Chapter 2947 - Chry 162

C1768 - Titans Fight Briefly

It's not easy to fight against other large monsters. The more I've engaged in these types of battles, the more I've noticed how much more awkward it feels. For starters, we're so massively mutated and have such weird, esoteric organs that just about anything can happen at any moment. Absurdly high damage output? Yep. Insane durability and healing? Of course! Inexplicable mobility? Why not!

Which leads these confrontations to go one of two ways. Either we clash sharply and violently, one overwhelming the other and bringing about a swift resolution to the combat, or it's a tense, drawn out stalemate, where neither side is keen to make the first move.

I've come to enjoy both sides of this particular activity. A short, sharp fight saves time and lets us all get on with our day, while an extended chess-match really gets the brains firing and the heart pounding.

In this instance, I take one look at my opponent and decide I would really like to not be looking at it anymore.

If the contents of a blocked nose could come alive in the form of a monster, this would be it. Clear in some places, streaked with yellow and green in others, I can't tell if it's meant to be a slug, a slime, or just a wobbling pile of mucus.

Either way, I don't want to engage in a battle of wits with this thing, I just want it gone. Long-form battles might be my speciality, but against a monster this hideous, I'm willing to take some risks. Besides, who knows what the heck it'll do to me if I give it enough time? The air around the thing is positively alive with corruption and sickness, and if I look closely, the monster's body is riddled with parasites.

Nope. Not liking this one bit.

Although it doesn't move all that quickly, I wouldn't call my opponent slow. It sort of tumbles over itself, not exactly rolling, but almost like a wave that builds, rising up, then sloshing forward only to start building again. There are two long stalks with eyes atop them that peer up out of the goop every now and again, staring hard at me as it draws closer.

Taking a careful reading of its core, it seems like this creature is a tier seven, but a fairly strong one. If it hasn't pushed its core to the limit of the tier, then it's gone awfully close.

I wonder if this is the local territorial boss that the Krath have lured over, or something that they've engineered? Either way, it's going to have to be dealt with.

Opening my mandibles wide, I unleash a gravity bomb, letting the spell howl into existence as it streaks down the tunnel. Empowered by the Altar, I'm hoping it'll be enough to dispatch my opponent before it gets too close. To my surprise, the monster doesn't seem all that bothered by the spell, instead it draws in on itself, almost as if inhaling, before it lunges forward and hurls out a dense ball of noxious ooze.

Hey! You can't do that! Ending fights with a dense ball of specialised mana is supposed to be my thing.

When the two, well I suppose the technical term is Doom Spheres, meet, the resultant meeting of black hole and snot is predictably messy. With the atmosphere, wet with mucus and corruption working against it, my bomb isn't able to push through and hit my opponent directly. When the dust fades, it's gained quite a bit of ground, advancing in a determined fashion.

Whatever the reason, this monster really wants to throw down here and now, not even my higher tier is going to dissuade it.

Now that it's closer, I can sense the swelling power inside its form, another ball of goop being prepared, either to launch immediately, or as a defensive measure. Man, I really didn't want to get close to this thing….

Tensing my legs, I lower my body, then Dash, empowering the action with the Altar. The force exerted from my body is enough to make my muscles and tendons scream and my antennae smack into my carapace as I accelerate absurdly fast for something my size. Crystal eyes deal with the sudden air pressure so much better than my old fleshy ones, and I can still see when I reach my target, right in front of the creature.

It reacts swiftly, rising up almost as if it wants to enfold me in itself. From within the mound, a mouth begins to emerge, acrid vapour so strong it starts to eat into my carapace belching forth.

None of that!

Lunging forward, my mandibles slam shut, digging into the monster's gooey flesh. Immediately, they start to burn from an absurdly powerful acidic effect while the thousands of bugs that live within the beast try to get hold of me.

Wanting to end the battle as soon as possible, I deploy my secret weapon: mana injection.

My minds thrum as I start to pump the monster full of hyper-dense gravitational mana, a torrent of energy straight out of the gland and dumped inside the creature's body.

It can feel what I'm doing the moment I start, but its momentum is already moving forward, making it so much harder to try and pull back. With every fraction of a second that passes, energy thunders through my mandibles and into my opponent before my minds set to work on it.

Because it isn't easy trying to manipulate the energy inside another creature. In fact, it's downright impossible. For whatever reason, the mana contained inside another being is basically off-limits. It's owned.

Unless, of course, it's owned by me.

When it's my mana, I can still manipulate it, although it's still difficult, and the effect doesn't last long. Thankfully, with enough preparation, I don't need all that much time.

Once I judge the mana has reached the critical level, I flex the power of my many mind constructs and crush it down, squeezing it until it collapses in on itself.

In just a few seconds, a gravity bomb is formed! Not a large one, not by a long shot. In fact, I couldn't even tell you how long it'd been since I created one this small.

However, it doesn't really matter in the long run. With a gravity bomb forming inside its body, there's very little the monster can do to defend itself. I leap away, tearing my mandibles free as the monster roils and shrieks silently, but to no avail. Soon, it collapses and oozes out all over the floor of the tunnel, the plethora of parasites abandoning ship and vanishing into the sticky mess that surrounds them.

I set fire to my mandibles to try and burn the goop off them. Yuck.

-x-X-x-

Brilliant isn't spoken of enough when we examine the achievements of the Colony. Likely this is due to her rather unique behaviour and abrasive attitude that most of her siblings find difficult to understand. After examining the historical record as much as possible, it can only be concluded that Brilliant herself is also largely responsible for her own absence in said records.

Despite her overwhelming pride and arrogance, Brilliant has never been one to seek approbation from the Colony at large. Rather, if she seeks any acknowledgement at all, it is from those few ants she regards as her peers: the Eldest, members of the Council, her fellow Champions and those bright minds who work with her. There are many instances where the bulk of her sisters were unaware of her involvement in a particular project or breakthrough entirely, the Champion having completed her work behind the scenes within the confines of her laboratory.

Her unique, insatiably inquisitive mind and unusual way of thinking pushed the Colony forward at a meteoric pace that simply wouldn't have been possible otherwise. Perhaps bizarrely, she has often been the quiet achiever of the family, but only to those who haven't been close enough to smell her pheromones.

- Excerpt from 'Champions of the Family' by Historiant

"I took no pleasure in this," Brilliant snapped, disgusted by the whole affair. "For any other human, I would have refused to do this at all. Even so, I may have refused were there any other way to prevent your death."

Lest the human think that she was taking sympathy on him, she felt compelled to add: "I wouldn't want my family to stain their mandibles with a creature like you."

The human in question, Grand Priest Alir Vinting, was unresponsive. A creature of such limited intelligence as he was likely having a hard time processing what had just taken place. Despite her best efforts, the… extraction process… remained excruciatingly painful. Brilliant never sought to inflict suffering on others, but she knew her lost sister had endured even worse and for significantly longer. It made coping with the regret significantly easier.

Despite her prodding, the Priest, still drenched in sweat, sat staring blankly at where his right arm used to be. It was gone and it sure as heck wasn't coming back on its own. Perhaps the Church of the Path knew some advanced healing techniques that would be able to regrow the limb, but even if they did, she felt the Priest would be unlikely to forget what had happened to it the first time.

"Hey," she said, prodding him with an antenna. "Are you awake in there?"

Brilliant turned to the nearby healers.

"Someone probably ought to check on him."

Reluctance was clear in every line of the healers' carapaces. They didn't want to even get close to this monster, but they did, checking him over and providing healing.

"He's fine," one reported, "simply in shock. It's a human condition that monsters don't appear to suffer from," she clarified, seeing Brilliant was about to ask.

"Fascinating," Brilliant stated, waving a leg back and forth in front of the Priest's seemingly unseeing eyes. "How long is he likely to suffer from this condition? I have a lot of experiments I need to get back to."

"He should be responsive again soon," the healer replied with a shrug. "His life is under no threat, nor is he injured in any way."

"I suppose I'll just wait then," Brilliant sighed.

Waiting was not something she enjoyed, or even endured, under normal circumstances. Turning away from the insensate form of Alir, she decided to inspect the complicated enchanted array that had been prepared for this occasion, in the centre of which sat a small glass receptacle filled with a shining golden fluid.

Nearby, Experimant stood, staring at the vial, her antennae waving slowly through the air.

"I can't believe it actually worked," she muttered.

"What do you mean?" Brilliant said, offended. "Of course it was going to work! I designed it, and I'm–"

"Don't."

"BRILLIANT!"

"I know. But I looked at the schematics, the Church's method only works because monsters are made of mana, and humans, need I remind you, are not. So how did you get it to work?"

As much as Brilliant would have loved to engage in further boasting, she wasn't particularly satisfied with what she had accomplished here. In her eyes, it was practically a failure.

"Barely," she said snippily, one leg poking at the intricate patterns carved into the floor. Dim now, they had been brightly lit and flooded with power during the process, fed mana from dozens of cores embedded in the array. "What I've done is a rough, hacked-together, brute-force method of replicating their technique. It's inefficient, inelegant and doesn't even explode. I'm dreadfully unsatisfied with it."

Brilliant didn't really want to discuss it, didn't even want to think about it, but she could tell that her assistant was going to insist that she explain, so she sighed and began to point out the various features of the design.

"You're quite right to point out that even we, who were born rather than spawned, are still essentially formed of mana at our base. Our bodies are formed of Biomass, which can be created from mana, and returns to mana when we die. Humans are not.

"The Church's ritual takes advantage of this to… liquify… us by converting monsters back into energy. Obviously I can't do that to a human."

"But you did!" Experimant points out.

"Ehhhh, sort of," Brilliant says. "Using a bit of trickery over here, and a bit of fakery over there, I was able to get the process to function by tricking it into seeing the human form as if it were a monster form. Flooding the arm with mana was part of the process, saturating it to a severely abnormal level, then using some rather detailed biomancy to force the arm to mimic monster biology. It's crude and ugly, less than half as efficient as the Church's method and requires an unreasonable amount of energy to work. All in all, I hate it, it's deeply flawed, would never work at scale, fails to convert memories and experiences properly and I have no interest in ever fixing it. And frankly, I'm not even certain it's possible."

Experiment hesitated.

"You know how to do Biomancy? Haven't we only just discovered that type of mana?"

"Of course I know," Brilliant scoffed. "I'm–"

"Please don't."

"BRILLIANT!"

-x-X-x-

Man, the Krath have certainly been busy down here. After taking down the bases higher up, I've gotten a rough sense of their work and what they're trying to achieve, but what they did up there has nothing on what they've been doing in the depths. Every tunnel I go into shows signs of Krath manipulation. They've twisted a little here, carved out a little there, created drops and chutes and turns and loops that all have the cumulative effect of turning normal Dungeon tunnels into something that serves their will. Monsters are funneled towards the Colony with almost mechanical precision, the sense and smell of the purified mana being dispersed far and wide, deliberately, to entice them.

Trying to descend deeper is a nightmare. Everywhere I turn there are vast reservoirs of mucus, millions, probably billions, of litres of the most potent, fermented slime I've ever seen, just sitting there blocking my way like a lake of snot. I'm not exactly going to tempt fate and try swimming through it, so I have to try and find a way around and drain them from beneath, but there are obstacles everywhere.

My frustration grows as I spend more time wandering around, poking about and trying to find out where the heck the Krath are hiding. It doesn't help that all the while, they're out there, watching me from their little hidey holes and sneaky cracks. I could yank them out and give them the business end of a hostile takeover, but I don't want to let them know I can sense them just yet. After all, I'm hoping they'll lead me to their sneaky, expertly hidden sanctuaries. Once I've smashed their safe havens and forced the Krath to retreat, I can get to work on fixing up the tunnels so the Colony can start flooding the depths with purified mana. The wuffers have been working hard up above and apparently the storage is full to bursting. Once it's unleashed, these tunnels will be drowned in a tidal wave of purification, destroying all the work the Krath have done to reinforce this position and allowing the Colony to drive a path straight down to the next hearts.

However, that glorious wave is still a ways off, since I haven't been able to find the Krath hiding place, nor have I been able to navigate my way past all of the obstacles they've thrown up.

Thankfully I manage to get into enough fights to keep my regeneration network ticking over, preventing the constant burn of the fifth from doing any lasting damage to me. Without that, even with the Pure Core, I might not have been able to stay in the tunnels for as long as I have.

After four days of meandering about, enduring the dreadful conditions and putting up with the constantly spying and slithering Krath keeping watch on me, my temper is about ready to burst. I'm only a few minutes away from unleashing the largest gravity bomb in the history of Pangera and obliterating vast swathes of tunnel in order to see if something changes in an even remotely positive way.

No, I can resist, it's fine. There's no need to unleash my rage in such a devastating fashion right now, I can save it up, store it like the Colony has stored purified mana, and then, when the time is right, let it flow out, right on top of the dastardly slugs who have put me in this awful position!

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GAH!

Alright, be cool. Let's go over this one more time. I have the tunnel map, which is recording each and every twist and turn I've taken. I've ranged far and wide through this area, but any path that seems to go around the huge lakes of sludge below does not seem to exist! I could dig my own, of course, but then I run the risk of my own tunnel collapsing and dropping me into an ocean of sludge I may not make it out of. But it doesn't make any sense! The Krath are moving up and down through this area, they have to be! If their safe ground was above the lakes, I would have found it already!

Down there in the darkness, there exists a path! I'm sure of it!

I even considered that the slugs might be swimming through the lakes themselves, but I eventually dismissed the idea. The slugs are well adapted to the fifth, but even they couldn't survive in there, I'm sure of it. Yet, even their little sneaky tunnels don't seem to connect to a path into the depths. Something fishy is going on here and I need to find out what.

Deciding to retrace my steps, I head back to the nearest lake and take another gander.

The tunnel before me drops away, a hole almost a hundred metres in diameter opening up, and I dive right in, clinging to the rock as I turn upside down and have a look around. The chamber is vast, and only a few dozen metres below me lies the bubbling, hissing surface of the lake. The vapour here is so potent it sets my entire carapace to itching as the acid eats into it, but I am well-trained to endure itching at this point.

So far, I've located six separate lakes, each designed to funnel the Colony's cleansed mana into them in order to absorb the energy without letting it spread to the surrounding tunnels or penetrate the depths. The only way we can proceed is if I find a way through and drain them from below.

Staring through the thick clouds of acid, I strain my gem-like eyes, trying to pierce the veil and see beyond this physical realm. Or… I'm hoping I see something different than what I did the last time I was here.

Yet… nothing. I expected to see a huge lake filled with sludge, aaaand that's what I'm looking at.

Depressed, I turn to leave, only for something to catch my eye at the last second. What the heck was that? I turn back sharply, only for that faint glimmer to be gone.

I saw something… I'm sure I did. Focusing harder, I turn all of my senses to the task, gravity mana, smell, sight, vibrations, everything. I'm desperate here. Desperate! Give me something, Gandalf!

Yet, after a few minutes, All I've determined is that one section of slime feels a little bit thinner than the rest. Which is… probably nothing.

A large bubble of gas swells up beneath me and bursts, making me scuttle about to shift my position lest I get covered in slime. The surface of the lake ripples, and for a fraction of a second I can see a shaft running right through the centre of the sludge. And then, a moment later, it's gone.

Oh? Oho? Ohohohohoho?!

-x-X-x-

Looking closely, I can see the difference. It's one of those "once you see it, you can't unsee it" situations. The tube itself, a vertical shaft of rather generous size, large enough even for me to fit through, is covered with a membrane that seems to support the weight of about a metre-thick layer of mucus. When the surface was disturbed, the mucus sloshing and wibbling about, the underlying passage was revealed for just a fraction of a second.

But that's not all.

I'm a smart cookie, and I know when something odd is going on. So long as I get to experience something two, maybe three times, I'm sure to pick up on it. My eyes are made of Unsullied Crystal, a substance that can only perceive truth. I had no idea what that meant at the time, but it's starting to dawn on me that maybe I can see through illusions, deceptions and other sorts of visual trickery.

Because the mucus layer, as clever as it is, wouldn't have been enough to hide something this large. I'm certain there is also an illusory layer that would hide the tunnel from normal eyes, the Krath are far too cunning to let random eddies on the surface of the lake reveal their secret entrance.

Yet, the Unsullied Crystal comes in clutch! Random eddies are all I need! Gweheheheheh.

Well, I shouldn't throw out the idea that this might be some sort of elaborate death trap that the Krath have set up to catch unwitting, overconfident ants. It's unlikely, but knowing the slugs, still possible.

Trying to look a little nonchalant, because I'm still under surveillance by the lurking slugs, even here, I meander over the chute. Not directly over, obviously, but close enough that I can surreptitiously examine it a little more closely.

Yep, there's definitely a big ol' vertical shaft hidden in there. The layer of mucus over the top even conceals it from my mana sense. I wonder how I can test this thing safely. If I get halfway down and realise that it's several kilometres deep, and the Krath collapse it while I'm in there… that would be a bad time….

"Uh, Protectant?"

"..."

"I could… use some help here."

"That's… unusual, Eldest."

Well, you usually aren't all that useful, but I'm not going to say that to someone who literally saved my life.

"Are you able to see the vertical tunnel beneath me?"

"Uh… no. Not at all. Are you sure there's a tunnel?"

"Absolutely, it's just very cleverly hidden. I need someone to go investigate, just in case it's a trap. If one of you goes down there, the Krath won't even notice, and if it is a trap… well…."

"Losing one of our bodies isn't that much of a problem?" Protectant says.

"Well… uh… yes."

"This is exactly why we picked this evolution. We will gladly take on the mission."

There's a solid undertone of enthusiasm in her tone, and I start to wonder if my twenty bodyguards have more in common with Leeroy than perhaps I thought they did. It's not a comforting thought. My suspicions are only reinforced when they have to eventually draw lots to see who gets 'the honour' of going into the tunnel, because every single one of them volunteered.

Ultimately, it's Defendant who wins the prize and gleefully hurls herself down into the sludge, trusting that I'm not losing my mind and that she won't immediately melt in the lake of inescapable acid mucus. There's quite a disturbance on the surface as she dives in and I turn away and start scuttling about the place to try and reduce the Krath's suspicions. I suspect they already think I'm up to something, I've been hanging around for too long, including a spot very close to their secret tunnel.

There's nothing they can do about it, though. They'd have to reveal themselves to intervene, and so far they haven't been willing to do that, a policy I don't see changing. So I put some distance between me and the chute, even heading back up above the lake for a while and poking about in the nearby tunnels.

Just when I'm starting to wonder when Defendant is planning to get back to me, she speaks from the underside of my carapace.

"I've finished investigating."

"Gah! Wha… how long have you been down there?"

"Oh, ages."

"Didn't you go down the chute?"

"One of me did, yes. I ended up melting into the mucus, nasty stuff."

My heart sinks.

"So it was a trap after all?"

"Oh, no. It's a path through. It runs for a kilometre and a half, straight down through the lake. However, a thick coating of the mucus runs down the inside walls and pools at the exit. I couldn't keep holding onto the sides and had to let go, which meant I fell right into the pool at the bottom."

That… sounds absolutely dreadful!

"Are you… alright?" I ask hesitantly. "Need some time off?"

Maybe some counseling? Sheesh, what a horrible way to go.

"Why?" Defendant says, sounding genuinely confused. "Are we going down or what?"

"Yes," I sigh. "Sorry for asking."

There is definitely something wrong with these ants, perhaps I just didn't realise it until now.

If the sides are covered in sludge, then I'm sure as heck not crawling down there. Best option is to use a Gravity Well to lower myself down, which will be a squeeze, but I'll fit if it doesn't get any narrower. For the passage to be this size, the Krath must have been using it to move stuff up and down, their pets perhaps? Or other large beasties? I can't think what else they would need something this size for.

Well, it's worked out well for me.

Time to see what the slugs have been up to down there.

-x-X-x-

The moment I detach from the roof and begin to float down towards the hidden entrance, I can tell the Krath start freaking out. They zip back and forth, probably yelling at each other, and some of them start vanishing into the distance, slithering off to try and warn those below before I get there.

Gweheheheh. No chance of that, I'm afraid!

It's a bit squeezy in the chute and I'm forced to pull my legs in under my body so they don't scrape along the sides. Every side is covered in a thick layer of mucus and the tunnel itself feels disturbingly organic. I can't help but feel like I'm descending down a throat and into the stomach below. Mandibles crossed it doesn't turn out that way. Getting eaten and digested might seem like something I don't have to worry about anymore, due to my enormous size and mighty power, yet if there is something large enough to do the job, the fifth stratum could certainly pull it off.

This place has always been like a giant organism, so why wouldn't it have a stomach too? Ugh, just picturing it is making me a little nauseous, as if this vertical tube wasn't bad enough on its own.

Actually, this place is pretty squeezy, and my guards don't have the ability to fly… I don't think. How exactly are they getting down here? I don't bother asking since I know they won't answer, so I reach into the Vestibule to try and figure out where they are.

Of course, I should have known. They're all stacked onto my back. Not just twenty of them, but all of their spare bodies as well! It's infuriating how well their stupid perception filter ability works. I don't even notice the extra effort I have to exert and the faster-than-expected energy expenditure from my Gravity Well if I'm not actively focused on what they're doing.

Having nearly eighty ants piled up on my back isn't exactly the graceful and dignified descent that I had in mind, but thankfully nobody else can actually see them there, so it should be fine. Sheesh!

As Defendant said, the chute is over a kilometre long and I can't see a thing at the bottom. My mana sense, however, absolutely can and the concentration of energy beneath me is staggering.

I suspected the slugs might have drawn a line in the sand for a reason, that they were preventing the Colony from reaching something important, and it looks like I might have been correct.

The closer I get, the more overwhelming the energy becomes. This is easily the highest concentration of mana I've felt in the fifth so far. Thicker than the mucus lakes, thicker even than the inside of the hearts. Obviously, it isn't as potent as Theorazzn's mana, but that stuff falls into its own category because it sure as heck doesn't originate from here.

Just what the heck am I going to find down here? Visions of truly putrid and diseased oceans of virulent slime fill my mind. It must be significantly worse than what I've seen so far, but holy moly, is that even possible?!

I almost wish I could close my eyes as I arrive at the bottom of the chute and drop down into what lies below, not willing to see whatever disgusting thing lies in store.

When I finally drop down, I'm ready for the worst, but shockingly, it's not… that… bad?

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's awful.

Where I'd expected to see a wide open reservoir of power, instead I find a relatively narrow tunnel by the standards of the fifth. Rather than meaty, the walls are almost… spongy and porous. Rather than healthy and pink, they are instead blackened and rotten, sodden and almost running to liquid in places. It's noxious and foul beyond words, with thick, cloying gasses and strands of mucus so bright they seem almost radioactive clinging from the floor to the ceiling.

Through my feet, I can feel a tremendous, steady vibration, which tells me a heart must be close. Except… is one heart really strong enough to produce this level of vibration?

If there's one thing ants are more sensitive to than anyone else, it's vibrations. I am fully equipped to interpret the slightest shaking in the air or ground. That is what I do, dammit!

What my spectacular ant senses are telling me… is that there is more than one source of these vibrations….

There are two…. Wait. WAIT.

Three hea–... hang on a second.

My antennae waggle a bit more, tapping on the ground here and there and coming up covered in blackened goo.

No… there are FOUR! Four hearts are pounding within this area. I can feel the vibrations originating from four separate directions, each an individual heart pumping mana through this area.

Which explains why the mana concentration is so unbelievably high. And it's not just the concentration of the mana, it's the insane speed that it runs through the tunnel around me. A velocity of energy like this is insane, and all around me… it's getting sucked into these porous walls, flowing into the spongy, blackened flesh in massive volumes.

Looking around me, I start to realise just where I am. This isn't the stomach of the fifth that the Slugs have been hiding away down here.

It's the lungs.

If we managed to cleanse this place, I wonder just how wide an area would become purified? It's enough to terrify the slugs, that's for sure.

Gweheheheheh.

This is going to be so good!

It's while I'm sitting there congratulating myself for a task I haven't completed yet that the slugs launch their surprise assault.

Because of course they do.

-x-X-x-

"I find it a little discourteous that you would not bring your offering into the most glorious city on Pangera. It's almost as if you doubt the genuine nature of our hospitality."

Merchant could feel the subtle pull of the speaker's words on her emotions. Calculated, skillful and backed with what was no doubt a powerful build focused on persuasion and diplomacy, enough to influence even a monster. Truly a terrifying entity.

"Ms Wynn, I would never seek to offend an esteemed member of the Merchant Cooperative. Indeed, causing offence is the very opposite of my intentions! I certainly cannot recall any reason for the Colony to avoid the wonders of the Silver City, perhaps you could enlighten me if you can think of one."

Merchant took a long puff on her cigar before puffing out a neat circle, a little trick she'd been working on recently. It was a neat thing, not important in any way, but she took some pride in her skill. It was something she would continue to develop when she had the time. Humans, apparently, used their 'lips' and 'tongues' to shape the smoke when attempting tricks like this, but Merchant had access to no such appendages, and therefore, had to get creative.

Looking out over the shining waters that surrounded the Silver City, she had to admit it was a spectacular view. The city shone like a jewel, gleaming as it climbed up the side of the mountain. High above, wreathed in clouds like glittering gold dust, was the capital, the Golden City of the Atreum Empire and home to the Child Emperor.

Such an absurd display of wealth was enough to make her mandibles itch. What sort of profits would she be able to achieve if she got into that city? The deals, the fabulous, fabulous riches, the sheer volume of trade. It was like a banquet laid out on the table, a delectable feast of Biomass right before her eyes, that she wasn't allowed to touch.

And she was totally fine with that. The Silver City had betrayed the Colony, and they would have their day of reckoning.

"Nothing comes to mind," said Georgia Wynn with a polite smile above her kind and gregarious eyes.

It was a mask, of course. This was a predator, and right now, Merchant was flopping about within her territory. Enid had insisted that Merchant's lack of expression was both a weakness and a weapon. She had no need to adopt a mask of her own, her carapace did that perfectly, but her ability to communicate the most subtle inflections was significantly weakened.

"Let us not sit and imagine a grudge that does not exist," Merchant lied easily, "for that is not what you came for. First and foremost, I should thank you for accepting the invitation."

"The Brathian Island Conglomerate has become an increasingly important trading partner here in the capital. I was only too pleased to accept when Eran Thouris herself came to speak with me."

Eran had indeed personally made the trip, insisting that anyone of lesser rank would only be an insult to someone as lofty and successful as Ms Wynn. Even so, Merchant had seen how much she had dreaded the meeting, girding herself as if for battle. Apparently they had lost an enormous amount of money in the exchange, unable to resist the persuasive powers of her opponent.

"We of the Colony certainly wouldn't want to disturb someone such as yourself unless it was absolutely necessary," Merchant said, just a hint of her persuasive pheromones touching in the air. Too hard too early was always a mistake, even against infinitely weaker traders. "Yet we happened to come across an opportunity that only someone of your level would truly be able to accommodate."

A little flattery never hurt, but perhaps she was doing a little much here. Showing no sign of her inner calculations, Merchant took another long puff on her cigar, enjoying the smoky scent and fiery taste.

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"I had been led to believe that the Brathian Island Conglomerate had been licensed to conduct all of the Colony's trade," Georgia said, a shade coolly. "Should I not be speaking to them about this proposed business opportunity?"

And negotiate with an opponent she had already demonstrated she could soundly defeat. As if Merchant would possibly permit it.

"That is certainly true. For any business originating in the first, second, third or fourth stratum, of course."

Satrap Umizan had cried bloody tears when Merchant had pointed out the finer details of their contract. Although it technically didn't specify the stratum on which the brathian were responsible, it did specify existing industries. It wasn't hard to argue that anything originating from the fifth was something entirely new, and therefore exempt from the agreement.

Merchant stood on the deck of one of the Satrap's most beautiful ships, leaning against the railing which had been carved into the shape of many different fish found within the lakes, all tail to… snout? Merchant really needed to learn more about fish.

It wasn't the normal sort of place a member of the Merchant Cooperative would do business. She was certain Ms Wynn was more accustomed to negotiating amidst palaces, fine dining and wealthy manors than on the gently rocking surface of a ship at anchor, but that didn't matter. This was a negotiation quite unlike any other.

"So I must indeed negotiate with you? Is that right?" Ms Wynn sought clarification.

She was dressed rather modestly for someone of her fabulous wealth, but for a trained trader, her prosperity was obvious. Her clothes might be of a simple colour, but the cut was as precise as the engineering in a cathedral, the colour so rich the dyes couldn't be anything other than magical, and her jewellery, while tasteful, was of such a startling quality that each piece caught Merchant's eyes. Where had she sourced those stones? They weren't of Colony make, she was sure of that.

Ant crafters were growing in Skill at a steady pace, but that level of fine metalwork was still beyond them. It didn't help that ants still struggled to see the value of jewellery. A fancy, woven rug with elaborate patterns that depicted beautiful scenes? Sure, it kept the floor from wearing, kept claws and feet warm and could be used to educate. Even decorating a space was something that her sisters understood. Decorating an individual? Less so.

"It is," Merchant confirmed.

The change was instantaneous as the full force of Georgia Wynn's abilities were brought to bear, putting an almost physical pressure on the ant Champion, threatening to flatten her into the ground.

Merchant took a long puff, tapping the ash over the side of the ship.

"There's really no need for that," she said.

"Why is that?"

"Because it doesn't matter how much better than me you are at this, and you are much, much, better."

Ms Wynn smiled like a wolf. She knew exactly how large her advantage was. Even against a monster. Merchant could have shivered. What a beast in human skin.

"You'll have to elaborate on why that is, because I appear to be left in the dark."

Merchant clacked her mandibles joyfully.

"Allow me to bring the light."

She reached down into her pouch and withdrew two wide-bottomed vials, placing them onto the railing. In one, a shimmering golden fluid, in another, a brilliant scarlet as vibrant as the world's heart blood.

"In the first flask, I have a gift for you to deliver to the Child Emperor. It is the elixir that we condensed from a part of a human. They may take it with our compliments. You may also take the human we extracted it from, we certainly don't want them anymore."

A pointed rebuke from the Colony. What you have taken from us, we can also take from you. What you thought was something that could only be done to us, we can also do to you. A shattering revelation.

"And the second?" Ms Wynn asked, her eyes burning with intensity.

"Oh, just a little something we found down in the fifth," she said with a hint of a wink. "It's the elixir of everlasting life, capable of reversing the ageing process you mortals have so much trouble with. I have a certificate here signed by three Magio Scholars of the Tower certifying its efficacy."

She grinned an ant grin.

"I'll be here tomorrow to accept your offer. See you then."

-x-X-x-

"What do you want?"

Once again leaning on the rails, Merchant wasn't sure, but she felt as if, just perhaps, the wondrous city wasn't quite as majestic as it had been the day before. Perhaps the Soul Silver and Heart Gold wasn't as lustrous as it had been, a quirk of the light maybe.

Or was it just that the city had been conquered already, without her even having to leave her ship. Of course, she hadn't really earned it, she knew that. Her family had given her an unbeatable hand, all she'd had to do was put the cards on the table.

"I told you I wouldn't need to negotiate with you," Merchant said, laughing. "They won't let you, not for something like this."

A tightening of Ms Wynn's expression was all the confirmation that Merchant needed. She clacked her mandibles, a quick, staccato rhythm, chortling to herself.

"The Child Emperor has requested that you visit the court as an esteemed guest," Georgia Wynn said, withdrawing a gilded, glowing envelope from her pocket.

"There's no need for that," Merchant said, holding up a leg. "I won't accept it."

"What?" Ms Wynn gasped, aghast. "You cannot refuse the direct invitation of the Child Emperor!"

"Of course I can. I just did."

International incident be damned, no ant was going to put a single leg down in that city. They knew what they did.

"This will have… consequences," Georgia said, looking troubled. "I'm not attempting to make threats, but the court does not respond well to slights, even perceived ones."

"We don't respond well to having our family members reduced to experience for the court to drink like an aperitif," Merchant shot back.

Georgia blinked, then smiled.

"The veneer of politeness was only skin deep, it appears."

"Hey, no skin here, only carapace," Merchant replied, tapping herself on the back, "and it is quite thick, thank you very much."

"So it is," Georgia replied with a short bow. She stepped forward and leaned against the railing herself, looking out over the waters toward the city she called home.

She sighed.

"What is it that you want? You have the Atreum Empire in your… Jaws?"

"Mandibles."

"In your mandibles right now. The Child Emperor's favourite teacher is on death's door. Careful application of your miracle potion brought him back from the brink last night, but he needs more, a lot more, if he is to survive."

"Does that teacher wish to keep living?"

"I… I don't know. Knowing that old man, I wouldn't be surprised either way."

If only her own teacher were willing to take it. Was it wrong… to want more life? More time? Was it wrong not to?

"Since you've been so generous, revealing their weakness, then I will reveal mine. I don't want money, or cores, or precious metals, or favourable deals, or lower taxes, or priority port permissions, or exclusive warehouse rights—"

"It sounds like you very much do want those things," Georgia grinned.

"Ahem. Well, I want those things, but that isn't what the family wants, or needs. I am going to take a truly unhealthy amount of money from the Child Emperor, don't get me wrong, but it's merely a means to an end."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"Right now, the only source of this wondrous medicine is the Colony," Merchant said.

"But… it doesn't have to be that way," Georgia followed on, understanding lighting in her eyes. "You want to charge a price so high that going down there and getting it for themselves is cheaper."

"Economics and trade are how real diplomacy gets done," Merchant said wistfully. "Like watching water run downhill, it will take a predictable path, the one with the most profit."

"You've actually… you've actually found a way to make it profitable to invade the fifth," Georgia said, her incredible business mind racing ahead from one step to the next, the future unfolding before her eyes.

She could see, as Merchant did, what would happen next. Word would spread of this miracle substance, a life-extending fluid that could only be found in the fifth. Every kingdom, every city, every Empire, would want it for themselves. First, they would try to buy it. When that failed… what else were they to do? They would try to go and get it for themselves.

While the Colony might have been the ones to start the cleansing of the fifth, they were never going to be able to do the entire job themselves, it would take a hundred years to cover that much ground. Instead, they had found a way to enlist the rest of Pangera to finish the war on their behalf.

"We have already secured an enormous swathswathe of territory down there, provided we manage to hold it, of course," Merchant said. "None of you will ever know the sacrifice we have endured and the effort we have expended to get this far. The sooner we manage to light a fire under everyone else, the faster they can get down there and relieve my sisters."

She reached down to her pack once more, removing two objects. One, a core, not overly large and glowing a quiet, comforting blue. The other, a leatherbound folder containing a few dozen pages at most.

"This is a wuffer core. It's the monster we designed to convert toxic mana to purified mana," Merchant said, handing it to Georgia, who took it reverentially. "And this, contains a few of our most important schematics. Mana channels, intakes, wuffer platforms for conversion, that sort of thing."

"You… want me to sell these for you?"

"I do," Merchant confirmed. "Once they have the appetite for invasion, you can make the sale."

"And… what would you like me to get for these items?"

Merchant took off her glasses and polished them briefly on her robe before replacing them.

"I think… some tax exemptions, exclusive warehouse rights, preferential docking permissions, and money. Lots and lots of money."

"Twenty percent commission."

"Twenty?" Merchant squawked, then relented. "Fine. Twenty it is."

Georgia rubbed her hands together. This would be profitable indeed.

-x-X-x-

As someone who has received a Krath welcome more than once, I would have to say I rate this one rather highly. Not only are there a lot of slugs here to greet me, they have brought friends in the form of pets and native monsters, each more deadly than the last.

It's certainly very lively, if a little more dangerous than I would like.

Stop trying to eat through my eyes, dammit!

These lamprey-like worms have latched onto my eyeballs, and judging by the pointy horns above their mouths and their repeated attempts to poke holes in me, I'm guessing they're trying to tunnel into my head and eat my brains or something. Well good luck with that, chumps!

Unsullied Crystal peepers are too powerful for your puny teeth and horns!

However, I am currently unable to see because my eyes are covered in invasive worm parasites. Meanwhile, the Krath are attacking me from all sides with unspeakable horrors, and if I get bogged down for a second, I'm terrified that they'll envelop me in goop that I can't escape from!

This calls for desperate measures.

"Clear the rear-zone! Anyone caught back there is going to regret it! Also, if someone can clear my eyes, I'd be grateful…"

After warning Protectant and the others, I adjust my positioning, pointing my industrial empire down one side of the tunnel, and unleash two quick shots of acid.

Why two? Well, the Krath, and the fifth in general, are extremely resistant to acid. Heck, down here the air is acidic. One blast of acid simply isn't going to cut it, whereas I can't help but feel like two might be a touch overkill….

Forged with the power of Theorazzn, my commercial district produces world-renowned wares that are nothing to sneeze at, even down here. As soon as I fire, the horrifying, sizzling, and rapidly expanding acid starts eating into the nearest monsters, who fall back desperately trying to get it off of them.

Before too long, this whole area is going to be enveloped in that stuff, so we need to get the heck out of here! One of my defenders, I'm not sure which one, is kind enough to blast my face with fire. To be honest, they do it a little too enthusiastically for my liking, roasting my head to an uncomfortable degree, but the end result is that I am cleansed of brain-eating worms, so I can't complain.

"We need to move!" I roar, unleashing Dragon's Breath into the tunnel before me as I blast a path forward. Behind me, my acid is still expanding, spreading like plague-fire, oozing over the floor of the tunnel and feasting on the blackened flesh of the walls.

If we stay here, we'll be ankle-deep in the stuff in no time.

The Krath aren't leaving me alone. It's clear they don't want me here to a rather violent degree. Blasts of acid and all sorts of other nasty stuff are fired in my direction from everywhere, constantly. Refusing to show their faces and sending wave after wave of minions at me, the Krath are doing what they normally do: fighting sneakily and being a general pain in the neck.

I'm taking a fairly significant amount of damage, but not much from each strike, which means the regeneration network has kicked into overdrive, flooding my system with healing fluid. These Krath might think they're wearing me down, but I'm only getting more and more healing the more they hit me!

Gweheheheheh.

That doesn't mean I don't have a lot of work to do trying to fight my way through the tunnel. The volume of monsters is crazy, which I suppose makes sense, because the density and velocity of mana is absolutely out of control. I can't imagine how crazy it gets down here during a wave; even I might have trouble resisting the mana if it gets as high as I suspect it will at that point.

As I make my rush, the scene in the tunnel behind me dissolves into a mess of sludge and struggling monsters trying to force their way through. It's chaos, but at least I only have to fight in one direction now.

Just like before, if I can find the Krath hidey holes and destroy them, they'll be forced out of the area and I can get to work preparing the way for the Colony. They have to be down here somewhere, perhaps even in the hearts themselves. I should also try and map out this enormous lung-like complex while I have the chance, but it's going to be a massive pain if I'm under attack the entire time.

I lunge left, then right, chomping wildly and blasting out regular bursts of Dragon's Breath to melt away the mucus and slime that threaten to engulf me at any moment. There are so damn many of them! They're going all-out to try and push me out of this place, but I won't let them. If there's a place the Krath don't want me to be, that's where I'm going to go.

It doesn't take long to arrive at a branch in the tunnel and I hesitate for a moment before pushing to the left. For some reason, the right feels kind of dodgy to me, but I can't exactly explain why. Perhaps there's something I'm seeing through without realising again?

I wouldn't put it past the Krath to lace these tunnels with traps and illusions. In fact, that's exactly the sort of thing they would do.

Well, it's fine. No matter what they're trying to hide, I'm going to find it.

-x-X-x-

Or… am I?

Perhaps I was a little too confident when I declared I would find what was hiding down here. Dealing with the constant assault of the slugs and their pet monsters is hard enough, but the narrow, twisted and branching paths here are a nightmare to navigate!

There are sudden drops, endless splits, tunnels just terminating randomly sometimes, while others are in such an advanced state of infection I'm not sure if the floor will even take my weight. Without the tunnel map, I would have become completely lost in less than ten seconds, with no hope of ever getting out.

I've been down here for a few hours and I must have visited well over a hundred different branching tunnels already!

Frustrated by the constant strikes that come at me from all angles, I take a risk and dive into the tunnel on the right, hoping to gain a little space, a brief reprieve, so I can figure out just what the heck is going on. It is, of course, a mistake. Making any sort of unconsidered move is a grievous error in slug territory. They're way too sneaky and I don't think I've ever seen more traps than I have down here.

Sure enough, the moment my legs hit the ground, it gives way beneath my weight, collapsing while the roof splits open, a nest of needle-nosed worms raining down. Fantastic.

I use force magic to blast the worms aside and look down. Yep, sludge pit, of course. Luckily I've been holding a Gravity Well in reserve for just such an occasion, and I use it to freeze myself in the air.

A few worms still land on me and start trying to burrow their way through my carapace. It's shocking how effective they are. Advanced materials in their noses are unbelievably sharp, paired with insanely potent acid that they shoot out of their teeth at incredible pressures. Honestly, it's impressive they do as well against my hardened shell as they do, given their size and likely low tier.

However, it's not enough to seriously threaten me. So what if they can dig through five or ten centimetres of my compressed diamond carapace? There's plenty more where that came from!

Not wanting to waste time, I pull myself to the side, knowing that there are likely to be a whole host of monsters about to start raining down on me. Sure enough, down they come, a torrent of beasts diving into the pit after me and falling immediately into the pit of slime.

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I have no idea how my guards are managing to survive in this chaotic labyrinth of doom, but they seem to be doing alright. I check on them every now and again in the Vestibule just to see if they're alive, and they are, but it's hard to know more than that. Surprisingly, they've spread themselves pretty far and wide throughout the area, covering multiple tunnels around me, while a few of them stick close, as in, cling directly onto the underside of my carapace where they'll take the least harm.

Monsters just seem to ignore them, meaning that the environment is far and away the most dangerous thing they have to contend with. That stealth ability is really something, and I'm sure they have impressive Skills to help as well, having developed them for a long time.

A sentient cloud of corruption comes at me, oozing out of the porous walls to try and envelop me from behind, but I'm ready.

Fire bursts from between my mandibles as I whip around, igniting the creature, which explodes in a fiery conflagration. Yikes, I hadn't expected this creature to be flammable!

Intense heat washes over me, scalding my antennae, but otherwise leaving me largely unscathed. Pulsing, mucus-clogged air sacs along the walls shrivel up, burned back by the sudden, potent heat. In that moment, I notice something a little interesting.

Buried within the walls of the chamber I'm inside are pulsating tubes, a metre thick at their largest, branching and rejoining in a way that reminds me of nothing so much as the branching lines of mana within the first stratum.

In the brief moment of safety I have thanks to the roaring flame of the now-deceased cloud, I take a second to inspect this new discovery. As I thought from further away… it's disgusting, but curiously, it actually seems as if something is flowing through these tubes.

Just what the heck is going on here?

Against my better judgement, I use the sharp inner edge of one of my mandibles to slice through the wall of the tunnel, and am rewarded with a faceful of pressurised mucus. It sizzles fiercely as it burns into my carapace and I shake my head, trying to dislodge the horrible stuff.

Yuck!

After scraping the worst of the gunk off, it starts to dawn on me. If these are the lungs of the fifth, this huge complex of spongy tunnels and endless filth, and there is a massive quantity of mana running through here at all times, soaked into the walls… then I think I might have finally found the slugs' sludge supplier.

They're taking it from here! I don't doubt they've got a whole system rigged up for taking it out of these pipes; in fact, wherever these things join up and ferry the sludge out of the area, I bet that's where the greatest concentration of Krath will be. They want control over this goop, I have no doubts about it!

Which means… if I can trace the mucus pipes, I can find the slugs.

Gweheheheh. I've got you now, slugs. You thought you could hide from me? Nobody can hide from me!

-x-X-x-

"What does it take for this abominable ant to die?!"

"I don't know! I've been spitting contamination at it for hours. It doesn't seem to do anything!"

Fluzzl wasn't having a good time. It was imperative, it was fundamental, that this ant be killed. A decree from Theorazzn had been issued, and it had to be obeyed! Not only that, if the ant managed to survive and break through the Krath defences here, the consequences would be catastrophic for hundreds of tribes in a vast swath of Dungeon!

How had they gone from masters of the fifth stratum to fighting for their very survival in such a short span of time?! It didn't make any sense!

With everything on the line, at least she had a simple and clear objective in front of her: kill the ant. If only the stupid thing would die!

"Are there any signs of contamination?" she demanded, her skin fizzing and popping with the force of her inner rage.

"Not that I can see," her second-in-command reported, shrinking back from her glare.

"How?!" she roared. "We've been attacking for an entire day! Are you telling me that acid no longer burns? That the fifth is no longer contagious?!"

"Of, of course not," he gurgled hesitantly.

It wasn't his fault, which was the only reason she hadn't eaten him so far. She couldn't expect Thooza to make sense of the situation when she couldn't make any sense of it herself. That knowledge didn't do anything to temper her rage, however. If the ant had been clever and cunning, that might have made her feel a little better, but it was clearly an idiot, blundering from one trap into another, moving seemingly at random and leaping well before it ever bothered to look.

The more they attacked it, the faster it seemed to heal, leaving it whole and shiny while her slugs exhausted themselves trying to put a dent in the cursed creature. She'd sent word to the Krath'lath hours ago, and surely they would arrive with reinforcements soon, but until then, what was she supposed to do?

"Which way do you think it's going to go next?" she muttered, half to herself.

There were multiple paths forward, all of which were trapped, not that she expected that to accomplish anything anymore.

"If I were to guess, the rightward branch," Thooza said.

They watched as the ant, after hesitating for a moment, leapt to the right, seemingly uncaring of the fleshy tongues that speared out of the wall and stabbed into its carapace.

The two Krath raced to keep up, using the hidden cracks and subtle passageways their tribe had built into these tunnels for thousands of years.

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"How did you know?"

Thooza burbled in confusion.

"I didn't know, but it seems like the ant has been moving in this direction for a while. Heading towards the Sludgeway, I mean."

It… it had?!

"Why didn't you say something earlier?!" she roared, pouncing on the smaller slug and sinking her fingers deep into his flesh. "If it reaches the Sludgeway… do you know what it could do there?!"

"I wasn't sure!" Thooza defended himself desperately. "How could it possibly know the Sludgeway even exists, let alone where to find it? No ants have even been down here."

It was impossible, and yet…. She released her hold on Thooza and rushed to catch up to the ant. It didn't always make the correct turn when confronted with a branch in the path, but it did most of the time. As the minutes ticked past, all doubt was removed. She had no idea how, or why, but the ant was gradually making its way towards the Sludgeway.

"Send word back to the Slimeground immediately," she instructed Thooza. "Get our best and fastest scouts to deliver it. They need to send us some help right now."

"Won't it be fine?" Thooza said. "Slizzl lives in the Sludgeway. It'll deal with the ant if we can't."

Fluzzl restrained herself from consuming her subordinate for what felt like the twentieth time that day. Just wait a little longer, she told herself, you can eat him later, just not now.

"We can't deal with the cursed creature!" she pointed out, indicating the ant blundering through a pit of toxic spores while dozens of Krath poured acid and nefarious magic on it. "Unless something changes, it's going to get where it's going to, and if Slizzl can't beat it, what then?"

"Then… I'd better get those scouts moving," Thooza gulped, cringing away from her boiling red eyes glaring down at him from atop their stalks.

"The Ancient wants this thing dead, so let's make sure of it," she said. "We can't afford to fail."

As Thooza slid off to rally the other slugs and get the word back to the Krath'lath, she turned her attention back to studying the ant. There had to be a weakness, there had to be. Nothing was immune to the corruption of the fifth, that was an immutable fact. After all, if something immune could be created, why hadn't it happened throughout all of history up to this point? It was unnatural!

No, the ant did suffer from the corruption of the fifth, but was somehow able to overcome it, to endure it. It clearly had an unbelievably fast healing speed; any injuries they dealt it vanished within seconds, its carapace regenerating as she watched it.

What she'd thought earlier? The more they attacked it, the faster it seemed to heal? As far as she could tell, it was true. As they intensified their attacks, the rate of healing only seemed to speed up.

A thought struck her.

"Cease your attacks! Spread the word!" she gurgled.

At first, the Krath under her command looked at her as if she were insane, but she merely glared at them until they obeyed.

They weren't achieving anything anyway, so they may as well check to see if her theory was correct. All Krath-led attacks on the monster ceased, dramatically reducing the fire it took.

Now they just had to wait and… Fluzzl froze in place, shocked.

The ant had turned its head and was looking directly at her. It clacked its mandibles once, twice, loud piercing sounds that shot through the tunnels like mocking laughter. Then it turned and continued on its way.

Too late to figure it out now, it was telling her.

Rage exploded in her veins. Any knowledge was good knowledge, each piece could be the one that let them kill this creature. Suppressing her anger, she slid after it.

If gradual damage and corruption wouldn't take, then they'd just have to overwhelm it all at once.

-x-X-x-

Solant, as was usually the case when she wasn't pulled away with the various demands of the Colony, or the Eldest, was examining the map. In the brief moments when she allowed herself to stop thinking about the invasion, she did like to admire the craftsantship that went into its construction. There were many things the crafters did that she didn't particularly value. Michaelangelant, in particular, was an eccentric, and in her opinion, wasteful individual.

Statues. What was the point of statues? Having the Eldest staring at her whenever she walked around a corner was distracting at best.

But this? The three dimensional map that grew and changed, a living document that perfectly replicated the terrain the Colony had claimed and over which it still fought? It was… and she hesitated to use this word… beautiful.

Perfect in function and form, she loved to study it, to let her mind whirl down the twisting passages and curved tunnels. There was truth to be found within, the solution to her problems, the breakthrough the family needed.

Victory was right there within her mandibles, she could feel it, could almost taste it.

"No need to worry, it's all taken care of."

And now, a different sensation crossed Solant's senses. An earthy scent, a hint of flame and ash, along with the un-ant sounds of fabric and metallic decorations.

"What is it that is taken care of?" Solant asked, feeling somewhat wistful thinking of her now lost moment of peace and reflection.

"The invasion," Merchant declared. "It's all taken care of."

"Oh?" Solant turned back to the map, where the many, many zones of conflict still marked all of the moulded stone. "It would have been nice if someone had told me."

Sarcasm did not come naturally to ant-kind, and Solant did not employ it now, she was simply confused.

"That's why I'm here," Merchant laughed, pulling out a thin silver case from her satchel and opening it with a soft click. "Care for a celebratory cigar?"

"I… no," Solant declined.

"Suit yourself," Merchant shrugged, removing one of the deep brown items and placing it in her mouth before snapping the case shut and putting it away. "I wanted to be the first to tell you, so it took a little longer than perhaps was necessary for the news to reach you."

"Do you plan to let me know what it is you've actually done?"

"I've got the Atreum Empire planning their first invasion of the fifth for over three hundred and seventy years," Merchant said, lighting her cigar with a snap of her claws. "Once they go, others will follow. Give it a few months and the Krath will be dealing with three or four separate invasions, not just ours."

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Merchant took a long and contented puff, her glasses glittering in the reflected light of the command centre. "You're welcome."

"For what? More problems on my plate?" Solant sighed, examining the map once more. "Three more invasions might mean relief from the Krath in the short term, but it means three competitors in the long. Are you suggesting that territory in the fifth stratum has become valuable?"

"It has," Merchant nodded, "tremendously so. Mortals don't seem to like ageing very much. Their fear of death would give Leeroy fits."

"As of this moment and far into the future, the largest holder of this immensely valuable land is the Colony," Solant pointed out. "Once the Krath are dealt with, and the Atreum Empire is consolidating their new lands, with vast armies at the ready, far more than they need to garrison their gains, what do you think might happen next?"

"That, my sister, is for you to worry about," Merchant said with a quick bow. "In the short term, I'm sure the slugs having to fend off invasions from all over the Dungeon will cause them plenty of headaches, giving you the leeway you need to finish the job here and secure our gains."

She wasn't entirely wrong. Once the Colony managed to push out the Krath and break through to the sixth, all that remained was fortifying and consolidating their territory, with possible minor battles of expansion. With the world's first safe passage through the fifth stratum, the Colony would be in prime position to descend and seize even more land below.

Of course, it was important that nobody should know that they'd broken all the way through. Too much envy directed towards the family would be destructive, to say the least.

"I'll thank you, for now," Solant said. "You delivered what you said you would. I will be sure to make the most of the advantage that you have won for us."

Merchant tipped an imaginary hat to her older sibling.

Solant's head was already spinning with the unfolding possibilities and consequences. There was a great deal that she needed to know in order to plan effectively, intelligence that needed to be gathered. Who would invade, and where? Perhaps most important of all, when? With precise timing, she could strike at the Krath when they were at their most distracted, seizing choice territory and claiming a few hearts that currently dangled just beyond her reach.

Fortification planning should begin immediately. The Fortresses had been designed for a very specific function: to act as bunkers and mana purification engines. When the fifth was entirely cleansed, large portions of their design would become obsolete and the threats they needed to defend against would completely change.

Front legs folded across her back, a pose that Solant had taken to adopting when deep in thought, she considered the future. If the Colony thought they had poured too many resources into the fifth already, they would shudder to know the cost of what was to come.

It would be worth it, however, in the end. The Colony had fought and bled and died to hold this ground, to open up a future on Pangera that none had imagined was possible. She would be damned before she let anyone take it.

"How much wealth have you managed to secure using our finds in the fifth?" she asked.

Merchant clacked her mandibles joyfully.

"A lot."

Solant nodded.

"I'm going to need more. A great deal more."

Merchant laughed.

"Now you're talking my language," she said with a wink.

-x-X-x-

I can practically feel the slugs panicking as I continue to angle towards the same direction with every branch the tunnel takes.

Gweheheheheh. Nothing you can do about it, slugs! I'm following the sludge, and in this case, the sludge never lies! It might be disgusting and horrifically lethal, but it's honest about it!

The further I go, the thicker and faster the veins of sludge pump through the spongy, fleshy walls. Billions and billions of litres of goop rush through here every day, I bet. Maybe even every hour. This won't be the only gathering place where the veins converge, but it is one of them, and I'm certain I'll find a major Krath settlement there.

Which will immediately feel my wrath!

One of the slugs following me seems to have noticed that my healing ramped up the more they hit me, a keen bit of observation, but it's too late now. The regeneration network is running hot as heck, a veritable flood of healing fluid running through my body. It's starting to wind down a bit now, but by the time it becomes a problem, I'll have reached my destination, no doubt about it.

It's actually a testament to just how deadly the environment is down here. If not for the regeneration network, I simply wouldn't have been able to produce enough healing fluid to keep me alive. The environment itself is so unbelievably acidic, eating into my carapace and legs, chewing into my joints to an absurd degree. Healing fluid surges through my body like liquid ice, dispersing through my muscles, tendons, carapace and legs, repairing the damage almost as soon as it happens.

With the sheer volume of damage I've been taking from the slugs and monsters on top, I've taken enough punishment to kill me multiple times over since I entered these lungs.

Never thought I'd find myself thanking Theorazzn for anything, but holy moly, the regeneration network is… uh… pretty good.

Luckily there's plenty of ants within range of the Vestibule in order to stop feeling fatigue, which is apparently a thing that this much healing can do.

Right now, I feel completely fine, full of beans and ready to dance.

Which is lucky, because I think I've found what I'm looking for.

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I notice that several truly chunky tubes come together up ahead of me, each of them absolutely bulging and pulsating with the sheer volume of sludge moving through them. These things are massive, each of them twenty metres in diameter, coming together into one mega-tube. There's so much goop being forced through the pipe that I can hear it, a deafening, disgusting roar of mucus and muck that sets my antennae to twitching from the force of the vibrations.

Which means, if I head up this way, then I should exit the lungs right about the same place as this huge pipe-thing.

Digging my legs into the diseased, spongy flesh of the walls, I start to haul myself upwards, but I find it incredibly difficult to achieve. Too spongy to properly bear my weight even if they were healthy, the porous flesh just rips away when I try to exert any force, so I resort to using another Gravity Well and lifting myself up that way.

It's not that I object to floating majestically through the air, I just don't want to use any more than I have to. Although I have enormous reserves, and the Everflow Wellspring to make more, I'm a long way from safety right now and feel like conserving resources is the smart play.

Once I lift off and begin my ascent, I tuck my legs in under my carapace and begin the painstaking process of navigating the remaining tunnel. I'll say one thing about flying via Gravity Well, it isn't all that maneuverable.

Krath continue to wiggle about in my wake, keeping an eye on me, but no longer trying to attack, which must be making them furious. I take joy in the suffering that I imagine they are experiencing and do not feel shame for it.

As I thought, there isn't much tunnel left and finally, startlingly, I'm free from the lungs. Thank heck! I've been running around in that labyrinth of death for ages.

When I emerge, I find myself inside a large, wide tunnel, the sort I got used to seeing in the upper levels of the fifth. A kilometre or more wide and hundreds of metres tall, it's a huge cavernous space that, when I check my tunnel map, seems to lie right beneath the cursed lakes that blocked my progress before. As expected, those lakes were filled by the Krath using their limitless mucus supply out of the lungs! Doubtless it's where they've been sourcing the vast quantities of slime they've been trying to drown the nearby fortress with also.

There is one major thing that differentiates this tunnel from those I saw above, and it's not just the much higher level of mana density and the resultant increase in toxicity and overall yuckiness, but the massive artery full of vile sludge rising up through the tunnel floor and into the wall is rather hard to miss.

The other thing that's hard to miss is the large gathering of Krath who think they're hidden behind some presumably elaborate illusions. I can see them plainly, which is nice, but I can also see the dread magic that they've been working and managed to cunningly conceal from my senses to this point, which looks like a mega-doom-sphere of truly large proportions.

A trap. There's always a trap with these slugs!

-x-X-x-

I mean… the theory is pretty straightforward, right? It's extremely difficult to hurt me with damage over time. Piling up incremental hits, bit of acid here, chunk of poison there, doesn't get the job done. Not with the Regeneration Network and the Pure Core hard at work restoring my pristine carapace and eliminating stray wisps of corruption.

So, what to do? Although it might seem like a difficult proposition, the answer is actually quite simple: just hit me all at once with enough damage to finish the job.

It appears as though the slugs want to attempt this strategy, right here and now. I'm not a fan.

No sooner am I aware of the threat than it becomes very, very imminent. Not wanting to give me any time, the slugs spring their trap and launch their ball of infinite ickiness right at my face.

Although it doesn't howl as if the world was ending like any proper Doom Sphere should, it's still intimidating as heck to have such an incredibly dense ball of mana flung at me. If this thing hits, I might actually be cooked.

Not going to let that happen!

Turning around on the spot, I Dash, dumping energy out of the Altar to empower the Skill. Legs screaming in agony, I vanish from the point I occupied and go screaming through the tunnel for several hundred metres at truly ludicrous speeds.

It's all I can do to arrest my own momentum and come to a stop, putting even further strain on my tattered joints and ligaments. Those are going to take a bit of healing before they're back to full operational capacity, at least I hopefully dodged the—oh my snot!

Perhaps the Krath are bad at aiming, perhaps they're incredibly smart and deliberately overshot the mark anticipating I would escape in this direction, or perhaps this spell is so destructive, they just threw it in my general direction.

Whatever the case, I'm not out of the blast zone yet!

It looms over me, the biggest and most deadly nose plug to have ever existed. A ball of hyper-condensed corrupted mana, it glows green and yellow, like nuclear mucus, chunks of unspeakable stuff roiling through the ball as it draws closer.

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Man, I'm not a fan of doing this.

No choice but to go for it. I crouch a little lower, brace my legs and Dash once more. Again, the Altar's energy drops low as I draw upon it to empower the Skill. Predictably, so soon after an initial burst, my legs simply aren't able to hold on. Ichor and gore explodes off the sides of my carapace as my legs, too damaged to save, are ejected from my body. With nothing to support my weight, I crash to the ground and slide on the underside of my carapace, the uncountable parasites of the fifth trying to nibble on me and find a way through my exo-skeleton.

Vestigial legs burst out of me, rapidly growing as they flex and harden. It'll be a little while before they can properly support my weight, and a little while beyond that before they reach full size and strength. Using the still-growing nubs, I painstakingly scrabble at the soft tunnel floor to turn a little and see what's going on behind me.

Oh heck!

I did indeed manage to get out of the blast zone, which is good. The ball of muck has landed several hundred metres behind me. Less good is the way it has, much like a pustule, burst into a tidal wave of unmentionable nastiness that is rapidly, well, rapidly for mucus, washing my way.

Dangit!

My legs aren't nearly large enough to support me, but I scratch and scrape away desperately, each limb barely long enough to reach the ground. Forced to act, I raise the industrial zone and blast off four quick shots of my hyper-potent acid. It sizzles through the air, already expanding and multiplying as it streaks towards the oncoming tide.

The slugs must have been working on this spell for a pretty good while. I don't think I've seen them cast something this powerful and dense. The sphere itself couldn't have been larger than thirty or forty metres across, but the amount of sludge released from within would occupy a volume a hundred times that size, maybe a thousand, and it's still growing.

To my senses, it's probably the closest thing to Theorazzn's mana that I've encountered here in the fifth, outside of that pool I was dunked in before my evolution. Still a pale shadow of the real thing, it's enough to make my carapace crawl as it hisses and sizzles towards me. If I'd been hit by that, I would have melted away to nothing in a matter of seconds.

My acid isn't going to be enough to stop it, though hopefully they'll eat each other for a little while, buying me some precious time.

Time which I use to start pulling together a gravity bomb. Is it a good idea to throw out one of these when I can barely move and the target is dangerously close to me? Probably not! Do I have a choice? Not really!

Lousy slugs. I'll get them for this!

-x-X-x-

With the kind of mental muscle I'm currently packing, throwing together a gravity bomb isn't nearly the struggle it used to be. Nor does it take that long. Taking hold of a massive chunk of mana is a strain, but it's certainly doable. However, pulling one out in a matter of seconds is starting to toe up against a few limits! Crunching it down in a hurry is enough to make my brains start to steam, each mind construct pushing until they start to fray at the edges.

Behind me, my acid is doing its thing, but there's no way it can compete with a consuming force even more potent than itself. My industrial goods put up a good fight, but it won't be long until they're overwhelmed and the tide of impossibly dense mucus comes for me.

Each passing second, my legs grow a little stronger and I get that little bit more forward momentum, but it's not fast enough to get me clear. I'm going to have to go for the close range gravity bomb, a rather perilous prospect.

Not that I have a choice, though!

Trying to gauge the strength of the bomb as carefully as I can, I fire it off while continuing to scrabble and scrape on the ground with my too-small legs. Howling into existence, the bomb sweeps away from me, smashing into the mucus wave all too soon and expanding.

The horrible suction takes hold of me, but I'm relieved, and then worried when I realise it almost immediately begins to lessen. Despite how quickly I threw it together, that gravity bomb had a bit of heft in it! To think it's already getting chewed up.

Looking behind me, I can see that the bomb, despite expanding to its full size, has already been enveloped by the mucus, cutting off the howl of wind being pulled into it. Am I going to need to pull together another one?!

Rather than risk life and limb by throwing a stronger bomb at an even shorter range, I decide to do something a little different and pull together a Gravity Well. If I can't hold back the tide, I should try and lift myself over it! This holds the added benefit of minimised risk of destroying myself.

There is a drawback, however, which is that it takes longer as it's a much more complicated spell to put together!

Despite how proficient I've become at throwing these things together under pressure, they are still massively, massively complex constructs with thousands and thousands of individual components. Even with three dozen mind constructs spinning one out, it takes time to make sure the thing is done correctly!

If even a single line is out of place, the dang thing doesn't work!

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It's a close run thing in the end. I race to pull the spell together, and by the time it's complete and I'm able to lift myself up, my back end is being sizzled by insanely potent mucus.

It eats through the first few inches of my carapace in a matter of seconds before I'm able to lift my business empire up and out of the way.

Phew! That was close!

I swiftly manipulate the well to pull me up and forward above the tide of slime as it oozes and spreads through the tunnel. Beneath me, everything that the gunk touches is just obliterated, even the parasites who emerge from the tunnel floor to try and wriggle and worm away from their impending doom.

With a little room to breathe, I flex my new legs and take stock of my situation. As far as surprise attacks go, that was rather successful on behalf of the Krath. They're still there, several kilometres down the tunnel behind me. If they were actually nearby to follow up, I'd be in a bit of trouble right now.

Which… come to think of it, doesn't make much sense. From my experience, the Krath are relentlessly sneaky pains in the backside. There's no way they would spring a trap and not have some sort of follow up in case I survived. Plans within plans, that's how they roll.

Immediately, I'm on my guard, rising up higher and spinning together some defensive magic while I focus on my senses. There's got to be something out there, I just haven't noticed it yet.

Where are you, sneaky slug back-up plan?

As it turns out, I'm quite correct in my assumptions. I spend so long trying to sweep around and find the tiny gravitational eddies of individual slugs that I almost miss the gigantic monster closing in on my position.

I'm so late to the party I actually see it before I sense it. Arriving in a non-traditional way, it extrudes itself through the wall of the tunnel, and at first I think I'm looking at a corrupted version of Crinis.

Uncountable thousands of tentacle-like limbs emerge from the tunnel wall, writhing and seeking as they blindly feel the air. They get longer and longer as yet more emerge, covering a section of tunnel hundreds of metres long. I back up a little, wondering if I should turn tail and rush back toward the Krath rather than deal with this thing, but dismiss the idea. I could end up fighting the slugs and this beast at the same time.

No need, I'll back myself and stay put, even if this monster does feel like it's going to pose quite a challenge. Feeling its core drawing closer, it blazes with power. This is a tier eight beast at least, possibly even tier nine if its core hasn't been fully maxed along the way.

This might be tricky….

When its body finally emerges through the tunnel, oozing through as if it were half liquid, half solid, and it plops down onto the tunnel floor with a massive impact, I'm still not sure what I'm looking at.

There are so many tentacles in the way, it's hard to see its actual body.

Well, in the meantime, try eating a gravity bomb.

HOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWLLLLL!!!!!

If you're going to take that long to arrive, don't blame me for making use of the planning time!