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]

...

to take a

feel like a dog gnawing on

NOM NOM

...

to increase towards the end, apparently chipping away at it was loosening up the Biomass a little. If I had more time I’d be

have too much to

reenergise me, helping to close over my smaller wounds and refreshing my mind somewhat. I still need a sleep

the Queens chamber, ants are desperately running about, passing food around, feeding the larvae

only problem is she shows no interest

small pile of Biomass is growing in the Queens chamber and the workers are wandering back and forth

Queen perks up and

asks, the

go!" I try

slowly dimming walls of the chamber and start to feel out the dirt with my antennae. I’m relying on my Excavation skill

humans is roughly two kilometres to

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 my tingling instincts and start digging. I want to pitch the tunnel upwards about twenty degrees, by

up, close off a section of tunnel and dig around it, we cannot risk exposing our escape

as I dig the glowing blue veins that have penetrated all the way here, to the heart of the colony glow brightly directly in my face. Towards these curling lines of light, to which I once felt such fascination I now

if it were part of a circuit that had been disconnected. When the mana fades away, the dirt looks perfectly ordinary, as if

your majesty!" I turn and say to

antennae to indicate the

dump the dirt in the tunnel leading down from this chamber, if we can block monsters rising from deeper down that would be an

mandibles and retreat to the lower tunnel in which we had battled the berserkers. If more monsters like them, or worse, were to attack during the wave we would be

long, spiralling tunnel has become filled with the mana veins. When the wave breaks, if Formo was correct

we hadn’t been forewarned we would surely be wiped out! If I get a chance I have to make sure I

I’m shocked to see the Queen herself digging away at the