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

dog

NOM NOM

...

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

too much to

my smaller wounds and refreshing my mind somewhat. I still need a sleep desperately but it will have to wait

eaten I quickly hustle back into the nest and make my way down to the Queens chamber, ants are desperately running about, passing food around, feeding the larvae and presenting Biomass

only problem is she shows no

distressed by this. A small pile of Biomass is growing in the Queens chamber and the workers are wandering back and

I bustle into the chamber the Queen perks up and pushes

asks, the concern thrumming in

I try

feel out the dirt with my antennae.

I can see that the 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 a thriving city or a cow paddock but since I know that there are humans there we need to surface a

patch of wall 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 entrance

established tunnel then we’ll have to back up, close off a section of tunnel and dig around it, we cannot risk exposing our escape

the colony glow brightly directly in my face.

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

your majesty!" I turn and say to the

to indicate the angle

dirt in the tunnel leading down from

the lower tunnel in which we had battled the berserkers. If more monsters like them, or

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

out! If I get a chance I have to make sure I pay the Sophos back for

shocked to see the Queen herself