Chrysalis

"Hold the line!" sprayed Grant to the ants around her, "don’t let these motherless scum over the wall!"

She faked left before biting down hard with her mandibles on a clawed hand that threatened her. The dirt wall defences of the ants had held firm so far, only by voluntary retreat had they been taken by the enemy. As each consecutive wall had been surrendered, the ants’ defences had become concentrated and more sophisticated.

Now on the sixth wall, the greater preparations were bearing fruit. The moat was deep here, and filled with Biomass. Sharpened stakes dotted the face of the wall and many monsters had lost their lives pushing forward into them.

Spears of water erupted out of the moat and dozens of monsters fell back, pierced through their sides. Not far from where Grant fought on the wall, the water mage slumped to the ground, exhausted.

"Get back to the nest," Grant ordered, her pheromones cutting through the myriad scents of the battle.

"I’ve got one more in me" the mage forced out.

"Denied, get back in the nest and recharge. One spell here isn’t worth delaying your return to the field later," Grant ordered even as she fended off another attacker on the wall.

The mage ant pushed her feet back under her and with the assistance of a nearby healer, crawled away from the fighting and towards the nest.

The general assigned to this section of wall shook her head. The colony was pushing itself hard and the will to sacrifice themselves had risen within each ant as long as the battle had gone on. When push came to shove, each individual would rather die than allow another to die in their place. It had become harder and harder to get soldiers to take breaks, to make healers recharge their mana glands and even the generals had become obstinate, some had even pushed forward into the fight themselves!

The generals were no larger than a juvenile soldier. All the evolutionary energy in their second evolution went into raising their Cunning and the Combat Aura gland. When it came to applying damage with their mandibles, even scouts were much superior, forget about the soldiers themselves!

"Get back!" Grant yelled.

The ants around her scuttled back from the wall just as a giant rotting toad monster opened its distended and grotesque mouth and unleashed a gout of putrid liquid that washed over the surface of the wall.

"Dirt! Go! Go!" the general ordered even as she ran forward with her mandibles filled with soft earth.

the ants scrambled to cover it with dirt. After a few seconds the horrific mess was nowhere in sight and they leapt back to the edge of the wall to

in the heaving mass of monsters at the wall before they spewed out their poisonous, acidic soup a great deal of damage could be done to the ants in a short period of time. The wounds caused were excruciating and required a massive amount of mana to heal. Almost every healer on the wall had been sent back to rest at one point, drained of their mana after treating

shouted once again and her fellow soldiers, which their larger

GROOOOOOWL!

ground beneath her feet vibrate as a low growl from hundreds of throats shook the air. She stared out over the thronging horde, much smaller now than it had

off their

she roared. "THE

to the nest. Excitement pounded in Grant’s thorax. Finally the filthy crocs were prepared to

forward, the big one couldn’t be too

for the order to come back from the main

the wall! Prepare to push on the count

"Get ready!"

work to do

"Don’t slack, yourself!"

"Five!"

braced herself and she felt the soldiers

start to channel! Stay clean on the lines!"

behind their soldier siblings and began to channel the mana

to their enemies and a reprieve to the colony, if only for a few

"PUSH!"

"RAH!"

one, the soldiers shoved forward and ripped into the monsters in front of them. They teamed up to throw monsters down from the wall and shove them back, clearing space to allow them to disengage. The soldiers backed up

and down the wall a hundred ant mages completed their spells, stepped forward and unleashed them on the horde at the foot of the walls. Gouts of flame and spears of water poured down from the top of the wall. The shrieks and roars of injured,