The hollow wounds in the Bullet Ant Soldiers were riddled with wriggling black masses of zombie ants, and Sparrow watched as the three of them were reanimated—the symbiosis of ant and fungus jerking their corpses around like puppets hung on wires.

  He’d heard rumours that all Twelve Forward Army Generals had the exact same class, and that the class could only be obtained after surviving an encounter with ‘Regalia’, the Greater Insect God of the South, and absorbing her bioarcanic essence so they'd be given the option to choose the Zombie Ant Class for their Class Mutation Selection. He’d also heard rumours that Regalia was a zombie ant, but he’d never believed in people being able to come back from the dead. It was as preposterous a concept as believing in biomagic like making wormholes that could defy space and time… but here he was, lying on the snow with a bloody waist, and here the General was, raising an arm and single-handedly commanding a hundred more undead soldiers atop the ramparts.

  It was his Swarmblood Art: the biomagic to transmute his blood into zombie ants, control them, and bring the dead back to life with his bioarcanic essence.

  Immediately, he shifted his weight backwards and warped—eight metres instead of the usual ten. His waist screamed out in pain and he grimaced, looking down at his wound. His proliferating septa mutation was keeping him from bleeding out, but the bullet was still stuck inside, and was moving. Digging through his flesh. Twirling around his ribs. He tried to stand to no avail. He only managed to warp another eight metres backwards as the General walked slowly forward, keeping his army poised and ready to fire.

  “... From Kuraku’s observation reports, it would appear you Worm Mages have two manners of ‘warping’ through space,” the General said calmly. “One, you carve a ‘wormhole’ in space and create a ‘door’ that connects two spaces together. Maintaining it appears to drain you and requires plentiful concentration to accomplish. Your second option is much more convenient, where you seemingly, unconsciously, open an extremely short-lived wormhole that you can throw yourself through, but with this method, Kuraku reported you being able to warp a maximum of ten metres at once. That you can warp only eight metres now means physical pain is a deterrent capable of slowing your movements.”

  There was no point taking out his rifle. He didn’t have any anti-chitin bullets loaded, and he had no idea if there was even any point shooting back at any of the soldiers—if they were already dead, how much damage would he have to do to their bodies just to keep them down? he even keep them down permanently? How many zombie ants could the General summon, and how much of their bodies could he reconstruct with his zombie ants?

  Were there any limitations to his Swarmblood Art?

  No. There was no point thinking about it. Escaping was the smarter option here. He had to stand—

  Just as the hundred soldiers fired in an eight metre radius around him, making sure there’d be no escaping for him even if he tried to warp, someone darted in and quickly warped him out of the death volley.

  It was a fifteen metre warp.

  he mumbled, wincing as the former scout slung him over her back, her eyes glaring at the General far in front of them.

  she breathed, turning round to begin sprinting, warping, dodging volleys of bullets as they streaked through the blizzard and slammed into the snow all around. he doing? How are the Bullet Ant Soldiers standing up? What did he—”

  he rasped, glancing behind him to open several bullet-sized wormholes, warping a few shots away from them. can with that Swarmblood Art. The Hagi’Shar Forward Army was never going to lose this campaign in the first place.”

  He heard Minki grinding her teeth.

  “Your abilities are not all-powerful, Sparrow!” the General bellowed, his voice tearing through the blizzard and making Minki shiver. “The Whiteworm Class systems will not remain as mere fairy tales! Your abilities will be unmade and understood! Surrender thirty Worm Mages to us by daybreak tomorrow for research, and I will not press your village any longer!”

  And that was a declaration of war if Sparrow had ever heard one.

  Through the blizzard, Minki carried him all the way back to the base of the mountains, and the Hagi’Shar Forward Amy began to rumble as it moved.

  Unsurprisingly, the Worm Mages were all peering over the edge of the slope as Minki finally clawed her way up to the village, and by then, of them were utterly shaken—Sparrow from the bullet still lodged in his waist, and Minki from having been warping for at least twelve hours straight.

  The former scout fell on her face the moment they reached the village, and immediately, a dozen elders warped them both into the closest communal kitchen. The stoves were still lit, pots and pans still bubbling with leftovers from dinner; this was probably the warmest room in the entire village. As the elders shouted at the youngest of the young to seal the windows and drag a few mattresses in, Ninmah hoisted him onto a table for the time being, pressing the back of her hand on his forehead.

  He didn’t need to feel the sharp, stinging cold of her hand to know he was burning up.

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  The bullet he’d been shot with was no ordinary bullet.

  Ninmah whispered, her eyes teary as half a dozen elders panicked around her, warping in and out as they searched for their medical supplies.

  he hissed, snatching her hand when she tried to place it on his waist.

  As Ninmah blinked and tilted her head in confusion, Minki clicked her tongue and groaned, lying face-down on an adjacent table.

  she mumbled, as Utu threw a blanket over her and fed her steaming soup from a pot; somehow, she still had enough strength to turn and scowl at him.

  Ninmah clapped her hands, cutting their conversation short.

  Sparrow grumbled as someone slipped a pillow under his head.

  The children in the back shuddered, and the elders stopped making the kitchen a more comfortable infirmary as their faces blanched. It was only Utu shouting at all of them to keep lighting the braziers that they started moving again.

  “... Alright.” Ninmah stayed by his side, biting her lips and squeezing his hands.

  Minki and Sparrow answered as one.

  Ninmah whacked him on the head, scowling fiercely.

  Sparrow muttered, nodding absentmindedly. His head was spinning, his vision was blurry; his mouth felt painfully dry.

  With a whistle, Ninmah called two children over, and all three of them immediately slapped their palms around his bullet wound. He tried to lift his head and look at them strangely—it was his turn to be befuddled—but they didn’t give him the chance to protest.

  Their arms started vibrating, a gentle tremor spreading from their shoulders to their elbows to their wrists to the tip of their fingers, and something inside him screamed. It felt like a hundred tiny knives flicking across his blood vessels, stabbing him in the gut, but… he gritted his teeth and did his best to unclench his stomach muscles. He to relax. The parasitic bullet was getting vibrated to death inside him, and the moment he felt its roots fully retracted from his blood vessel, he’d give Ninmah the signal.

  That was .

  He nodded sharply once, and Ninmah twirled a tiny wormhole open above his wound. There was a low thrum. There was a final streak of pain, the sensation of his nerve endings getting ripped out, but then—the dull black bullet was dragged out by the wormhole, disappeared through the other side, and he quickly reached for a cup of freezing crystal water to disinfect the wound.

  The wound was still throbbing a little, but the pressure in his waist was gone. He let out a heavy breath and lay his head back on the pillow, squeezing his eyes shut as the Worm Mages started celebrating around him.

  He hated being the bringer of bad news, but he was the only one who knew it.

  he began, voice haggard, quiet as a whisper.

  Ninmah chuckled back, caressing his cheek with a soft smile as the elders calmed the children down, telling them to be quiet.

  Sparrow couldn’t help but twitch an eye.

  he said, shaking his head as he sat up straight, clutching his waist as he did.

  An arrow whizzed past his ear at a speed his eyes couldn’t follow, and it struck a wooden pillar behind him with a solid .

  Utu hadn’t even shot it from a bow; it was a arrow, and both him and Minki glared at him from the adjacent table where they sat.

  Utu said, shooting him a toothy grin.

  Minki added, nodding slowly.

  Ninmah squeezed his hands once more, and in the reflection of her watery eyes, he saw his own eyes were nothing short of sapphire blue as well.

  He wasn’t… a Bullet Ant Soldier anymore.

  Ninmah said softly. turn to make him meet us halfway, ‘In-between’ this world and the next.” Then she shot him a smile as well, and it made his heart stop for a brief moment.

  Of course not.

  The Worm Mages were living miracles.

  They’d already removed an unremovable bullet from him. Were they really, so unreliable that he thought they’d have to run from an easily defendable chokepoint just to live the rest of their lives in hiding?

  What sort of ‘peace’ would a life of hiding be?

  So, he sucked in a cold breath and reached for his rifle slung over his back.

  A hundred and twelve children looked back at him expectantly, faces full of pride, eyes full of fight.

  he said, returning a firm nod at Ninmah. “

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