My face is already starting to ache from repeatedly using my biting skills. I’ve had the Mana flowing into my mandibles for some time, improving my cutting power. Eventually I am going to run out of stamina.
Gritting my mandibles together, I start to cut my way out of the horde, moving toward the colony.
The Gravity Spears have been having a better than expected effect. After firing twenty or so, there are many little knots of monsters frozen in place. They aren’t smart enough to reason through the situation, so rather than try and move together, they just run about, smacking into the monsters around them and getting pulled back together. The groups I stuck to the ground are even more debilitated. The further they get from the point I targeted, the stronger the pull. They’ve effectively been taken out of the fight.
Each spear hasn’t done that much work, but cumulatively, the effect is substantially reducing the numbers of the horde.
Ha!
Finally!
I burst out from amongst the monsters and Dash with all of my strength to get ahead of them.
Only to find workers running in the other direction, toward the horde.
Dammit!
The colony is already getting into the fight?
Gah! My feet scrabble against the ground as I dig my claws in and try to turn around as more and more workers charge past. In the distance, the ant hill is swarming with workers as they pour out of the many chambers within, rallying to the defence of the colony.
It wasn’t as if I thought I could keep them from the fighting… Well, maybe I did. What I really want is to make sure as many as possible survive.
I turn and charge alongside my siblings. All around me now, they’re silent with only the occasional clack of mandibles and the faint rasping of carapace. To my antennae, though, they are roaring.
FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! ENEMY! ENEMY! FIGHT!
The air is thick with the chemical signals of their rage. Their home is threatened and their queen needs defending. The colony will rise. The first workers smash into the edge of the monster wave, their mandibles working like machines. Wherever possible, two or more ants gang up on another monster, subduing it, latching onto its limbs and pulling it down before yet more workers approach to finish the job.
Before I crash back into the horde, there’s something else developing in my side view.
The humans are also charging. Led by, believe or not, the one-armed priest. They’re wielding their motley collection of busted swords, farming implements and crude spears. Faces twisted with fear and desperation, but also courage and anger, they sprint as fast as their human legs will carry them to monsters so much larger than themselves.
The last thing I see is the priest’s face, alight with joy and righteousness, before I’m back amongst the melee, chomping away and crunching monsters as fast my mandibles can move.
131. Battle of Unity
The frustrating thing about a battle such as this, where the numbers on both sides were relatively high and the fight was spread over a wider front, was just how hard it was to keep track of what was taking place.
My senses were overwhelmed on every front. Heat was thick in the air from the exertion of thousands of bodies, my eyes were filled with the blur of rapid movement and my antennae were drowned in the pheromones of my fellow workers. Not to mention the vague impressions of the very near future I received; confusing, shifting images that fluttered against my mind like ghosts. It was a sensory overload. If I hadn’t built quite as powerful a mental rig as I did, perhaps I wouldn’t have been able to process half of it.
Thankfully, I could.
I could parse all of it.
It was a strange feeling, to say the least. My brain was able to accept and sort all of the information in a fraction of a second. I could see everything around me, track every enemy, see the subtle shifts of their future selves, observe their body heat, and react. Claws fell from all around me and I shifted my body at high speeds. A little to the left, slant my carapace a touch on the right, and blows either slid off me or scratched harmlessly against my diamond shell.
Muahahahaha!
I am all that is ant! Behold me!
Phew. Need to cool off. Even in the midst of battle, it’s a heady rush. In the back of my mind, I can hear the announcements of Gandalf, letting me know my skills are improving. That’s the one thing I don’t have the attention to spare for. I can go over that later.
Right now, I need to kill as fast as possible!
If I had the time, I could try and form a Gravity Bomb. Except, with the humans, Tiny, Crinis and now the colony involved, the risk of collateral damage is too high. This battle is simply one that we have to grind out, unfortunately.
And the workers are perfect for this. As soon as they arrive, they get stuck in and don’t stop. I move as fast as I can, ripping into beasts with all of my strength, more often than not just debilitating a monster before moving on. I can leave the remains to the workers, but if I can disable as many foes as possible then I will. The survival of my siblings comes first.
My sub-brains are ripping out Gravity Bolts one after another. Every five seconds they blast out a pair of the spells, rooting some unfortunate monsters to the ground. Easy fodder for the follow up wave of workers as I wind my way up and down the front between the horde and the ants.
[Work your way back toward me, guys. Be careful you don’t catch any of the workers in your strikes.]
Tiny and Crinis silently acknowledge me and I can feel them begin to shift closer to me. The two of them are still buried deep in the melee, surrounded by foes and holding on. I make sure to warn them not to injure the colony since the last thing I want is to lose family members to Tiny’s lightning or Crinis’ maw.
The two of them will need to act more cautiously, slowing their killing speed, but I want them on this side to support the ants. The more help we have, the fewer colony members will fall.
Idly I wonder how the humans are doing on their side. I quickly push it out of my mind. They have to look after themselves. Morrelia and her crew are over there and the villagers gained some Levels and weapon skills when Beyn had them fighting Dungeon monsters in the village. It will have to be enough for them.
My family comes first. As always.
Holy moly, I’m tired.
I have to switch from using Shattering Bite to less draining skills. The punchier bite skills do a wallop more damage, with a hefty cost to boot. I can’t maintain constant use in an extended fight like this, my face already feels like it wants to fall off.
It would be nice if I could ‘see’ my stamina as a resource. According to Beyn, it’s a hidden resource in the System, unlike Mana and Health which are quantified and made visible to everyone. Apparently, it’s possible to do the math and calculate how much stamina you have, how quickly it regenerates and how much your skills cost, but I rejected Beyn when he, very eagerly, offered to run the numbers. I didn’t want to be a lab rat for the priest, and the look in his eyes was off-putting to say the least.
Ripping Bite!
Using the new, and slightly more brutal, Ripping Bite, I continue to tear into the monsters as they appear before me. Evolved Centipedes and hounds are at the front of the swarm now. They were likely huddled in the middle of the pack, letting their weaker evolutions suffer the first counterattack.
I grit my mandibles.