“Lestor,” Luke gasped, forcing himself upright, ignoring the screaming protest from his ribs and side. “We need a plan. Now.”

  Lestor shook his head, wiping sweat and grime from his brow with a trembling hand. “Plan? Luke, I’m spent! Barely got enough juice left to light a candle, let alone fight that.” He gestured weakly towards the Queen with his staff, which now served more as a crutch.

  The Queen staggered forward playing the part of Undead very well. It headed directly towards Mark, who was still screaming in agony. “Mark!” Lestor shouted. He groaned a small bit of fire forming in his hand he trust his hands towards the Queen “Leave him alone!”

  the pitiful Firebolt didn’t even have enough juice to leave a burn mark, let alone distract the Queen. Luke and Lestor watched in horror as the queen slowly approached and with a sickening crunch look Mark off at the head before turning to the paralyzed Hark.

  Luke’s mind raced, latching onto the desperate idea he’d formed earlier, the one involving the stalactites. It was insane. It required perfect timing, coordination they didn’t have, and Lestor somehow finding reserves he claimed were gone. But it was something.

  “The ceiling!” Luke yelled over the Queen’s hissing. “Those stalactites above her! If we can bring them down…”

  Lestor looked up, following Luke’s gaze towards the massive stone spears hanging precariously from the cavern roof high above the Queen. His eyes widened slightly. “Bring them down? Luke, that would take a massive concussive force! I told you, I’m empty!”

  “Maybe not a spell,” Luke countered, his mind seizing on a desperate improvisation. “Think vibration! Resonance! Can you channel anything through your staff? A focused sonic pulse? A sharp kinetic jolt?”

  Lestor frowned, considering. “A kinetic pulse… maybe. Minimal mana cost, more about focus and channeling raw will through the wood… Never tried it on something that big, that high up. If I miss, or hit the wrong spot…”

  We don’t have another choice!” Luke interrupted, watching the Queen limp closer to Hark.

  Luke closed his eyes tight cringing at himself for what he was about to suggest. “Lestor, what if we.. what if we use Hark?”

  “What do you mean use Hark?”

  “Look!” Luke said pointing at the grouping of stalactites above Hark. “If you time your kinetic bolt to impact that group of stalactites as she.. eats Hark.. Then we might have a chance.”

  “You want me to let that monster EAT my friend?”

  “What other choice do we have!” Luke shot back. “I am just about dead, you can barely muster enough mana for a weak kinetic shot and Hark is paralyzed, maybe forever, what do we know?”

  “I know but, I can’t just-”

  “I know! I know.. It’s either him or all of us.” he said. He shouted the first but by the end it came out as a soft tremble.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  Lestor was silent for a long time. Luke could see him clenching his fists around is staff and his face a mask of anger, despair, and then grief.

  “Okay.” he said wiping glistening eyes. “Lets do this.”

  The Queen approached Hark ever so slowly dragging most of her bulk with her two good legs. Luke and Lestor hid nearby waiting, waiting. Lestor was trembling but his eyes had steel in them. “I’m.. I’m sorry Lestor.” Luke said.

  “No, you are right. This plan will work. It has to. We have to make sure their sacrifice is worth it. Live for all of them ya know?”

  Luke nodded focusing back on the Queen. She was almost there just a little bit more, The queens mandibles spread wide its gaping maw descending closer to Hark, a little bit mo- “LESTOR NOW!” he shouted.

  Tears streamed freely from Lestor as he roared, slamming the butt of his staff onto the stone platform. The amber light flared, shooting upwards not as fire, but as a tightly focused beam of pure kinetic energy. The beam wasn’t very big but a tight visible shockwave aimed directly at the base of the massive stalactite cluster hanging directly above the momentarily stationary Queen.

  The beam struck the ceiling with a sharp crack that echoed through the cavern. For a heart stopping moment, nothing happened. Then, with a deep groan of protesting stone, hairline fractures appeared around the base of the stalactites. Dust rained down. Another groan, louder this time.

  The Queen, who was waist deep in Hark didn’t even pay any mind the sickening crunch of bones mixing with the groaning of the rocks above. With a final CRACK! Tons of rock, ancient stone spears sharpened by millennia of dripping water, plummeted downwards.

  The Queen finally looked up blood dripping from her maw, but it was too late. The stalactites struck her massive carapace with devastating force. The sound was sickening, a wet crunch, a splintering of chitin, a final, choked off cry. The platform shook violently under the impact, throwing Luke off his feet once more.

  Dust filled the air, thick and choking. Luke pushed himself up, coughing, eyes stinging, and stared at the spot where the Queen had stood. A massive pile of shattered rock now dominated the center of the platform, burying the colossal insect beneath it. A single, twitching leg protruded from the debris, then went still.

  Silence descended, profound and absolute, broken only by the settling dust and the faint bubbling from the trench.

  Luke stared, unable to process it. Had it worked? Was it over?

  He stumbled towards the rock pile, Anelace held ready, expecting the Queen to burst forth at any moment. But there was no movement. Only silence.

  Lestor limped over, leaning heavily on his staff, his face pale and drawn but alight with disbelief. “We… we did it,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “We actually did it.”

  Luke reached the edge of the debris pile. He could see parts of the Queen’s emerald veined carapace crushed beneath the stones. No movement. No sound. She was dead.

  Relief hit Luke like a physical blow, a staggering wave so potent it momentarily erased everything else. The cavern’s echoing silence, the stench of ichor, the cooling corpses of the rest of the squad across the trench. It was a raw, primal surge focused entirely on the fact of his own continued existence. Grief for Redwood, for Silva, Mark and Hark. Those emotions felt distant, muted, walled off behind the overwhelming, physiological need to simply be alive. His knees buckled, the stone platform rushing up to meet him. He didn’t fight the collapse this time, sinking down, the world tilting precariously around him like a ship foundering in a storm. He drew a ragged breath, then another, each one a confirmation. He was alive.

  Against impossible odds, against a Rare Boss that had slaughtered seasoned soldiers, critically injured, mana scraped dry, running on nothing but a suicidal gamble and sheer desperation… he had survived. The single, stark fact hammered against his consciousness, pushing aside the ghosts of the fallen, leaving only the jarring reality of his own improbable victory. He stared blankly at the twitching leg protruding from the Queen’s rocky tomb, the silence pressing in, amplifying the frantic thumping of his own heart. He’d won. But as the adrenaline began its slow, treacherous retreat, a cold emptiness started to bloom where the relief had been, hinting that survival, in this world, might come at a cost far steeper than just physical pain.