Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire-Chapter 435: A coordinated attack

I immediately stood up from the table and rushed to Undecided’s side. When I began rubbing her shoulders, Undecided began blinking rapidly as if she was barely holding back tears.

To say that I was alarmed was to say nothing. Undecided wasn’t an inexperienced girl just out of her brood cell—she had years of life experience now and saw all sorts of nasty things in her prophecies (most of which were averted, though).

It would take something really large to trouble her like this!

"What happened? What did you see, Undecided?"

"It’s only the beginning—I couldn’t see farther away yet—but... it’s a catastrophe! A massive attack like never before!" Undecided exclaimed, waving her hands. "Father... Ah, I’m sorry, Father. I should explain more clearly, right? I just don’t know where to even start!"

"Yes, yes... Calm down, alright? As long as we stay calm, we can always find a solution," I said, leading Undecided to the table and pushing my cup of tea in her hands. "Drink."

Undecided took several large gulps and looked much more collected afterward. She let out a long exhale, put the cup back on the table and began to speak again—this time without rambling and like a proper report.

"I saw a vision in which I witnessed a report of a massive attack on Malevolence’s army. According to the report, thousands of hornets emerged from the ground all over the Hatha territories at once and attacked bees and humans alike. What’s worse, at the same time there were many incidents like the ones that were previously caused by metal-eaters that destroyed our supplies and even weapons. I don’t know how things developed afterward, but I know that at least 200 thousand bees died in this attack at once. The details vary from dream to dream, but either way, you... you were really sad, Father. And angry. Always."

I let out a breath.

No wonder!

200 thousand dead? That was two sub-hives worth of bees!

For them to die from a sudden attack like that, all at once, would’ve been an incredible loss to the country and to me.

"But the future isn’t set in stone, Undecided. This couldn’t have been the only outcome you’ve seen."

She nodded.

"It wasn’t, but the other outcomes were all similar to this one. In no dream I could think of I saw you or our forces doing something that helped prevent or stop it. I can only hope that this warning will let you do something, although I can’t see what it is..."

I remembered Undecided telling me before that her "dreams" didn’t fully reflect her own prophecies. This must’ve been one of these situations.

Oracles’ visions of the future were extremely branching and had a place for even the least probable possibilities. If something could happen both with and without foreknowledge, there would be a vision for it. But if something could happen *only* with foreknowledge, there wouldn’t be.

Then, when this thing happened, dreams of all Oracles involved would shift, sometimes drastically, to reflect the new timeline. This always left them confused for a few days as they got used to the changes.

Ordinarily, unless Oracles were trying to test the limits of their foreknowledge on purpose (for example, by telling other people to pick a number and trying to guess it), there weren’t things that could only happen with foreknowledge.

After all, even if something like a military victory depended on knowing the enemy’s plans, they could be guessed by the military leader or found out by spies.

If Undecided didn’t see a way out of the attack she warned me about, either it depended only on foreknowledge, or it didn’t exist.

"And this attack always happened at the same time? In the same place? No, wait—before you reply, let me get a map..."

I got a large paper map from one of my shelves, and Undecided did her best to point out the places that would most likely be attacked and by the biggest number of enemies. She also told me all the other information from the prediction: the number of enemies sighted, the metal-eater accidents, the amount of dead bees... All that she was a witness to and that she could pinpoint with at least some precision.

The result looked grim.

After I looked at the full map of the attacks and the points of metal-eater accidents, I saw both attacks were coordinated by a mind that couldn’t have belonged to an insect. By all reports, the attackers themselves didn’t have drastically evolved intelligence and attacked instinctively. They were too stupid for something like this.

First, (uncountable) thousands of murder hornets emerged from the ground all over the position of Malevolence’s subordinates. I had no idea if they were hibernating there, hiding, or pupating.

As soon as they emerged, they began slaughtering everything in their path. Humans would die from a couple dozen stings from these creatures. Beemarines were a much larger challenge—even hornet spear-like stingers couldn’t pierce them.

But hornets were just as armored and several times bigger! According to the report, their chitin stopped even bullets, and they were immune to venom. Their fight against Beemarines was really a battle of tanks against tanks.

Beemarines were more numerous, but there were too many hornets, and they were too large. Hornets must’ve also evolved some intelligence, because they came up with the tactics of choking Beemarines to death with their powerful arms.

Just as Beemarines were trying to "ball" and suffocate the hornets.

Things would’ve gone better for Beemarines if they had incendiary bombs and more gunpowder with them. But while hornets were attacking the bees, the metal-eaters—unnoticeable unless searched for—set fire to the army’s supplies, including the supplies of incendiary weapons. They also broke a lot of other things.

This was just as devastating.

Behind this, I saw not just the hand of the Goddess of Hornets, but her alliance with the god who owned the metal-eaters. By direct or indirect means, they controlled their species to deliver this blow to me.

And they were watching me. I was sure that they were watching me right. Now.