Chapter 1521 – Fortress Interior

The inside of the fortress has become an interesting place since the wave started. After I take my requisite eight hours of rest, satisfying my own standards and getting the three human children off my case, I decide to poke about the inside for a few minutes, just to see what’s going on. To be specific, I want to see what was going on particularly in the upper and outer layers.

The tunnels are packed full of ants and militia, running to reinforce one of the platforms, or on their way back from one. It’s weird the way we defend this fortress. There’s no manning the walls or any such thing down here, all we have to do is defend the platforms. Mana is flooding in through the channels now as more and more wuffer stations come online, stuffing the fortress full of cleansed mana and keeping us safe from the toxic nightmare outside.

However, it’s exactly that cleansed environment that I’m curious about. Although the mana veins that normally distribute energy have been peeled and folded away inside the walls of the fortress, that doesn’t mean spawn points can’t form. In fact, the cleansed mana is so dense now, and continuing to thicken, that I’m convinced it has started to create a whole new type of monster.

When I appear in the upper levels, the last place I saw the little critters running around, I happen to bump into exactly the ant I was hoping to see: Bella.

I mean, Ellie would have also been fine.

“Bella! How is one of my two favourite core shapers going today?” I greet her cheerfully.

The normally chipper ant waggles her antenna disapprovingly.

“You shouldn’t play favourites, Eldest. The Queens never do, and neither should you.”

“I’m not a Queen!” I defend myself. “You’re my siblings, not my children!”

“Even so,” she replies, a little snippily, “you’re the Eldest.”

“Alright, fine. I suppose you have a point.”

I reach out and prod her with an antenna.

“So, what’s got you so frazzled?”

Bella sighs heavily.

“It’s the monsters that are spawning up here. Ellie and I have been trying to study them, now that we have some spare time from wuffer management, but it’s proving to be a bit of a pain.”

“How so? Can’t you just fight some, grab a core and get all the information you want?”

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“Normally, yes,” she says, frustrated, “but for some reason, it isn’t quite working out like it normally would. We’re getting more and more monsters spawning at various points around the fortress, but mostly up here, for some reason, so you’d think there would be enough for them to fight each other, get levels and get cores, but they aren’t.”

“Aren’t getting cores?”

“Aren’t fighting each other! Not that much, at least.”

I’m confused.