“That’s a problem,” Korith squeaked.

Just three corners past the reaches of their training area, the party was presented with a hurdle.

The room before them was quite large and yet its floor was hardly visible. Dozens, if not a few hundred, of Lanaan insects were skittering about, moving beside and across each other. In addition to those on the floor, there were several more using bridges made from hardened chitin, connecting openings in the curved ceiling that went into various brood chambers. Here and there, a Lanaan insect could be seen carrying a larva or pupa in its mandibles.

All such tunnels were death traps. The larvae were dangerous in their own way, capable of launching sticky silk threads, and guarded by elite insects. There was no point in facing them besides the challenge itself and even then it should only be done in controlled circumstances. The guidebook was quite clear on all of this.

The sole true way to advance lay in a peculiar segment of the wall. The chitin there was thin enough that the ambient glow of the walls shone through it, revealing a corridor behind it. The issue was that it was on the other side of where the group currently laid low – and it also looked solid.

“Any other ways forward?” Aclysia asked.

“None,” Apexus assured. He had been scouting the environment in search of enemies. “All other routes lead to dead ends or similar chambers.”

“Then this must be the barrier between the outer and inner hive,” Aclysia analysed. The encyclopaedia only detailed that there were ‘challenges’ for that area. Not everything in the book was terribly detailed. Physical paper and information available limited much of what could use further elaboration.

“I’mma be the one to say the obvious – we can’t win this.” Reysha kept an eye on the room, trying to find a route through it. She failed. The overlapping networks were just too dense. “I don’t see a way to sneak through alone either, so it’s completely impossible for all four of us.”

“The pheromone trick won’t do us much good either,” Apexus informed them. “I cannot outproduce the scent signals of this many. Once combat begins, the chain reaction will be rapid.”

“So… the only way is to barrel through?” Korith asked.

“Affirmative,” Aclysia answered, her gaze firmly set on the wall. “Barriers such as this usually regenerate on their own. Once we make it through, we will have to defend our position until the gap closes.”

“Alright then… roles?” Korith asked.

Apexus pointed at the kobold. “Wall breaker.” He pointed at Aclysia and Reysha. “Defenders.” He put his thumb on his bare chest. “Distraction.”

Aclysia disliked that course of action, as she always did, but when one had a party member with high regenerative power it was the most reasonable to have them serve as the bait. “Reysha will go through the gap first, then I, then Apexus, then Korith,” she outlined the rest of their battle plan. It was simplistic. The situation did not call for more.

A beat of Apexus’ wings was the signal for the party to descend into the room. Soaring ahead of them, the humanoid chimera landed on one of the bridges. His foot crushed the thin neck of one ant under his weight. Pheromones surged from his pores, sending out a powerful message: enemy.

The swarm of Lanaan insects immediately reacted. Antennas quivered in the air, picking up the scent, and then the masses went into motion. Climbing all over each other, they hastened to the walls, rising up like a brackish brown sea made of blue-marked leather. Hooked claws clung to stone, mandibles clacked with natural aggression, and boots pounded the ground.

Reysha and Korith charged through the opening that the parting masses of enemies created. Stragglers picked up the second set of enemies with some delay. Each of them was dispatched with swift, expert strikes. Tiger woman and kobold alike knew how to kill Lanaan insects with tremendous accuracy. Three weeks of battle against them had etched the proper motions into their very nerves.

Aclysia wove through the gaps between three of the oddly aligned bridges, then stopped in mid-air. She clutched her necklace with one hand, drawing the ambient mana into it, mixing it with her own. The outstretched palm of her right hand shimmered with summerly light. Particles drifted from her skin, then came together in a small point. The concentrated magic flowed outwards, a violent torrent of superheated light.

The Ray spell scorched and sliced on impact. At a measured pace, Aclysia moved her arm further to the right, damaging the insects that were approaching Apexus’ back. The spell lacked the destructive power to kill the monsters at a mere graze – legs, however, could be cut and eyes scorched. The monsters lost their footing, tumbling to the ground below.

One made it through unharmed. Even among all the chaos, Apexus sensed the tremors of the insect’s approach. The tail of a Deathhound coiled like a tensing tongue, then slammed against the side of the insect, sending it flying.

It was a mere moment in the waves of motions that Apexus represented. ‘To be the Ready Waters,’ the mantra was all the Monk had in mind, ebbing and flowing like the ocean itself. He advanced and receded, never standing still. The sharpened Ki around his hands and feet appeared almost solid.

A bite caught the Monk’s forearm. Even that was part of the rhythm. The sides of his palm severed the head from the body of the wolf-sized ant-like creature. He spun on his own axis, delivering a low kick that shattered the skull of another monster. He took two steps back, retreating into the space Aclysia had made for him, then suddenly stepped forwards again. His fist descended in a wide curve, meeting the back of an unprepared member of the swarm, flattening it against the ground.

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The individual death only meant delay. Dozens were ready to take the place of the fallen comrade. Apexus did not afford himself a single instance of taking his eyes off the field before him. His trust was with his comrades and loves.

Three Lanaan insects were all that remained between Korith and Reysha and the wall. Korith took the helm, breaking the charge of the first enemy with a sideways swing. The second insect jumped simultaneously, aiming for Korith’s head, only for Reysha’s stiletto to find its way over the shoulder of her small friend. Both enemies were flung to the side, and both party members advanced swiftly.

The last insect was more akin to a caterpillar than anything they had faced before. It reared up, spitting a wide arch of sticky fluids. “Don’t you dare!” Korith shouted, as she leapt over the attack. Her hammer crashed into the soft head of the insect.

“But you usually enjoy getting covered in the white stuff!” Reysha laughed, then rammed her weapon into the fleshy side of the monster. She twisted around, putting all of her weight and momentum into carving open the creature’s side. A purple-blue trench opened, leaking a variety of fluids.

The monster curled and spasmed. Korith bounced off the wall, then landed hammer first on its head. That second strike shattered something vital, causing the monster to collapse for good.

Korith took a singular, relieved breath. An unamused glare at Reysha was all the answer she could muster to the innuendo. Smirking, holding her sidearm with casual looseness, the redhead hinted at all of the other puns she had in the back of her throat. They were all silenced by the approach of several more enemies. While Apexus’ pheromones continued to drag the majority of the attention up to the bridge, there were just too many insects for all of them to take the route up to where the Monk was taking his stand.

A Bolt and a Ray thinned the lines heading for Reysha. Aclysia hung above, continuously scanning the battlefield, turning her attention back and forth between the two fronts. The speed at which she could digest information limited her, as much as the reservoir of mana in the air and inside her. The former was quickly depleting, taxing the latter more and more.

Apexus was burning through his biomass at an accelerating pace. His body heat was rising quickly, as was the speed of his motions. The bridge was slick with the spilled ichor of enemies. One wrong step would send the Monk sailing into the brimming mass of aggression below.

CRACK!

Korith struck the wall once. The hammer made of stone created a spiderweb of gaps in the supernatural chitin. A second swing, executed with urgency, made splinters fall off the impact site. The edges of the cracks were already mending, fusing back together by an invisible force. Repeated strikes prevented the healing from taking over.

The hammer blew through the wall on the seventh strike. Korith leveraged the wide head of the weapon, tearing the gap further open. Nimble as she was, Reysha would have fit through that already, but they needed more for the rest of them. Still, this was the point where things had to get moving.

“Darling!”

Aclysia’s voice cut through the haze of combat. One of Apexus’ fox ears turned, then he disengaged from the fight before him. The insects were left confused when the Monk suddenly glided away from them. They picked up on the new destination swiftly.

Too swiftly for Reysha’s liking.

“Oh shit!” she cursed out loudly, watching the hundred monsters following in Apexus’ wake. For all of the ones killed, there were more still pouring out of the side corridors. If anything, the numbers had swelled since they had begun the encounter.

The redhead turned to the wall. The gap was now large enough for all of them to fit through – in theory.

Korith stepped aside, blocking the path of an insect that followed after Reysha. The redhead did a straight vault through the gap and caught herself with a roll. “All clear!” she shouted after she was through. Aclysia flew through the slowly regenerating gap next.

Apexus, with all of his bulk, landed in front of the hole. He forced himself into the gap. Had he been a regular human, he would have been stuck. Even while liquifying his muscles and dislocating his bones, he had to relinquish his wings. The green feathers fell to the ground, sheared off by the edge of the broken chitin.

Once on the other side, Apexus grabbed the edge of the hole. Reysha joined him, her demon arm pulsing with black veins as they tore the opening open further. Korith turned just as the teeming horde behind her came upon her. An edge of her armour got stuck on the hole. An insect got her by the foot. Apexus and Reysha grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her through.

Korith let out a pained hiss, scales tearing off her skin as they got caught under the teeth and mandibles of the insect. She hit the stone ground on the other side hard, armour clattering. Adrenaline pounded through her system, muting the pain. She was back on her bloody foot within moments.

The Lanaan insects poured through the gap with frightful coordination. One or two at a time was a pace the four of them could handle well. Rippling Palms, strikes and swipes by weapons destroyed the monsters as they made it to the other side, clogging up the way for the creatures that followed. The hole got smaller and smaller by the second. The last insect only made it halfway through, before the gap became too narrow for the abdomen to follow the midsection. The closing wall cut the monster in half.

“Let me look at that!” Aclysia insisted, putting Korith on the floor. The kobold blinked, only realizing just how bad the state of her leg was. The tendon stood out, white, among frayed skin and muscle. She tilted her head back, avoiding looking at it, instead concentrating on the soothing warmth of the healing spell.

Apexus and Reysha gave each other the once over at the same time. The rogue had a number of small scrapes, but by and large she was unharmed. Apexus was visibly thinner, his muscles and bulk diminished from the amount of mass he had burned. Besides the loss of his wings, there was no injury on him and there was plenty of food on this side of the wall to make up for it.

The healing light ebbed away. Aclysia inspected her party member’s foot from a few angles. The previously injured spots were starkly visible, gaps of pink flesh between red scales. “Ohhh, that feels so weird,” Korith lamented, when she felt the air brush over the spots. “Sensitive in the bad way…”

“I know the feeling,” Reysha said.

“Since when do you have scales?” Korith asked.

“I once dropped a hammer on my toe and the nail fell off.” The redhead wiggled the foot that had been affected. “I imagine that’s similar.”

“Unpleasant imagery,” Aclysia mumbled and got up. “I may be able to aid you with regrowing the scales once we rest for the evening.”

“Or we could pull the rest out so I don’t step on one in the bathroom,” Reysha suggested.

“It was one time!” Korith squeaked.

“It cut my foot!”

“Stop having such weak feet!”

“Girl, I used to have weak feet, before half of my life consisted of walking! Now I got soles like sandstone.”

“They’re not that bad,” Apexus denied.

Reysha made a tossing gesture. “Definitely not dainty lady feet.”

“Before we get stuck bantering in place, shall we advance?” Aclysia gestured down the corridor.