Chrysalis

"They found WHAT?"

Pulled aside by Sloan during a break in the fighting, she drops some heavy ordnance on me.

"Tier eight demons," she repeats grimly, "fighting in the deepest layers of the third stratum, right beneath the land claimed by the Colony."

Pants. This is the last thing we need right now. We've got these termites to deal with, along with the ka'armodo pulling the strings as well as acting aggressive along our border in the third. There might be hundreds of thousands of us by now, but even we can be stretched too thin!

"I'll have to go back up there," I declare, firm in my conviction. "Nobody else in the Colony is equipped to fight them, not without suffering extreme casualties, so I'll do it."

Sloan slaps herself with an antenna as if frustrated by my reply.

"What?" I ask defensively.

"Eldest. You might be the strongest member of the Colony, but you cannot do everything yourself. Grokus was only tier seven and he came close to killing you. If you were to go head to head with a tier eight, what do you think the outcome would be? Honestly?"

Well, if I think about it that way.

"I would be flattened like a pancake in a machine specifically designed for the purpose of crushing pancakes to be a single atom thick… would be my guess."

"I don't understand all of that, but I think my point got across. Even if these demons had abysmal quality evolutions, they would still be far above you, and there are two of them. Any thought you have of defeating them yourself needs to be cast aside."

It feels kind of sad to be pushed aside like this in a moment of crisis, but she certainly has a good point. I can't very well yell at the Immortals for trying to throw their lives away and then replicate that behaviour against even worse odds.

"All right then, so what is the plan then? I presume we aren't just hoping they won't come for us."

Now she looks insulted.

"Of course not. We are in the process of putting together a strike team of tier seven demons that we can call on in the event these powerful enemies find us. Observation and deep scouting operations have been increased dramatically and teams of generals have been put in place to game out possible scenarios. We are doing all that we can."

I have a question.

"Generals aren't really the smartest ants. Are we sure you should be the group in charge of the theory crafting?"

obviously, but that doesn't mean a whole lot. Not that Sloan appears

insulting my

not what

what I wanted to ask, Eldest, was what level you are

to be upgraded and a fair chunk of Biomass to spend after all the fighting we've been doing down here. I take a quick look at my status

say, more than

past the halfway point! Tier seven is approaching

If you continue at your current pace then you may be able to reach the next tier before anything happens with these demons. Jumping two tiers is too much even for you, Eldest, but

hopefully it's not that bad! Despite the reassurances of the coolheaded general, I can't help but look up nervously. The threats on the third are becoming more dire by the day and

I should head upwards. Even if only for a little while," I say. "I can help steady

anyway. Once I'm confident no mass

for a while

least it will help settle a few nerves. You must ensure that you are back within two days. I worry that after that much time

get the group together and

to look for Sarah. She's been fighting all over the place recently so it takes a little while to

heading back to the third for a couple of days. Interested

to by numerous healers as she heaves breaths that sound like the forge

give me a minute… I'm still… I'm still calming

[Oh, shoot. My bad.]

few minutes for her to get a

you've been getting a lot better at

smiles, as much as a

still lose control sometimes,

So, about the

shaking her

with my own problems. Besides, I don't want to go back up there to where

fair enough. Don't go too wild down here.

[I will.]

that done, it's off to the gate. Back up toward the trunk of the world tree, past the village, up the roots to where the gate stands waiting. After so much time fighting against the hated enemy, I'm almost looking forward to going back to the blazing hot land of the demons. All that smoke,

well. Here we

me, glowing with incredible mana that makes no sense to me. Wait a second, what

"Brilliant?"