Chrysalis

Chomp! Chomp! Chomp!

Ah, the satisfying feeling of having my face hands clapping fools. The monsters of the fourth stratum are tough, there’s no doubt about that, but these are all spawned during the wave, without enough evolutions or mutations to really threaten a highly developed monster like me.

A mass of boulders rumbles towards me, acting in harmony as if connected by some invisible force. An earth elemental?

Chomp!

I shatter it.

“Skreeeeee!”

A feathered worm bursts out of the soil in front of me.

Chomp!

Not today, worm!

A weird, dinosaur-looking thing charges at me, waggling its little arms.

Chomp! Chomp!

Needed two that time!

narrow confines of the tunnels just feels more like home to me. Part of that is likely my ant nature, and the other is probably down to the circumstances of my birth. Fighting in tunnels was my first experience in the

not efficient to bite all these monsters one by one, which is why

VOID CHOMP!

lot of spells I haven’t juiced up with the Altar to see their full effects, and this is merely one of them. Infused with the Will of the Colony, the spell is so searingly hot, and travels so far, that all that

Neat.

advance and retake the next layer of walls at this rate, but if I pour water over it all, won’t the rock crack? I don’t want to cause instability and possibly collapse this

shoulders can make those sorts of

ant high-fives with the stout warriors of the Colony as I pass through. I have to be careful with those now. My antennae have become so large I can cause some real damage

again, you lot will be able to get in there and do your thing too. The experience and Biomass you can

assume that’s why we don’t seal the tunnels and close off

The Colony has only grown as fast as it has thanks to our successful defence against, and harnessing of, the wave. How many thousands upon thousands of Biomass are being harvested in the second and third strata right now? How many cores? All of that is fed back into our

understanding, but I

as well. With every wave, we supercharge the development of the family. Who could say how long it would have taken us to reach this point without

ants and my crew back to the command centre only to find a horde of reinforcements rushing down a different

“I assume–?”

“Hurry up!” Victor yells.

a

roll back the encroaching monsters and allowing the Colony to reclaim the outer

everything like insectile hawks, especially their leader. They study everything, discussing amongst themselves as they develop ideas and strategies together. When I feel it’s safe, I bring them forward and give them a taste of the fighting, along

endless, as one would expect during a wave. No matter how far back I push the hordes of ravenous beasts, they return

way back to the central hub this time, the activity inside is even more frenetic than

hard to work out