We rest for a while, and the power of our stats heals our bodies. In my case, it's mostly my passive skill doing the work, but it's good enough.
When we finally continue through the tunnels, I feel a bit different. Weirdly, I feel better, as some of the tension leaves my body, and it seems the same goes for Myrra.
“Fuck, feral one, I didn’t expect you to kick me in the crotch, twice. Do you have no manners?” Even her tone is a bit different now.
“Says the person who spat blood in my face,” I reply.
“Feral One, I bet you there are humans willing to pay me for the experience,” she says.
I stagger in surprise, and she notices, which makes her smile even more. I mean, she is not wrong, but damn.
Thankfully another group of snapjaw ants appears, and I avoid reacting any further. Already used to fighting them, we move quickly, keeping mobile and slowing them with Myrra’s ice and my [Redistribution].
Even with multiple Gravity ants and a Sentinel ant supporting them, we deal with them fairly quickly, and yet another group tries to slow us down.
As always, I can feel my [Tether] far in front of us, meaning the black mana orb is most likely still hampering the leader of the Colony and severely damaging him or messing with his mana control.
Hopefully, it won't kill him in the end. I have a lot to pay back. I don’t care that I mostly got my ass kicked last time. This time I won’t rely on others. I won’t rely on Lily’s healing or Sophie to slow him down, I will fuck him up on my own. Sure, Myrra will probably want to get in a few hits, but I can live with that.
I have been too reliant on others for too long, and it’s stunted my growth. Instead of trusting in myself, I relied on external help. I will be careful not to do so from now on.
“He is moving again,” I tell Myrra.
We speed up, breaking into a sprint, killing any ants in the way as quickly as possible and reducing the distance in the process. It takes another few hours for us to even get close, and that’s when the first large group attacks us, hundreds of ants fill the tunnel, and it’s impossible to see through the sheer number of bodies.
They block my yellow flames, and a constant barrage of ranged attacks forces us to create barriers to block it. Any attempt to create an anchor in the middle of them and drop a bomb is quickly disrupted.
I quickly create two javelins. I infuse one with disruptive mana and the other with thermal energy. Both of them shoot off quickly one after the other, the former disrupts their barriers and the latter explodes in the middle of their group.
[You have defeated Warrior ant - lvl 168]
[You have defeated Disruptor ant - lvl 159]
[You have defeated Gravity ant - lvl 165]
[You have defeated Spellslinger ant - lvl 195]
[Lvl 205 > Lvl 206]
More attacks follow, and Myrra’s flames envelop the tunnel, maintaining constant pressure. There aren't many Flame Legion ants, so I also add my flames to the mix, and we slowly burn through them all.
A burst of kinetic energy pushes their smoking bodies aside, and we continue our run and finally reach a room bigger than any we’ve seen in a long time.
The room is cylindrical in shape, and the ceiling seems to stretch on forever. I can't even see where it ends, and it's wider than two football fields, it’s impossible to imagine normal humans doing something like this.
But I don’t stare at it in awe, nor do I waste time checking the details. My eyes settle on the ant. The one with the matte black carapace floats near the middle of the room, surrounded by thousands of ants, with even more on the walls. The sheer amount of ants is hard to even count, yet I do not feel worried.
Their leader, the First One, just stands there; he does not attack, and he does not use the mana of the Colony. No, there is a black mana dagger impaling his body, it seems to have reacted with [Tether] and made it impossible to remove from its body. The black dagger constantly pulls on the skills mana and, in a twisted way, keeps [Tether] running.
I feel Myrra tense next to me, her eyes also on the First One.
Armor surrounds my body, I maintain my normal size this time, and I boost my body with the kinetic energy I’ve been collecting, flying right toward the First One. I use bursts of kinetic energy to brush aside any ants in my way and disrupt hundreds of ranged attacks that enter my range, tanking others and using my anchors to avoid those I can’t.
Mana permeates my body, cycling, and flowing like a hurricane, as my new trait activates.
I am immediately assaulted with an overwhelming amount of information, but I keep my eyes glued to the First One, absentmindedly dodging incoming attacks. I watch the waves of invisible mana flow freely through the air, the ambient mana no one controls permeating the world.
And the entire time the First One just stands there, his eyes watching my every move, and then a push of mana from the other ants activates an array underneath him. The amount is enormous, and it needs to be for him to absorb any through that black dagger.
My attack passes through the air as the First One disappears, and I observe the mana swirling in the air; I use my enhanced eyes, I can’t even perceive this otherwise. I watch waves of mana swirl, move, and crash against each other, then point in one direction.
Left without their leader, the remaining ants once again send most of their mana toward where the First One disappeared, and those that rely on physical stats attack us.
It takes just a bit of fighting before we realize that most of the ants are weak. Most of the stronger ones died in Virelia or haven’t returned yet, and even the ones that returned through the array had to spend extreme amounts of mana or even sacrifice themselves to facilitate the transport. Plus, we haven’t seen any mushrooms around in the past few days, and the lack of food seems to have weakened them even further.
And now, they’ve spent most of their mana to allow the First One to disappear somewhere, giving him what remained.
What follows next isn’t even a fight. The ants are weakened, drained of their vitality and mana to keep their progenitor alive, and no matter how many of them jump at us, they are barely a threat to me and Myrra.
Every time it looks dangerous, we escape into the tunnels limiting the number of ants able to attack us, and now barely anyone seems capable of destroying my anchors, and I keep firing my tricolored orbs through their ranks, killing ants in the hundreds.
[Tether - lvl 24 > Tether - lvl 25]
[Tether - lvl 25 > Tether - lvl 26]
[Mana Domain - lvl 26 > Mana Domain- lvl 27]
[Lvl 206 > Lvl 207]
[Lvl 207 > Lvl 208]
[Lvl 208 > Lvl 209]
A few ants group together attempting suicide attacks or trying to endure and drain as much of our mana as possible. They cooperate, creating barriers, and countering our skills. They come up with ways to use skills against us, constantly changing frequencies. My senses are at their peak, and I activate my new trait multiple times, but only for a few seconds at a time to avoid dangerous situations.
The Colony is deadly, but not right now. Most of them are low level and the rest are severely weakened, either sacrificed by the First One or having a need to protect him programmed into them.
Myrra’s Aurora glass allows her to teleport when needed, and she uses it like my anchors to launch attacks. I even saw her create two mirrors from that glass, one to absorb the ants' attacks and the other one to send it back, but she rarely uses this move, as it seems to be costly and situational.
I duck to the side, as a trapjaw ant passes by me, a blast of kinetic energy burrowing a hole in him. Immediately after, I duck under a projectile and move to the side to avoid another attack.
[Resonance] activates, and I shrug off an attempt to disrupt my armor, grabbing another ant by a leg, pulling it off, and sending it away with a kick.
I jump backward as the bus-sized one charges at me, and my flames burn his face, blinding him until a mana orb lodges in his head, whereupon it expands tearing it apart. I surround myself with thin threads of concentrated mana, they are hard to detect and infused with [Resonance], causing any ant charging into them to be cut apart by wire-like threads. It always takes them a few moments to detect and disrupt them, meanwhile, they kill plenty of them while reducing the number of attacks coming our way.
Another group uses ranged attacks against me, so I duck to reduce my size, and create a small barrier in front of me that I skew a bit so attacks deflect to the side, instead of hitting it directly and consuming more mana.
I add an anchor to one of the javelins and launch it at the ants that attacked me, and when it reaches them, I send a burst of thermal energy through it.
We fight for what feels like hours, and I slip into a rhythm as if hypnotized and keep taking mana from my reservoir.
It doesn't feel dangerous, and the weakened Colony without their leader or heavy hitters is somewhat more of a chore to deal with. Yet, I feel no pity and no hesitation. I kill every single ant I can see or sense. Each one of them could have been one of the ones sending mana to the First One during that day, indirectly helping him to…
A combined attack from dozens of ants crashes against my chest armor and sends me flying through the room, crashing against the wall. Right after, more attacks bombard me as I lay there. They keep crashing against the [Regalia] infused with [Resonance], barely doing any damage other than wasting my mana.
I push my thoughts to the back of my mind, and putting my hands on my knees, I push myself back to my feet, using [Infusion] to send thermal energy through my armor, making it seem like embers are glowing under the surface.
More attacks hit me, and I boost my body right into them, burning them alive.
When every single ant is dead, we move towards the middle of the room, pushing all mangled, burned, frozen, cut bodies of ants to the side to see the floor. Surrounded by all those corpses, plenty of them as big as a bus, we stare at the damaged array.
"You can fix it, right?" Myrra asks me.
"Yes, but it will take a moment; there are traps left behind, and some parts are really damaged."
Afterward, I immediately get to work, "Can you bring my bags from the tunnels? I have some stuff I might need in them."
Myrra nods, "Can do."
As I get to it, I notice that the array is more damaged than the one in the old mines, and I even have to redirect some of the inscriptions, like using plaster to fix them instead of replacing them.
Once in a while, I activate Mana Wavelength Iris to work on them, and even though it’s extremely taxing, it helps a lot to speed up the process.
"Did you know that when you use that skill, a golden ring appears around your pupil? It's not too thick, and I can still see the color of your eyes, but around the black of your pupil, that golden circle appears," Myrra says out of nowhere.
I pause for a moment, "I see," I nod and continue.
I hadn't realized until now. I’ve met multiple people with similar effects all of whom have mana circuits in their eyes. Ruby and Obelia, for example, and even Min-Jae's new eye had some under the surface.
As I work, my mana continues to replenish over the hours I spend on the array, and I still have some left in my reservoir.
When I'm done, we sit there for a bit. Myrra takes out some food and water, and in the same fashion we’ve grown so accustomed to over the past few days, we share food while exchanging a few words. We do not talk much, trying to keep our minds sharp for what is to come.
When we finally feel ready, I activate the array, and Myrra steps in, both of us pulled along and transported.
Appearing on the other side a strong wind hits us, strong enough to push even our strengthened bodies, and I absorb some force from it with [Redistribution].
A chilling cold immediately penetrates my body, but Myrra starts releasing heat around us, and I absorb more of the wind's kinetic energy until we create a warm, quiet bubble around us.
Looking around, I realize that we are on top of an extremely tall mountain battered by blizzards. The falling snow barely allows us any degree of sight, and after probing the area with my senses, I detect only more mountains and another array.
Gesturing to Myrra, I start walking, releasing a bit of absorbed kinetic energy to blow off the snow until we reach a cave, which we enter.
Unlike the surrounding area, there is no snow in the cave, and lights glow on the wall, likely the work of the First One as he passed by to activate another array, keeping the last bits of mana he received as he left. This array is a bit different and seems to be much older than the ones I've seen before. The design is more robust and less efficient as if it was made by someone who didn't care how much mana it would take to activate. Someone with a high enough mana pool to ignore that.
The array is not damaged at all, the First One was probably incapable of doing so.
As I send my senses to it, I start examining it and where it leads with the help of my new trait. I follow the trail of mana, and when I see where it points and get an estimate of the distance it transports over, I almost feel like laughing.
The one-directional array in front of me leads to a place somewhere high above us. To a place in the orbit of the planet.
We rest for a while, and the power of our stats heals our bodies. In my case, it's mostly my passive skill doing the work, but it's good enough.
When we finally continue through the tunnels, I feel a bit different. Weirdly, I feel better, as some of the tension leaves my body, and it seems the same goes for Myrra.
“Fuck, feral one, I didn’t expect you to kick me in the crotch, twice. Do you have no manners?” Even her tone is a bit different now.
“Says the person who spat blood in my face,” I reply.
“Feral One, I bet you there are humans willing to pay me for the experience,” she says.
I stagger in surprise, and she notices, which makes her smile even more. I mean, she is not wrong, but damn.
Thankfully another group of snapjaw ants appears, and I avoid reacting any further. Already used to fighting them, we move quickly, keeping mobile and slowing them with Myrra’s ice and my [Redistribution].
Even with multiple Gravity ants and a Sentinel ant supporting them, we deal with them fairly quickly, and yet another group tries to slow us down.
As always, I can feel my [Tether] far in front of us, meaning the black mana orb is most likely still hampering the leader of the Colony and severely damaging him or messing with his mana control.
Hopefully, it won't kill him in the end. I have a lot to pay back. I don’t care that I mostly got my ass kicked last time. This time I won’t rely on others. I won’t rely on Lily’s healing or Sophie to slow him down, I will fuck him up on my own. Sure, Myrra will probably want to get in a few hits, but I can live with that.
I have been too reliant on others for too long, and it’s stunted my growth. Instead of trusting in myself, I relied on external help. I will be careful not to do so from now on.
“He is moving again,” I tell Myrra.
We speed up, breaking into a sprint, killing any ants in the way as quickly as possible and reducing the distance in the process. It takes another few hours for us to even get close, and that’s when the first large group attacks us, hundreds of ants fill the tunnel, and it’s impossible to see through the sheer number of bodies.
They block my yellow flames, and a constant barrage of ranged attacks forces us to create barriers to block it. Any attempt to create an anchor in the middle of them and drop a bomb is quickly disrupted.
I quickly create two javelins. I infuse one with disruptive mana and the other with thermal energy. Both of them shoot off quickly one after the other, the former disrupts their barriers and the latter explodes in the middle of their group.
[You have defeated Warrior ant - lvl 168]
[You have defeated Disruptor ant - lvl 159]
[You have defeated Gravity ant - lvl 165]
[You have defeated Spellslinger ant - lvl 195]
[Lvl 205 > Lvl 206]
More attacks follow, and Myrra’s flames envelop the tunnel, maintaining constant pressure. There aren't many Flame Legion ants, so I also add my flames to the mix, and we slowly burn through them all.
A burst of kinetic energy pushes their smoking bodies aside, and we continue our run and finally reach a room bigger than any we’ve seen in a long time.
The room is cylindrical in shape, and the ceiling seems to stretch on forever. I can't even see where it ends, and it's wider than two football fields, it’s impossible to imagine normal humans doing something like this.
But I don’t stare at it in awe, nor do I waste time checking the details. My eyes settle on the ant. The one with the matte black carapace floats near the middle of the room, surrounded by thousands of ants, with even more on the walls. The sheer amount of ants is hard to even count, yet I do not feel worried.
Their leader, the First One, just stands there; he does not attack, and he does not use the mana of the Colony. No, there is a black mana dagger impaling his body, it seems to have reacted with [Tether] and made it impossible to remove from its body. The black dagger constantly pulls on the skills mana and, in a twisted way, keeps [Tether] running.
I feel Myrra tense next to me, her eyes also on the First One.
Armor surrounds my body, I maintain my normal size this time, and I boost my body with the kinetic energy I’ve been collecting, flying right toward the First One. I use bursts of kinetic energy to brush aside any ants in my way and disrupt hundreds of ranged attacks that enter my range, tanking others and using my anchors to avoid those I can’t.
Mana permeates my body, cycling, and flowing like a hurricane, as my new trait activates.
I am immediately assaulted with an overwhelming amount of information, but I keep my eyes glued to the First One, absentmindedly dodging incoming attacks. I watch the waves of invisible mana flow freely through the air, the ambient mana no one controls permeating the world.
And the entire time the First One just stands there, his eyes watching my every move, and then a push of mana from the other ants activates an array underneath him. The amount is enormous, and it needs to be for him to absorb any through that black dagger.
My attack passes through the air as the First One disappears, and I observe the mana swirling in the air; I use my enhanced eyes, I can’t even perceive this otherwise. I watch waves of mana swirl, move, and crash against each other, then point in one direction.
Left without their leader, the remaining ants once again send most of their mana toward where the First One disappeared, and those that rely on physical stats attack us.
It takes just a bit of fighting before we realize that most of the ants are weak. Most of the stronger ones died in Virelia or haven’t returned yet, and even the ones that returned through the array had to spend extreme amounts of mana or even sacrifice themselves to facilitate the transport. Plus, we haven’t seen any mushrooms around in the past few days, and the lack of food seems to have weakened them even further.
And now, they’ve spent most of their mana to allow the First One to disappear somewhere, giving him what remained.
What follows next isn’t even a fight. The ants are weakened, drained of their vitality and mana to keep their progenitor alive, and no matter how many of them jump at us, they are barely a threat to me and Myrra.
Every time it looks dangerous, we escape into the tunnels limiting the number of ants able to attack us, and now barely anyone seems capable of destroying my anchors, and I keep firing my tricolored orbs through their ranks, killing ants in the hundreds.
[Tether - lvl 24 > Tether - lvl 25]
[Tether - lvl 25 > Tether - lvl 26]
[Mana Domain - lvl 26 > Mana Domain- lvl 27]
[Lvl 206 > Lvl 207]
[Lvl 207 > Lvl 208]
[Lvl 208 > Lvl 209]
A few ants group together attempting suicide attacks or trying to endure and drain as much of our mana as possible. They cooperate, creating barriers, and countering our skills. They come up with ways to use skills against us, constantly changing frequencies. My senses are at their peak, and I activate my new trait multiple times, but only for a few seconds at a time to avoid dangerous situations.
The Colony is deadly, but not right now. Most of them are low level and the rest are severely weakened, either sacrificed by the First One or having a need to protect him programmed into them.
Myrra’s Aurora glass allows her to teleport when needed, and she uses it like my anchors to launch attacks. I even saw her create two mirrors from that glass, one to absorb the ants' attacks and the other one to send it back, but she rarely uses this move, as it seems to be costly and situational.
I duck to the side, as a trapjaw ant passes by me, a blast of kinetic energy burrowing a hole in him. Immediately after, I duck under a projectile and move to the side to avoid another attack.
[Resonance] activates, and I shrug off an attempt to disrupt my armor, grabbing another ant by a leg, pulling it off, and sending it away with a kick.
I jump backward as the bus-sized one charges at me, and my flames burn his face, blinding him until a mana orb lodges in his head, whereupon it expands tearing it apart. I surround myself with thin threads of concentrated mana, they are hard to detect and infused with [Resonance], causing any ant charging into them to be cut apart by wire-like threads. It always takes them a few moments to detect and disrupt them, meanwhile, they kill plenty of them while reducing the number of attacks coming our way.
Another group uses ranged attacks against me, so I duck to reduce my size, and create a small barrier in front of me that I skew a bit so attacks deflect to the side, instead of hitting it directly and consuming more mana.
I add an anchor to one of the javelins and launch it at the ants that attacked me, and when it reaches them, I send a burst of thermal energy through it.
We fight for what feels like hours, and I slip into a rhythm as if hypnotized and keep taking mana from my reservoir.
It doesn't feel dangerous, and the weakened Colony without their leader or heavy hitters is somewhat more of a chore to deal with. Yet, I feel no pity and no hesitation. I kill every single ant I can see or sense. Each one of them could have been one of the ones sending mana to the First One during that day, indirectly helping him to…
A combined attack from dozens of ants crashes against my chest armor and sends me flying through the room, crashing against the wall. Right after, more attacks bombard me as I lay there. They keep crashing against the [Regalia] infused with [Resonance], barely doing any damage other than wasting my mana.
I push my thoughts to the back of my mind, and putting my hands on my knees, I push myself back to my feet, using [Infusion] to send thermal energy through my armor, making it seem like embers are glowing under the surface.
More attacks hit me, and I boost my body right into them, burning them alive.
When every single ant is dead, we move towards the middle of the room, pushing all mangled, burned, frozen, cut bodies of ants to the side to see the floor. Surrounded by all those corpses, plenty of them as big as a bus, we stare at the damaged array.
"You can fix it, right?" Myrra asks me.
"Yes, but it will take a moment; there are traps left behind, and some parts are really damaged."
Afterward, I immediately get to work, "Can you bring my bags from the tunnels? I have some stuff I might need in them."
Myrra nods, "Can do."
As I get to it, I notice that the array is more damaged than the one in the old mines, and I even have to redirect some of the inscriptions, like using plaster to fix them instead of replacing them.
Once in a while, I activate Mana Wavelength Iris to work on them, and even though it’s extremely taxing, it helps a lot to speed up the process.
"Did you know that when you use that skill, a golden ring appears around your pupil? It's not too thick, and I can still see the color of your eyes, but around the black of your pupil, that golden circle appears," Myrra says out of nowhere.
I pause for a moment, "I see," I nod and continue.
I hadn't realized until now. I’ve met multiple people with similar effects all of whom have mana circuits in their eyes. Ruby and Obelia, for example, and even Min-Jae's new eye had some under the surface.
As I work, my mana continues to replenish over the hours I spend on the array, and I still have some left in my reservoir.
When I'm done, we sit there for a bit. Myrra takes out some food and water, and in the same fashion we’ve grown so accustomed to over the past few days, we share food while exchanging a few words. We do not talk much, trying to keep our minds sharp for what is to come.
When we finally feel ready, I activate the array, and Myrra steps in, both of us pulled along and transported.
Appearing on the other side a strong wind hits us, strong enough to push even our strengthened bodies, and I absorb some force from it with [Redistribution].
A chilling cold immediately penetrates my body, but Myrra starts releasing heat around us, and I absorb more of the wind's kinetic energy until we create a warm, quiet bubble around us.
Looking around, I realize that we are on top of an extremely tall mountain battered by blizzards. The falling snow barely allows us any degree of sight, and after probing the area with my senses, I detect only more mountains and another array.
Gesturing to Myrra, I start walking, releasing a bit of absorbed kinetic energy to blow off the snow until we reach a cave, which we enter.
Unlike the surrounding area, there is no snow in the cave, and lights glow on the wall, likely the work of the First One as he passed by to activate another array, keeping the last bits of mana he received as he left. This array is a bit different and seems to be much older than the ones I've seen before. The design is more robust and less efficient as if it was made by someone who didn't care how much mana it would take to activate. Someone with a high enough mana pool to ignore that.
The array is not damaged at all, the First One was probably incapable of doing so.
As I send my senses to it, I start examining it and where it leads with the help of my new trait. I follow the trail of mana, and when I see where it points and get an estimate of the distance it transports over, I almost feel like laughing.
The one-directional array in front of me leads to a place somewhere high above us. To a place in the orbit of the planet.
