Alexander took control of the captured Drone. The perspective shifted—the snake was now directly in front of him, and the pain from the two long fangs embedded in its limb was unbearable. Flesh had been torn; bones had shattered.
There was no time to think. He had to free the Drone immediately. With its other claw, it lashed out at the snake's eyes. The strike hit the head—he failed to land it directly in the eye—but as the claws dragged back, they scraped across the thick hide and passed over the eye.
The snake let out a deep, loud, savage hiss and thrashed violently. Its long body poured out of the hollow—at least two meters, thick and heavy. In Alexander's mind, he could already picture it swallowing the Drone whole, crushing every bone and pulping its internal organs with its muscles. Its color was a pale, watery green, marked with patches of brown. There was a strange elegance within its brutality.
The snake twisted and began coiling around the Drone's leg. If he didn't stop it, Alexander knew there would be no coming back. With the snake's head locked onto its limb, attacking the neck seemed like the most logical choice. He drove the Drone's fangs into its neck. At the same time, he ordered the frightened Drone watching from the side to attack as well. Controlling one Drone while directing others was difficult, but he managed. He loosened his control over the Drone and began sprinting toward the scene with his main body, calling the entire swarm to converge on the location.
The second Drone sank its teeth into the snake's long body. It was trying to restrict its movement, to stop it from coiling around its sibling. But the effort proved meaningless. Its strength couldn't even begin to match the snake's. No matter how much the victim resisted, the serpent's body rose, lifting itself upward as it attempted to coil around the head filled with sharp fangs.
Watching through the link, Alexander reacted immediately. With rising urgency, he ordered the Drone to release its jaws and pull its head back at once. But the Drone didn't understand the danger. Its instincts screamed at it to keep biting, to hold on with everything it had in order to survive.
Alexander didn't hesitate. He halted his main body mid-run and focused entirely on seizing control of the Drone again. The Drone tried to resist, but its mind was far too weak. The resistance shattered within seconds—and in a fight like this, seconds meant everything.
Fortunately, Alexander was fast enough. He intervened just in time. Driven by sheer survival force, far beyond what a three-month-old Drone should possess, he tore its locked jaws free and yanked its head back. The snake's long body brushed against it, but failed to wrap around its head.
Realizing it had missed that chance, the snake immediately shifted to another. Its thick, muscular body, already free to move, coiled around the forelimb it had originally caught. No matter how much Alexander clawed and bit, he couldn't stop it.
The difference in strength was overwhelming.
The pressure kept increasing, and he could feel faint cracking sounds from within.
Crack!
At last, the forelimb snapped. He could feel the bones shatter completely. As waves of pain surged through his mind, he severed his connection to that Drone. Controlling it wouldn't change anything—he had to get there himself. Realizing this, he surged forward again at full speed toward the clearing. Behind him, he could hear the roars of the other groups—they were close.
It took him barely a minute to reach the open ground. He was still running when, from a distance, he saw the snake beginning to coil around the Drone's body. After a short sprint, he was about to reach the pile of stones between them. He could have circled around it and lunged at the snake.
But he didn't.
In an instant, he confirmed through the Drone's vision that part of the snake's tail was still inside the hollow. Then, without hesitation, he slammed his full momentum into a large rock at the top of the pile, forcing it loose.
A heavy wave of pain burst through his shoulder from the impact against the hard stone. But the rock shifted, broke free, and began tumbling down over the pile.
In the span of a single breath, the heavy stone came crashing down onto the snake's tail.
The snake let out another loud hiss, filled with rage and pain. Its tail had been completely crushed—it could no longer move it. Alexander leapt down from the rocks at once. The impact sent a sharp surge of pain through his shoulder, nearly making him lose his footing. Still, he endured it. Even as he staggered, he lunged forward without hesitation.
The snake had already released its bite from the forelimb, its body coiled tightly around the victim's arm, and was now trying to wrap itself further with its head. The young Nuxali, in a desperate attempt to stop it, had thrown itself sideways onto the ground, trying to crush the serpent beneath its weight and prevent it from coiling further. But it was clearly failing—the snake's body had slipped beneath it and over it. Now it was moving again, sliding underneath once more to complete the coil and finish the job. It pushed its head beneath the fallen Drone, while the Drone kicked wildly with its hind legs to stop it.
It wasn't enough.
The snake's head slipped underneath.
At that exact moment, Alexander arrived. He lunged forward and sank his teeth into the thick neck of the serpent, yanking it backward. The snake hadn't yet completed the motion beneath its prey, and despite its resistance, its head was dragged free.
The instant it came out, it snapped forward, striking at Alexander.
But the queen had already anticipated that.
She pulled back just in time.
At that moment, the rest of the swarm arrived at the scene with loud roars. Alexander ordered them to attack the long body coiled around their sibling's leg and free him. As for himself, he remained in front of the snake, focused, alert, waiting for the slightest opening.
Six Nuxali threw themselves at the serpent, tearing into its thick hide and dense muscle with teeth and claws. It was not easy—their strikes didn't deal much damage. But that didn't mean the pain wasn't real.
One of the snake's eyes was already clouded with blood. It hissed and writhed, trying to turn back and stop them. But most of its body was still pinned beneath its victim, and for a moment, it struggled to pull free. Its head couldn't reach the young Drones. Fear flooded its system, adrenaline driving its movements, and on its second attempt, its body surged forward.
—until Alexander intercepted it, sinking his fangs just beneath its head.
The massive jaws of the snake opened wide, but it couldn't reach him. It couldn't direct its head. The queen had locked her jaws with all her strength, preventing it from turning. Then her claws struck—this time tearing into the blood-filled eyes.
One eye was ripped partially from its socket, spilling blood in a violent surge. The other burst within its socket under the force.
Both of its eyes were gone. The snake was blind.
Its massive body slammed against stone and earth, thrashing wildly, driven by raw instinct without direction. Muscles contracted in violent spasms, coils tightening and loosening without purpose. It tried to move, to escape, but there was nowhere left to go.
Its tail was crushed beneath the rock.
Its head was locked in Alexander's jaws.
Its body remained coiled around the broken limb of its wounded prey, trapped beneath it.
Each second grew heavier.
The movements began to slow.
Not all at once. First a slight hesitation, a delay in its reactions. Then another. The violent convulsions turned into uneven, desperate twitches. It was still fighting, but the strength behind it was fading.
In that moment, it felt there was no turning back.
It was as if it had fallen into a deep, dark pit, woven from despair and helplessness. And at the bottom of that pit, in a place where escape was impossible, it was torn apart slowly, made to suffer over and over again for nearly half an hour.
Every moment grew heavier than the last. Its resistance broke, its strength faded, its body coming apart piece by piece under relentless force.
A final surge passed through it.
The coils tightened once more, harder, sharper, a last instinctive attempt to regain control.
Then they loosened.
Its massive, blood-soaked body collapsed in on itself, folding under its own weight. What little movement remained was nothing more than weak, involuntary tremors, the final signals of a body that could no longer command itself.
And then those too stopped. Silence returned.
And the snake did not move again.