Chrysalis

"Are you returning to the colony, Eldest?" one of the scouts came up to ask.

"Yep! It's time for me to evolve."

"With your permission Eldest I shall inform the council of this event."

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"Go for it,"

Once I reached the front I started to run into more and more scouts and soldiers, as well as other castes mixed into the small raiding teams. It appeared as if the colony was scaling down their raiding operations, withdrawing the forward squads to the nest in order to spend the final hours before the battle preparing and resting. Which made a lot of sense really. Ensuring the ground was prepared and the warriors of the colony where fresh would make a huge difference compared to the starved and tired horde monsters who'd been forced to march for a week solid on almost no food.

Even though the ants started with very poor stats, it shouldn't be forgotten that every ant was a tier three monster after having gone through the training program, the same tier as me. They didn't have the benefit of maxed evolutions like I had, but they were certainly a cut above the average monster in the horde. Bizarrely enough this fight would be a battle of quantity against quality, and the colony of ants would be on the quality side of the equation.

At least that was true for the general horde. Garralosh and her children were a whole different kettle of fish. That's where the Queen and I came into the equation. Hopefully it would be enough to tip the balance.

you, Eldest?

am I not

"That's the spirit!"

nest the more ants we bumped into. Running back and forth between the nest and the front, passing messages and keeping eyes on the situation, or just returning to regroup or sleep. Each and every one of them was happy to chip in with

was nice to

and I made sure to motor as quick as we could, but even so it took several hours to make it back to the nest. Colony activity continued to rise, we found workers digging here and there, soldiers patrolling and scouts rushing here and there. It felt good to be back amongst the family again. The heart

in the time I'd been gone. Had the Queen evolved yet? Had the defences been completed? How many new ants had been born and trained whilst I'd been away? I was also looking forward to the progress that

a year's time, I just couldn't. I knew that the ants would have incredible potential if I was able to increase their intelligence, but how could

more to

final approach to the nest, the first thing I saw was the nest itself. They'd made it even taller! At some point it had gone beyond 'hill-like' to just a full-on hill! At this rate I'd need to start thinking about how high a hill needed to be

defences being prepared. Traps were everywhere, dug into the soil and marked with pheromones. I had to lead Tiny around a zig zagging path to avoid him falling into what I'm sure would be a

the traps were layers of walls and led toward the nest. Each wall wasn't large, only two to three metres, but after the enemy crested the first wall, a second lay a hundred metres beyond it, and a third a hundred metres beyond that. A lip of dirt a metre thick

total that formed a wide ring around the main nest and we climbed over them one by one as we made our way forward. Holy mackerel! There's even traps in between the walls as well! The colony had really gone all out on

been directing the construction to maximise the colony's chances against the horde of weaker monsters that were coming our way. There are probably hundreds of tunnels dug through the area as well, concealed. I can detect some of them nearby from their pheromone markers. It'll be interesting to see what the twenty have planned

every ant we walked past. I had many opportunities to engage in some friendly antennae slapping and exchange pleasantries with the members of