situation, she would find a way out.
Choosing the right path mattered most, but when it wasn’t possible, sliding down a steep slope was also an option.
Ushun clenched her fist.
Nature’s power was ever-changing, and the harder it was to control, the less it fit in one’s hands. That was why one needed a medium to hold it, and soon after, the spirit arrowhead.
Ushun’s spirit arrowhead did not itself contain lightning.
It helped lightning strike enemies instead of her iron armor—a lightning rod, so to speak.
So if she were to take a direct hit from lightning…
She could still call down thunder.
“I am the hammer.”
Ushun raised her elbow. As if to smash anything.
Kuuung—
The sky answered her spirit.
—Mine!
“I’m striking!”
As she slammed her fist down, a single bolt of lightning carved a diagonal path.
Bang—!
With a thunderous roar, the creature’s head exploded in the air.
Ushun fell together with the insect’s corpse.
*
The insect felt no sorrow at its comrade’s death. It only stood before Vesta.
The last bug that could be called large.
It was the final obstacle.
“Ushun… she’ll be fine.”
But she could not count on her help.
The caravan could no longer assist, nor could Ahor and the elves. Vesta’s strength alone would have to defeat it.
Compared to the large insect it had fought before, this one was not especially larger.
“But its form is different.”
Unlike the others, it had front legs. A special individual. It reminded Vesta of the soldier ants.
Vesta aimed his flame spear at the insect. It spread its front legs and lunged forward.
—!
Vesta rolled across the ground.
The insect swung its front legs like a blade.
“I didn’t know I’d end up fighting a bug with a sword…!”
Vesta exploded flames at its torso.
—!
The insect, sensing the flames’ danger, quickly retreated.
It was not a clean finish. She had not expected to kill it in one blow.
Instead, another aim presented itself.
“The antennae have caught fire.”
One antenna was already ablaze. The fire would soon burn half the world the bug could perceive.
Squeak.
Vesta was watching gleefully when the insect moved. It carried its burning antenna to its own mouth.
—!
It bit into the burned section without hesitation.
“…”
Could such a creature be real?
It required more resolve than severing a whole arm struck by poison arrows.
It simply judged and acted. No fear, no sadness—only the best choice.
Facing a emotionless monster hit harder than expected.
If it felt nothing, why was it fighting so desperately?
Vesta did not know what drove the insect. Survival? Hunger? Or its species?
What Vesta fought for was not survival.
A new realization, but true nonetheless. Not hunger or species.
The prairie… To protect the prairie.
“When did I become so selfless?”
It felt embarrassing. It felt strange.
“I can’t abandon anything. Ashthien’s world.”
Nor could he abandon Ahor, Arin, Bia, Ushun, Rahan, or the others.
“Such bugs do not belong in Ashthien’s summer.”
That much was certain.
Ahor fired an arrow to disrupt the insect’s movements.
Its body was far too hard and smooth for her arrows to pierce.
The joints? The small gaps in a creature that moved like a fierce north wind were nearly impossible to hit.
From what Ahor knew, only one person could do such a thing.
Peew!
One arrow flew.
Thud!
It pierced precisely between the insect’s leg joints.
One.
Two, three…
Even as the insect moved its body unnaturally, the arrows struck the joints and embedded like nails into its flesh.
The overlapping eyes shifted restlessly.
No chance of detection. Even a human eye could not see that far; a bug’s compound eyes certainly could not.
“Ashthien.”
Vesta could not see her either. But he felt her presence.
Once, he had thought of the desert as an incomplete world. A world on the brink of collapse, fragile and unstable.
That was why he had thought it impossible for a perfect Ashthien to stand in such a desert.
Yet she had taken him there, and now she had come here.
So Vesta felt no unease before the desert.
With her present, the desert could be called the prairie.
He could charge forward without hesitation.
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The end of the chapter.