Chapter 1598 – The Prize

“Have you found it yet?” Chozth demanded.

There were a dozen, valid, excuses that Zluth could make, but he knew that each and every one of them would get him killed. Instead, he simply said “no”, and waited.

As expected, the powerful Krath boiled with raw fury, her eyes bulging atop their stalks and her flesh visibly popping with acidic detonations. Her lips pulled back to reveal her fangs, and Zluth knew he was on the verge of death, yet Chozth managed to master herself just in time.

Her self-control was incredibly impressive, and rare for a slug of her station and appetite. If he’d had to report to anyone else, he’d have been on the run already, or worked harder to find someone else to report in his place. Thanks to Chozth, he could remain in charge, and take the credit he was rightfully due, while also surviving to the end of this mess.

“That thing killed many of my strongest slugs,” Chozth forced out between her clenched fangs. “Do not lose it.”

“We’re close,” he told her, feeling confident enough to speak, but only softly. “The mucus is thick and incredibly toxic, but we almost have it.”

“Go. Don’t come back without it.”

Not needing anything else to be said, Zluth turned around and dashed away. Any more time in the presence of the furious Krath’lath was a risk he wasn’t willing to take. All of the tribe leaders were furious. The plan had been well thought out, and executed well. Using the weakness of the ant, its unwillingness to sacrifice the lessers of its kind to ensure its own survival, had been key. What they hadn’t accounted for was the creature’s power. That final bite had punched straight through the Krath defences and devastated such a wide area that almost everyone had been caught in the blast.

He shuddered to recall it. The blinding light, the force of the impact alone had been enough to blow his eye-stalks back, then came the fire…

He shook his head. There was no need to dwell on it, the ant was either incapacitated or dead by now. All he needed to do was retrieve it.

Moving carefully, Zluth began to make his way back down the narrow passage the scouts had carved to access the depths of this emptiness the ants had created. Despite himself, he couldn’t help but be impressed by what the invaders had made. Their fortress existed like an egg surrounded by a pocket of empty space. The construction itself wasn’t what drew his reluctant admiration, but the sheer scale of it. Despite moving as quickly as he could down the mucus-slick passage, it took hours to get to the right level.

A vast reservoir of mucus had formed at the bottom of the ant fortress. It appeared as though they might have prepared for something like this to happen, given the space they had left available down here, along with the drainage they’d constructed, but like everyone who came here, they’d underestimated the fifth. The sheer acidity and volume of the mucus had eaten into the stone and collapsed several of the tunnels, blocking up the works. No longer draining as fast as it was filling, the underside of the invaders base was rapidly transforming into an ocean of deadly mucus.

Floating somewhere in all of that, the ant would be found.

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When he returned to the rest of the scouts, huddling to the wall above the enormous, deadly slime, they gave him surprised and envious glances. It was clear they hadn’t expected to see him alive after reporting their failure. He grinned savagely at them.

Underestimate me again and you’ll be food, he thought, satisfied as the worst of them turned away, unable to match his gaze.

“Back again?” noted Bluzoth, an old slug.

The younger, more ambitious ones were holding back, waiting to see the lay of the land before trying to make a potential grab for power. Bluzoth was too old to bother with it anymore. Resigned to her death, she was the exact opposite of Goszi. No longer scheming and squirming to stay alive, she just tried to do what was asked of her and get back to the slimeground to rest.

As if to match her lack of fight, her body had shrivelled, leaving her as one of the thinnest and smallest Krath Zluth had ever seen. For all that, she was tenacious and intelligent, which was why he’d put her in charge in his absence.

“I’m not easy to kill. Have we found it yet?”

“Yes.”