Chrysalis

Before Crinis can dive headlong into the enemy and give herself a terminal case of toxic mana poisoning, I rush back to the safe-zone, alerting the ants as I go.

“We’ve got an attack! Weird… things coming out of the river!”

Once I’m close enough, I use my antennae to try and scrape Crinis off my carapace and fling her into the purified mana, but she clings onto me, refusing to go. More accurately, she lets her body become shadow, and my antennae just slide straight through her. Heck of a trick.

[Crinis, get into the safe-zone, that’s an order.]

[I want to help fight!]

[Sure, do it from inside there. Go! Shoo!]

Unable to resist a direct order, she has no choice but to accede to my demand and slink back inside the blue mana. Invidia is already there, hovering over the blob of darkness, healing and cleansing her of the infection she’s accumulated.

Seriously, eating the things that live here is dangerous business. If we could work out a way to clean the Biomass so we could consume it safely, that would go a long way to helping us break through the stratum.

Considering there’s literal tons of inedible monster coming towards me right now, it’s a bit unfortunate we haven’t worked out that solution yet. Ah well, no time to worry about it now, I’ve got weird… slime things to destroy!

fact the river runs all the way down the length of this tunnel, which

it, but actually being inside it? Let’s just say it doesn’t seem to agree with them. The moment the monsters emerge, they writhe in pain as the mana which is safe for us proves

they were all going to emerge in there, but one of them jumped the gun when I got too

Take care of the monsters in there! I’ll deal with the ones

not meant

to feel the grin stretch across his bat-like face. With a primal roar, the giant ape leaps into battle,

able to pull

lot of punishment only

these things; I’ve already got a dangerous level of toxin exposure, and getting wrapped up by half

them as they move, leaving a trail

and slurping as they use their many limbs to propel themselves forward. Every

really are like an awful, fifth stratum version of Crinis gone wrong, aren’t they? If she’d been like this the first time I saw her, there’d be little chance I’d ever think of raising her to be a

how they deal

monsters begin to shoot limbs toward me, trying to latch on and poison me further. Using my reflexes and forewarning, I dodge efficiently out

VOID CHOMP!