Chrysalis

Chapter 1029: Big Game Hunting pt 2

Look, I don't know what they expect me to say. You'd think I'd get better at this, since I've left messages for a few of the other castes, but it really isn't the case.

You're Soldiers. You Soldier. You get it, I get it, we all get it. In many ways, this was the easiest of all of the evolutions I designed for our species, all you had to do was get bigger and chunkier. All of the stuff I found useful for fighting up close, I made sure you would also get. Inner-carapace plating, healing gland, mutable muscles, all that good stuff.

I suppose if I had to say something, it would be this: Remember Grant. She was one of the first ants I ever trained myself, a member of the Council, and she died heroically to protect me from Garralosh.

Without her sacrifice, I would not have survived that battle, and all I did for the Colony after would never have occurred. I still wonder if it was worth it. A noble, intelligent and selfless ant like Grant, what would she have been able to achieve, had she lived?

In many ways, she epitomises what it means to be a Soldier for the Colony. You are the biggest, the strongest, the toughest. It's your role to put yourself in harm's way so that others don't have to. Where the fight is thickest, where the hunt is most intense, that is where you are to go.

I only ask that you make sure you come back.

It isn't always possible, I know that, and it breaks my heart… but do your best.

And forget Leeroy. She was born stupid and not much has changed.

- Message from the Eldest to the Soldier caste.

Our hunt for the tier eight demons, Torrifex and sisters, continues to be both unfruitful, and a massive pain in the back-zone.

I feel like a cork bobbing in an ocean as we wander around, surrounded by an ocean of demon larvae who scratch and tear at each other in a neverending melee. Of course, higher ranked demons appear constantly, popping out from the waves of weaker monsters, seeking each other out or throwing themselves at us in a blind rage.

It's exhausting.

And of course, the crazed monsters who succumb to Arconidem's compulsion love to group up, and once they start to do so, they gather an unstoppable momentum. The more they group up, the faster they run into more recruits, so the horde grows even faster. It all snowballs so fast into a roaming pack of thousands of monsters that it makes my head ache.

We crush these groups whenever we find them, no matter how large or how small, but none of them are hiding our targets, and despite our overwhelming strength, we lose a little bit of energy, and take a little bit of damage, during every fight.

Well, the others do. I'm fine. My unique advantages make me immune to the rigours of drawn out combat. My muscles never get fatigued, my glands never run out of energy, and I heal superficial damage to my carapace without even having to trigger my healing gland. I can do this for months!

Tiny, on the other hand, just accumulates wounds like they're going out of fashion and even Crinis loses a lot of shadow flesh during each conflict. The two of them need time and Biomass to recover, one of which is fairly easy to provide in this environment, but the other, not so much.

Nestled within my gravity domain, they're relatively safe, but even then, strong enough demons can break through and threaten them.

On the whole, this experience is really pounding into my thick head just why the waves are so terrifying, especially on the third. Without the Vestibule, I'd be too tired, too injured and too mentally fatigued to keep fighting after just two days.

And I'm super strong!

No wonder most of the races just pull up stumps and get out of town. Leave the disaster zone and come back once the mess has died down. Not the Colony, though! We'll seize the unprecedented opportunity of the wave or die trying!

[Come on, Al. I haven't sensed anything like a tier eight core, and we've been out here for two days. Are they really down here?]

The flaming eye glares at me. Well, he looks at me. Al, due to his nature as an eye on fire basically always looks like he's glaring.

[They are,] he confirms, [but they may have retreated deeper still. It's possible Torrifex is hoping to lure you away from your base of support.]

Well… that would suck. No way he figured out my Altar combo that fast!

[Why would he do that?] I hedge. [The big moron seemed happy enough to come at me the first time we fought.]

I've never explained to Al how my species works and the unique organs that I have, and I don't intend to. Being as smart as he is, with the knowledge that he has, he probably has an inkling, but I don't feel the need to advertise my unique abilities.

[From what you have said, he was compelled to fight you by Arconidem, a test, perhaps. Torrifex is a loyal servant of the Demon God, but he has no wish to die. Rather, as close as he is to evolving and joining the Court, he and his sisters would much rather avoid a truly dangerous fight.]

So he only came up to fight me because he thought it would be easy. Great.

[So you think he's hiding from me? He ran a few layers down where he thought I wouldn't follow?]

[I believe so, but he is compelled to remove you and the entire Colony by Arconidem's Will. I imagine he is hoping to draw you to him until you are weakened by the journey, then fight you alongside his sisters and win safely. With you dead, there will be nothing to stop him leading a demon horde against your family and wiping them out.]

Huh. Cheap tactics. I never would have expected this from a demon who talked so much smack!

[So that means I only have two options then. Either I go back to the Colony and wait until Arconibutt runs out of patience and sends them at me, or keep moving lower until we find them?]

[That is… correct.]

Sigh. I hate it when I get two options and both suck.

[I guess we're going down then. Where's the nearest hole in the ground?]

I can't afford to lose the time it would take to draw them up to me. The Colony is bound to be struggling on the fourth, so I need to get down there. As the wave progresses, the danger will continue to rise, and eventually, monsters from the fifth, and possibly below, will rise to the fourth.