Deep inside the dark, asteroid-choked border between System #49 and System #48, a foul green cloud of insect pheromones parted with a thunderous rumble.
Out of the mist crawled a colossal, ten-mile-long monstrosity that looked like a cross between a golden-armored mountain range and a bloated, hundred-legged empress bee: the Ancient Locust Queen (Rank 8 Late)!
Every flap of the Queen’s four translucent, mile-wide wings sent shockwaves of corrosive green wind rippling through the surrounding space dust. Behind her huge, swollen golden abdomen flew an army of 50,000 elite Locust-Swarm Cultists, each wearing a spiky cloak woven from green beetle shells and riding atop a twenty-foot Rank 6 Blood-Winged Goliath Locust.
Standing proudly atop the crown of the Ancient Locust Queen’s head—right between her two mile-long, feathered golden antennas—was Cult Master Gu Chong (Rank 8 Late).
Gu Chong was a tall, gaunt old man with pale green skin, fingernails three inches long and curved like centipede claws, and a crown made from the skull of a giant praying mantis. For the past ten days, he had been meditating inside a sealed asteroid cave in System #50 while feeding the Locust Queen ten thousand tons of spirit-ore so she could brew her ultimate batch of corrosive acid.
