Chapter 1522 – Zombie Soldier

Leeroy had never felt stronger. Power coursed through her immense frame. Her musculature thrummed with energy, her mandibles gleamed with indescribable sharpness. Her carapace… had not been improved at all. Why would she bother spending her precious evolutionary energy on it, anyway? The Colony insisted on decking her out with increasingly more powerful armour, after all!

Indeed, once Smithant had discovered her newly evolved form, Leeroy had been forced to sit and wait while she was measured, weighed, and a new suit of armour was painstakingly constructed, enchanted and fitted. All the while, the smith had muttered and mumbled in Leeroy’s ear, warning her not to do something stupid.

Of course she wasn’t going to do something stupid! She was going to do the smartest and best thing it was possible for an ant to do! Sacrifice herself for the glory of the Colony! And now, in her powerful, tier seven form, fully armoured and with her sisters by her side, she felt she could achieve an end truly worthy of the Colony’s investment in her.

“FORWARD, SISTERS!” she bellowed.

“WE SEEK!”

“DESTROY THE FILTH THAT ATTEMPTS TO DEFILE OUR PLATFORM! RAISE THE RELIQUARY HIGH! ADVANCE!”

There was no glorious charge, no headlong assault into the breach, for that would be assured destruction, which was apparently not allowed. Instead, the Immortals marched out in their armoured glory onto the platform and pushed themselves to the front lines.

The Colony was fighting a fully defensive war, which made heavy-assault troops of limited use, but while the Eldest was asleep, the Immortals would place themselves between their siblings and the danger that loomed all around. Indeed, they would put their bodies on the line to the point they were no longer able, finally freed from their burdens!

Leeroy could feel her spirit fortified by the blessed presence of the reliquary, and she gladly pushed herself in front, right in the heart of the monster assault.

What confronted her was a wall of mucus, sludge and vomit. It looked like heaven.

“Get behind me!” she declared before throwing herself in front of a wave of slime being spewed forth by a worm-slug five metres wide. Despite being as resistant to acid and toxin as the Colony could make it, her armour still steamed under the onslaught, and some leaked through to burn into her carapace.

Leeroy embraced the pain, welcomed it. The first tick of HP she lost sent a thrill running down her antennae. She was going to do it. Today was the day!

Snapping her mandibles viciously, she gripped the worm and heaved, pulling it back into the cleansed mana before using her body to pin it down. The wretched creature writhed like an eel, but she held it firm, even while it disgorged acidic slime that sizzled and burned. When the monster had finally burned away, she turned to seek the next challenge, a fire burning in her heart.

Stolen story; please report.

In her heart, but crucially not in her Phoenix Flame Organ! Normally, whenever she suffered, whenever she took damage, the cursed organ was there, filling up, gaining power, just waiting for her to finally collapse so it could release the pent up energy and bring her back from the brink.

No, it had been completely replaced within her body; she was freed from that abysmal, cursed organ.

Now she was a Fallen Zombie Soldier! No longer inflicted with the dreadful Phoenix Flame Organ, but blessed with the Eternal Zombie Fungus, whatever that was.

It didn’t matter to her.

A massive turtle monster reared up from the river of slime, mouth agape with six leech-like tongues spitting parasites everywhere.