After a while, the room settled into a gentle quiet. Jin-Ah's breathing had evened out against my chest once again. The process of awakening is really taxing on the body, especially for a girl who suddenly awakens without any proper preparation. Her body was definitely taking a toll from it.
Her grip on my shirt loosened as the last of the tension drained away. Esther reached over and squeezed my hand once—a silent thank-you that carried years of understanding.
I pressed a soft kiss to the top of Jin-Ah's head. "Rest now," I murmured. "We'll talk more tomorrow. Everything's going to be okay."
Carefully, I eased her back against the pillows, making sure the blanket was tucked around her. Esther slid in closer, ready to take my place. Jin-Ah's eyes fluttered, already heavy with exhaustion, and she gave me a small, trusting nod as I stood.
I lingered at the door for a moment, watching the two of them—Esther's hand returning to stroke Jin-Ah's hair, Jin-Ah's face finally peaceful. Then I stepped out and closed the door softly behind me.
The apartment was dim and still, the late afternoon light fading into evening shadows. I walked back to the living room, rolled my shoulders to loosen the knots that had formed there, and let out a long, quiet breath.
The familiar presence stirred in the back of my mind—warm, ancient, patient as bedrock.
'Well done, Samuel.'
Gaia's voice wasn't sound, but a gentle bloom of awareness, like sunlight warming stone.
'Congratulations. You have calmed her completely. That was no small thing.'
I leaned against the window frame, gazing out at the city lights beginning to flicker on below. "She needed it," I thought back. "She's been carrying too much for too long."
'Indeed. A sudden awakening is always precarious, and hers came without warning or proximate gate. We still do not know the precise fracture that allowed the mana to break through so violently.
Calming her heart so thoroughly, so soon—it steadies the flow and removes fear from her heart. It gives the power somewhere safe to settle instead of somewhere afraid to rage.'
There was a pause, a sense of vast roots shifting comfortably beneath the earth.
'You gave her structure without pressure. You gave her family without hesitation. That is the strongest foundation possible. She will grow swiftly now, and safely.'
I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the quiet approval wash over me. Then a thought rose, sharp and insistent.
"Can't you give her a system?" I asked silently. "Like the one Jin-Woo has. Like the one I have. Something to guide her growth, to make it faster and safer."
Gaia's presence stilled, considering. The warmth lingered, but now carried the weight of careful thought.
'I understand the wish, Samuel. You want to shield her from pain, from slow struggle, from the risks of an uncontrolled path. The Systems you and the Shadow Monarch carry are powerful tools—clear levels, skills, rewards, direction. They turn chaos into order.'
She paused again, the sensation like deep earth turning slowly.
'But they are not gifts without cost. They are chains, even if gilded ones. They bind the user to rules, to quests, to a framework designed by forces far beyond this world. Jin-Woo's System was born of a passed on will.
Yours emerged from the convergence of greater powers. They accelerate growth, yes—but they also mark the bearer. They draw attention from entities that watch from outside. Rulers. Monarchs. Architects. Others we do not yet name. You might not realise this now, but you both are already being watched by many eyes.'
A gentle regret brushed my mind.
Jin-Ah's awakening, although sudden, is still pure, and has no tampering or influence from outside entities as far as I can find right now. It is of this world, born from the cracks in the barrier due to the weakening barrier, not imposed by an external will.
Her power answers to her heart, not to a voice in her head demanding tasks. If I were to force a System upon her now, I would be no different from those who twist fate for their own ends. I would steal the freedom of her growth, replace it with obligation. And in doing so, I might invite the very dangers you fear onto her path sooner.'
Then, softer, almost tender:
'There is another truth. The strongest foundations are not built by shortcuts. You and Jinwoo are using shortcuts because you both don't have a choice.
Jin Woo needs to defeat the monarchs, and you need to prevent the outer entities from attacking your world. You both are having exponentially fast growth just because your planet needs it, not because you are getting some kind of favour.
Her mana flows from emotion, from love, from the wind itself. A System would measure her in numbers, in quests completed, in monsters slain. But her strength will come from who she chooses to protect, from the calm she finds in her own breath. That cannot be quantified. That cannot be rushed.'
A final pulse of warmth, steady and reassuring.
'She will grow strong, Samuel. Stronger, perhaps, because no unseen hand pulls her strings. Trust her the way you asked her to trust you. Let her path be her own. After all, she's already surrounded by people who she can rely on completely.'
The presence settled back, patient as ever, leaving the quiet of the apartment and the distant hum of the city to fill the space around me.
A faint, affectionate warmth brushed my mind, like a breeze through ancient leaves.
'Rest tonight, Samuel. Your world is going to get more chaotic pretty soon.
The presence faded gently, leaving only the quiet hum of the apartment and the soft, even sound of breathing from down the hall.
I stayed by the window a little longer, feeling—for the first time in hours—that the weight on my own shoulders had lightened, too.
On Jeju Island, the damage spread fast and without mercy. Coastal villages fell first. Houses burned bright from the ants' plasma bursts, flames licking the night sky. People ran screaming into the streets. Cars crashed and flipped as winged ants dove from above, their shadows huge and terrifying.
But the ants did not kill every human they found. Not the women in their prime—mothers in their late twenties, thirties and early forties, strong and healthy, the ones the islanders quietly called the "milfs" of Jeju.
The mutated ants seemed to have a new instinct. They grabbed these women with careful claws, wings beating hard, and carried them into the sky. Screams echoed across the island as dozens, then hundreds, of women were taken.
One fisherman named Lee tried to drive his family away from the coast. His wife, Ji-yeon, a beautiful 38-year-old with long dark hair, sat in the passenger seat.
An ant the size of a cow smashed through the windshield. It ignored Lee and the child. Its claws closed gently but firmly around Ji-yeon.
She screamed, reaching for her husband. The ant lifted her out and flew off toward the hills. Lee could only watch, heart breaking, tears running down his face as he held his crying child. "No, no," he whispered, helpless and scared.
In Jeju City, the same thing happened again and again. A young mother named Kim hid in her basement with her baby. An ant burst through the floor. It snapped at her leg, but only to stop her from running.
Then it picked her up—Kim was 35, fit from years of hiking the island trails—and carried her out. She screamed in pain and terror. "Please, someone help," she cried. But no one came. Her baby was left alone on the floor, crying. The ant flew away with her, heading inland.
The ants kept mutating. They grew stronger with every kill. But for the women they wanted, they were careful. Winged soldiers snatched them from streets, from homes, from hiding places. No one understood why at first. Then survivors saw the pattern. Only certain women. Only the healthy, mature ones. Taken alive.
The ants carried them all to one place—a luxury villa high on the eastern hills of Jeju, far from the burning coast but close enough to see the ocean.
The villa was called Haeundae Haven. It sat on a private cliffside estate, hidden by thick pine forests and winding roads. Before the outbreak, it had been a famous rental spot for rich tourists and celebrities—five bedrooms, infinity pool, floor-to-ceiling glass walls facing the sea.
The location was perfect: secluded, with only one main road in, surrounded by steep drops and dense trees. The view was breathtaking—endless blue ocean on one side, green mountains on the other.
Now, the ants had claimed it.
They swarmed the grounds. Worker ants dragged fallen trees to block the main gate. Soldier ants patrolled the perimeter, wings folded, eyes glowing violet.
Flying mutants circled above like guards. Inside the villa, the glass doors were shattered but not fully broken—ants had carefully removed sharp pieces so their captives could not use them as weapons.
Hundreds of women were brought there. The ants carried them one by one through the broken doors and down into the large basement level—a wide, open space that used to be a home theater and wine cellar. Now it was a prison.
The women were placed gently on the marble floor. Their hands and feet were bound with sticky silk the ants made from their own bodies—strong but not cutting.
They were alive, scared, confused. Some cried quietly. Others held each other. All of them wondered why they had been spared death but taken here.
The villa had become the ants' main base on the surface. The Queen's instinct drove it—she needed healthy hosts, strong bodies for something worse than death.
The basement was warm from the ants' bodies. Food was brought—fruits, fish, things the ants stole from stores and dropped in piles. Water from the pool was carried in.
Outside, the infinity pool was now a landing zone for flying ants bringing new captives. The once-clean water was dark with dirt and blood. The beautiful garden was torn up, turned into tunnels leading underground.
From the cliff, you could see smoke rising from the coast. But up here, in Haeundae Haven, the ants ruled. The villa—once a place of luxury and peace—was now a cage for hundreds of Jeju's stolen mothers.
And every hour, more winged ants rose from the burning island below, carrying another screaming woman toward the hill. The collection continued. The Queen's new plan was growing.
Deep beneath the fractured earth of Jeju Island, in the heart of the ever-expanding hive, the Ant Queen pulsed with a grotesque vitality. Her massive, bloated abdomen throbbed rhythmically, churning out eggs in a ceaseless rhythm that echoed through the humid tunnels.
But this outbreak was different—fueled by the chaotic mana surge, her instincts had evolved beyond mere survival. She sensed the fragility of her colony's rapid mutations: the soldiers grew stronger, yes, but unstable, their lifespans shortening with each devoured hunter.
The hive needed permanence. It needed hosts that could nurture a superior brood, one infused with human resilience and mana affinity.
The Queen's plan was primal, ruthless, and horrifying in its efficiency. The captured women—those fertile, mature "milfs" from Jeju's villages, selected for their robust health and childbearing potential—were not mere prisoners.
They were to become breeding cows, living incubators for her next generation. In her multifaceted mind, she envisioned a hybrid evolution: implanting her eggs directly into their wombs, where the human bodies would provide nutrient-rich environments far superior to the hive's chitinous cradles.
The women's mana-tainted blood, drawn from a world teeming with gates and awakenings, would accelerate the larvae's growth, birthing ants not just larger and fiercer, but intelligent—capable of mimicking human tactics, wielding crude tools, even harnessing basic skills absorbed from their hosts' memories.
The process would begin in the villa's basement, now a makeshift nursery guarded by her most loyal mutants. The women, bound in silk cocoons to prevent escape, would be sedated by a paralytic venom injected through gentle stings—enough to immobilize but not kill, keeping their bodies alive and fertile.
Worker ants would tend to them like livestock: feeding them stolen fruits and water to maintain their health, massaging their limbs to prevent atrophy, even regulating the temperature with their own body heat clustered around the captives.
One by one, the Queen would dispatch specialized drones—elongated insects with ovipositors adapted for precision—to implant clusters of eggs. The women's bellies would swell unnaturally, the larvae feeding on their hosts' vitality without immediate death, drawing out the gestation for weeks to maximize strength.
In her vision, these "breeding cows" would produce an unstoppable army: ants born with human-like endurance, resistant to mana overload, able to infiltrate cities disguised in stolen skins or command lesser beasts with pheromones laced with psychic influence.
The first births would happen soon—painful, writhing eruptions from the women's bodies, leaving them weakened but reusable for multiple cycles, their fertility sustained by the Queen's alchemical secretions.
Those who survived longest would be elevated as "queens" in their own right, chained to produce endlessly, their screams a symphony to the hive's expansion.
The Queen shuddered with anticipation, her mandibles clicking. Jeju was just the start. With these human vessels, her colony would swarm the mainland, then the world—breeding, mutating, conquering. Humanity's fertile women would fuel the end of their own species, one implanted egg at a time.
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