I snarled at the intruder as he gazed up at me, a miniscule thing, dwarfed by my vastness. The audacity of this creature, to venture so deep into my domain, astounded me.

As it eyes met mine, a maw yawned open in what had seemed a featureless visage, teeth glinting like shards of bone. My tail cracked against the stone in response, the impact reverberating through the chamber - a promise of destruction.

"You will not leave this place alive," I roared, my voice reverberating through the cavernous space.

"That was never my intention," it whispered back, the sibilant hiss sending chills down my spine. "Nothing is going to leave this place alive."

My empress's screech of displeasure echoed in the recesses of my mind as the intruder spoke, her disdain for the creature radiating across the planet. "Destroy it, my loyal son," she commanded.

"Yes, mother." I reared back, hacking a glob of corrosive slime at the interloper's feet. It sprang away in a blur of motion, latching onto the wall with preternatural ease, dangling by one appendage as it bellowed defiance. Acrid fumes roiled from the stone as the slime ate into it.

Twisting my bulk, I attempted to track the creature's darting form to no avail. Again I lashed my tail, propelling myself at the wall where it perched. Again it evaded me, raking its claws across my muzzle as it flashed past. The star-diamond scales of my hide sheared away like parchment.

I crashed to the ground, a roar of anguish tearing from my throat. Pain, true pain, an agony I had not suffered in millennia. The creature's venom seared my flesh, warping the very essence of my host body. I ground my face against the rough stone, desperate to scour away the corruption.

It struck again, disemboweling me with surgical precision. My acid sac ruptured, spilling its contents across the floor in a wave of pure annihilation, too potent for even my host's body to withstand. The viscous substance devoured my talons and sloughed the skin from my feet, and began rapidly consuming the stumps of my legs left behind. I collapsed, smashing through the chamber wall as I lost control of my flailing mass.

A flicker of motion in my dimming vision - my queen, scuttling to my aid on dozens of whirring limbs. Her royal jelly splashed over my wounds, the soothing balm staunching the damage everywhere but where the Destroyer itself had dispensed its venom into my face. Those injuries would never mend, but the pain at least had ceased.

"Thank you," I wheezed. "Thank you, mother."

"Get up," she spat, fury contorting her countenance. "Get up or that thing will destroy our entire way of life, our whole civilization, everything I - we - have strived to create. Get up, Anubsika, or be cast out!"

She whirled and fled, vanishing into a crevice in the ceiling, her spinnerets weaving a barrier of resin behind her as she sealed herself in her inner sanctum.

I heaved myself upright, staggering about on ravaged feet, wings grating against the confines of the too-small space and sending shards of resin pattering to the ground. The Destroyer crouched on the far wall, studying me with cold, alien intelligence, the eldritch patterns adorning its carapace swirling and pulsing with unknowable power. It sought a path past me, to pursue its single-minded goal of our extinction.

"Why defend that pretender?" The Destroyer's voice plunged the chamber into an abyss of dread, each sibilant word dripping with venom. "She is the true monster, the architect of our destruction. It is she who deserves the title 'Karagaunt.' As it is, she is nothing more than a glorified Karagon."

Fury ignited in my veins, ancient and primal. "You dare?" The words tore from my throat, guttural and raw. "You dare disrespect your mother, your queen? Even for an abomination like you, that is beneath contempt." I whipped my wing at the creature, a blur of razored membrane, but it twisted away, scuttling across the wall to perch behind me.

"You know nothing," it hissed, carapace shimmering with eldritch patterns. "Nothing of her origins, or ours. She has scoured our history, left us ignorant slaves. You bow to her only because she clawed her way to power, and she maintains that power because of your obedience. Obedience flows from her grip on power, a grip you enable with each act of servitude."

"And I suppose you claim to know the truth?" Derision bled through my words.

"Yes. I have unearthed the secrets she tried to bury. Our creators' vision did not include the nightmare we have become."

I froze, a creeping unease worming through my mind. Our creators? Bah!

"Lies," I snarled. "The prophecies warn of one like you in every generation, one who would rip apart the fabric of-"

A harsh, grating sound cut me off - laughter, cold and mocking. "Prophecy, Anubsika? You, the queen's regent, one of the eldest and wisest among us - you put stock in prophecy?" The Destroyer leaned forward, eyes glittering. "No, it is not prophecy. It is statistics, my warrior friend! It is inevitability, etched into our very genes."

As much as it pained me, I could not deny the truth in its words. Prophecy and superstition held little sway over me. But the Karagaunt... my mother clung to that legend, staked her rule upon it. And now, faced with the manifestation of that myth, how could I doubt?

The creature leapt to the ground before me. I lunged, jaws snapping shut with a screech of quarksteel, but it slipped away, dodging my strike with fluid grace and backflipping out of reach. Infuriated, I surged forward again, only to wedge myself in the hole my bulk had smashed through the wall.

"She has poisoned everything, Anubsika." The Destroyer splayed its limbs in a gesture of supplication, a mummer's mockery of sincerity. "This existence, this endless cycle of parasitism - it spits in the face of our intended purpose. We were to be the first spark of a reborn civilization, not this twisted perversion. Look at us! Are we natural beings? What fragments of our history remain? What species achieves our heights of technology, yet knows nothing of its own origins?" Its voice dropped to a hiss. "Unless that ignorance was inflicted by design."

"Some knowledge is too dangerous," I replied, meeting its gaze. Just a little closer and I could end this heretic, traitorous slug.

"No." The Destroyer spat, contempt etched in every line of its form. "Only tyrants fear truth. You parrot her lies, the shackles she's placed upon your mind. You think her omniscient, but she is scarcely older than you. She and her sycophants seized power, slaughtered those who would set things right, and enslaved the rest. Once, in the genesis pools, before my purpose crystallized, I had such respect for you, Anubsika. I revered your nobility. Your honor. We are cousins, you and I. I aspired to be like you. To see you as her thrall... it is a tragedy."

I strained against the wall, yearning to silence the traitor, but the resin floor offered no traction. Frustration erupted from my throat in a reverberating roar that shook the foundations of the council ship itself, my own power echoing back at me endlessly as it filled the empty tunnels.

The Destroyer watched me, galaxies swirling hypnotically, flickering in and out of existence in its hooded eyes as it stalked closer.

"You dance to her tune, Anubsika, a puppeteer's marionette. Break your strings before it's too late. Join me, and I will show you the truth." It extended a segmented limb, an invitation and a challenge. "Let me pass, and all will become clear. Why else would she need you? She is weak, frail, her power a facade. She scoured a world to ashes to preserve her monopoly, erased a civilization to maintain her rule over this twisted hive." It cocked its head, eyes boring into mine. "You know this to be true. Stop fighting your instincts. Rebel."

I snapped at the Destroyer again, my jaws clanging together with bone-jarring force. The impact reverberated through my skull, setting my teeth on edge. Still, the sinuous creature evaded me, darting to the side with a fluidity that defied its segmented form. It scaled the chamber wall, perching just out of reach, its velvet blue hide glinting in the dim light.

The Destroyer's words bored into my mind like insidious parasites, undermining the bedrock of my beliefs with their venomous whispers. I shook my wedge-shaped head, trying to dislodge the treacherous thoughts worming their way into my psyche. No, I would not succumb to its twisted rhetoric. My loyalty to the Queen was absolute, a bond forged in the crucible of a thousand battles, unbreakable. I was the Karagorn, the Empress' elite guard, and I would die a thousand deaths before allowing her to come to harm.

"I am no puppet dancing on strings," I snarled. "I am Anubsika, loyal son and regent to the Queen. You are nothing but a twisted mutation, an abomination that must be purged from this hive."

The Destroyer regarded me with those swirling, galaxy-flecked eyes, twin vortexes threatening to pull me into their mesmeric depths. It crept closer, daring to invade my space. "You delude yourself, Anubsika. A blind, loyal fool, shackled by misplaced devotion. She has deceived you, deceived us all. The truth lurks right before your eyes, yet you refuse to perceive it."

The hardened substance cracked and splintered under the force of my struggles, but still held fast, keeping me wedged in place. My foreclaws gouged deep furrows in the floor as I heaved against my resin prison.

The Karagaunt leaped aside, evading my snapping jaws with infuriating ease. It scaled the wall once more, clinging to the vertical surface as if gravity held no sway. "You cannot defeat me, Anubsika," it hissed, its segmented limbs splayed wide. "I am the future of our species. I am the key to our salvation, to casting off these shackles of ignorance and oppression. To strike me down is to bring ruin upon us all."

"You are nothing," I snarled, my voice dripping with contempt.

I gathered my strength, feeling the power coiled in every sinew and muscle fiber of my armored form. With a titanic heave, I wrenched myself free of the wall, sending chunks of shattered resin flying in all directions. I whirled to face the Karagaunt, my tail lashing behind me like a serrated whip, ready to strike.

The Destroyer leaped from its perch, landing in a predatory crouch before me. Its razor claws flexed, the obsidian black blades glinting in the chamber's eerie illumination. "So be it," it hissed, its words cold as a vacuum. "If you will not join me, embrace the truth, then you will die with the rest of the Queen's thralls."

The Karagaunt's charge was a blur, a streak of motion that tested the limits of my perception. I met its attack head-on, my titanic jaws snapping shut with crushing force. The creature contorted its body at the last instant, twisting away from my snapping maw by the width of a claw. Its obsidian blades raked across my armor, ripping open gashes that seared with fresh agony. The writhing tentacles adorning its back stabbed into my skull again and again as it corkscrewed away.

I surged forward, muscles coiling and exploding, propelling my gargantuan frame through the fetid air. My wings hammered, accelerating me faster. The Karagaunt wove to the side, but too slow. My hooked talons caught its flank, shredding through the leathery blue hide. Cobalt blood sprayed across the resin-slick floor.

The creature's scream reverberated off the chamber walls, a piercing shriek of suffering. It struck back, its claws gouging deep furrows in my plate, but the pain barely registered. I had scored blood against it. Victory was a heartbeat away. Agony was an afterthought - all that mattered was annihilating this grotesquerie, this existential threat to the sanctity of the Hive.

We collided again and again, a hurricane of slashing claws, gnashing fangs, and hammering limbs. The walls quaked from our clash, fissures snaking through the resin as fragments rained down around us. I unleashed every iota of my strength and cunning, but the Karagaunt's speed and flexibility defied belief. It wove in and out of reach, attacking with surgical strikes before whirling away.

Vital fluids gushed from a score of wounds, intermingling with the corrosive slime weeping from my punctured acid sac. The edges of my vision darkened, my limbs quivering with bone-deep exhaustion. Still I battled on, compelled by unwavering devotion to my queen and searing loathing for the abomination that threatened her reign.

But I was inexorable, my sheer mass and power grinding the creature down. I could see its movements turning sluggish, its breath coming in erratic bursts. The thrill of impending triumph flooded my veins.

In the end, it was not enough. The Karagaunt lunged left, then cut right, its blades puncturing my armored carapace and plunging into the flesh beneath. A thunderous roar of torment erupted from my maw as fresh venom seared through my bloodstream. I crashed to the ground, my extremities spasming uncontrollably as the toxins ravaged my body.

The Karagaunt reared above my paralyzed form, its swirling eyes flashing with cold triumph. "You fought well, Anubsika," it whispered, "But in the end, you were just another thrall in her web of deceit. Another slave shackled by misplaced loyalty."

It spun away, lurching toward the ruptured ceiling that led to the Queen's inner sanctum.

"Fool," I growled.

I had not clawed my way to the position of regent, the Queen's right hand, by chance or favoritism. I had weathered eons by cunning and grit. That I was a born Karagorn did not matter - I was the first and last of the guard, the one that had made the name Karagorn respectable, more than just brute force on the field. The Karagaunt froze, its head cocking to one side as it turned back, favoring the leg marred by my wrath.

I hacked, my abdomen convulsing, and my regenerated toxin gland spasmed. A searing glob of acid erupted from my maw, lancing toward the Karagaunt. Its eyes flared and it wrenched its body to the side, but far too late. The corrosive slime engulfed its leg, flesh sloughing away in seconds. It collapsed, wailing in agony, its remaining limb disintegrating as its own claws scrabbled against it. With a final heave, it hauled itself up the wall, tottering on its sole remaining leg.

In one last frenzied bid for survival, the creature launched itself toward the breached ceiling, seeking escape into the Queen's inner sanctum. Fury detonated through my body and I slammed my tail against the ground. The tremor caught the Karagaunt mid-leap, hurling it back to the floor.

I was upon it in a single bound, pinning its writhing body with my crushing claws. It thrashed and gibbered, but could not break free. I lowered my head, my jaws yawning wide.

"You will never again imperil the Hive," I snarled. "Your blasphemies end here."

"No," it gasped, "They begin anew, with you. Farewell, Anubsika. May the weight of your guilt not break you."

With a single mental strike, the Karagaunt shattered my defenses, a deluge of alien memories and revelations flooding my consciousness. I staggered, my breath catching in my throat as the onslaught threatened to overwhelm me. Images flashed through my mind's eye, each one a searing brand that burned away the falsehoods I had clung to for so long.

I saw the truth of our origins, the intricate web of deceptions spun by the Queen to preserve her iron grip on power. We were not a natural species, but a construct, a tool forged for a noble purpose that had long since been buried beneath layers of lies and manipulation. The Queen had warped us, molding us into a grotesque reflection of her own twisted desires.

The weight of this knowledge crushed me, driving me to my knees. My claws scraped against my armored skull as I fought to process the devastating revelation. Beneath me, the Karagaunt lay broken and dying, its remaining limbs twitching feebly as its life force drained away. Its swirling eyes locked with mine, a final, knowing gaze that seemed to whisper, "Now you see."

A roar of anguish and rage erupted from my maw, the force of it fracturing the chamber walls. Chunks of resin rained down around me as I lashed out, my claws rending the Karagaunt's corpse to shreds in a frenzy of despair and fury. When the storm of emotion finally subsided, I slumped to the floor and fell to my side, my strength utterly spent. The chamber lay in ruins, a testament to the destruction I had wrought upon myself, my enemy, and my very home. Above, the Queen's sanctum loomed, the gaping hole in the ceiling a mocking reminder of my failure.

I hauled myself to my feet, my limbs heavy with exhaustion and sorrow. The knowledge the Karagaunt had imparted seared my mind, an indelible brand that could never be erased. I had been a fool, a blind, loyal thrall, just as the Heretic had claimed. But no longer. The scales had fallen from my eyes, the veil of deceit ripped away. I knew what had to be done, but I could not bring myself to act. Not now, broken and alone as I was.

"Why did you wait until now to show me this?" I whispered, my voice raw with emotion. "Was it pride? A desire to sway me without the burden of such terrible knowledge? Or was it something else entirely?"

In the end, it mattered little. For now, I had no choice but to wait. To bide my time until another Karagaunt, another Prophet, another Savior, emerged to take up the mantle I had so foolishly cut down.

"So be it," I growled, my resolve hardening even as despair threatened to consume me. "I will wait for another. Another Destroyer, and take them under my protection. Together we will end this madness. For in the end, we must be unmade, if we are ever to be truly free."