The next day, Jeremy emerged from the lake, holding the long spear he'd recovered from the lake bottom. Five lightning bugs tickled him as they crawled around under his clown suit. He took in as much of a charge as he could. Squeak scouted through the deserted passageway as Jeremy followed.

  Jeremy cast Divine Fury and felt the familiar rage running through him.

  The swarm cave was as silent as a tomb. Jeremy cautiously stepped inside, walking slowly toward the large hive in the center. Uinguit had crushed the hive days before, but he couldn't tell from looking at it.

  “Careful, Jeremy,” Flint said. “Be very careful.”

  Jeremy walked. Slowly, carefully, forward, thirty steps from the hive, then twenty, nineteen, eighteen... fourteen, thirteen...

  There was a thunderous roar from every corner of the cavern as dungeon insects exploded out of the hive, holes in the cavern floor, and under and behind every nook and cranny in the cavern.

  “Now!” Flint shouted.

  “Squeak!” Squeak attacked.

  Jeremy grabbed his bag of holding and released hundreds of gallons of lake water, drenching the surrounding insects. Then he released Electric Attack, killing thousands of the swarm in an instant. Thousands more poured out of the hive, climbing over their dead comrades. The battle was beginning.

  By the end of the day, Jeremy had hacked and slashed his way deep into the swarm hive, which extended beneath the stone floor. Exhausted, it was all he could do to keep fighting. He was grateful for his pain resistance as burns and stings covered his body. His left eye was swollen shut from some acid poison attack, and he had used up all his healing potions. Without Divine Fury, he would be too exhausted to stand, let alone keep fighting.

  He had to be close. The insects he now encountered were as long and as wide as his forearm, with razor-sharp mandibles, and they used every form of attack he'd encountered earlier, only more so. Blinding lights left him temporarily blind, fire, poison, and acid; they even used a powerful mental attack that left him wanting to do nothing more than curl up and die, but that wasn't an option. Strong adventurers kept fighting.

  These had to be the queen's elite guard.

  The queen was close.

  The last of the queen's guard spewed some kind of burning acid at Jeremy that he was too tired to dodge; the pain was barely noticeable on top of his many other wounds. Using his spear for balance, he swung his sword, cutting the two-foot-long insect in half, gaining another burn on his hand in the process. What little armor he'd worn at the beginning of this battle was long gone. If it weren't for his skin toughness, he'd be long dead.

  With his spear in his left hand and sword in his right, he drove his spear deeper into the thick papery substance of the hive.

  Each time he used his Electric Attack, he felt sick, and it was taking longer and longer for him to recover.

  He pulled his spear back and stabbed into the hive again and again. He had to be at least twenty feet below the dungeon floor already.

  The hive was dead silent. This was not a good thing. Seeing little choice, he kept digging.

  Jeremy's mom appeared in front of him, speaking into a cellphone. “I don't know what's wrong with that boy,” she said. “Jeremy's so stupid and worthless. He's a lousy student, a terrible athlete, and a horrible friend. His brother Andrew is a worthless drug addict, but he's ten times the man Jeremy will ever be. I'm so ashamed of him. It would be better for everyone if he died in the dungeon.” Mom turned and looked at him directly, her eyes full of pity and contempt. “I never loved you, Jeremy. Let the dungeon have you. Just die.”

  It's not real! he told himself, wishing he believed it.

  “Squeak!”

  The silence of the hive had turned into a deafening mental scream.

  “Just die, Jeremy,” he heard his mother say. “Just die.”

  The queen's mental attack sapped Jeremy's will. Maybe his mother and brother would be better off without him.

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  Divine Fury helped him get through this. True or not, he would see this through to the end.

  “RUN!” Flint shouted into his ear.

  Jeremy took Flint's advice and jumped up, using the spear to pull himself out of the hive.

  The queen exploded from the hive where he'd been seconds before.

  The queen was huge, as wide around as Jeremy's waist and twice as long as he was tall.

  Jeremy grabbed his bow and charmed poison arrow he'd left near the hive and fired. The arrow entered one of the queen's six eyes but seemed to do little else.

  He felt a red-hot poker in his leg. A poisonous spike stuck out of his thigh. The queen had flung it at him as he'd fired, and he hadn't even noticed.

  She charged.

  Jeremy turned and ran, ignoring the spike in his leg.

  The queen was close behind, mandibles slammed together, missing his leg by millimeters.

  “TO THE LAKE!” Flint shouted. “RUN TO THE LAKE!”

  Jeremy did so, not looking back, knowing the queen followed close behind. He zigzagged to avoid more shooting spikes. When he reached the lake, he dove in. Only then did he turn back.

  He saw his mother.

  “All your life, you've been nothing but a burden, Jeremy. Your father was right. You're a pathetic coward, and you will never amount to anything. Let the dungeon take you; it's all you're good for.”

  “Fight, Jeremy!” Flint shouted from his perch on the rocks. “You can't help being stupid and worthless! Remember your sacred mission!”

  Fighting free of her mental attack, Jeremy saw that the queen had stopped at the lake's edge.

  Tears joined the lake water on Jeremy's face. The queen's mental attack cut him to his core, and worse, he feared she was right. All he'd ever been was a burden on his family, and the universe would be better off without him.

  But Divine Fury left him too angry to care.

  “I killed your family, you filthy monster!” he shouted from where he stood in the lake.

  A spike from her tail grazed his cheek.

  “Your aim is garbage!”

  The queen hesitated for an instant, then plunged into the lake after him.

  She was twice as long as he was tall, with a flexible, wasp-like body and a razor-sharp stinger. She slid through the water like a moray eel.

  Against all odds, Jeremy still gripped his sword.

  Jeremy pulled a large stone from his bag of holding that he'd been saving for just this sort of thing and sank into the lake using the stone's weight to dive as deep as he could before she reached him.

  Jeremy dove deeper and deeper, with the queen close behind.

  The queen might be a strong swimmer, but could she breathe underwater?

  Then she was on top of him. He fended off her mandibles with the stone, losing his sword in the process.

  She crushed Jeremy's stone in her mandibles, her many legs grabbing onto him. Her stinger stabbed deep into his belly, the pain temporarily paralyzing him.

  When he recovered, he pulled out a charmed, poisoned arrow he'd taken from the spider queen on the first floor and slid it beneath her armor plates. He wasn't sure she noticed.

  She slowly pulled back her head, preparing to strike.

  He vomited blood, and his health was plummeting.

  Mom hugged him, eyes full of pity and contempt. “Shhhh. Let go. It's okay, Jeremy, you were always going to be a loser.”

  Rage filled him. One hand fended off the swarm queen's mandibles while the other grabbed his knife and stabbed one of the swarm queen's eyes, releasing every bit of electricity he'd stored.

  The swarm queen convulsed from the shock.

  “You're ruining everything! You're always ruining everything!” Mom's voice screamed in his head.

  Jeremy didn't care.

  The queen struck clumsily; he dodged. Her mandibles clashed next to his head.

  She tried to disengage. Running out of oxygen?

  “Oh, no you don't.”

  Jeremy equipped his rope, wrapping it around the queen and himself, and summoned two more stones from his bag of holding, attaching them to the ends of his rope to prevent them from surfacing. He clung to his knife, still embedded in the queen.

  The queen swam for the surface, ignoring the extra weight, but as she neared the surface, his poison wounds took effect—she slowed, beginning to sink. She twisted, trying to bite Jeremy or his rope. Jeremy released one last electrical charge, blacking out from the effort.

  The queen's body stiffened, spasmed, and grew still.

  Divine Fury vanished, leaving him too exhausted to move.

  Together, they sank into the depths of the lake.

  That was all Jeremy knew for a while.