CHAPTER 78: PENETRATING THE QUEEN...’S NEST.

Up ahead, the tunnel curved downward and opened into a massive chamber.

The walls were thick with fused metal. Car doors, armored truck panels, hull plating, all stacked and buried into the earth like a scrapyard fortress.

Savier whistled low, scanning the structure. "Damn. That Digger’s a real architect."

Johnquis stepped forward, eyes tracking the wall. "It built this to guard what’s beyond..."

He stopped. His voice dropped.

"A nest. The Queen’s."

The smell hit them next. Rotting flesh and engine grease.

Johnquis froze a few paces from the wall, staring at the makeshift barrier.

"Well...guess she doesn’t want company."

The Tanker moved past them, silent. It placed one massive hand on a rusted van door welded dead center.

The wall shivered.

A low hum vibrated through the chamber.

It stood there, motionless—waiting.

Johnquis glanced at Savier, then at the Tanker.

"Get ready."

Johnquis took one slow step back. "Alright, big guy... do your thing."

The Tanker grunted once in reply. Then he pulled his massive arm back, fingers tightening into a boulder-sized fist.

WHOOOOMPH!!!

With a brutal CRACK, the Tanker slammed his punch into the van door.

The metal screamed, wrenched clean off its hinges, and launched through the tunnel like a rusted cannonball.

It tore through the darkness, flying with such force it whistled through the air and crashed straight into the nest chamber beyond, smashing through a stack of eggs like they were soggy fruit.

SPLOOSH. SPLOSH. SPLAT.

Chunks of shell and thick, amber slime splattered across the walls. The scent of rot intensified instantly. The van didn’t even stop. It skidded on, flattening several more pulsing egg sacs before crashing into the base of the inner wall.

Savier gawked. "That... that van just killed, like, nine unborns."

The Tanker slowly turned his head.

Looked directly at him.

Glowing violet eyes pulsed once.

Expression unreadable.

But the message was clear: That could’ve been you.

Johnquis cracked a grin. "You see that, Savier? That’s what getting fisted by a van looks like."

Savier squared up, scandalized. "Hey! I can fist better!"

"I swear to the code, man, if you ever say that again—"

Savier ignored him, pointing at the Tanker. "That’s right, boulder-boy. I said it. I got grip strength AND rhythm. You don’t want this duel."

The Tanker tilted his head slowly, fingers flexing like he was trying to remember how soft human bones were.

Johnquis held up both hands between them again. "Alright! Both of you, zip your egos. Save the testosterone for the queen fight."

He stepped into the chamber first, Tanker following behind like a mobile mountain.

Savier muttered as he followed. "Still fisted Paula..."

Inside the Queen’s Nest. The chamber beyond was enormous.

It stretched at least sixty meters across, ceiling vaulted with jagged crystal and bent metal, walls patched together with stolen wreckage. Everything reeked of rot and mechanical oil. The stench was thick enough to taste.

The nest had been engineered.

The Queen hadn’t just burrowed her way down here—she built this lair with purpose. Layers of steel plating lined the walls, mixed with broken transit rails, bits of metro cars, riot barricades, even whole support beams torn from the old hub above. Bolts, wires, cracked armor plates, all melted and fused together, forming a fortress of scavenged scrap. A spider’s den built from civilization’s leftovers.

Johnquis eyes widened. "Goddamn. She’s smarter than we thought."

Savier pointed at a rusted bus frame used as a ceiling beam. "Is that a school transport? Holy hell, she’s recycling children’s buses now?"

"She used whatever she could rip out," Johnquis muttered. "That entire support girder came from a central tram line. That’s old-world alloy. Let the Digger do all the work."

He paused."Mother things... always do."

The walls glowed faintly, webs of bioluminescent slime stretched like veins, giving the room a sickly amber glow.

Nestled within that foul ecosystem were dozens of egg clusters. Some pulsing. Some cracked. Some violently splattered from the Tanker’s pre-game punch.

And in the center...

She sat.

The Queen.

Massive. Still. Webbed into her own chamber like a spider waiting in the dark.

Her body was fused with the walls themselves. Jagged armor plates lined her back like a buried train engine. Her limbs were long, thin, multi-jointed like blades mounted on hydraulic arms. Thin threads of fluid-dripping silk stretched out from her torso, connecting to the walls, to the egg clutches, to the roots in the ceiling. She was the nest.

And in the core of her chest... something moved.

A shape.

Small.

Almost human.

A tiny feminine figure, like a doll wrapped in chitin and shadows, curled in the Queen’s core like a parasite inside its host.

Her head was down. Bald. Her eyes remained closed.

Savier leaned in. "Wait. Is that a person? Is that—inside her?!"

Johnquis didn’t even blink. "Don’t tell me you’re about to say something horny."

"What?! No!" Savier snapped. "I mean—maybe but no! You’re a sick bastard for even thinking that!"

The Queen didn’t move.

She just hung there, massive and still, strands of thick web stretching from her limbs and spine into every part of the nest. Ceiling. Walls. Floor. Even into deep cracks below.

Some threads pulsed faintly. Feeding lines.

Others looked like support. Anchors. Holding her weight like a sleeping god in a cradle of silk.

Johnquis stepped forward slowly, eyes locked on the strange feminine figure.

"She’s been asleep."

"Sleepin’? Like—hibernation?"

"More like exhaustion, look at the webs. Half of them are feeding tubes. This entire chamber’s designed to pump her with every drop of nutrition left in this sinkhole. Oil. Bio matter. Ash. Bone."

Savier stared. "Wait. She’s just been lying here, eating crap from the walls and popping out freaks for how long?"

Johnquis tilted his head. "Long enough. She’s used up most of what’s left down here.Imagine seven years of eating nothing but rocks, metal, corpses, trash, Eater Blades and birthing nonstop."

"Damn, that’s kind of depressing." Savier’s face twisted. "Damn, she’s like a messed-up vending machine with postpartum depression."

"She’s not your mom."

"No, but—" Savier gave him a side-eye. "You sound... concerned."

Johnquis shrugged. "Just facts."

"You sure it’s not because she’s got... you know..."

He pointed at the figure in her chest. "Titties."