Each level in C-grade mattered far more than those in D-grade. It was just simple math, really. However, there was still one thing that could make up for this gap in stats: titles. Jake had over 70% more in all stats just from titles increasing them percentage-wise, and this was not counting all of the pure stats he got from some of them.

Jake also had a pretty damn good class in D-grade and an excellent profession. The Malefic Viper skills added even more stats, allowing Jake to truly stand out from nearly any other newly evolved C-grade. All of these advantages had already meant that Jake outclassed a level 239 Hive Queen and her Protector by quite a bit, but this Hive Queen was 272, with an even more powerful Hive King at 272. When he last visited, Jake had estimated the Hive King to be quite a bit into C-grade but not mid-tier C-grade. That meant it had probably gotten over forty levels since his last visit. If that speed could be sustained, the Hive King and Hive Queen could be in the late tier of C-grade at least by the time the Prima Guardian arrived, making their bid to take over the planet not at all unrealistic. This showed they were talented and pretty good variants with a bright future ahead of them.

A future they had now put in jeopardy by challenging Jake directly.

Guards came at him from all around, but to Jake, they weren’t much more dangerous than the ones thirty levels lower. They were still big and bulky, proving that the Queen wasn’t all she made herself out to be. Jake dodged a few before allowing one to clash with him directly. He pulled out both katars and countered the moment it attacked. One katar hit it on the side of its head, right through its eye, while Jake twisted his body to stab the other weapon into its side.

The Guard tried to turn around and attack again, but Jake got on top of it and punched down into its neck area. An arcane explosion sounded out as Jake infused mana into the Blackpoint Burst enchantment. The resulting explosion was far weaker than a true Blackpoint Burst, but it still managed to blow up half of the neck. Another rapid stab from Eternal Hunger with Descending Dark Fang severed the head entirely, killing the Guard.

Less than two seconds had passed since Jake had started his attack till the Guard was dead. Standing atop its corpse, he turned to glance at the Queen, seeing the anger on her face. On that note, her having a semi-humanoid form was kind of nice, as he could at least read her reactions far more correctly like this.

Sadly, the humanoid form was short-lived. Quickly, the Queen’s body morphed as the top half of her human body got absorbed into the termite, and its head changed to resemble the Hive Queen he had killed earlier that day. The body of the Hive Queen remained the same size, making her smaller than the other Queen, which he deemed a deliberate choice on her part.

Have it your way, Jake mentally shook his head. Physically he didn’t waste the movement as he had more Guards to deal with, ten or so rapidly coming for him. The one Guard that attacked him had probably just meant to restrain him for the Queen, but upon seeing it die nearly instantly, she switched up her tactics.

The ground beneath him rumbled as walls surrounded him, trying to seal him in. Jake scoffed and blasted a hole through it, swiftly escaping as two termites were hot on his ass. He turned and kicked one of them in the face, releasing a blast of energy to launch himself backward as he pulled out his bow.

Nocking an arrow, he shot off a Splitting Arrow, making it split as much as he could. The goal was to create a lot of large explosions, but explosions of low intensity. All to buy himself some time to get off some good shots. From the previous Hive Queen, Jake knew that simply damaging a Guard was not enough, he had to kill them for good, or they would just get healed.

He also kept an eye on the one being in the cavern he was actually worried about. The Hive King had been marked first-thing, allowing him to know if it ever moved, even if it was outside of his sphere. So far, it stood unmoving beside the Hive Queen, guarding her like the Protector had before.

Jake reckoned that this Queen was a better variant than the one he had killed despite both Queens being called Hive Queens. It was entirely possible that the other Hive Queen only had the Protector while this one was capable of giving birth to a Hive King. It could also have something to do with hierarchy. If this was the Hive Queen that led the hive and had given birth to all the others, then it was possible it was the only one capable of having a Hive King.

Despite being a spawn of the Hive Queen, the Hive King was by far the most dangerous being in the cavern. Besides Jake, of course.

That is why it confused him when the King remained behind, not joining the fight. It allowed Jake to methodically kill the Queen’s Guards one by one, the Queen herself helping out with the usual buffs and heals, but even her efforts felt half-arsed. Jake was almost offended as it felt like they didn’t actually take him seriously yet.

Soon, ten Guards had been killed. Eleven, twelve, thirteen. With thirty-two in total, they were down to nineteen, the fight just getting easier with every kill. Jake began to wonder if the Queen hoped for Jake to tire himself out or something. He also noticed how the Guards fought half-arsed, their magic trying to restrict his movements more than kill hi-

Oh… you can’t be fucking serious.

They weren’t trying to kill him at all. They were fucking trying to capture him, making Jake thoroughly offended. Usually, he would detect such things, but the problem with ectognas was that they didn’t really give off any killing intent or bloodlust, as they didn’t have any will of their own. In fact, ectognas like these Guards didn’t even have a Willpower stat as far as Jake knew. They were nothing more than drones working for the Queen, and they couldn’t even be called sentient.

Only the Queen and Hive King had any level of true intelligence, with Jake still not sure if the Hive King was sapient. Not that it ultimately mattered. He would make her or both of them pay for the arrogance shown by not even respecting him enough to try and go for the kill.

He kept killing the Guards, not showing a single trace of weakness and not even taking any injuries. He just methodically dismantled them one by one, not allowing them any recourse. After killing number twenty-two, he stopped and turned toward the Queen. He threw her a look of disdain, mocking her for failing to heal or protect the Guards. Not that he was sure she even tried. Jake guessed that the Queen could just respawn all these Guards in a pretty short period of time once he was gone, with the only true loss being if the King died. The Guards were pawns, and them just wasting a few of his resources was likely a worthy trade in her eyes.

Jake’s taunt did not work as the Queen kept up the same tactic, and to his annoyance, it kind of worked. Her healing made the Guards durable, making him sometimes fail to kill them in his first assault, allowing her to heal it up for another go. This made Jake burn through both mana and stamina, though he still paced himself, and his large resource pools meant he didn’t risk tiring himself out. If he did get low, he also still had potions to rely on.

It did not take long before the last Guard lay dead on the ground, making Jake seriously doubt the level of judgment displayed by the Queen. While they were not dangerous individually, they could still have proven problematic fighting alongside the Queen and King, but now they had just been thrown away for nothing.

Standing between two large corpses, Jake looked over at the Queen. “What exactly did you hope to accomplish with this? Tire me out? Or do you just enjoy seeing your own spawn die?”

The Queen regrew the humanoid upper body, and the moment he saw her face, he felt something was off. She was smiling with what looked like genuine happiness.

“You are not that far into C-grade yet still display such power. You truly are an exceptional specimen of a human, with Records surpassing my expectations,” she said while looking him over. “The offer still stands; you have proven yourself worthy of respect. Have your humans join the hive, and you can lead them. Whichever god you serve will also help strengthen their relationship with the Endless Empire, and all you would have to sacrifice is a bit of your misplaced pride.”

“I thought the time for bullshit was over,” Jake said, annoyed.

“Your defiance only makes you all the more enticing. Now, please do not struggle too much and make it worse than it has to be. Ah, but do show me what you are truly capable of. I wish you luck, human,” the Queen said as she turned and looked at the Hive King.

“Go.”

*BOOM!*

Jake raised both weapons as he blocked, barely in time. The Hive King smashed into him, blasting him back several kilometers before smashing into the cavern wall, spreading cracks across it. He braced himself as the Hive King came again and managed to angle himself well enough to dodge the follow-up.

The Hive King was the smallest ectogna he had faced that day and by far the strongest and fastest. It hit the wall hard, spinning its body as it hit with its legs first, allowing it to leap instantly at Jake once more. Jake dodged and tried to cut the King in the side but found his katar just sliding across the black chitin. A wall shot out from the stone, allowing the King to jump off to continue its assault, something Jake had not seen coming.

He tried to dodge, but it managed to scratch him with one of its blade-like outgrowths on its legs, leaving a nasty wound on his side. Rolling to the side, Jake was forced purely on the defensive as he barely avoided having his arm bitten off, followed by a leg missing his thigh by a few centimeters – an attack that would surely have penetrated straight through, potentially taking the leg off.

Gritting his teeth, Jake tried to get some kind of advantage and get a read on his opponent. See its pattern and read the flow of combat. Dodging a few dozen times more, Jake began to get in the groove and finally managed a counterattack. The Hive King snapped forward, Jake dodging by diving forward and under the attack, leaving an opening on the leg of the termite, which he exploited. Eternal Hunger stabbed into the leg, and just as Jake did so, he stepped down and teleported away to avoid suffering a counterattack.

After his teleport, Jake got some distance and managed to pull out his bow for a quick potshot. The arrow failed to penetrate the chitin as it hit at a bad angle, and the King instantly jumped. Rather than dodge, an Eternal Shadow appeared from his body, dodging to the side for him.

As he predicted, the King switched targets. Jake had dodged or at least tried to dodge every attack so far, making it predict he would do that again. Jake grinned as he saw the King’s mandibles sink into the Eternal Shadow from behind, only to see the Shadow disperse. Before the King could turn around, an Arcane Powershot hit it in the back, blasting it away.

It turned around in the air and skittered across the ground, promptly leaping to continue its assault. Jake was ready, teleporting away as he blasted it again, finally getting some level of a read on the insect. His arrows barely did any damage, the chitin still entirely unscathed, though he did see some scratches on the leg he had hit with his Arcane Powershot earlier, indicating he could do damage.

The Hive King had no magic. It displayed no fancy skills. It was just a machine built for fighting with a body forged solely for that purpose. All the magical help was supplied by the Queen, allowing the King to put all of its power into physical combat. It was specialized to the extreme, which was why it outclassed Jake in every way. Every way besides Perception, combat ability, and diversity in means.

This was how Jake could get an edge. The Queen was still an issue, and Jake knew he would likely have to address her before he could finish the King off, but for now, he would focus on the threat in front of him. They clashed hundreds of times in the next few minutes, neither managing to truly land any blows on the other outside of a scratch or minor wound here and there.

Jake finally got a good opportunity as he feinted the King with a side-step, making it hesitate long enough for Jake to punch his Blackpoint Nanoblade into its lower mouth using Descending Dark Arcane Fang, the blade actually penetrating. An explosion sent the termite flying back, wounded, but rather than attack again, it just stood still after landing, confusing Jake.

“Truly marvelous!” the Queen said with excitement. “Now, you asked earlier about the Guards… I must admit that it can be seen as underhanded, but there was another motive for allowing their death. You see, resources are limited, and I believed it only proper for my King to have as much as he could.”

Jake did not answer as his eyes were laser-focused on the Hive King. Then, it happened. Jake felt several auras suddenly appear within the chamber, and his eyes opened wide. It came from all the Guards he had killed, but their auras felt off. Broken. Fragmented.

Streams of energy began seeping out of all the corpses, with the King as their gathering point. The C-grade’s aura grew, its body overflowing with power from the infusion, and Jake knew that with every second, it grew stronger and stronger. He remained still as he observed this, and soon, the infusion was done. Yet even then, he felt like there was more to the Hive King. Like its full potential had been unlocked, ready to be unleashed.

“Now, lay eyes on the true power of the Hive King,” the Queen said, her voice sweet. “Prove yourself worthy of standing at his side… and don’t falter too fast.”

Jake was about to say something but kept his mouth shut as his danger sense exploded. The Hive King stared at him, and he saw its legs faintly bend like primed springs. He switched his stance to a defensive one as he prepared himself, just in time too.

The Hive King appeared in front of him with speed so high it may as well have been teleportation. Its leg shot forward, and Jake prepared to dodge but felt himself freeze as his body tensed up. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the smiling Queen, her hands glowing with energy as Jake felt the earth mana invade his body, making it feel like he was petrified.

Fucking-

A leg stabbed into his stomach like a spear, bending his body in a v-shape, blasting him backward before he smashed into the wall yet again that day. With his body embedded in the wall, he felt the warm liquid flow out of his stomach, the leg having left a fist-sized hole. If he had any organs, several of them would have been smashed, but as a C-grade, a wound like this was nothing but an inconvenience.

Using both hands, he dragged himself out of the hole as he saw the Hive King simply walk towards him.

“Just surrender, human. Join me and build something greater. Allow yourself to reach new heights with the hive,” the voice of the Queen echoed out, filled with mental magic to the extreme. Enough to push Pride of the Malefic Viper, but far from enough to truly affect Jake.

Jake looked at his stomach as the wound slowly healed, helped by the legendary Blood skill. He then looked up, seeing the Queen and King in the distance. He failed to hold back a smile.

“Thanks,” he said with genuine gratefulness.

The Queen smiled too. “I am glad you see sense, now-“

“No, not for that,” Jake shook his head. “Thanks for not being too weak… I got a bit scared after that first clash.”

The Queen’s smile faded, and she looked annoyed. “My patience and benevolence have limits. You are outmatched, out-leveled, and trapped in my domain. Your disrespect will only lead to more unnecessary suffering.”

“It isn’t disrespect. I say this with absolute genuineness: don’t hold anything back,” Jake said. “In return, I won’t either.”

With those words, Jake flooded his body with arcane energy, and his body exploded with power. The Hive King and Queen were not the only ones with boosting skills. It was just that he didn’t have to use it before. But now he could finally let loose as Arcane Awakening activated, boosting all his stats by 30% in its stable mode.

“Let me echo the sentiment: don’t falter too fast,” Jake smiled as his bow appeared, and he stepped down and teleported just in time to dodge a charging Hive King.