Chrysalis

For the next several hours, the wave continues as before, but with the added bonus of these damned sinuous lizards shooting us with water, fire, lightning and I think I saw one using force magic, the fancy-dancy goon. Weird to look at, they almost seem to swim through the sky, with several sets of little wings flapping away.

Are you dragons or snakes? Make up your dang minds!

Whenever they see an opening, they try to swoop down and snatch up an ant, but the Colony has been good at driving them back with barrages of acid and magic. So far, I don’t think they’ve managed to scoop up one of my siblings yet, but as the island drifts closer, more and more of them join the flock overhead. It’s only a matter of time until the defenders become overwhelmed and we start losing ants.

Not on my watch.

“Stay back here and out of sight for a minute,” I warn Solant and her crew.

She nods in acknowledgement and they huddle behind Tiny who gives them a reassuring thumbs up.

With the vulnerable protected, I step back out onto the wall and glare at these uppity lizards. The rest of the ants out here on the edge give me a little space as they continue to deal with the hordes of monsters below.

From within my core and my gravity mana gland, I begin to pull out huge amounts of energy. The well I used to smash the monsters on the island will work just as well to bring these dumb lizards out of the sky. Once they find themselves within reach, it’ll be trivial for the Colony to feast on their pretentious, scaly hides.

I take my time condensing and weaving the spell. The dragon-snakes are zipping about all over the place, so I’ll need to cover an enormous area to snag a good number. When I have an absurd amount of gravitational mana prepared, I begin to extend the spell, preparing to bring these pests down to the ground.

At that moment, an air-splitting roar shatters the sky. As one, the flying monsters zip higher into the sky, retreating from the mountain toward their island and out of range from my spell.

the heck was

moves in the distance and an enormous form emerges from over the edge of

That’s a big ol’ sky-snake! You might actually qualify as a dragon, big fella! More of a Chinese dragon than a western one, but hey, it’s impressive

monster whirls through slow, graceful loops, holding position halfway between the mountain and its home. The smaller ones, possibly its children, retreat to hover

and my family, are

feel out the monster as I reach up and climb onto the

CLACK! CLACK! CLACK!

mandibles together, the piercing sound reverberates off the mountain and into the air. Not unlike

my mind, I can feel it doing the same back to me, taking a measure of the foe. Hmmm. This dragon may

I posture on the side of the mountain, basically

ten minutes before the dragon turns around and winds its way back onto the floating island along with the rest of the dragon brood. Suddenly,

away, I climb down off the mountainside and into the opening at the top

I could hear the

it,” I muse. “I think that island has been claimed by that dragon monster as a nest. There’s either a spawn point up there or the dragon is laying eggs. At any rate, the creature is smart enough to protect its own kind, since it appeared once I threatened

be more of that down here in the fourth? I wouldn’t think so, since there are so many non-monsters

are so territorial that

then what happened?” Sloan

had a stare down, feeling out

“And you were stronger?”