Chapter 69

An hour passed.

By this point, over two million bees had died since the raid began, and if monsters didn’t dissipate upon death, huge piles of corpses would’ve covered the battlefield.

Compared to the heavy casualties among the bees, only ninety-two people died on the Innate Dimension’s side, proving that having healers made a major difference in a massive battle like this.

While people dying was unfortunate, the loot was plentiful. It had reached the point that so many items littered the ground that they became a safety hazard, forcing everyone to pick them up as they fought.

Stealing wasn’t a concern.

Before the battle started, Yara used the Dimension Core to create a raid-type event. During the event, the System kept track of everyone’s kills and collected any loot picked up. According to the rules, when the event ended, the System would divide the loot based on everyone’s ranking. Nobody doubted the System’s fairness.

Perhaps even more important than the loot was the experience. Finding monsters was time-consuming, so a raid like this resulted in a windfall of experience. People were leveling up left and right thanks to the high density of monsters. For example, Keith woke up today at level 528, and in just an hour of hard work, he reached level 540.

Unknowingly, Keith had become one of the highest-level people from the Innate Dimension. His stockpile of Mana allowed him to claim the lives of countless bees, pushing him to the front of the pack. Sadly, an hour of casting high Mana cost skills almost depleted the Mana in his Grimoire.

Wiping the sweat off his brow, Keith glanced around the battlefield and saw that victory was in sight. No more reinforcements came from the hive, making the bees on the battlefield the last of their numbers.

A few minutes later, everything grew quiet.

The last bee had fallen.

Everyone was running on fumes. Keith had mostly acted as a stationary artillery turret, yet even he was exhausted. Even then, everyone found it fitting to cry out in victory. This was the longest battle Keith had ever participated in, and shouting had never felt so great. He raised both arms to the sky and yelled his heart out.

Just then, an enraged roar interrupted the cheering.

In the next moment, the hive began to tremble. Cracks spread throughout the massive structure when suddenly, a gargantuan head larger than a mansion poked through the side of the hive.

It was the Queen Bee, and it was mad.

[Raid Boss, Ancient] Royal Queen Bee – Level 615

Health: 40,000,000/40,000,000

Broken chunks of the hive fell to the ground as it tried to claw its way out. It screeched and roared as it squirmed around, but its body was too big, and freeing itself would take some time.

Not wanting to waste this opportunity, Major General Luca’s voice rang throughout the battlefield, “Mages, give her a nice shower, then freeze her up! If anyone can control the earth, lock her down! Everyone else, surround her!”

Hearing the order, Keith suddenly regretted not picking up the Spring Rain skill. It was a non-combat skill generally used by farmers to nourish crops. Considering the current situation, he realized he underestimated the functionality a skill like that could bring when combined with other skills.

In any case, Keith joined up with his Mom and Aunt before closing in on the trapped Queen Bee. Once in range, mages showered the Raid Boss in a torrent of heavy rainfall before others followed up with skills that had the freezing effect, Keith included. He targeted the base of one of the Queen’s limbs with Cold Snap.

Even though it was a Raid Boss and had high resistance to negative effects, the Queen’s movements fell by over 60% as most of its body chilled over, a result of thousands of mages working together. More cast spells like Earthen Spire and Yggdrasil’s Grasp. Instead of using them to deal damage, the mages controlled the spells to create a cage around the Queen Bee’s head, locking it in place.

Major General Luca waited a few moments to confirm they had trapped the Queen before ordering, “Fire at will!”

At her command, thousands of skill-empowered arrows and elemental skills flew through the air and landed on the Queen Bee’s exposed head. The attacks were minuscule compared to its massive size, yet its Health fell nonetheless. As it screeched in pain and anger, it could only blame itself for getting stuck.

The Queen Bee’s Health continued to dwindle as time passed, but when victory was just within reach, a sudden change occurred when its Health hit 30%. Before everyone’s eyes, an ominous red glow encompassed the Queen Bee as it entered an enraged state. The increase in stats allowed it to fight against its restraints to the point they were on the verge of breaking.

Major General Luca hastily shouted, “Quick, reinforce the bindings! Iron Bear Battalion, prepare yourselves!”

The majority continued to deal damage while those who could tried to lock down the Queen Bee. Unfortunately, its resistances in its enraged state allowed it to nullify the freezing debuff completely. Physical restraints like Yggdrasil’s Grasp still proved effective, yet before the Queen’s Bees improved strength, they only lasted a few seconds before breaking.

At the start, they could still barely restrain the Queen Bee, but the further its Health dropped, the higher its stats became. Eventually, it was on the verge of freedom.

“Iron Bear Battalion!” Major General Luca yelled as she continued firing arrows.

By now, the Iron Bear Battalion had recovered enough to take action, though against an enraged level 615 Ancient grade Raid Boss, who knew how long they could last. They charged forward, prepared to lay down their lives, only to stop in their tracks when hundreds of thick roots shot out from the ground beneath the Queen Bee.

It was the appearance of Entangling Roots, a skill recently discovered in the Grandsky Realm. While several mages had used it earlier, there were never this many roots, nor were they as thick.

Everyone watched as the hundreds of sturdy roots coiled around the Queen Bee’s neck in an attempt to tie it down. Roaring, the Raid Boss used its recently freed front limbs to rip apart several dozen roots. Even then, more roots erupted from the ground to replace those lost.

Under Major General Luca’s encouragement, nobody held anything back as they unleashed a final barrage of attacks. Finally, with an unwilling roar, the Queen Bee dissipated into motes of light. With its death, a tremendous quantity of loot fell through the roots and rolled along the ground, shining with colorful splendor.

As everyone cheered once more, many collapsed to the ground in exhaustion, Keith among them. Earlier, at that critical moment, he used his ability to multicast and divide his mind to accurately control hundreds of roots like they were his own limbs. While he succeeded, he consumed over a million Mana in less than 10 seconds to hold back the Queen Bee, making him feel hollowed out.

It was a strange feeling.

Normally, most people had a vague perception of the Mana in their bodies. The System was the one controlling it for them to cast skills. Unexpectedly, a strange phenomenon occurred when all that Mana flowed through Keith and into the world: that normally vague perception grew shockingly clear.

Alas, 10 seconds wasn’t enough to figure out exactly what he felt, though Keith’s intuition told him that an incredible secret lay behind that feeling. Regardless, he simply didn’t have enough Mana stockpiled to recreate what had happened. In fact, he had zero. Multicasting Entangling Roots consumed every last drop he had left.

Laying flat on the ground, Keith decided to explore this secret later. There was something else drawing his attention.

Congratulations! You have advanced to level 541!

Congratulations! You have advanced to level 542!

…

Congratulations! You have advanced to level 566!

Congratulations! Your Entangling Roots skill reached level 429 from 362.

Apparently, the System evaluated Keith’s performance in the fight against the Queen Bee highly and granted him a significant share of the Ancient Raid Boss’s experience. Feeling accomplished and with a wide grin on his face, Keith promptly fell asleep.

In the meantime, healers swept through the battlefield and healed those critically wounded while Major General Luca sent several reserve squads into the hive to scout things out.

Up in the sky, Yara retracted her attention from below and began browsing the raid event she had created. On the one hand, she loved setting up reward systems and watching people go to great lengths to acquire them. On the other hand, she used these events to gather data on who was worth investing in.

With her administrative privileges, she could see what others couldn’t see, like the rankings of every participant. So when she opened up the contribution list for the Bee Hive raid, she did a doubletake when she saw the name Keith Walker at rank #4.

Yara’s eyes glittered when she read the System’s evaluation of why it gave Keith his ranking. Muttering something, she performed calculations using her Karma innate ability and smiled at what she found.

With the rise in Keith’s abilities, there were now so many possibilities that Yara could no longer glean anything useful from her ability to deduce the future.