Chapter 55:

It was with a growing sense of unease that Alice kept one eye on the approaching mass of enemies as they bulldozed their way through the ever-growing swarm of ants. She realized she had miscalculated something. The rate at which the Fungus King approached was not linear. Every time it freed another of its Wartlings away from the ants, they sped up, working together under the influence of the King. They protected each other and helped get ants off of one another. Their speed increased, and Alice gritted her teeth.

Pointing her hand one more time, she blasted another [Mana Bolt] out. It had been leveling quickly, and the chunk it tore off the Fungus Wartling in front of her was huge. Still, it wasn't going to be enough.

Immediately, she fired another. And another. Already, she was outpacing her absorption rate, even with [Life Drain] running at max and pulling in resources as fast as it could. Still, she didn't let it stop her, using up even the last bits of mana flowing through her channels.

She looked inwards at the sparkling marble full of mana she had been condensing for the past several days. Well, if I don't use it now, when will I?

She reversed the flow. Instead of putting a trickle of mana into it and growing the sphere of preserved power, she pulled out. Instead of shrinking down like she had expected, the bundle of mana emptied like a cracked snow globe. Slowly, the level of mana receded, but the shape was still there. Alice hoped that meant it would be easier to regain and return to where she was. Still, she couldn't think about it for long as she let out a stream of [Mana Bolts] as fast as she could cast, blasting into the Wartling in front of her as Titus, Tony, and dozens of ants bit at it and slashed.

Alice felt the drain as her limbs started to feel heavy, and an ache behind her eyes began to grow, but still, she pushed harder. They were making progress. Noticeable progress. Her blasts were causing large divots now to rip through the monster. The way Titus was cutting, they were literally slicing the fungus monster in half.

Alice focused with one hand straight in front of her, blasting into the groove above Titus' head, splitting the monster further. Her right hand, though, she used more carefully, precisely blasting tendrils that looked like they could come close to smashing into their allies as she supported their advance. Slowly but surely, they made it through.

Just as her core finally emptied and she felt an ache all throughout her spiritual self that translated into excruciating pain in all her joints, she saw daylight on the other side.

Not literally, but the doors of the center were visible through a hole she'd bored through the massive fungus monster. She let out one more blast with her left hand and one with her right, stopping a tendril from smashing into Titus even as the monster fell into pieces.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw another tendril coming for her, something from one of the halves that wouldn't have been able to reach it previously. But the way the creature fell put it just in range.

She raised her hand and started casting, but a blinding pain in the back of her eyes and the pit of her stomach told her she had no mana, and the attack to meet the tendril never came. The tendril swiped in from the side, coming down at her as it smashed into her legs, and blinding pain forced her mind into blackness as she fell backward.

Her head bounced against the ground, and the blackness receded as colors danced in her eyes. Alice rolled over on her side, wrenching in pain everywhere, making her throw up.

Stolen novel; please report.

Even as she rolled, she felt something weird tug at the flesh in her leg. She looked down before turning back to the ground and retching again. A jagged pink and white stick jutted out from the middle of her shin, and as she rolled, it caught on the ground, twisting the lower half of her leg into a completely disgusting wound.

Alice closed her eyes and fumbled at her belt, feeling her hands shake. Shock set in. She had the piece of equipment she bought so long ago to protect the potion bottles, and she pulled a healing pill out of it, washing it down with some potion that was hopefully mana recovery.

She closed her eyes as she felt an itching sensation in her leg as it twisted, and the bone slipped back into her skin with a sucking motion. Alice closed her eyes and dug her nails into her palms, attempting not to scream or pass out as she bit her tongue. She wasn't sure how all this would work, but Titus had a USB drive. He had the payload. He would go on without her because she was done. There was no way she was able to walk after this.

When she opened her eyes, the itching had stopped, and the pain subsided to a dull throb along her entire body with just an extra flare at her leg. She lifted her head and saw that her leg was straight but swollen to twice the size it should be. Just then, a black shadow of another tendril descending down on her head filled her vision, and everything went black.

***

When Alice came to, she was inside the lobby, leaning against a glass door. Next to her, facing the other direction, Titus stood, his spear moving. Still, Alice could only see the back half in her peripheral vision. Tony, at his side, lunged forward past her and nipped at something.

Alice attempted to turn her head and look but winced at the general ache. It felt like she had... well, she was having trouble describing how she felt. As if a steamroller had gone across her body. No, it was too sharp and burning for that. Maybe like she had been set on fire and the wind thrashed at her nerve endings... It was weird.

It was like she had been lightly burned on the inside and then battered away with a baseball bat covered in bubble wrap before being electrocuted and then sleeping weirdly on her neck, so that she felt like she was about to break it if she turned her head.

"Titus," Alice croaked, not wanting to distract him but needing his help. Maybe he could give her another healing pill or some sort of recovery potion or just tell her what the hell was going on. Where were they? What happened? Why wasn't she dead?

She distinctly remembered the feeling of her skull crushing underneath the limb of a fungus monster. The thing had been ripped in half, and the first time it hit her, she assumed it was just the flailing throes of a dead thing. But, well, Wartlings, the Fungus King, and the other monsters had still been seconds away, so she didn't think they had caught up to her unless she had spent more time fixing her leg than she had thought. But then how was she...

Titus took a step back, and Tony lunged forward. "Good. You're awake," he said in between pants for breath interspersed with swings and jabs of his spear.

"What happened?" Alice croaked out, her voice box still not properly working.

"When we ripped the thing in half, it split into half a dozen Sporelings and chased us in here," Titus said. "Your second chance activated when you got your head crushed, and I was barely able to get you up and carry you in. The ants have been doing pretty well with the Sporelings, but things aren't going exactly well," he said.

Alice forced herself to turn 90 degrees to face him so she could see out of the glass window she was leaning against. Sure enough, the fungus king had managed to gather maybe half of the Fungus Wartlings together. Several of the other fungus beings were gone. Bunches of Sporelings ran around, being taken down by the ants with relative ease, but the main threat was still going strong.

"At least we're not the main target," Titus commented as he cut down another Sporeling attempting to run into the supercomputer center. Alice wondered why they hadn't just locked the doors, but the scatter of broken safety glass all over the lobby told her that might not have been an option.

Alice attempted to stand, but even as she put her feet underneath her to push herself into a sitting position, she felt her ankle fail and flopped to the side before she could do any real damage to it.

"I can't walk," she said. "Titus, you need to go." Alice forced her mouth and tongue to make a complete sentence.

"What?" Titus asked as he kept fighting at the door.

"Titus, please. You need to go," Alice begged. "You need to launch the code."