Percy had no idea what the Queen meant by those words, though he didn’t rush her for an explanation. Luckily, the colossal bug didn’t keep him waiting for too long.

  ‘One of your people broke the ancient pact between my kind and yours, placing both sides at great risk.’

  ‘Pact?’

  The Queen nodded mentally. ‘Well, it’s more of an unspoken deal than an explicit contract, but your ancestors understood a long time ago that they need our help to produce new gods. Meanwhile, my predecessors also realized that we need your gods to defend our world from outsiders, since producing our own deities ranges from impractical to downright impossible.’

  Percy couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the revelation. All of this made sense, of course, but he hadn’t known that humans and wasps had been operating under a mutual agreement all this time. Then again, it would have been stranger if the two sides had failed to reach some kind of consensus after coexisting for so long.

  ‘If that’s the case, why do my people hunt down your children? Couldn’t you just offer us the nectar we need for our advancement, skipping the unnecessary bloodshed entirely?’ he asked.

  ‘There are many reasons for this arrangement. Rest assured that I’ll explain everything about my hive’s inner workings in excruciating detail. There’s simply no way around that – not if you are to do what I need you to do. However, you should first understand what the problem is before we discuss anything else.’

  Nodding, Percy gestured for her to continue.

  ‘Long story short, we were supposed to limit our expansion to within the Fungal Spire’s range. It’s not like we ever wanted to move elsewhere anyway, since this is the only place on Remior with enough mana to support our needs. In exchange, your people were supposed to never step foot in our tunnels, and to only collect the nectar they need by hunting the tiny fraction of our kind we send outside. For as long as we can remember, both sides have honoured this arrangement religiously…’

  ‘…until we didn’t,’ Percy said, completing her sentence for her.

  ‘Indeed. A powerful mage broke into my chambers some time ago, stealing something that we cannot survive without. And I doubt I need to explain the consequences of our impending extinction.’

  Percy frowned. He’d come here seeking a body for Nephthys – the last thing he’d expected to hear was that Remior’s survival was at stake. Just who would have done something so despicable?

  Well, okay… that part wasn’t so difficult to guess. There simply weren’t that many people capable of doing this in the first place. After all, they’d have to break into a hive teeming with Green and Blue wasps, stealing something of immeasurable importance from their Violet ruler.

  Besides, Percy already harboured some guesses as to the culprit’s identity, due to the things he’d learned while helping Nesha snoop around Twilight City, trying to figure out the reason for her family’s destruction.

  ‘Was it a man with a White core by any chance? When exactly did this happen?’

  ‘He was,’ the creature confirmed. ‘I’m not familiar with how your kind keeps track of time, but to me it still feels rather recent…’ she added. ‘Let’s see… it happened enough time ago for two Red wasps to have evolved all the way to Green, one after the other.’

  Falling silent, Percy took a few seconds to run some calculations in his head. Micky had spent a couple of decades to reach Green, which would translate the wasp’s example to roughly forty years.

  However, the bugs probably advanced faster than the crow had been able to, considering that they spent most of their lives in such a mana-rich environment, stuffing their faces with nectar every single day. How much faster, Percy didn’t know, but if they were about twice as fast as the bird, the timeline would match the reports of Machaon’s brief tenure in the Alchemists’ Guild.

  ‘I think I may know who it was. But what exactly did he take?’ Percy asked again, struggling to imagine what could be so valuable to the Queen.

  ‘An egg,’ she replied, causing him to swallow hard. Wasn’t that exactly what Percy himself had also come here looking for? Though he doubted that the Violet beast was talking about the egg of a regular wasp – they likely had millions of those, so it wouldn’t make sense that losing one would be such a big deal.

  Sure enough, the Queen confirmed his assumption. ‘This was my heir’s egg. Each Starry Queen can only ever lay a single egg that carries the royal lineage. Without my daughter to succeed me, our hive will die out as soon as I do. And I cannot give birth to another princess – only my daughter can.’

  Percy frowned, finding this whole thing completely impractical – if not downright ridiculous. How could the wasps’ biology have evolved in such an inconvenient way that the future of their entire species would hinge on the survival of a single member?!

  Then again, it made sense if he thought about it. Magical beasts didn’t have to worry about diseases or miscarriages – or whatever the word was for inert wasp eggs. For creatures like these, every single egg was all but guaranteed to hatch into a healthy specimen.

  Since the bugs had no predators or external threats either, the descendants of the Starry Queen were normally as safe as one could be – hidden in the deepest part of the hive and guarded by countless powerful beasts.

  Leaving aside the extremely unlikely scenario of a rogue White foolishly ruining everything – which was admittedly a blind-spot in the creatures’ evolution – the only thing the hive had to worry about was infighting. Had the Queens been capable of producing multiple successors, the princesses might tear each other – as well as their entire hive – apart. Viewed from that angle, their inability to give birth to a second heir might serve an integral purpose.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  ‘Fine. That answers what the problem is, but it doesn’t explain why that bastard would do something so vile,’ Percy said.

  The Queen shook her head, however. ‘Actually, his motive is the one thing we don’t have to wonder about. Wasps with the royal lineage produce a denser, purer variant of the nectar that you’ve no doubt collected from my other descendants. It’s called the royal jelly, and it’s twice as effective for cleansing one’s core.’

  Both of Percy’s hearts skipped a beat upon hearing that, a trace of greed worming its way to his eyes.

  ‘How can this be?!’ he asked, finding the notion difficult to accept.

  A resource twice as effective as the nectar would translate to halving the time to each advancement – provided that it could be brewed into an elixir, of course. If that was the case, didn’t that mean that Remior had technically possessed a path to godhood for Yellow-borns all along?! Shouldn’t their world have already been a greater spring?!

  ‘I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not as simple as it sounds,’ the Queen said, dousing his excitement. ‘Royal jelly is twice as effective as regular nectar, but extremely inefficient to produce. Excreting it consumes over a dozen times as much ambient mana as the same amount of nectar. Our hive wouldn’t be able to sustain itself if every ordinary member generated the jelly. That’s why it’s exclusive to the royal wasps. It’s a scarce resource that we strategically invest in our own development, and to accelerate the growth of certain other members of the hive when necessary.’

  Okay. That made more sense. So there just wasn’t enough royal jelly to go around. If the Divine Order really wanted a Yellow-born to reach the Clear grade, maybe they could forcefully extract enough for a single person, but that would come at the detriment of the hive’s development. All things considered, no individual was worth compromising Remior’s only source of nectar, no matter how talented they were.

  ‘Somebody should try telling Machaon that,’ Percy thought, his frown deepening.

  Evidently, the leader of House Asclepius didn’t give a shit. He’d abused the power and trust that everyone had given him, selfishly putting the whole world at stake just to reach his own goals. In a disturbing way, Machaon’s ambition reminded Percy of his own. Didn’t he also dream of attaining divinity? And wasn’t he willing to go to great lengths to achieve that?

  ‘No. I’m nothing like him,’ Percy reassured himself.

  There were certain lines that he simply refused to cross. This was why he hadn’t dared to steal his family’s tree to awaken his second core all those years ago. Instead, he’d opted to search for an alternative source of life mana to repair the Moirais’ Decree.

  And, while he’d also been planning to steal an egg from the hive, Percy hadn’t even known about the royal lineage or the jelly. It probably wasn’t an accident that Remior’s upper echelons kept that sensitive information under wraps, but Percy wouldn’t have considered pulling the rug from under everyone’s feet even if it had been common knowledge. And this was despite him being a Red-born – not a Yellow-born – thus needing every single advantage that he could get to reach the end of the Colour realm.

  He'd only ever wanted to grab a regular egg – one out of millions. His goal hadn’t been to accelerate his advancement, but merely to establish his personal source of nectar, so that he wouldn’t have to constantly search for more.

  Clearly, some people didn’t have the same moral scruples as him.

  ‘Now what? Can’t we get your daughter back? Asshole or not, he has to have kept her alive, right? He’ll need her to produce royal jelly for thousands of years before he becomes a demigod,’ Percy reasoned.

  ‘Honestly, I don’t know,’ the Queen replied. ‘Naturally, it’s in his best interest not to hurt her, but that doesn’t mean he’s been able to keep her healthy. Royal wasps are born at Orange, not Red, and require a lot more mana than regular wasps to survive. And that’s without somebody stealing their jelly. Even if she hasn’t died yet, I wouldn’t be surprised if her growth has been severely stinted. I doubt she’ll be able to survive long enough to reach the higher grades outside the hive’s special environment. Even I struggle to sustain myself at Violet. This is the main reason none of us ever attempts to reach White, despite having a long enough lifespan for it.’

  ‘There’s still a chance though!’ Percy protested. ‘Raise a fuss! Try to get the gods’ attention! If they realize what he did, they’ll get your daughter back in a day!’

  The Queen mentally sighed again. ‘Perhaps. Your gods are notoriously difficult to reach, however, and our kind cannot communicate with your people as easily. Whenever I tried to reach out to the Guild’s elders, your hunters just slaughtered my children as usual. If the situation persists, I am inevitably going to take more drastic measures, but I was hoping to find another solution. Especially since I don’t know if my heir will be healthy enough to lead the hive even if we do retrieve her.’

  ‘What solution did you have in mind?’

  ‘Well, my first idea was to forcefully lay more royal eggs and hope that one would be lucky enough to survive. So far, it hasn’t worked. I’ve only managed to drain my strength and cut my lifespan short.’

  Percy swallowed hard upon listening to the desperation in the creature’s voice. If the wasp in Machaon’s possession was indeed dead or irreversibly damaged… and if the current Queen also died… humanity would be screwed!

  Their existing gods wouldn’t be affected, and a few of the Order’s demigods might attain divinity too, but that would be it. With every god that died, Remior would forever have one less, until they were back in the same primitive state as Sol’s people, struggling to protect themselves from demi-humans and beasts!

  And that might actually be the best-case scenario. Percy had no idea how Remior’s relationship with other worlds looked, but if they had any enemies that knew of the planet’s location, they would surely pounce the moment they sensed weakness, enslaving them like Micky’s people!

  ‘Any better ideas?’ he asked, his heart now racing with worry.

  ‘I could make a push to White. For a long time, I’ve been balancing my consumption to sustain my core without cleansing it as much, but I bet I can get there if I really try. No Starry Queen in history has ever dared to evolve into an Empress, yet I think that the promotion might replenish my strength and reset my ability to give birth to a new successor. Of course, I’ll definitely starve to death not long after my advancement. It’s either that or starving out the rest of the hive, which is unacceptable. But there’s no guarantee this will work, so I’ve been saving it as a last resort.’

  That… sounded even scarier than just laying eggs by the dozens and hoping for one to hatch. If the Queen attempted this, there would be no going back. But the Violet beast wasn’t done.

  ‘I was torn between launching an all-out attack against your people to catch your gods’ attention, or ignoring your kind entirely and gambling with my evolution. And there was also the option of doing both – reaching White would improve my ability to make noise, and eating hordes of humans would buy me some time before I ran out of food.’

  Percy’s eyes widened with horror as he realized how dangerous an all-out invasion would have been. An endless army of powerful wasps led by a White-cored Starry Empress… no matter the outcome, this would have been catastrophic for Remior.

  By the time the gods stepped in to stabilize the situation, the damage might have been irreversible. Even if they managed to restore the hive to a functional state, how many people would have lost their lives in the conflict?

  ‘What stopped you?’ he asked.

  ‘You did,’ the Queen replied. ‘Watching you, I realized that there might be another way out of this mess.’

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