Pov Ant Combat Digger

It was incredible to once again have this feeling. I had seen many battles, but it had been quite a while since I had to do such dangerous digging. I worked my mandibles, even if they weren’t doing any of the work.

No, everything was actually done by my skills, but the action of moving and working my mandibles as if they were digging through dirt helped me keep focus and even allowed me to keep my other necessary skills functioning as they should to keep me safe until I reached my target.

I wasn’t the only one who volunteered for this mission. Hundreds of my brothers and sisters were doing the same as me. Our father was giving us a distraction up above, so we just had to hope that none of them were paying too much attention to what was going on underneath them. Only the very best of them should feel anything, but that was only if they were paying attention.

I do not know exactly how long it took, but at least our team was getting close to our target, which meant that others should be as well. Then we got a frantic message to hold all activities.

Immediately, we stopped, not daring to move an inch. The next moment, I understood why—the fighting up above seemed to have ended. A moment later, we got the reason: the enemy had retreated into the protection of their devices.

This was why we were here. Father could push those horrible devices back only so far, and now it was our job to make sure that those devices didn’t stop Father from winning. There were other plans recommended, and everyone was certain we could swarm them with just numbers, but it would mean a lot of losses. I was more than willing to give up my life to save thousands of my brothers and sisters of all kinds.

Plans seemed to have been changed, and we were given a wait time of a few more minutes before we needed to move and finish quickly. We were all ready to move at a moment's notice. Then I heard it, and I moved, jumping towards the rock wall, crushing it while keeping noise so low that barely a vibration was noticeable a few meters away. There was so much noise outside that it was safe to push faster, and then we made it to the target area.

All of us activated our skills to make the rock underneath our target disappear, and a moment later, it was in front of us. I disliked being under the influence of this device, so I enjoyed just biting it to pieces.

Our father was yelling for us to retreat, and I saw a few go. I was old, and I was more than happy to give the next generation a chance to escape. It seems that I wasn’t the only one, as a few of us stayed behind.

We knew that we would not win against what was coming, and I could already feel destructive forces racing toward us. I used my own skills not to defend myself but to collapse the tunnels we came through. I could feel the pain from one of my legs as it was crushed utterly. Yet, I didn’t mind. After turning around and trying to attack, blackness came swiftly.

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Pov Carl

We got word of the successful destruction of every territory-disruptive device. We heard about the casualties of this action, yet I couldn’t be sad for the ones we lost. I had talked to a few of them, and they were true heroes in my book. Willing to sacrifice so more wouldn’t lose their lives was truly noble. It was still weird to me that ants are so similar to us, even if they have some different priorities.

Their memories will be honored, but this fight wasn’t over yet. The second part was already planned; now it was just a waiting game until our enemy stabilized again so we could once again change the way we fought. If everything goes right, we shouldn’t lose anyone, but this was war, and anything could happen.

It took longer than we expected, but the dungeon eventually announced that it was now growing the pillars where all the gateways would be placed so we could do hit-and-run tactics. Unfortunately, Ziiipe hasn’t yet finished my skill that would make it possible for me to fight in the air with enough finesse and speed to take part in the raids. What I could do was be ready to fight anyone who was dragged through the gateway.

We were in a special room meant for receiving any raid party who came back with an enemy. The wait was excruciating, and we got word of a few successful kills before the gateway in front of us flashed. Five of our members rushed through, one of the enemies being pushed in front of them by a few skills.

The enemy finally got wise and managed to break through the skills that were pushing him. We didn’t give him a chance to recover properly, as ranged attacks were already landing. However, he was defending himself excellently. So what I did was rush him, ignoring the friendly attacks, as my defensive skills were good enough to take them without too much trouble.

This allowed me to surprise him. He was wearing good enough equipment that I wouldn’t be able to kill him, but my axe still got through his arm armor and was only stopped by his bone. His sword strike was something truly dangerous, so I had to back off, but he was down a functioning arm. He was a tough bastard and managed to keep fighting for another 30 seconds before someone else managed to put a spear through his head.

We didn’t have much time to recover, as we got informed that another one was coming soon. That ‘soon’ was literally just a moment later. This one seemed weaker, as ranged attacks were already pushing him. I took the same approach once again, but this time I got an entire arm. Others followed my example, and a spear went through his guts, with a mace blow to his head following, ending him quickly.

We had to do this two more times before this stage was called to an end. I went through a gateway to the regroup point. “What’s happening out there?” I asked the first person who seemed like they knew what was going on outside.

“Things started to bunch up faster than we expected. We will probably move into the intimidation and ranged phase soon.”

Immediately after he finished saying that, all of us got informed that we needed to find a gateway and move through it. Both of us gave a wry smile to each other as we literally moved just a few meters backward through the gate we had just come through and ended up on top of one of the pillars.

Not too far away were the surviving enemies. They were already receiving ranged attacks, and it seemed like they were making a fighting retreat. Looking downwards made me shiver, as the entire ground was covered in rushing ants, always moving towards one position—and that was the group of enemies not too far away.

Every so often, I jumped onto the next pillar so we were constantly putting pressure on the enemy group. I was there in case they decided to come and attack us, but from the looks of it, I didn’t think they would dare—especially when the more monstrous diamond ranks started to appear on pillars around me.

I studied these creatures because I was certain that one day, when the dungeon got deep enough, I would need to fight monsters like these to keep progressing.

It took longer for them to get out of the dungeon territory than I expected, and a few of them were brave enough to try to counterattack, which didn’t end well for them.

Once they reached outside, they no longer had to worry about the ants, so they made a rushing retreat after that, and we did not follow. Although I was certain we could’ve gotten a few more kills if we did, we most likely would have also lost a few.

We still managed to kill about 20% of their diamond ranks, which was most likely the biggest loss of strength this world had seen. While we didn’t achieve a decisive victory—too many of their strongest survived for that—I would still call this a strong victory.

Now ETG can start with his crazy plans of turning this entire area into a death zone. I knew that even I would need to man the defenses every so often, especially if an attack came. But if the claims were correct about how effective these fortifications could be, I certainly would never want to attack it.