There’s another mutation which does something similar for Toughness, which would make me more durable in a pinch, but I feel as though my defensive options far exceed my offensive ones at this point, so perhaps I’ll put that option on the backburner.
In the end, I decide to commit to increasing my range, as I did before. With so many ants being born, our numbers are getting absurdly high and pulling in more Will is going to trump most of the efficiency gains I can make with these other mutations.
Which leaves me with the Nave. The Communal Spirit Nave is a strange organ, to say the least. Attached to the Vestibule, it acts as a signal booster, a force multiplier, taking the energy fed to it and simultaneously strengthening it as it focuses and delivers it to… nothing right now. Once the energy exits the Nave, it’s dispersed into my body where the regenerative properties kick in, but the more I think about it, the more I believe it’s likely there’s another component to these connected organs which I’m likely to be offered in a future evolution. I wonder what it could be? Maybe I should have poked through the evolution menu and looked for it… ah well.
There really aren’t that many options for the Nave compared to most organs, probably due to the rather narrow focus it has. I can’t help but feel like knowing what the ‘destination’ would be that the Nave is supposed to connect to would have a significant impact on my decision regarding mutation. Well, if worse comes to worse, I can reset the thing and move on with life. For now, I’ll go with the Purifying Nave, which essentially means the organ does its current job, but better. I’ll take that to +15 as well whilst I’m at it.
Which means my final purchases of this session of self-improvement look like this:
Vast Expanded Collective Will Vestibule +15 (Soul Crystal).
Purifying Communal Spirit Nave +15.
And my new Skills:
Charge.
Chomp Combo.
Mandible Spear.
Mandible Parry.
I’m going to leave the sensory passives for the time being, but I’ll look to pick at least some of them up at a later date. I’m grabbing spear in the hopes that it can fuse with charge to make something interesting, as I really don’t see my mandibles as stabbing weapons. Let’s confirm the purchases!
Here we go…
57. A General Battles
The days of the wave rolled on and the Mana level continued to rise, increasing the spawn rates of monsters throughout the Dungeon to an absurd degree. Every hour, thousands of newborn monsters clashed in the tunnels around the Colony, warring and fighting, the losers feeding the winners, who grew rapidly in strength. A hundred thousand tales of victory and death were woven every day in the area just outside the Colony’s defensive line.
Not that it mattered. The monsters from the deep were crushing those from above and pressing onward, desperate to escape those from beneath who drove them from their territories. They savaged those weaker than them, absorbing their power and seeking more until they inevitably ran into the iron wall that was the Colony.
Hundreds of defenders manned fortified choke points, bombarding the encroaching beasts with acid and spells until they fell on the ravenous jaws of the soldiers. They never fought an even-numbered fight, always dividing the enemy and destroying them with overwhelming force before turning to the next. Should the pressure become too great, they would fall back, retreating to another prepared position, with a fresh wave of troops ready to fill the breach. After gathering their strength, the ants would shove back the wave and retake the outer wall, reinforcing it again within the hour.
On and on it went. The wave proved just as relentless as the Colony, and every day that passed, their numbers grew. And grew.
Organising it all had been enough to drive Victor to the brink of exhaustion, but as the days ticked by, the Colony defence practically ran itself. The local generals were intelligent and capable, experienced in the ways of the caste after fighting off the siege; they hardly needed input from herself or Sloan to run their checkpoints. As new recruits graduated from the Academy, they slotted into the existing structures with barely a ripple, enlarging the size of each garrison.
Which was why she found herself on the front line, providing buffs and taking her turn in the line to fight. Without the need for her at central command, what other choice did she have? Sit around and do nothing? Don’t even suggest it!
“Big push coming!” she called back to the line of mages and scouts behind her. “Brace! Brace! Brace!”
The massive soldiers, with their thick carapaces and huge frames, packed themselves tightly together, covering the narrow entrance they defended from every angle until she could barely see past them. Activating her aura gland along with her commanding presence Skills, she did her part to coordinate the troops and make those last-second adjustments before contact.
With a deafening roar, the crush of monsters beyond the wall smashed into the ants with concussive force that rippled through the air and blew back the general’s antennae. The soldiers absorbed the punishment without flinching, sparks flying as the enemy tried to scrape and bite at their chitin shells.
“In three! Two! One! PULL!” she called.
In one coordinated motion, the soldiers drew back to clear the opening, which was immediately bombarded by the waiting scouts and mages. A huge volume of acid, fire, and shards of ice were hurled into the teeth of the horde, who recoiled, all except one. Working together, a few of the strongest soldiers darted in, latching onto the monster and dragging it back through the gap, where the rest of them fell upon it, chomping with controlled fury until it was no more.
“BRACE!” Victor ordered.
In a flash, the soldiers were back in position, blocking the entrance as the endless monsters pressed back against them once more. They endured the hammer blows of the enemy as the mages and scouts prepared their next spells and readied their acid.
“On my order, we will pull, rotate, and heal! Be ready!” she shouted, watching the narrow choke point with an intense focus.
“In three! Two! One! PULL!”
This time, as the soldiers pulled back in perfect coordination, they also rotated their position around the opening, moving in a clockwise direction. As the scouts and mages poured out as much damage as they could, a team of healers rushed to minister to the wounded, their healing energies working double-time to help them recover in as short a span as possible. Despite the constant stream of acid and magic, monsters still managed to press closer to the opening, only to be dragged through and set upon by the waiting mandibles of the ants, including Victor herself.
After ten seconds, she roared out her order.
“BRACE!”
And so the cycle repeated, over and over, until their team was finally relieved by another group and was able to fall back to eat and rest. Several of the soldiers sported semi-severe injuries, their carapaces unable to hold up to the constant beating. They’d need a day of healing to be back to full strength, most likely, which meant Victor would be short a full complement of soldiers for the next shift. A problem she would work to solve after she had some time to recover. The toll of having to concentrate so fiercely for hours on end was great and she was keen for some torpor. But first…
“General,” she snapped out a quick salute to the general in charge of this checkpoint.
“General,” the officer snapped one right back. “Come to report?”
“Indeed.”
She went on to give details of their shift: has the concentration of Mana and monster spawns gone up? How many demons had been seen, what types of demons, any sighting of tier five or above monsters, injuries sustained, and so on.