A Hive of Bone and Chitin [A Biomancy and Hivemind Litrpg Adventure]

Often the intrepid young mage asks a simple question.

"Why should I not just conjure a fireball inside someone's brain when fighting?"

The mage gets the answer the first time they try. If they are lucky it would be against an instructor or someone else who wouldn't kill them.

Let's assume the mage tries. The mage would find their mana plummeting and skills fizzling out. Their skill would not fail entirely but all it would really accomplish was negligibly warming a skull. And now their mana is all gone and they are defenseless. What happens next depends on the target but this author is certain that my readers can imagine the chain of events that might follow.

This phenomenon has been documented everywhere mana has existed, even in those that lack the guiding hand of Father Quiraion's system. Just as Vitality boosts the biological immune system, every single stat contributes towards the spiritual immune system. The scholars call it Self Sanctity. So what is it?

Simply put, it is the "weight" of an entity, its consciousness, its stats, its experiences, all that makes something anything and not something else asserting itself against a foreign force trying to induce change. This does not mean that one can't be affected at all. One can wrap or surround someone else with a substrate that can be controlled, this substrate can even enter a body without relinquishing all control, but freely affecting a body directly? That is the realm of the strongest. This effect is always active and is the reason we can't just crush someone's heart by looking at them, unless of course, the power differential is that large. It is hard to get around Self-Sanctity otherwise without being so much stronger than the target that it becomes pointless.

But hard does not mean impossible. And it is those that can get around it while existing in the same realm of power that are to be feared. Self-Sanctity can be brute-forced through but there are other ways around it, certain skills are not inherently rejected by one's soul. This may seem obvious to some readers. After all, if this was not the case then how would healing and supportive classes even exist? Some esoteric skills such as those that beguile the senses or heighten and dampen emotions, sympathetic assaults and the likes "fool" a soul into misreading the purpose of a skill. But these skills are almost always incapable of directly attacking.

But that's not all. Self-Sanctity is not absolute; It just greatly weakens skills and sometimes even a diminished skill is all it takes. It is a fool who underestimates a fiery conflagration turning into a momentarily blinding spark in the eye.

Excerpt from a transcript of a lecture on Self-Sanctity.

Time froze as I thought.

Fahria was without mana and thus useless and everyone else had just finished subduing the elemental and consequently exhausted. Perfect time for any of the other Phoenix Crucible candidates to strike. I had scanned the area but I hadn't found anything so the ambusher(s?) had to have a stealth skill of some kind. An assassin.

I had frozen, and so had everyone else but not everyone was being attacked so they were taking out priority targets. It made sense. Hufgir was down, even if he was alive, and without him, Varni's harmonic skill would be weakened. I was a target because I was capable of healing. Medea because it was the most physically imposing. Fahria was not because she was effectively manaless. Agitjin was not because he was injured and didn't really do much here. Same with Vespia.

The assassin had been watching us, Quiraion knows for how long, could be since we came here, could be right after Fahria knew about the elemental summoning date. I didn't know. What I did know was that the blood in my veins had frozen for a moment as wedges of iron attacked us. Even before my biology skills, I knew blood contained iron and it could be affected by a strong enough magnet. It was not hard to put two and two together. Whoever they were, they could control iron. Probably other metals too in that case.

As I was thinking about the potential skillset of the assassin, a separate thread of thought was scanning through the eyes of my swarm for them. I didn't find them but I did see the next attack coming. Hundreds, no thousands of elongated isosceles triangular pieces of iron, reddened with rust formed a dome around us. The point of each and every one of them was pointed inwards towards us and I could see more forming behind the first layer. The sky darkened and they shot towards us.

I dropped my backpack and rummaged to grab the scrambler crystal even though I doubted I was going to be fast enough to reach it before we all skewered. I was supposed to be taking it slow but this was an emergency and I had one level 25 class waiting in reserve that was perfect for the job. I hadn't unlocked any level 30s other than the three I had already mastered despite the events at the Illustris Palace. If I had to guess, this was the first stirrings of the dreaded bottlenecks that flying through classes too quickly created. In any case, even before my hands touched the scrambler crystal and a trickle of experience pushed my class to level 10 and mastery, I knew it was too late.

Iron rained but Agitjin had already raised his hand in defiance. To my Mana Conduction, the spell that had been weaved looked familiar. Very familiar. Criss-crossing threads of mana forming a tight net. The same general structure as my Laceration Lattice but much denser and without a physical medium to adhere to. It made sense since he was the one who helped me make that spell to begin with. The net grew even tighter until it was just a hovering sheet of white not just to my skill but to the naked eye and then that grew brighter and fanned out. It arced through the air as it expanded, curving to avoid me, Medea, Fahria, and everyone else while creating a new expanding dome to match the shrinking one of iron. The domes met and went through each other in silence, the iron points breaking into small ships that only continued through sheer inertia. Another net and what landed on us was just slowly drifting iron dust.

"Can't teleport. Something is blocking it. We have to kill them." Agitjin muttered, his face twisted into a grimace. The mana around him was not how it should be, it was jittering instead of flowing like it should be. Whatever, something to figure out later. There was a problem here. We had yet to even see our assailant. A gust of wind blew away the iron dust. With the immediate threat dealt with, I picked the [LESSER BONECLAD KNIGHT] class that I was trying to get. Freezing my perception of time, I looked over my gains.

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Minor stat increases that didn't matter from mastery of a level 10 first. Then the new stuff from the level 25 class. It had one skill but it was what I was hoping for: Suit of Bones. It summoned forth an armor made of my bones around me. And considering that my bones grew tougher with each point of mana I stored in them and I had been storing every single point I generated and didn't use into it, it had to be good. And combined that with the only piece of self-biomancy that I had done since leaving Mitria's clinic being a bone marrow augmentation to speed up my blood production and thus mana generation, it had to be pretty sturdy. My body had a lot more marrow than humans should have but it had been worth it. Too bad it slowed me down when it was up. Then Medea spoke into my mind.

'Mother. There is an attack coming. Order the wasp to tackle and push you. You can't dodge it at your speed and the armor won't come up before.'

I did as it asked and time resumed. Vespia's host shoved me aside violently as spiralling ropes of iron speared through where I was, going through Vespia, and then Hufgir, but even that was not enough to stop them. It then turned and went after Agitjin, who by then had recovered enough to push himself out of the way. Then the ropes, now resembling a headless Chinese dragon more than anything else, went after me again. It bounced off my new armor and moved on. The skill levelled up. As the grey mass speckled with rust raced past my eyes, I saw it change. Foot long spikes emerged and began to spin with a grinding noise. I closed my eyes but it was too late. The iron was too close. One went into the slit of my armor and took out my eye, nose and even grazed my brain. Then one of the other spikes caught in my armor and sent me flying.

Superego flickered and I froze time again, ignoring the pain in my brutalized face. One perception switch later, I saw the aftermath of the attack. Hufgir was gone. Not just dead but splattered across the river bank. No healing could fix him now. Vespia? Not much better in all honesty. The host was warped and twisted into a ring around the iron dragon.

At least, I could see that the acidic body of the host was affecting it. And Vespia was still alive. Further ahead, Varni and Agitjin had somehow managed to restrain the attack. I could also see drained Aetherite crystals lining Agitjin's inner sleeves. That was smart.

As for me, I couldn't use mana since I hadn't actually stopped time or anything so I couldn't actually assess the damage but considering that I was coherent and able to think, It wasn't that bad. If not for the insanely empowered bone that constituted it, my armor would have shattered and killed me.

Time resumed and I crashed to the ground with enough force to snap my spine if it hadn't been empowered. I healed whatever damage I could, eyes took time that I didn't have. A cloud of grey raced towards me and I jumped backwards. But the cloud was faster and before I knew it, the armor gained several levels and sparks flew as the cloud tried in vain to break my defense. I had learned my lesson and had closed off the slits used for vision. I could see with my swarm. The assassin obviously realized that getting through the armor was going to be tough and just materialized cords of iron that wrapped tightly around me. I couldn't move, couldn't even make my armor thinner without the cords immediately tightening to adjust. Even worse, the cords had sharp blades running along their length that tried to slice into the armor every time I moved. My armor was strong but eventually I would run out of mana or start taking from my storage, weakening the armor. I couldn't even move my head without stressing the armor but that didn't mean I couldn't see with my wasps.

Things were not much better with the others. The iron dragon exploded and shrapnel pierced everyone that was close. Varni gurgled blood when one hit the neck but then the purple energy sealed it shut. Agitjin created a barrier around him and Fahria. The shrapnel moved with a will of its own, zipping around and nicking Medea over and over, whittling it down to little more than a head and abdomen.

Not that it mattered by then. The cloud had reached. It coalesced into a hulking humanoid figure covered in iron. It slapped Agitjin aside hard enough that I heard bones snap even from how far I was. That was not scary, what was scary was my skill that usually screamed at me about the various weak points of anyone around me and the best way to capitalize on them, the skill that made me unwillingly visualize how to kill everyone around me, be it friend or foe, until I had just grown desensitized to it all was silent. Completely silent. There was no weakness to exploit. The assassin had used four or maybe five attacks and almost all of us were either dead or incapacitated. We were completely outmatched. No point denying it.

"Give up the Shakirn heiress and the rest of you can walk away from this." The titan in iron rumbled. Agitjin looked like he would accept the offer. I couldn't blame him, fragmented bones were poking out of his skin where his legs should be. Then he shook his head, grim but determined. Varni looked remarkably nonchalant about the fact that Hufgir was literally liquidated. Fahria looked like she had accepted that she would die either way but she didn't seem resigned, instead holding her head high and staring her death in the face, proud and defiant. I could see her remaining hand trembling for a singular moment.

I looked at both of my Generals. Medea would happily die in a heartbeat if I ordered it to and while Vespia was not really intelligent enough for that to be an accurate descriptor, she was a part of a species that fought by sacrificing an uncountable number of its kind in every engagement. Then my mind wandered to the former General who was safe in my house after proving itself too weak for combat. Too cowardly to become like Medea was. At least I could still reach it. Wait!

An idea came to my mind. I couldn't beat the assassin, not now and not anytime soon. I was not that arrogant, but I could ensure that we lived another day. All of us. All it would take was everything I had to give and more.

I sighed.

Just for my own peace of mind, I reminded myself that I was not one for heroics. I didn't like to throw myself in battles that I could lose. I didn't enjoy the physical sensations of fighting someone. If it were not for the fact that Hufgir now soaked the ground around us all, I wouldn't have. If I hadn't been hoarding mana for so damn long, I wouldn't have. So many ifs and buts about how logically I shouldn't have in any other circumstances, post-facto rationalizations to soothe my own brain telling me that I was being a moron. Ultimately it just boiled down to the fact that I had grown soft, a few months with people that I knew wouldn't betray me at the first opportunity had made me stupid. I liked to think that I wasn't the type to do stupid things because I was attached to people. Fahria, even Agitjin. I could have walked away, should have walked away.

But I did not. I had one last trick left, one thing Mitria had told me to avoid if I could. The regression would be a pain to fix, if it was possible at all. This was truly unknown territory. After all, no one had managed to get around the limiter of the gods as far as even Mitria knew. I had asked. Combining them was not something no one else had ever thought of, just not something anyone had succeeded in. The limiter of the gods was not absolute but it was close to it, but there was one thing that was even greater than the gods. Even if created by them, the system had transcended most of them.

I froze time and looked at me from the eyes of my swarm for one last time. Short from years of malnourishment, not even five feet tall. Everything else was covered in bone but I could imagine it: dark hair, light brown skin, dark eyes, an average face that looked more child-like than it had any right to be, especially when combined with my height. Just a human. Unsurprisingly, the now familiar blue light flashed around me.

'You enjoying the show, Third Calamity?' I sent through my hive, somehow knowing that she would hear it. The light pulsed again.

I took it all in before taking the plunge.

\\\\Swarm Aspect "Medea" activated. Taking on the aspect of the [Spider-Scorpion].

\\\\Swarm Aspect "Vespia" activated. Taking on the aspect of the [Chaos-Warped Hawk Wasp].

\\\\Aspect forms combined into the aspect of the [UNKNOWN ERROR]

And I was suddenly something far greater than I had ever dreamt of being.