Turi weaved past a soldier ant and struck at the wizard ant’s throat, and, even as he pulled away from the group, ended the wizard’s life with a spike of ice. Turi’s thoughts spiked in speed, and his eyes flicked to the spitting ant to his left. It had prepared its acid faster than he expected, and Turi nudged the winds of the snowstorm only slightly, causing its acid to not only miss Turi, but to also spray across the soldier ant’s eyes.

Turi darted forward and took advantage of the soldier ant’s blindness, ending its life with the peck and ice spike combination that he had become increasingly familiar with. The spitting ant had remade enough acid to spit only after the soldier ant was dead, and Turi was already invisible to its eyes, hiding within the storm.

And then, Turi appeared from above and behind it, and its life was over a moment later. Turi dug out their cores and crushed them in his beak, unwilling to wait for them to digest.

His tome manifested, and Turi went about ascending his Aspects of Ascension.

By now, Turi had been away from the Sanctuary for a day and a half, and the snowstorm was still going. In that brief time, Turi had grown explosively. Turi’s assessment told him that he was getting close to bringing his senses to prodigal. His strength and durability were already above average, and, as always, his intelligence was abnormal.

Turi was growing so rapidly because he was using second realm essence crystals to keep his essence core full. A few months ago, Turi would have considered it a waste, but at this point, there were barely any first realm creatures anymore, and this was the only other purpose that they served.

The only thing hindering his hunting speed was that the ants were becoming increasingly coordinated. Only an hour after his hunt had started, the ants had started only moving in groups of three at minimum, and it was impossible for Turi to stay in one place within the ant’s territories for an extended amount of time. He wasn’t sure how, but every time he killed a group of ants, more would come to the area within minutes.

It had gotten worse recently, though. This was the only group of three ants that he had seen in hours, and most of them traveled in groups of seven at minimum now.

The larger groups seemed impossible for Turi to eat, but he knew a way around it. He hadn’t tested the idea yet, but Turi was almost certain that, with preparations, Turi could beat them. The only problem was that he needed something to bait them in with.

He had found the bait, though, and right now, dozens of ants should be headed to where he was. His eyes lit up, and he gradually formed thirty stone spikes beneath the two feet of snow, ready for Turi to launch them up and into an ant. Forming so many spikes at once was expensive, and Turi crushed a second realm essence crystal in his beak. There were at least thirty in his stone hut, and Turi kept one in his beak almost all the time.

Finally, the first group of ants arrived. There were three soldier ants, two leaping knight ants, two spitting ants and a single wizard ant, putting this group a bit above the minimum in size. They saw Turi almost immediately, as he made no effort to conceal himself, and the leaping knight ants did as their name suggested and leapt at him. Immediately, two spikes from beneath the snow shot forward, striking precisely between a small gap in their overlapping armor and stabbing into their hearts.

The three soldier ants charged him, and the spitting ants shot their acid. At the same time, Turi could feel the snow beneath him trying to move, but Turi pushed back, and the wizard ant looked a bit dazed. When it came to magic, the unspecialized wizard ants posed no threat to him in low numbers.

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Turi nudged the wind only slightly, and the acid sprayed onto the eyes of one ant, but narrowly missed the eyes of the second and instead struck its antenna.

The three soldier ants were only a yard away from him, but their hearts were pierced by stone spikes from below the snow. Turi shot forward and killed the defenseless wizard, and effortlessly dodged the spitting ant’s acid before killing them, too. Turi knew that if that group had caught him without thirty spikes beneath them, he would have been torn apart.

Turi dug their cores out, but another group of ants arrived while he was retrieving the third essence core. There were fifteen of them this time. Turi knew that more would be coming, and so he killed them all quickly, expending the vast majority of his stone spikes, and Turi accelerated the harvesting process by tearing the essence cores from their chest with his eyes and bringing them to him.

Turi ate as many as he could, but on the thirteenth, Turi’s stomach felt hot, and so he crushed the next several. Turi took to the air and headed for his stone hut after that, and it took him a while to find it through the snowstorm.

Finally, though, Turi settled inside the hut and sealed himself inside, cutting himself off from the cold and from the ants. He left a small hole here and there for air to come in, but it was unlikely that anything would find him in here through the snowstorm.

Turi was exhausted after so long hunting, and he fell asleep quickly.

***

When Turi awoke, the snowstorm was over. He manifested his tome and improved his Aspects of Ascension, and then he was off to hunt once more.

This time, though, Turi couldn’t hide within the snowstorm.

Almost the moment that Turi entered their territory, Turi could see the ants in the area turn and start running towards him. Many of them were nearby, and Turi didn’t even have time to prepare stone spikes as he had done the day prior.

There was one positive, at least, and that was that he could fly freely. Turi landed on a crooked stop sign, and made what few preparations he could as the ants swarmed towards him.

Turi didn’t have much time, and so he went about molding as many stone spikes as he could in a short time. They wouldn’t be pretty and having to create them in mere seconds would make it very essence inefficient, but Turi didn’t have any better options.

When the first group of ants arrived, Turi only had six of them, and there were eight ants. Only one of them was any danger whatsoever, though; six were soldiers, one was a leaping knight and the other was a wizard. Turi’s stone spikes shot forward from beneath the snow, and their dull tips broke the surface and dug into their flesh, but didn’t kill them. They were incapacitated, though, and that was all that mattered.

The leaping knight ant was true to its name and leapt at him without hesitation, and Turi weaved past it with ease. While it was mid-air, it had no way to move, and it was like dodging a massive, slow boulder.

Turi followed the knight ant on the way down, and slammed his beak down on its head. It pierced the carapace, and Turi leapt away just before the knight landed on the ground.

A spike of ice formed in the wound and pierced its brain soon after. Turi was a few yards away from the ant, and the distance made it significantly more expensive to do.

Turi killed the wizard ant and tore the ant’s essence cores from their body. He didn’t even have time to eat or crush them before two other groups of ants arrived, and so Turi simply had them follow him as he escaped. Once he was far enough away, Turi ate them all and then left the ant’s territory.

***

Andromeda’s many limbs moved through the air, touching nothing as she gazed upon the large egg before her. It looked as though she was orchestrating an orchestra, but she was doing no such thing.

Andromeda was crafting the variant species of the enormous egg, and it would be her greatest work yet. It would be the Sentinel; the singular ant that had received as many essence cores as half of the hive had. It would be enormous, and it would be what brought her hive to greatness.

Finally, Andromeda ran out of essence, and she was forced to stop. As soon as the magic that kept the ant within its egg was dispelled, it started trying to escape, but it wasn’t strong enough yet. Andromeda nodded happily and turned her attention to the lesser queen that she had commanded to meet her.

“My ants are not suitable to deal with the bird that is harassing us. Create a new variant species that can adequately deal with intelligent and agile airborne threats.” Andromeda told the queen through the hive mind, and the queen sent back a signal of understanding before leaving.