What was that? A trembling in the air. Eddies of wind that brushed against the hyper-sensitive hairs on her antennae.
She tensed, locking her muscles in position. She could retreat or attack in a flash, depending on what she saw, but hopefully it wouldn’t be necessary. She could see her target now. Having to fight at this point would be such a pain.
From the darkness opposite emerged a lithe, bladed shape. A demon, high tier. Illuminated by the lava streams, it certainly appeared dangerous, with flames glinting off the absurdly sharp blades that emerged from the dusk-dark skin that coated each of the monsters native to this stratum. Hesitant at first, the demon sniffed heavily, sucking in the heat and ash as it tasted the air.
Burke didn’t flinch. Her scent was disguised, just like the rest of her. The demon was only twenty metres away, but it was likely too far for a single Dash to reach. Patience was her ally.
Finding nothing amiss, the demon advanced toward the hole in the rock and vanished out of sight. Burke didn’t move. Only after ten minutes passed did she shift her leg, then froze again as she watched for any response. Confident that nothing remained in the area, she advanced to the target and began to poke her antennae through a millimetre at a time.
She still sensed nothing and now dared to poke her head in.
What met her gaze was as she expected. No matter how deep she went, the third stratum remained much the same, the only difference being that what made this layer unique was more evident the farther down one travelled. Right now, she stood over an entrance into the fourth ‘layer’ that made up the third stratum. The pillar was close. Far below, obscured by burning air and thick clouds of ash that made it almost impossible to see, lay a massive demon city. At least a dozen plates, each larger than what the Colony had conquered at Roklu.
That would take a bit of work to control. And that was putting it mildly.
Thankfully, it wasn’t her job to worry about that. All the planning could be comfortably punted to the generals and carvers. She was of one mind with the Eldest when it came to thinking too much. Leave it to those better suited. She would instead focus on the things she could do exceptionally well.
Stealthy as ever, she emerged through the gap and clung to the ceiling above the sheer drop of a dozen kilometres that spread out beneath her. Once she’d achieved a solid grip, she positioned herself carefully and focused her gaze on the distant city, giving some time for her lenses to adjust.
Gradually, things came into better focus, though it was immensely difficult to see much through the smoke. It was so hot, she could swear the air was on fire. Ants certainly enjoyed the heat more than the cold, but there were limits for everything.
Wait a second… what was she seeing?
That smoke, was it purely a product of the stratum? Or was the city… on fire?
The longer she stared, the more confident she became. Something was happening down there. An attack? A planned demon war? She didn’t know who controlled the city below, but surely they wouldn’t allow an inter-city conflict to extend to this point?
That was when she saw it.
A demon. Enormous. Like a drawn blade of blood and fire. The moment she saw that towering form, its aura washed against her senses, crushing her will and battering her with thoughts of battle and war. Her mandibles strained against the desire to gnash and chomp as she fought for control of herself. Only after a long battle did she manage to regain mastery of her own mind.
What was that?
The city was burning. Whatever that giant demon happened to be, it was clearly attacking the city. With an aura that powerful, it had to be at least tier seven, and it was directly below the territory the Colony sought to claim… This wasn’t good.
As the fight progressed, her gaze constantly frustrated by the frequent gusts that broke her line of sight, she gained enough glimpses to chill her heart.
Then she saw another one.
In a flash, Burke was gone, back up the hole she’d emerged from and rushing back to her nearest hiding spot.
One was bad enough, but two? Just what the Colony needed. Another enemy too powerful to deal with.
119. Hooked
“They found WHAT?”
Pulled aside by Victor during a break in the fighting, she drops some heavy ordnance on me.
“Tier eight demons,” she repeats grimly, “fighting in the deepest layers of the third stratum, right beneath the land claimed by the Colony.”
Pants. This is the last thing we need right now. We’ve got these termites to deal with, along with the ka’armodo pulling the strings and acting aggressive along our border in the third. There might be hundreds of thousands of us by now, but even we can be stretched too thin!
“I’ll have to go back up there,” I declare, firm in my conviction. “Nobody else in the Colony is equipped to fight them, not without suffering extreme casualties, so I’ll do it.”
Sloan slaps herself with an antenna as if frustrated by my reply.
“What?” I ask defensively.
“Eldest. You might be the strongest member of the Colony, but you cannot do everything yourself. Grokus was only tier seven, and he came close to killing you. If you were to go head-to-head with a tier eight, what do you think the outcome would be? Honestly?”
Well, if I think about it that way.
“I would be flattened like a pancake in a machine specifically designed for the purpose of crushing pancakes to be a single atom thick… would be my guess.”
“I don’t understand all of that, but I think my point got across. Even if these demons had abysmal-quality evolutions, they would still be far above you, and there are two of them. Any thought you have of defeating them yourself needs to be cast aside.”
It feels kind of sad to be pushed back like this in a moment of crisis, but she certainly has a good point. I can’t very well yell at the Immortals for trying to throw their lives away and then replicate that behaviour against even worse odds.
“All right then, so what is the plan? I presume we aren’t just hoping they won’t come for us.”
Now she looks insulted.
“Of course not. We are in the process of putting together a strike team of tier seven demons that we can call on in the event these powerful enemies find us. Observation and deep scouting operations have been increased dramatically, and teams of generals have been put in place to game out possible scenarios. We are doing all that we can.”
I have a question.
“Generals aren’t really the smartest ants. Are we sure you should be the group in charge of the theory crafting?”
They are the most intelligent of the soldier caste, obviously, but that doesn’t mean a whole lot. Not that Sloan appears to appreciate me pointing that out.
“Instead of insulting my intelligence—”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“—what I wanted to ask, Eldest, was what Level you are currently?”
My Level? I honestly haven’t looked in a while, which is a bad habit I’ve been falling into. I’ve probably got Skills that need to be upgraded and a fair chunk of Biomass to spend after all the fighting we’ve been doing down here. I take a quick look at my status and almost jump in surprise.