Chrysalis

Gathering the large python core, I’m sure it was from the python, judging by the tail section I found it next to, I bring it to the rest of my hoard which I transport into the colony, burying them with my Death Rabbit core that I had saved in the first trap network.

This is the most precious harvest of this battle. I have great plans for this resources! I have to work quickly though.

Before I can begin that work I make one final trip back to the field, to gather some Biomass for myself and to collect my now fairly spherical ape. Are you made of rubber you stupid gorilla!? How do you fit so much damn food in your stomach?

Tiny appears happy to simply lie on his back, rolling about gently in contentment, his distended belly proudly displayed to the forest canopy.

Really classy Tiny, you really are living your best life.

By this time the industrious workers have done a fairly good job of picking clean the field, but I’m not too worried. I head back to the condensed gobstopper of Biomass forged by my Gravity Bomb.

Standing over it I have to say it doesn’t look that impressive, a small ball that doesn’t really look like meat or food of any kind. The ball is a kind of orange colour, streaked through with different layers and the occasional splash of other colours. Looking closely, it reminds me a little of the planet Jupiter from images I’d seen in textbooks.

Tentatively I try again to lift it, no success. Most of the Biomass of two giant monsters is packed into this little ball! There must be easily over a ton of material in there, it isn’t surprising I can’t lift it.

I’ll have to eat as much as I can here and now then!

Once again I crouch down and start gnawing the hell out of the thing.

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM.

Yield to me you damn sphere!

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM.

[You have gained one Biomass]

...

going to take

dog gnawing on

NOM NOM

...

twenty minutes of chewing I’ve managed to gain six more Biomass. The rate at which I was able to extract the food was slowly starting to increase towards the end, apparently chipping away at it was loosening up the Biomass a little. If I had more time I’d

just have too much

refreshing my mind

into the nest and make my way down to the Queens chamber, ants are desperately running about, passing food around,

is she shows no interest in

the Queens chamber and the workers are wandering back and forth with no real

I bustle into the chamber the Queen perks up and pushes through the crowd

ready to dig?" she asks, the concern

to go!" I try to

dirt with my antennae. I’m

entrance where I encountered the humans is roughly two kilometres to the... let’s say west. That isn’t far enough away to be certain we are clear of human

of a thriving city or a cow paddock but since I know that there are humans there we need to surface a good distance away. That means we need to dig not just up, but

that feels the most promising to my tingling instincts and start digging. I want to pitch the tunnel upwards about twenty degrees, by the time we reach the surface we should be a long distance away from the

to back up, close off a section of tunnel

way here, to the heart of the colony glow brightly directly in my face. Towards these curling lines of light, to which I

the dirt the lines fade and vanish on the soil that is no longer connected to the wall, as if it were part of a circuit that had been disconnected. When the mana fades away, the dirt looks perfectly ordinary, as if there had been

here, your majesty!" I turn and say to the

use my antennae to indicate

be able to escape the worst of the wave. Get the workers to dump the dirt in the tunnel

and retreat to the lower tunnel in which we had battled the berserkers. If more monsters like

the mana veins. When the wave

get a chance I have to make

to the Queen’s chamber I’m shocked to see the Queen herself