Chapter 107 (Patreon)

Author Note: Chapter 1/3 today. I'm sorry, it's not a bonus day, just posting two chapters in advance :)

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Ogras picked out a crystal from his pouch and closed his eyes for a few seconds as he held it tightly.

“This is a communication crystal. The other end of the tunnel is a hundred meters in. We believe it’s the core room of the Queen. There are four more things walking around in the room according to Herod, the smallest of them almost as heavy as the Titans judging by the vibrations caused when it’s walking. These things seem very vigilant, they started running around when we spoke earlier. We believe that they are the Royal Guards.

“Rivea is dead. We fell into a vat of acid and she didn’t make it. We found this place through Herod, and he also sensed your footsteps approaching. Everyone apparently has a unique vibration, and he recognized yours. I was planning on heading further into the tunnel to scout it out before we found you. Stay here and I’ll check things out.”

Zac opened his eyes and after mulling the information over a bit nodded his head toward Ogras, who melded into the shadows. As he waited for the demon to come back he properly looked over the teammates. Apart from Herod the other two looked mostly okay, though they both sported somber expressions.

Zac couldn’t help but agree the situation wasn’t ideal. When they made their plans before the assault, they had escape as an option. That was pretty much the only reason they managed to get Rivea and Herod to join, as they both were clearly unwilling to enter the belly of the beast.

They thought that while the structure was large, in a panicked rush where Zac and Ogras didn’t hold back, they could be out in a minute or two even if they were forced to mow through an army of ants. They didn’t expect the inside to be this gigantic. Now that they also had fallen who knows how far down he wasn’t even sure how to get out. Their backs really were against the wall.

Soon Ogras came back and took out another crystal. This one actually displayed a window, but different from the one he borrowed long ago with the information, this window was actually visible for everyone. Zac started looking at the pouch of the demon, wondering what other goodies he kept for himself in there. He already knew that the space inside should be huge since he could throw a whole fishing vessel into it without any problem.

Zac quickly refocused and studied the screen. It was a still image of a large cavern. The whole surface was riddled with tubes that emerged from various tunnels much like the one they were in. They covered the ground and the roof, leaving almost no space free. The tubes converged in the middle of the cave and were latched to a huge green crystal.

Zac had never seen a core of a monster before, but if that wasn’t it then he’d be extremely surprised. The core was guarded by four monstrous ants as Ogras already explained, and they each covered a direction. Interestingly enough they all looked somewhat different from each other.

Two of them looked like supercharged versions of the Mantis and Titan respectively. The titan was the closest to their tunnel and was a huge hulking thing much larger than an elephant. One of its arms was a gigantic shield, and the other looked like a large mallet. Distinctively from the normal ants this thing actually had at least ten pairs of short legs. Perhaps only three pairs wouldn’t be able to carry its weight.

The mantis-looking ant had long serrated blades for front arms, and its long and graceful build seemed built for speed. It was nowhere as large as the hulking centerpede-ant, but still larger than the normal Titans.

The other two Royal Guards were a bit different from any ants they’d seen so far. One of them seemed barely mobile, as it almost exclusively consisted of a head. It did have a body, but it looked small and almost shriveled, and Zac didn’t understand how the small frame could keep the head floating, as the head alone was as large as the mantis guard.

The size wasn’t the only odd thing about the head, as it also had a great number of eyes. The one in its forehead was enormous, and Zac guessed that it was at least as large as himself. The other eyes were generally placed along the main eye, but some seemed to be looking in different directions. He felt it was lucky that Ogras was the one doing recon, as this thing would probably have noticed him even if he made no sound.

The last guard was mostly hidden behind the crystal, but Zac felt that it almost looked like a spider rather than an ant. It was comprised by a large bulbous torso, with long legs sticking out from it. He couldn’t see any head though and had no real idea of how it looked.

Ogras made a motion toward Zac and with a start he handed over the communication crystal. Ogras once again closed his eyes for a few seconds and then handed it over to Zac.

“The green crystal obviously is the core. I say we try an ambush where we destroy the crystal before the guards can react. Zac and I both blast it with the strongest strike we can instantly summon. Me from left, and Zac from the right. We’ll bypass that huge bugger by both sides. Alea and Janos try to delay the guard's reaction time as much as possible. Herod, stay in the tunnels, try to sense whether reinforcements arrive.

“We stay silent until the first attack is finished, and depending on the outcome we take it from there. Hopefully, the attack will destroy the core, and we can choose whether to kill the guards as well or flee. Each of them should net quite a bit of Contribution points, so we should kill them if possible”

“We only have one shot of this, nod if you agree and is ready, then hand the crystal to the next person,” Ogras voice echoed inside Zac’s head.

Zac thought it over as he looked at the still displaying image of the core room for a few seconds. The huge tank-ant was the one closest to their tunnel. The plan meant that Zac would go to the right of it, which would place him between the tank and the large-headed one, whereas Ogras would rush in next to the sword-wielding ant. He mulled it over and felt that it was a decent proposal.

Ogras was more suited to dodging quick swings from a sword than him with the help of his Dao and Class. Zac himself was pretty nimble nowadays with the help of [Loamwalker], but it was nothing compared to the demon and his shadow dancing. The large head was likely some sort of mage if he had to guess, and between his huge endurance and defensive option on his armor he should be able to withstand at least one blast without problem before he reached the crystal.

All four of those things looked quite dangerous, but he was already mentally prepared for a tough fight. He nodded and passed the crystal to Alea. After a while, everyone had listened to the instructions and agreed with the plan. They slowly made their way forward until they were just ten meters away from the exit into the core room.

Everyone steadied their breaths for a few seconds before Zac and Ogras nodded at each other. Ogras already held his black spear and Zac was tightly gripping [Verun’s Bite]. Ogras started blending into the shadows as he speedily moved forward, and Zac unhesitantly activated his movement skill and moved toward the exit as well.

Footsteps behind them told that the others were following in tow, but Zac had no time to think about that.

The tunnel exit was two meters above the ground, and Zac immediately dropped to the floor and started rapidly moving forward. The Royal guards were obviously alert as a deep penetrating screech erupted from the large one that was the closest. The huge armored centi-ant felt even larger as Zac saw it in person, towering even higher than the Fiend wolf.

The Royal Guard immediately stared moving its throng of small chubby legs as it moved toward him, as it seemed it didn’t notice Ogras in his shadows. Zac kept infusing cosmic energy into his feet and luckily his skill worked inside the hive queen as well, even though he was technically standing on a body part of a supersized insect rather than the ground. He quickly moved forward through the huge cave, and as he did a blazing cacophony of colors and sounds erupted above him, pushing like a wave toward the guard.

It was Janos who clearly held nothing back as he pushed out a blanket of distraction. A sweet smell in the air that almost made Zac giddy was a sign that Alea had released something that added to the confusion air as well. Suddenly a huge pressure slammed into Zac as he ran, and he almost stumbled and fell. A quick glance showed that all the numerous eyes of the gigantic head ant were glaring at him.

The pressure wasn’t physical, but rather a mental pressure. Only the stare made him feel like he was carrying a mountain, but he could also see that the eyes were starting to shine with a green luster. Luckily the crystal was close, and he pushed an extreme amount of cosmic energy into his legs. He pushed away and shot like a cannon toward the crystal. From the moment he exited the tunnel until now only a bit more than a second had passed, and the huge guards barely had time to start their attacks.

Zac charged up a five-meter edge with [Chop] and flooded the fractal edge with the Dao of Heaviness since he wanted the crystal to crack. Ideally, he’d have wanted to use both his offensive Daos, but he still couldn’t infuse both of them into a single strike yet.

The large edge slammed into the crystal with the force of a runaway train, as the growls from the teeth on this axe menacingly echoed in the cave. Ogras materialized at the other side almost at the same time, and with a furious stab slammed the spear straight into the other side of the crystal. As he did a beam of darkness erupted from the spear and also hit the target like a laser of darkness.

A crackling sound was heard, but Zacs eyebrows rose when he saw that the crystal was completely undamaged. The crackling sound came from the huge tank, who had gotten two wounds on its torso as it stumbled and almost fell.

“SHIT! Life-bound protection! The core is shielded with the lifeforce of the guards, we need to kill at least the large fucker before we can damage it,” Ogras screamed as he quickly distanced himself from the crystal as the mantis-guard was rapidly approaching.

Zac was about to do the same, but a terrifying force slammed into his back and shot him forward straight toward the descending sword of the sword-wielding guard.