Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 535: State of the Sanctuary’s Residents

CH535 State of the Sanctuary’s Residents

***

Lord Bonsai ignored Alex’s arrival.

Instead, as always, a creeping branch slid from its trunk, slithering across the Sanctuary until it reached the Nest Queen’s cocoon, where it dumped the excess divine energy after extracting the Providence bound within it.

’With how much energy that cocoon has absorbed, it’s strange the Nest Queen hasn’t burst out yet,’ Alex mused.

Then he saw something new.

After feeding the cocoon, the branch wrapped around it and began to oscillate gently, producing a faint, rhythmic hum.

Alex’s eyes widened.

He felt something inside him loosen, relax, right down to the marrow of his soul.

’So that’s why she hasn’t come out yet,’ he realised.

’You’ve been singing her a lullaby.’

Still, he didn’t mind.

Truthfully, even if the Nest Queen were born right now, he wasn’t sure how best to use her.

He held his chin in thought.

”It’s a good thing she hasn’t hatched yet,” he muttered. ”The ability to produce drones is excellent, but I still don’t have a permanent territory.

”It’s better for my party to remain modest in size. Not so small that we can’t resist the dangers of travel, but not so large that we slow ourselves down— never mind the frightening amount of resources a large force would consume.”

He exhaled slowly.

”The Nest Queen is too important –and potentially too dangerous— for me not to give her my full attention. I can’t leave her to roam about like I do Fen or Senu.

”To truly make use of her strengths, I’ll need territory and infrastructure... A place that can both support her and benefit from what she brings.”

His greatest concern was that, like most colony queens capable of producing vast numbers of drones, she might be immobile.

Or at least slow.

If that were true, she would become a burden the still-nomadic expedition simply could not afford.

Of course, there was always the option of leaving her inside the Sanctuary, letting her produce drones in safety while he deployed them as needed.

Yet instinctively, Alex rejected that path.

Practically speaking, he didn’t like the idea that he—or OmniRune—would need to manually open and close the gate to the Sanctuary every single time the Nest Queen wanted to deploy drones, or when those drones needed to return with food.

It wasn’t... efficient.

There was also the matter of what the Nest Queen might turn his Sanctuary into once she began constructing whatever passed for a drone-manufacturing complex.

Nature offered plenty of examples of such places.

But none of them were pleasant to look at.

It was a mild concern in the grand scheme of things, yet to Alex it mattered a great deal. After all, there was a reason he had named the pocket dimension, Sanctuary.

All things considered, he was glad Lord Bonsai kept the Nest Queen asleep, sealed safely within her cocoon.

With the sheer amount of energy being poured into her, the fact that the cocoon’s size hadn’t changed much suggested that, rather than growing larger, she was growing... in life quality.

Given what she was—and the horror stories attached to beings like her—the jury remained out on whether that was good news.

Just to be safe, Alex asked OmniRune to run a quick diagnostic.

He released a breath of relief when the AI confirmed the link between him and the Nest Queen remained firm. If anything, as the creature matured within the cocoon, the runic bond appeared to be strengthening.

Then OmniRune confirmed the embedded safeguards were still fully intact.

The Command Hierarchy Protocol (CHP), which placed Alex’s authority at the absolute apex of the Hive network.

The Runic Loyalty Seed, ensuring the Nest Queen instinctively perceived obedience to him as natural.

The Logic Bomb, a buried trigger designed to activate if she ever attempted to sever his authority from the Hive Mind.

The Wipe Command, an override allowing him to deactivate all current and future drones linked to her.

And finally, the Behavioural Conditioning Protocol, through which OmniRune could apply positive and negative stimuli—reward and punishment—to sculpt the Nest Queen’s developing psyche.

All of them remained operational.

Not only that, the safeguards seemed to have become even more deeply entrenched within the Nest Queen’s primary runic core structure.

Once the disturbance in the cocoon caused by the influx of divine energy finally died down, Lord Bonsai’s creeping branch slowly retracted back to the tree.

Soon, everything returned to its usual silence and stability.

Alex walked up to stand in front of the bonsai.

”It looks like you liked my latest offering,” he said with a grin, exaggerating his movements as he circled the tree as though conducting a serious inspection. ”You’re looking plump and full of energy. Should I go look for more of that Navi or Spirit’s statues?” he asked.

For the first time since arriving in Verdantis, one of Lord Bonsai’s hanging branches lowered.

It gently tapped and rubbed over Alex’s head.

His grin widened.

The gesture didn’t feel like admonishment, nor did it seem like the tree was forbidding him from chasing after dangerous divine being.

It felt more like a reminder.

’Be safe. Put your own survival first.’

Alex nodded obediently... though only he knew whether he actually intended to listen.

He cast a final glance toward the last important resident of the Sanctuary— the Voidheart Core.

The crystalline heart still seemed bloated after devouring the entire Layman mine of the Kellerman Family, and it continued converting that massive excess into Spatial energy.

Yet, like a beast with an endless appetite, it still kept drawing in more ambient mana from atop Lord Bonsai’s crown.

Alex had no intention of stopping it.

If anything, he welcomed the behaviour. It created a continuous cycle, steadily stockpiling Spatial energy for the day he would truly need it.

After one last sweep of the surroundings, Alex prompted OmniRune.

A portal unfolded open before him.

He stepped through.

The moment Alex exited the Sanctuary pocket dimension, the Heartwood Tree’s body trembled.

The vibrant aura it exuded withdrew slightly, as if a façade had slipped.

Then, hidden behind the cover of leaves high within the canopy... a single purple fruit appeared.

Had Alex been present... had he paid just a little more attention, he would have realised something important.

The energy the Heartwood Tree injected into the Nest Queen’s cocoon was pure divine energy, completely stripped of the malevolence he had sensed in the gnoll shrine’s statue.

He would have noticed where that malevolence had gone.

It was now concentrated within the purple fruit hanging quietly in the canopy of the precious tree.

But Alex wasn’t there to see it.

Once he returned to Verdantis, he found Udara still waiting inside the underground shrine.

He raised a brow at her in mild surprise.

”The party has already dealt with the threat above,” she said. ”I decided to wait for you here. Just in case.”

Alex nodded in understanding.

”How is it?” she asked.

”Everything’s fine,” Alex replied with a smile. ”Let’s head out.”

He took her hand and, in an almost theatrical show of gentlemanly behaviour, helped her up the poorly constructed staircase that led out of the shrine.

Udara didn’t need the help.

But she didn’t refuse it either.

A faint, soft smile curved her lips as they walked out hand in hand.

Only when they reached ground level—and the other members of the party began approaching—did Udara gently pull her hand away.

Alex glanced at her.

She shook her head in response.

A light blush dusted her cheeks, subtle enough that only someone deeply familiar with her would notice.

Alex chuckled wryly and moved ahead to intercept the approaching group, shielding his Shadow Queen from any curious eyes that might catch her moment of shyness.

”Boss, the combat-capable gnolls have all been put down,” Kavakan reported, thumping his chest proudly. ”All that’s left are the elderly and the young. We’re waiting for your instructions on how to deal with them.”

Alex’s eyes flickered.

He turned toward the centre of the village, where the remaining gnolls had been gathered together.

They were surrounded, contained, and firmly controlled by the orcs and barbarians under Kavakan’s command.

***