Chapter 1403 – Bombs Away

The Krath’lath couldn’t wait to see the ant melt into goop once the tide of red mucus arrived. Seeded with the incredibly potent red-rust moss, it was capable of dissolving even the Krath. The ant wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Clack all you want!” she screamed down at it. “You’ll be soup soon enough!”

And she would feed the muck to the Blubbeasts, letting them grow fat on the Biomass!

The big ant couldn’t hear or understand her, but it paid no mind to the Krath who watched from beyond its reach, focusing all its attention toward the oncoming wave. The smaller ants continued to ignore the approaching disaster, rapidly establishing their platform as the blue mana continued to expand further and further.

Already, some of the needle-eels had perished trying to fling themselves into the evil mana. The moment their elongated bodies touched it, they began to boil away, dissolving to nothing before they had gotten further than a few metres. It was disturbing to see, and it only strengthened the hate boiling within the Krath’lath. It was the enemy that was supposed to melt in this place, not the other way around!

Her eyes turned back to the big ant as it opened its mandibles wide. She leaned forward, wondering what it hoped to do. Perhaps she would get a proper glimpse of the magic it had been using before?

Gugugugug. If it wasn’t capable of eating away the regular mucus, how could it hope to match the weight of this oncoming wave?

She saw the ant brace itself and mocked it in her heart. Then—

HOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWLLLLLLL!!!!

Like a raging demon, the spell erupted from before the massive ant and screamed down the corridor. The Krath’lath was forced to use her foot to grip onto the stone platform tighter as the air around her was whipped away, pulled towards the orb of darkness even as it sped away.

“What is THAT?!” she tried to roar, but the howling wind snatched the words straight out of her mouth.

Down the tunnel, the darkness raced until it met the oncoming wave and vanished inside. Immediately, the horrific sound was cut off, and the Krath’lath felt a surge of contempt. That feeling rapidly vanished as chaos exploded down the length of the tunnel.

The oncoming wave was immediately obliterated as a sphere of pure nothing expanded to fill the entire width of the tunnel. A ripple raced through the air, then blasted past the watching Krath, followed a second later by a raging wind that put the earlier gale to shame.

As one, the Krath flattened themselves down, compressing their slug flesh to its most dense as they pressed their bodies against the stone. The drag of the screeching wind was one thing, but there was another, even more frightening pull that threatened to rip them from their perches and send them hurtling down the tunnel and into the void.

Even the giant ant had vanished down into the thick mucus again, no doubt to anchor itself against the forces it had unleashed.

On and on it went, the Krath’lath going so far as to fully retract her stalks lest they be ripped away by that invisible force. Which meant she was totally blind as the spell rampaged. Even if she couldn’t see, she could feel the impact of that dread magic. The stone groaned and shuddered beneath her, jumping and rocking as sections were torn away and consumed.

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When it finally ended, the gathered slugs slowly expanded themselves to see what had happened.

What they saw… was ants.

Hordes of them. Had they shielded themselves from the spell somehow? With rising anger, the Krath’lath watched as more and more of the creatures descended into the fifth stratum, pouring out of the vertical shaft and dropping down. The blue mana had spread much further than before, burning through the remaining mucus and reaching the tunnel floor. Ants swarmed over the exposed ground, already building, shaping, constructing, as other, larger monsters defended the expanding border of the blue mana in rows.

Then the giant ant was there, looking up at them, those giant mandibles clacking ominously. It shouldn’t have known they were there, shouldn’t have been able to sense them at all….

Had it heard her scream?