Chapter 1472 – Upset the Natural Order

“What is happening?!” Zluth raged.

“How would I know?” Gozsi spat back. “I’ve never seen anything like this!”

The ants behind them continued their charge, seemingly inexhaustible and unafraid.

“This was your strategy Goszi!”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know the ants were hiding an entire army of mana-shielded maniacs. Did you?!”

“Of course not!”

Zluth continued to slide as fast as he could, dragging the comatose, captured ant behind with Gozsi’s help. If the others hadn’t gotten into position in time…

Aha! He saw the signal! Gugugugugug! A patch of moss ahead had been disturbed, the natural pattern altered slightly, the agreed upon sign.

“Come on, Goszi, a burst up here and we should be in the clear. Get ready to dive for the slime river.”

“Fine,” the old Krath wheezed.

The moment they cleared the moss patch, Zluth’s waiting allies released the monsters they’d gathered, urging them into the path of the oncoming ants. It wasn’t that many, but it would delay their pursuers just enough for them to dive into the slime river and get some distance.

Goszi and Zluth hauled their captive into the mucus-filled river and set off, gliding across the surface at a much faster pace than before. Filled with glee, Zluth looked over his shoulder to see how the ants were faring.

He was just in time to see the ants blast through the monsters of the fifth as if they weren’t even there. When the leaders of the charge hit, the front rank of native beasts was blasted back as if they’d been slapped by a giant, then the rest were simply trampled as the ants marched right over the top of them. Monsters popped like goop balloons, sending toxic sludge and deadly parasites scrambling all over the attackers, but the ants carried on as if they simply didn’t care. Shielded by their protective bubbles of cursed blue energy, the invaders barely slowed down and now were right on his heels!

Zluth was infuriated. Gozsi’s layered strategy had been just the right sort of cunning, and though it had required enormous amounts of preparation, it had worked. For the first time, the ants had been truly rattled. Even though the big one had appeared, Zluth had still managed to escape with a captive. If he got this ant back to Chozth, he’d be a hero. Perhaps he’d even receive another promotion.

What he hadn’t expected was just how ferociously the ants would try to retrieve their lost member.

“Dive! They won’t follow us!” he sizzled to Goszi.

The old slug was too tired to reply and just nodded. The two slugs compressed their bodies down to slimy arrows and flung themselves into the mucus.

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BAM! BAM! BAM!

Right behind him, the first of the metal-encased forms flung themselves into the river, their huge bodies displacing the sludge and sending it flowing over the banks.

What in the…

Zluth barely had time to think before more came, diving headfirst into the deadly sludge. They were using the previous ants as a launch pad, getting further into the river with each mindless jump.