"We don't have time for this," Tess says, releasing a bit more lightning from her crown, and Lily uses more mana to create a gray arrow.

"This will be quick," I say. I've long since thought about how I would fight myself or deal with someone with mana similar to mine.

The javelin that I have created, boosted by kinetic energy, absorbs the mana trying to slow it down and lodges into the Mana Channeler ant after breaking the barrier he creates.

However, as expected, before the effect of the Sphere imbued in the weapon activates, the ant pushes it out of its body and quickly regains control over his mana, the weapon not affecting him fully. This weapon is made for a different kind of enemy.

[Regalia] forms around my body, and I infuse it with [Resonance], the armor turning transparent blue. Then I redirect most of my mana into the Reinforcement construct and dash at the ant.

He shoots dozens of mana javelins similar to mine at me, each of them as thick as my arm and twice as long as my height.

Yet the moment they touch the armor, they are disrupted, like snow melting before a red hot iron.

The ant creates something reminiscent of a chain that tries to coil around me and hold me in place, yet it too is disrupted, unable to take hold of me.

Next, he tries to disrupt the armor around my body. I wait until he is almost successful before changing frequency, so he has to start over. Whenever his attempts come close, I repeat it.

A barrier forms in front of me, filled with an immense amount of mana and dark blue to the point where I can't see through it.

[Perception] activates, and I detect its frequency, applying it to my armor and passing through as if it's not there.

An immense amount of my mana is being sucked up by [Regalia] and [Resonance], yet I continue using my skills to fight this ant as a huge number of other ants continue feeding him mana. I watch as his body crumbles under the pressure, constantly healed by healing inscriptions, only half of them remaining.

The ant doesn't seem to be capable of more than just channeling mana. This variant is either imperfect and incapable of using more skills or too young and inexperienced to fully utilize all that power.

An arrow passes by me, and I feel the hair on my body stand up as I get goosebumps.

The gray arrow made of [Disintegration] quickly reaches the ant, and the monster, recognizing the danger, dodges to the side, while in haste creating barriers in front of him.

Then, judging it insufficient, more barriers start forming, and a good dozen of them one after the other face the arrow as it starts breaking through them. Each barrier pierced has a slowly widening hole in it, slowly increasing in size, as it’s eaten by the grayish mana.

I send a pulse of disruptive mana toward the barriers, weakening them further, and the gray arrow hits the wall, eating away at the wall and leaving uneven holes in it as the skill disintegrates everything it comes in contact with.

That's also when I reach the ant and it creates some sort of mana shockwave that cracks the wall, causes stones to fall from the ceiling , and totally obliterates any mushrooms on the wall.

But nothing happens to me, and I push through the javelin I’ve created absorbing the mana as the blade turns blue.

Then the amount of mana the ant is getting increases even further, most of his legs exploding and parts of his body crumbling, twisting. All the symbols on its carapace shine bright, and the next attack that hits me disrupts my armor, while the spear in my hand absorbs even more mana.

The Mana Channeler's body starts glowing bright white, the monster sacrificing itself to turn his body into a bomb, using all the mana that’s ruined him.

For a short moment, I observe as his compressed mana fills each part of his remains.

Then I have a feeling that our eyes meet and behind his eyes I feel a different presence, The presence of someone much stronger.

The ant clacks its mandibles one last time before his head also crumples.

I redirect all of my mana towards Mantle and then activate [Tether], teleporting towards the anchor I left some distance away from Tess.

Then I divert a lot of my body's mana into the barriers I form in front of us, each of them shattering one after another, unable to resist the explosion of immense mana compressed in the tight space of the tunnels.

I slowly breathe out and form a mana orb over the palm of my hand.

[Focus].

The orb continues to shrink, to [Focus] to a smaller point until its color changes to pitch black with a few dots of light inside of it. The orb itself is as big as my pinkie fingernail, yet it immediately starts to dominate all the mana around it. Even that is enough to put immense strain on my body, even with my epic passive. No matter how good this epic passive is it can’t compare to the instant regeneration of the Saint.

Not hesitating, I throw the orb in front of us and create a barrier behind it that I infuse with disrupting mana.

Then I watch as for the next few seconds the orb absorbs and compresses all the mana from the explosion that fills the tunnel. The size of the orb isn’t changing, yet the thing starts feeling more and more dangerous.

My barrier barely takes any damage as the orb stops most of the suicidal attack and devours the mana, and when it's gone, it starts slowly trying to absorb mine.

It just floats in the air eerily at the place where I threw it, already out of my control, and when I send my mana toward it or create a domain around it, it doesn't react.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"They are trying to slow us down, throwing one ant after another at us," Tess says, while her eyes stay glued on the black orb floating in the air in front of us.

"We are close, so let's push for a bit more," I start walking again, avoiding the orb that just floats there and tries to suck in my mana.

For a moment, I try to control it, but as before, it requires a huge amount of mana to use, and right now I'm not in a situation where I can risk a lot of my mana for untested weapons. So, I just leave it behind. It should crumble soon when there isn’t enough mana around to sustain it, and just in case, I leave an anchor near it.

As we continue, I keep setting mushrooms ablaze, leaving burning tunnels in our wake that the ants have to deal with instead of focusing on us. Because of that, we constantly push to avoid the fire and smoke that are behind us.

At some point, Tess takes Lily onto her back, and we run faster, pushing away weaker ants while taking a bit longer to kill stronger ones. Once in a while, I check the stone Myrra left with me—the light is weaker than before, showing that our time is slowly running out and soon we won't be able to return.

I activate an anchor and teleport behind one of the ants, cutting deep into it with a resonating blade. Then I twist my body to avoid the compressed shockwave another ant sends at me, and a thermal orb explodes in their midst, only to be immediately absorbed.

More and more ants with anti-fire skills start appearing. Them and others that can disrupt mana or endure my blasts of kinetic energy.

No matter how many of them we kill, they keep coming, always quiet, communicating without sound, and they do not hesitate to put their lives down for the Colony just to slow us down a little or to learn more about our skills as they immediately attempt to counter them.

As always, the Colony is quick to come up with a tailored counter-offense, and some variants seem to have been created or worked on ever since the start of the 4th floor. The ants have amazing coordination, and down in the tunnels, they are more in sync, attacking us from all sides, some even passing through walls and trying to surprise us while some other variants try to mess with our senses.

They even try to counter Lily's [Disintegration] by creating a weird barrier that is made of a similar gray mana to our healer's, yet Lily tears through it as if it's nothing. No matter what barrier they create, no matter what variant they get, I just need to slow them down a bit, hold them in place, and Lily shoots them with arrows made of [Disintegration], further strengthened by the epic bow she holds.

Her accuracy is terrible, but she is not even using much mana, and bigger ants just die.

That makes the monsters focus on her more and more, but then they find Tess.

A lightning crown floats over her head like some sort of halo, her blonde hair seemingly glowing; she continues to fight, surrounded by lightning that seems alive, and a dozen javelins and an epic spear that attack and defend.

When she gets hurt, Lily just touches her slightly, sending a burst of healing into her that allows Tess to continue fighting.

The epic spear she uses can change its weight, and Tess doesn't hold it; she moves it like one of her javelins and increases its weight before shooting it, and the spear with incredible weight behind it continues to break barriers and pierce monsters.

Gradually, the tunnels change; there are fewer mushrooms on the walls, and they start becoming smoother to the point they feel more man-made, some of them even have perfectly square and flat walls.

The iron-like material they are made of seems to resist the heat, and even my golden flames are unable to melt it, and my attacks don't leave holes in it.

As if on cue, we slow our speed, and sending a scan in front of us, I detect the three mana signatures I know so well, surrounded by four monsters, each of them stronger than those we’ve met up until now. Signatures that shine brightly in comparison to the rest of the Colony.

During the last sprint, without being hindered, we enter the spherical room, like the one the array was in.

I ignore the details of the room and instead, my eyes find three members of group 4.

[Focus]

Each of them missing their legs.

[Focus]

Each of them unconscious, fleshy vines touching their bodies, some of them even burrowed inside their limbs.

[Focus]

Each of them is barely alive, hearts palpitating; their faces show signs of intense pain.

[Focus]

[Focus - lvl 40 > Focus - lvl 41]

I move my mana and stop Tess and Lily from jumping inside and ignore their screams and the tears in the eyes of our healer. Even Tess has an expression I had yet to see on her face.

Calmly, I examine the rest of the room, the monsters inside, exits, and the timer Myrra left us.

My mana crashes inside the room, and when the ants try to push against it, I reach inside the reservoir and mana batteries I have on me, obliterating their coordinated attempt to do so.

"Not one of you will leave this room alive," Tess Declares, her voice bearing a deep undertone of the skill she possesses.

There are only four ants, all the others left.

[Rift Shifter Ant - lvl ??]

[Inferno Brawler Ant - lvl ??]

[Arcane Juggernaut Ant - lvl ??]

[Ability Leech Ant - lvl ??]

Ability Leech Ant stays near our group members, barely bigger than Biscuit, and I can feel waves of mana from him, a skill similar to Sophie’s web.

Other ants jump down from the walls, and the first one to step in front of us is the Arcane Juggernaut, the biggest ant I've seen so far, most likely twice as tall as the other bus-sized ants and with a carapace heavily armored and surrounded by a body-tight barrier that is so similar to the beast from Beyond.

Before I even move, the thermal orb I was creating dwindles and disappears, while all the heat within the room disappears with it. The work of the Inferno Brawler that stole all the heat and made it its own, flames creating a circle that spins above him.

Sophie twitches and a painful groan escapes her mouth, one of her eyes opens, and the little veins all over it burst. She tries to use her mana, but one of the fleshy things twitches, and she screams in pain.

“Nat,” Lily calls up to me and I follow her gaze.

She is looking at the crown tied to my belt. Her expression is the same one she had when she sacrificed all of her limbs to destroy the Saint.

I see. So it will be.

I take the crown and put it on my head. The crown is not perfect and doesn't seem to work immediately, but I know what to do.

[Resonance] activates, and I connect to the crown in a manner like Lissandra used to connect to the Saint’s healing aura and restore her body.

[Resonance - lvl 33 > Resonance - lvl 34]

And then gently, Lily’s warm mana flows into me, a feeling akin to that of the Saint at the end of the third floor.

“Fuck them up,” the petite healer pushes through her clenched teeth.

I reach into my mana reservoir, and my [Mana Domain] encompasses the entire room and I place a dozen anchors all around.