Another month passed.

  By now, it’d been five months since Sparrow arrived at Immanu. Exactly half a year. While he couldn’t say he’d gotten used to warping instead of walking with every step forward, the same couldn’t be said of the Worm Mages’ aptitude for slaying Boreus—they’d gone from freezing in the face of eight giant bugs to dancing and drawing circles around fifty of them at the same time, laughing and cheering and competing to see who could bring down the most with just their spears and arrows.

  At the very least, watching the eighteen of them pick off the Boreus charging up the slope to Immanu didn’t fill him with dread anymore.

  he asked, tearing his bayonet out of a Boreus head as he did.

  Minki yanked her bayonet out from her target as well, peering back and up the slope where the hunters were finishing off the last of the Boreus. she said, in her relatively quiet warping voice. She’d picked up the Immanu tongue rather quickly.

  And that was the cold and unyielding truth. He’d told Ninmah and the others as much before rescuing Minki and the rest of her Silver Ant Battalion—while they may have killed most of the Boreus charging up the slope back then, one Boreus escaped, and now the giant bugs knew where all of their non-combatants lived. Every direction from every corner of the village was liable to come under fire.

  To that end, the Boreus attempted to invade the village just yesterday afternoon by scaling the slope, likely hoping they wouldn’t be noticed. Minki noticed. With a few idle elders’ help, the two of them had managed to drive the bugs away, but just a few hours ago—the usual hunting group of twenty departed towards the glacier—Minki had noticed another group of Boreus trying to scale the slope, as though the bugs had timed the hunters’ departure and tried to catch them completely out of position.

  Thankfully, Sparrow anticipated this invasion somewhat, so he was able to recall the hunters to the other side of the village within a minute. If the hunters had gone any further during that time, though, it would’ve just been him and Minki against fifty Boreus they couldn’t spare any bullets for.

  Ninmah asked, warping down to the two of them while dragging two giant carcasses behind her. Sweat glistened off her snow-white brows as she grinned at them.

  Minki squared her shoulders and stiffened as though she was about to say something, but Sparrow interrupted her with a nod.

  he said plainly. Ninmah’s blush was immediate, but just as Utu warped down to them with a severed Boreus head and a proud smile as well, he fixed the two eldest children in the village with a stern look.

  The wide smiles on both Worm Mages’ faces quickly vanished, and then—just as abruptly—their eyes focused on him and Minki like never before.

  While the rest of the hunters above them started hauling the carcasses up the slope, the four of them knelt where they stood. Minki needed no ordering. With her own bayonet, she drew in the snow between them a small but detailed map of Hagi’Shar; that left Sparrow to tap on his spinal implant, prompting all of them to pull up their status interfaces.

  Ninmah and Utu did as obliged, and knowing Minki’s was probably about the same as his, he only needed to glance at his own for a little while.

  [Name: ‘Sparrow’]

  [Grade: F-Rank Mutant-Class]

  [Class: Whiteworm]

  [Swarmblood Art: Worm Maw]

  [Biorarcanic Aura: 3,241]

  [Points: 518]

  [Strength: 6, Speed: 7, Toughness: 6, Dexterity: 6, Perception: 5]

  [T1 Mutation | Inorganic Heart Lvl. 10

  [T2 Mutations | Vibrational Senses Lvl. 5 Wormic Bones Lvl. 5

  [T3 Mutations | Segmented SetaeLvl. 3Rigid Annuli Lvl. 3Sclerite Jaw Lvl. 3

  [T4 Mutations | Proliferating Septa | Salt Epidermis | Permeating Mantle Lvl. 1

  He hadn’t unlocked any new mutations since ‘Permeating Mantle’, nor had he increased his basic attribute levels by much at all. However, he’d upgraded his mutations a bit further, and that meant his aura was rather high now. His bioarcanic essence pool wasn’t half bad. He could now indefinitely sustain a fist-sized wormhole as long as he was focusing really, hard.

  It was still a far cry from how much bioarcanic essence the Worm Mages had now—most of them had at least five thousand in aura—but he was undoubtedly strong enough to warp at a leisurely pace from dawn to dusk without having to take a single break. With everyone pitching in to give some of their points this month to Minki so she could completely catch up to his strength, he was sure Minki was about as strong as he was now as well.

  So the plan was simple.

  he said, closing his status interface and looking at Minki’s map; the circle representing the village was dead centre in the middle of Hagi’Shar, and the cross representing the Boreus nest was at the northern end of the glacier north of the village. He pointed at the cross, directing Ninmah and Utu’s attention there.

  Ninmah raised her hand.

  he said, and Minki drew several arrows branching out from the Boreus nest, surrounding Immanu from every direction.

  Ninmah bit her lips, her face a dark grimace.

  he said.

  Minki added.

  he said, picking up his bayonet and drawing a wide circle around the village.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Minki said, tapping the cross on the mind.

  Ninmah gulped.

  Sparrow and Minki looked up at her, their eyes cold and steady.

  they said.

  Tense silence. The usual brightness in Ninmah’s eyes dimmed as she lowered her head and breathed out a loud sigh—and it was Utu who broke out into laughter first, waving his arrow around with the severed Boreus head skewered on.

  Utu said, looking almost excited as he beamed at Ninmah from ear to ear, flinging the Boreus head away.

  Ninmah looked at him as though she were about to say something in protest, but then something passed through her eyes, and she decided to smile softly instead.

  she breathed. Her eyes swirled with sapphire light once more as she clapped her own cheeks, rubbing them with her palms as though to dispel any worry or tension that might be trying to accumulate

  Sparrow and Minki dipped their heads in acknowledgement of her resolve to see this through to the end, and then all four of them stood up, Ninmah planting her fists on her hips as she puffed her chest out.

  she said, giving Sparrow and Minki firm nods as they slung their rifles over their backs.

  He frowned, both him and Minki glancing down the slope as a strange flash of light caught their attention.

  His eyes twitched as he stared down at the sea of clouds.

  That flash of light was unmistakable.

  So he yanked his rifle out at the same time Minki did, jerking the barrel down the slope—

  And both their rifles exploded in their hands, throwing them back into the snow.

  As Minki hissed next to him and he stuffed his burning hand into the snow, wincing, he fired blindly down at the sea of clouds, chambering each shot with only a single hand. Even if his aim was pinpoint accurate, though, he wouldn’t have hit anything. Five rectangular mushroom barricades immediately sprang up to absorb his bullets, forming a small horizontal wall a hundred metres below him. They were the Attini Empire’s instant blockades, and the Carpenter Ant Guards in charge of carrying their spores used them as makeshift covers on the frontlines.

  There was no time to think. Five more flashes of light, and five more shots rang out in quick succession. He managed to whirl where he lay and slapped Ninmah off her feet with his rifle, while Minki did the same with Utu, the two Worm Mages just avoiding getting their shoulders blown off. The rest of the incendiary bullets still exploded at their feet, kicking up a wave of blackrock shards and vapourized snow—and, with what little time the fog brought them, he turned onto his stomach to bellow up at the rest of the hunters whipping their heads down,

  They couldn’t waste any time trying to see what’d made those fiery sounds.

  They to run.

  he roared.

  “You children speak a different tongue, but my designation of ‘Kuraku’, the Keeper of the Fire Wisp, remains the same no matter where I go.”

  He whipped his head back, swinging the broken wooden end of his rifle, and the rest of it exploded in his uninjured hand. More shrapnel stabbed into him, most bouncing off his rigid annuli. His face would’ve been shredded at such close proximity to the explosion, and while the natural bone-chilling temperatures of Immanu weakened it significantly, the same couldn’t be said for the of the explosion—and Vice-General Kuraku waved the fog away away as she trudged through the fog, her long locks of hair completely with thousands of crimson ants that gave them their fiery red sheen.

  Her Swarmblood Art.

  Bouncing onto his feet, he warped ten metres back alongside Minki and Utu, but Ninmah hadn’t yet recovered from the initial blasts. She was still coughing, and her ears were most likely still ringing by the time two Carpenter Ant Guards emerged from the fog and wrung a wool sack over her head; kicking and screaming, she was dragged down to the sea of clouds while Kuraku scrunched her nose at the three of them, refusing to walk any further up to Immanu.

  “... I noticed none of you seem to be able to make those glowing circles appear and disappear if you cannot see them,” Kuraku said, tapping the corner of her right eye as she did. “If you cannot see or sense anything, you cannot retreat through your circles. That is consistently true with what I have been able to observe. Is it a mere limitation of your class, or is it crude and simple fear holding you back from making a circle connected to somewhere you cannot perceive?”

  “You do not need to answer. I will simply figure it myself, once I—”

  Minki drew her obsidian-edged knife and charged at Kuraku. Utu nocked an arrow on his bow, aiming for the retreating Carpenter Ant Guard’s heads with a wormhole to shorten the distance. Sparrow warped down after Ninmah, closing the distance rapidly as he reached his hand through a fist-sized wormhole, intending to rip off the lace keeping her hood tight around her neck—

  He realised it too late.

  The moment his fingers pulled the lace back, the line of crimson ants stuck to it burst into flames, blasting him through his wormhole and sending him crashing into the snow yet again. At the same time, Kuraku flicked a hand in front of her to cast another swathe of ants at the ground, detonating the slope to raise another massive fog. was thrown off balance. Utu's arrow missed the builders and Minki’s warp-stab was an inch off. Kuraku sidestepped the knife and slapped the flat end, and then there was a sharp hiss—followed by another point-blank explosion in Minki’s other hand, her knife shattering into a thousand fragments as she threw herself to the side.

  Kuraku flicked her wrist before Minki could recover, and Sparrow couldn't roar at Utu to dodge. The blob of crimson ants she chucked straight at his face detonated mid-air, and it was a direct hit. A powerful . Utu managed to warp a single metre back, but the boy fell to the ground, screaming and clutching his charred left eye.

  Sparrow immediately tried to pick up a wooden shard from the snow, but his fingers wouldn't curl, his burned hands wouldn't respond to him—Kuraku simply sighed and turned away from the disgruntled Worm Mages, brushing her hair out of her face.

  “... I do not remember either of your designations, but you would do well to remember your Vice-General’s class,” Kuraku said, shaking her head in disappointment as she started trudging down the slope, sticking both her hands in her cloak pockets. “I have the Exploding Ant Class. My Swarmblood Art is ‘Hiveflare’, allowing me to transmute my blood into exploding ants I can control and detonate with bioarcanic essence. If I had wanted to, I could have demolished this entire slope and caused an avalanche your village at the top would not have been able to survive. Be grateful I am not the General. He would not be retreating here.”

  The Carpenter Ant Guards she'd emerged with quickly retreated through the sea of clouds, dragging the struggling Ninmah down with them, and Sparrow tried to push himself to his feet. He gasped for air, but the fog was sticky with smoke and thick, acidic scents. He barely crawled to his feet by the time Kuraku walked past him, and she didn't spare even a single glance for him. There was only an irritated click of a tongue and another flick of her wrist. Before he could gather his wits about him and warp in to attack again, a fourth cloud of crimson ants flew into his chest, a light explosion blowing him right back against the slope.

  This time, his spine arched and his mouth jerked open, but no cry of pain came out.

  He was a good soldier.

  And good soldiers wouldn't show their pain with something as pathetic as a ‘cry’.

  As Minki warped down and grabbed his collar, trying to pull him back, he did his best to resist. He tried to warp down by shifting his weight forward. Minki responded by jerking him back , countering his attempts to charge through the wormhole. He whirled and snapped his alabaster teeth at her, a violent, animalistic impulse he regretted the moment he did so—but Minki didn't let him go, and neither did Kuraku care about their tiny internal scuffle.

  The Vice-General waved back at the two of them as the rest of the Worm Mages ignored his instructions, warping down as fast as they could in order to help.

  “There is no need to worry. I do not desire to kill the girl,” Kuraku said with a small, scornful voice, barely audible over the howling winds and snow. “If she tells me everything I want to know about you people, then I will let her go unharmed. If she does not, then she will be acting in direct violation of Capital law. For both her sake and yours, do not attempt to make contact with us until we make contact with you—I trust former Ant Class Soldiers would remember the standard protocol for dealing with escaping prisoners.”

  … Of course Sparrow remembered.

  He was a Bullet Ant Soldier; one of only ten in the Hagi’Shar Forward Army.

  And yet, as he watched Kuraku’s silhouette wade through the sea of clouds and vanish with a puff of smoke, there was only one thing he said to Minki and the Worm Mages arriving to pick up the wounded.

  he growled, turning to grab Minki’s collar.

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