Chrysalis

The charge of the Immortals took place immediately beneath my feet and the force of it was quite staggering. In a literal sense. The wall I stood upon rocked beneath my feet as those armoured behemoths took their short runup and launched themselves into a literal mound of termite bodies.

The effect was immediate and stunning as the termites in front of me are launched back, their support being blasted away with an almighty CRUNCH. Then I see them, the brightly shining armoured figures of Leeroy and her followers mowing through the massed termite army like a plough through a field. In just a few short seconds they've pushed the enemy back over ten metres as the sheer weight of their combined charge hits like a battering ram.

"Artillery forward! Mages forward! Fire! Fire! Fire!"

With the pressure relieved for a precious but brief window, the Colony moves to take advantage as swiftly as possible. The soldiers step to the side and allow the mages to come forward even as the scouts step up and begin to unleash their firepower directly into the horde below, heedless of whether the Immortals are struck or not.

I mean, with Leeroy and her crew, they'd probably be insulted if we tried to avoid hitting them. May as well just unleash hell.

With so many family members around me, I still feel fresh as a daisy as well, my muscles rejuvenated and my body humming with energy. I eagerly take a step forward and start to unload my machine gun flurry of magic on the enemy.

Peeking over the edge of the wall for the first time in a while, the scene laid out before me is one of madness. A writhing carpet of termites, some living, many injured or reduced to oozing piles of Biomass, stretches from the base of the wall to the tunnels hundreds of metres away. The termites are still four or five deep for the entire distance, it's insane. And the reinforcements are still coming!

many of these damn things are there?! Did the kaarmodo work out that we are here and decide to throw everything at us at once? Or even worse, is this just a taste of

with waves similar to this over the last few months? If so, she really should

might not mind if the acid rains down on them, but if I start flinging black holes on their heads even they won't be able to survive. And I refuse to give them

"Push! Prepare to charge!"

edge and we need to get out there to support them before they get overwhelmed. Leeroy might be

"CHARGE!"

"FOR THE COLONY!"

down the face of the wall. When I come to the gap that the Immortals charged through I release and freefall for a frightening moment and then latch back on, my claws screaming with the effort of holding my weight up. Not willing to risk landing on my face I trigger the strengthening mutation of the Vestibule and

making it childishly simple to fire acid and spells constantly even as I manoeuvre my body. Heck, I still have the spare mental space, I start to flood raw mana into my mandibles to increase their

tomorrow. Even with this many ants around, I can't afford to be too wasteful with my stamina, so I don't throw out doom chomps willy-nilly, but

firepower continues from the mages