Ascenders Rift

Chapter 223: The City's Change, A Flickering Lifesign

The City of Hope was no longer an encouraging sight; the scene now mostly one of ruin as the sky was littered with a horde of mutant bees. Looking at each of these creatures, one would notice that they were thoroughly scouring the land as if searching for something.

At this moment, Rick and Breya had already arrived within the city; they stood within a tall building, hidden behind a decent amount of cover as they gazed around at the chaos with complex looks on their faces.

"We were too late; it seems that the Bee Queen is even more troublesome than we'd thought..." Rick said with a cold look in his eyes as he stared at the distant and most towering building of all.

There, the once-glamorous Hall of Governance was now crumbled mostly into bits as only one single tower remained, filled with giant cracks and holes.

Breya frowned before her face returned to normal, her eyes scanned the many different mutant bees that flew about wantonly as she spoke, "Even if so, we can't just leave it as it is, we must do our best to learn what we can from all of this... I'm going to scan the Hall of Governance for any other vital signs, you can try sending some more signals to Milon, or any of those from their side."

When Rick heard her words, he nodded his head and replied, "Sounds good to me."

After determining their roles, Rick and Breya then split up; Breya took out a tablet and stealthy traveled towards the Hall of Governance while Rick went to a closer building before taking out a local communicator and tried to contact Leo's party.

"This is Rick from the E Party; if anyone's there, please respond, I repeat, this is Rick from the E Party, respond if you hear this message..." Rick said in a low voice, as he held the communicator close to his mouth.

Due to the art design state, one didn't need to shout to get their messages heard on the other side as their voice will naturally be enhanced. Rick continued to contact through the device, but no matter how many times he spoke, all he received was static as if all the commination channels were taken down.

'Damnit! Just where are they, are they even safe?' Rick cursed in his mind as he no longer used the communicator, his eyes once more falling onto the distant building.

As Rick stared in confusion, Breya, who had arrived within range of the Hall of Governance, scanned it with her tablet. As this happened, Breya's device had picked up a majority of red-colored lights, with two of them being more than double the others in size.

One other light was visible at the core of the Hall of Governance, but it was an exceedingly dim light as if it was only moments from fading.

'Over a few hundred monster readings with two of them being of the General Class, and the final energy reading of someone who is nearing the point of death... this isn't good, I don't know who that is, but we can't let them die,' Breya thought with a firm look in her eyes. She then touched a button on her watch as she spoke, "Rick, hurry on over here, we have to make a move right now before it's too late."

Rick, who had only just gotten her message on his watch, stared in the direction she left and spoke, "What's the matter?"

Breya replied once more with a tone of urgency, "I can't explain it now; we have to leave right now."

Rick showed a thoughtful look for a moment before his eyes turned firm; even if they weren't as close as friends, they had already worked together long enough to understand each other's intent.

Rick replied, "Fine."

Following his words, his body blurred as he rapidly went towards her direction; it didn't take long for the two meetings up as they rapidly sept towards the Hall of Governance in a stealthy but swift manner.

***

Within the vicinity of the ruined Hall of Governance, many different mutant worker bees were flying about its wreckages. If one looked around the area, they would see hundreds of fresh corpses that belonged to both mosquitoes and humans. There were even some recent corpses of bees that had likely fought against a few others.

Within the ruined compound, the two Bee Generals were standing before a large crater that was blocked off by crumbled rocks and steel. A few mutant bees were currently digging a hole through the rubble as the Bee Generals spoke amongst themselves.

"These darn humans, to think that they could pull off such a trick, they blocked off the only path while leaving, the queen will not be happy about this change," One of the Bee Generals said with a look of anger on his face.

"Hmph! It's nothing, it's not like they can hide forever, and we are the ones with the advantage, it won't take long for those workers to dig a hole connecting to that hidden passage," The other Bee General said with a sneer.

"Haha, that's right," The previous Bee General replied with a laugh.

After a short while, one of them shifted their eyes towards the main building where the massive Gamma Cannons were located. It flapped its wings with a curious expression as its body flew towards it; the other Bee General glanced at him but did nothing; he merely focused his attention on the ground, hoping to see a change.

Moments after, the Bee General who flew upwards had finally arrived at the cannons locations; it landed onto the cracked floor while thinking, 'How did they use these weapons? The power behind it was even enough to injure that fool from the Mosquito Breed... if we... no, I can harvest its methods, then the queen will certainly be happy.'

Following those thoughts, the Bee General once more looked around the room; he soon noticed a tightly sealed area with strange signs that he couldn't comprehend.

Not wasting a moment, he flew into this area before finally arriving at the core of the Gamma Cannons. Here, a series of chambers had massive pipes and tubes connected to them, each of which had a serial number.

At this time, only one of these chambers had a dim light from within it, one that caused the Bee General to show a look of curiosity as he flew towards it.

After arriving up close, he noticed that this chamber had a human-sized door; with a smirk, he raised his giant arms while thinking, 'Oh, this must be the control mechanism for those weapons used by these humans, let's take a look on what's inside.'

Following his thoughts, he waved his arm at the metal door; his sharp claws tore through the metal like paper as he easily ripped it to shreds.

After dragging it from its chamber and throwing it towards the side, the Bee General then glanced inside the chamber in satisfaction, but soon, its eyes flickered with fascination as he saw a strange sight.

There, the ashen and skinny form of a woman was visible; she no longer had the beautiful and plump figure as she seemed no different from an older woman. Looking at her coarse skin, one would even notice a variety of wires that were plunged into her as if she was a machine.

As if this woman sensed something, she weakly opened her eyes, staring at the giant figure that stood before her; her eyes didn't show fear, but pride and unwillingness to back down.

The Bee General was a bit surprised at this; he would have never thought that a human would go this far. As he was an evolved intelligent life, it didn't take for him to piece together everything that had transpired.

"Haha, you humans are truly foolish and desperate, to think you'd make such a sacrifice only to have lost in vain... fear not human woman, for I shall end your misery..." The Bee General said as his eyes shone with a ruthless light, his body glowed in a dominant power than could make most beings tremble before it.

Vernisa couldn't even speak; her mind was also slowly waning as she thought, 'So... they did escape... that's good, even if I did make it out of here, my time... has already ended...'

As Vernisa thought those words, her eyes began to grow darker; she could notice that the Bee General had already attacked, striking her claw-like arms towards her chest to crush her heart. However, right as Vernisa's eyes were about to close, the moment that the Bee General's claw was about to hit her chest, there was a change.

Not only Vernisa, but even the Bee General had surprised looks as the Bee General had stopped moving, it didn't take long for it to notice a few indistinct wires that had bound it from all sides.

'This... what the hell?" The Bee General uttered in confusion, but before it could even finish its words, a sharp whooshing sound was heard followed by the sound of flesh being pierced.

The Bee General looked in terror as its head flew away from its body; it noticed that two persons were standing behind it, their eyes focused onto the woman in front of it corpse as if it didn't exist.

"Darn... hu...mans..." The Bee General said in a weak tone before its head smashed onto the ground, and its consciousness faded.

The scene here was one of silence, as Rick and Breya stared at Vernisa, who looked back at them with a weak smile, one that carried a trace of hope and expectation...