Chrysalis

It was almost as if Leeroy had died and entered some sort of paradise. Except, frustratingly, she still clung to her mortal shell, along with the other Immortals. Despite this, she revelled in her current existence. The release she sought, the glorious end she strove to experience, had never felt as close as it did now.

As she strode back and forth before the massed ranks of her followers, her chosen sisters, the massive weight of her armour was a comfort bearing down on her carapace. The Immortals were almost shivering with excitement to the point the joints of their armour rattled. They had fought recently, a glorious battle that had pushed them to their limits. The Colony had pulled them back and forced them to wait until their Phoenix Fire organs had recharged, and now they were ready to be sent out once more.

"Are you ready my sisters?" she demanded of the waiting armoured troops. "Are you prepared for the fire that is to come?"

"YES!" they roared as they slapped their antennae against their armour.

"Will your charge never falter? Will you crush the ranks of the enemy?"

"YES!"

"Will you fight until you collapse? Will you fight until the last breath leaves your body?"

"YES!"

"Then, when you are engulfed in cursed flame, will you rise? Will you do it all over again?"

"YES!"

roared, her pheromones

"WE SEEK!"

OF

"WE SEEK!"

There were almost two hundred of them now, each tier five or six, each armoured with a custom, fully enchanted suit of the finest armour the Colony could provide. Every individual represented multiple tons of pure, righteous ant fury. Their charge began as a walk, the armoured column moving in

Boom. Boom. Boom.

had sortied over the last weeks, the battle had been desperate and they had been pushed right

So close.

battle hung heavy in the air. The acrid tang of formic acid, the bitter waft of ichor and the meaty iron of fresh Biomass washed against her antennae

ground and the column behind rose to match her pace. No longer did

sheer weight of

their unknown methods they'd been able to guide their insect slaves through twisted and convoluted paths in the rock, evading detection and penetrating deep into ant territory. The breaches could happen almost anywhere at any time, tunnels

their strange, alien bodies, with only two segments rather than three, and their beady, near sightless eyes. They were unnatural and

avalanche was no longer in

skills, accelerating beyond what she was normally capable of as her Dash

way, unleashing potent blasts of acid and mana to create whatever distance they could before the steel phalanx that

grew larger and larger in her vision as she lowered

of impact was like the