Oh, right.
“It’s hard not to get annoyed when I see you sulking. Your siblings are all working their butts off, and you’re lazing about feeling sullen because you’re still alive! How ridiculous can you get?”
“The Immortals just want to serve the family in their own way. We all agree on our perspective!”
“The issue I have is that you want to serve the Colony once. I made it clear to you soon after you were hatched exactly what I thought of that. Well, I suppose in the end you’ve got your wish—you’ll be able to die for the Colony as much as you want now!”
Leeroy collapses onto the ground at my words, the way she’s been ever since she and her fellow Immortals realised just what they’d done when they evolved. I can finally understand the waves of hilarity that the healers have been experiencing since the news spread. The idea that these particular ants, more desperate to sacrifice themselves than any others, have made themselves almost impossible to kill, is just too delicious for words.
I actually took a look at Leeroy’s core to glance at the specific organ they purchased: the Phoenix Fire Organ. To be honest, it’s a powerful piece of work, a very expensive gland, to be sure. From what I understand, they didn’t buy it but were offered it as part of the evolution they chose. As a consequence of so much value being put into this one element, the rest of their evolution was fairly sub-par. Most of the Immortals did the smart thing and poured their spare evolutionary energy into stats to compensate, making themselves tougher and stronger, which went a long way to helping them stay alive long enough for the Phoenix Fire to charge.
It’s not as if they can’t die, they absolutely can, but due to their specific circumstances, they’ve made it so much harder. The only way for them to be destroyed is if they are defeated too quickly for the organ to charge up. It takes time to build the energy necessary to ‘resurrect’ them from near death and return them to perfect health. The organ simply can’t remain that charged permanently; it’d break down in minutes. The other way is to put them down again just after they heal, since it’ll take much longer for the Phoenix Fire to return to full power a second time.
The problem is both of those strategies rely on overcoming the absurd Toughness of the Immortals. Their carapaces are all highly mutated, and the vast bulk of their stats are in Might and Toughness, making them extremely durable. On top of that, the armour produced by Smithant only gets better as time passes, making it even more difficult to actually put a wound on these ants! Killing them twice? Not even a tier seven was able to do it!
Which makes it even more hilarious that this happened to Leeroy, of all insects.
In the future, as they mutate and further improve the organ, who knows how difficult they’ll be to defeat as they continue to grow? I never would have thought it, but the Immortals have actually turned into a powerful and useful force for the Colony. I expect them to see a lot of deployment when we start expanding further into the third stratum.
“Look, I didn’t come over to try and give you a motivational speech. I want you off your backside and back to work along with the rest of your group. There’s a ton of work to do, and soon enough there’ll be more fighting. If you keep wallowing in your own self-pity, then I’m going to pick you up and drag you around the third stratum myself. If I even hear from someone that you’ve been slacking off, then I’ll return from the edges of explored territory to whack you on the head. So pick yourself up and get back to it.”
For a moment longer, the soldier remains flopped on the ground, a dejected example of an ant.
“Fine,” she says as she starts to pick herself up.
I watch her stand with a critical eye, one antenna still raised threateningly.
“By the way, I don’t want you to warn the Immortals who haven’t evolved to avoid this species that you’ve picked. Nobody can tell them what to pick.”
“What? They’ll end up picking this one for sure!”
I shrug.
“That’s their fault, then. I’m not saying they can’t pick the one they want; I’m saying the exact opposite. They can pick whatever they want, without influence.”
Leeroy fumes a bit, but she can see where I’m coming from. She eventually nods in acceptance.
“Alright then. Go check in with Advant, I think she had something she needs you to do. It’ll be a little while before your new armour is repaired, so you’ll have plenty to do helping with building until it’s time to fight again.”
Having dealt with the Leeroy problem, I finally release a deep sigh. The moment she and the other Immortals arrived in Orpule, they’d been a solid weight dragging down on the Vestibule, their misery sinking into me through the Will they provide. I had to do whatever it took to get them moving and back on the go just to stop them distracting me! I mean, I didn’t enjoy seeing Leeroy so miserable either, but it’s not like she didn’t do it to herself. I probably could have cheered her up by promising that she could go and fight an Ancient or something and get smashed to paste twice in a second, but I refuse to play into her stupid obsession! The sooner she gets over it, the better!
All right then, where’s the crew? I need to get Sarah, Brilliant, and my friends together; it’s time to get out and get Levelling again. I won’t rest until the latest Champion has risen to the point where she can contribute to the Colony!
45. Future Prospects
[So, this is the full armour set, huh?]
[Yep, it’s heavy, but it works very well.]
I didn’t get a good look at the full suit during the assault, and now that I have a real sticky-beak up close, I have to say that fully armoured Sarah is intimidating as hell. She is already a well-built monster in terms of mass, but with smooth, interlocking plates of armour covering her massive frame, she has an altogether different level of presence. It’s enough to make me start to consider what a full suit of armour would look like on me. Covering up my incredible, glittering carapace would be a total sin, obviously, but if the end result was this badass? I’d consider it for sure.
[What are you looking at?] Sarah asks a little uncomfortably as I circle around her.
[Huh? Oh, I wanted to get the complete picture of how you look with the armour on. It’s cool as hell, and looks like it does the job well.]
The fact it’s already repaired after the assault goes to show how little of a beating she took, surprisingly enough. There are still scratches and scuff marks all over the metal, but from what I understand, all that needed to be done was replacing a few plates, and she was good to go.
[You sure you want to take it out with us?] I ask her.
[I really need to get used to fighting in it, so it makes sense to take it out. The extra weight makes a lot of movements more awkward, so I want to practice.]
[Fair enough. We should see plenty of action, so you’ll get your chances.]
I have a quick look around.
[Alright then, I think we’re all ready. Invidia, you can spit her out now.]
Revealing his wide, toothy grin, Invidia opens up and pushes the bedraggled Brilliant out of his pocket dimension mouth and back into reality.
“Is that really necessary?” she complains as she shakes herself off like a soaked puppy and starts fastidiously cleaning her antennae.
“We both know how little you want to sit about while we wait for everything to get ready. If you aren’t happy that we needed to do this, then examine your own attitudes,” I tell her plainly. “Now we have one more evolution to achieve for you before we can stop power Levelling, and it’s time to go out there and get it. Have you made all the Skill purchases and completed all the mutations that you could do?”