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!

is likely my ant nature, and the other is probably down to the circumstances of my birth. Fighting in

course, it’s not efficient to bite all these monsters one by one, which is why Gandalf brought us

VOID CHOMP!

blast of Dragon’s Breath, the hyper-potent jet of flame superheating even the rock of the tunnel wall. There’s a 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

Neat.

retake the next layer of walls at this rate,

on their shoulders can make those sorts

the stout warriors of the Colony as I pass through. I have to be careful with those now. My antennae have become so

to Solant and her gang. “After you’ve evolved again, you lot will be able

the tunnels and close off the

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 growth, powering our

but I

we supercharge the development of the

centre only to find a horde of reinforcements

“I assume–?”

“Hurry up!” Victor yells.

yourself a little bit,

spend the next few hours bouncing between different tunnels, helping to roll back the encroaching

all, Solant and her broodmates watch 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

the hordes of ravenous beasts, they return in less than ten minutes, baying for the sweet,

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

not hard to work