As my visor switched my surroundings to an eerie green color I jumped back on my bike and began pedaling down the hill; building up speed while hoping the sudden darkness would disorientate them.

I could feel the ground shaking (no doubt the entire swarm getting agitated).

Getting closer and closer I could make out the twisted remains of half buried mechanical monstrosities, apparently they used to be able to (if not eradicate them) keep the colony to a manageable size and restrict their expansion.

I shook off my idle thoughts to focus back on what was important… all while passing under a pockmarked metal arm bigger than the base I’d lived on throughout my entire life.

Closer and closer now, I could make out the lowest entrances around 30 meters from the ground. A constant stream of insectoid bodies bigger than me and my bike combined going in and out.

They seemed to be heading… up? Guess they think the sun was assassinated or something, all the better for me though.

The swirling dust around me was far more violent than usual, in my current state I failed to notice bits of rock and metal in the distance behind me being lifted into the air.

*CRACK*

What the fu-

*CRACK* *CRACK* *CRACK*

That sound came from the tower, I looked up again and my jaw dropped fast enough to thud against my visor.

*BOOM*

A piece of the tower had snapped clean off and impacted the ground in a massive dust cloud to my right.

The ground shook even harder than before accompanied by more and more gigantic cracks spreading throughout the enormous superstructure.

I visibly bounced and fell from my bike as a massive wave of dust was cleared in the wake of the several kilometer long shard impacting the ground. I had to briefly cover my head and filters to stop them getting clogged from the sheer amount of red sand.

Wiping my visor clear I hopped up to see if I’d been spotted.

None of the ants were moving anymore and even if they were they couldn’t be bothered to deal with me, they simply clung to the tower and looked upward. Curious about what had them so rattled I tried to look up too.

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For once in my life the sky wasn’t clouded with dust and debris… but a sea of stars. But even as I saw this beautiful sight I also witnessed oblivion, the stars in the sky bending in strange ways around a void above me.

The sun… had become a black hole.

I dimly noted several other tower shards hitting the ground killing thousands of ants, they didn’t react and I stood there dumbly watching it all.

The maw in the sky got larger and larger, I could feel just how futile it was to even try fighting against this, akin to looking into an erupting volcano times a thousand.

*SKREEEEEEEE*

I whipped my head back down to look at where the sound came from as every ant also swiveled to its origin.

Out of the tower stretched a massive leg, easily over 50 meters long followed by a truly enormous ant… the Queen herself i’d bet.

The already crumbling tower shuddered once more as the Queen forced her way out, breaking the already large entrance apart.

She… was both terrifying and beautiful, jagged black chitin armor with claws and mandibles sharp and strong enough to no doubt tear through the rusted titans that had fallen here… and upon her head sat 3 spikes made of some crystal material… but it all paled in comparison to her eyes… which shone with intelligence.

She came out of the tower looking ready to tear whatever dared draw her ire to pieces, she looked up at the sky for a few seconds before seeming to shudder.

She looked back down at her brood, I could almost swear she looked sad.

I saw the ants in front of her move away as she brought her head closer to the ground, a dull whine which was slowly getting louder becoming noticeable to me.

*eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee*

And suddenly she whipped her head forward as an orange and red beam shot from her mouth cutting a deep chasm in front of her before she reared back and brought her head upward to confront the sky.

She stayed like that for around half a minute, a lone pillar of light amid a dark world before she dropped to the ground clearly exhausted.

I could see the tips of her mandibles had melted into molten slag along with the entirely new molten ravine in front of her, several ants that got too close had simply burst into flame even despite being behind her.

Her antenna twitched around before she slowly turned to look at me… I felt my blood run cold. Even as bits of the tower larger than houses impacted her back she continued to stare.

Bits of the ground around me started cracking… tens of kilometers of ground broke apart as the entirety of the swarm burrowed their way out.

The ground in every direction turned black as a sea of ants surged forth to surround the Queen.

I noticed one directly below me that was far larger than the rest picked me up with its mandibles and carried me forward.

Seeing them drove home just how useless my little revenge plot would have been… She… they were a true monster, not because they were evil or wicked… but because of their sheer strength.

Seeing just how many there were and from how far away they had come… I thought I was far enough away from them in my home… How wrong I was.

This many ants would have a territory spanning hundreds of kilometers under the earth with patrols on the surface which would have easily discovered me… why hadn’t they?

Not like it mattered when we were all about to die.

Coming out of my random thoughts I saw the Queen before me along with ants in every direction, I felt my skin slightly burning just from being near the red hot head of the Queen. Massive portions of land in the distance were slowly floating into the sky and I could barely stand when the ground shook again.

I noticed several ants larger than average trying to pull the Queen back underground but she refused to move, many others still created a giant net with their bodies trying to hug her to the ground so as not to be lifted into the air.

The Queen lowered a single antenna to touch my head “...Adri…en?”

I felt goosebumps as I looked into the eyes of the Queen and everything was destroyed while death descended upon our world.