Biomass: 59 (Lower Venomous Flyer), (Lower Featureless Myrmeke), (Lower Acidic Flyer).

The body of the Acidic Flyer lay before her. She hadn’t been hungry this time, so she had only taken its core.

The flyer hadn’t had any chance of resisting within the tunnel, as its sole, very expensive advantage was useless here, meaning that she was its better in every way.

She had chased this one into the tunnels from the cavern. It had been pretty stupid to go into a place where it wasn’t capable of flight.

Turning around, she returned to the cavern. If she wanted to evolve quickly and get rewarded, it was best to stay by the cavern, where the vast majority of the ants were.

She watched the cavern from within the tunnels, and was relatively happy to see the first- aside from her- non-flyer to escape the pit successfully. It was darting away from her, meaning that she wouldn’t need to kill it, and it had Springlegs, just like her.

A few more escaped from the pit after that, but none of them came her direction. So, she left the tunnels and cautiously approached the pit.

There wasn’t a single Flyer here anymore, as flying was rather exhausting according to the Kill Declaration. They had all escaped into the tunnels or left.

It made her wonder why the myrmekes in the pit were having such trouble escaping, until she carefully peered over the side and saw for herself. Anytime anybody got close to escaping, someone else would drag them down and back into the slaughter.

Very briefly, she considered jumping into the slaughter herself, but quickly discarded the idea. Instead, she simply waited at the edge for something to escape.

A minute or so later, something finally did. It didn’t have any traits that she picked up on immediately, but it didn’t matter, because it was heavily wounded. She was only a yard or two away from it, and she darted forward. It was missing a leg, and so it had no hope at escaping her, but it tried anyway.

She spat acid at it as she gave chase, and it splashed against the myrmekes’ broken chitin. It had already been emitting pheromones of pain, but they redoubled as the acid corroded its chitin and melted into its flesh and muscle.

As she rapidly neared the myrmeke, it suddenly realized that it wouldn’t be able to outrun her and whirled around. It lunged forward, causing them to meet a bit earlier than she expected.

Now that she had an up-close look at its mandibles, it was clearly a Lockjaw. She didn’t let it utilize its powerful jaws, though, as she immediately struck it with a glob of acid she had been saving for when it inevitably turned and fought.

She had no doubt that it had invested more heavily in its jaws than her, as its mandibles were visibly larger and stronger than hers, and so she leaned backwards, throwing her bodyweight down and thus bouncing a yard or so away.

She hated to use her Springlegs while they were damaged, but the load on them had been very light and very effective.

Not wanting to take any risks of taking any damage, she decided that she would melt this one with her acid while utilizing her stronger, undamaged legs to stay out of its reach.

Slowly, inevitably, it was whittled down by her acid until it was missing three legs, an eye and a mandible. The moment that it lost one of its mandibles, she closed the distance and ended its pained life.

You have slain a Lower Myrmeke Pupae, stage 1. Greater path: Soldier. Lower path: Lockjaw.

And then, when she consumed its core:

You have obtained knowledge of the Lower Path, Lockjaw.

You have obtained knowledge of the Lower Path, Flyer.

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So, the Lockjaw had managed to kill an unadorned Flyer. That was pretty lucky- for her, because she was almost certainly going to be able to evolve now. She summoned her Evolutionary Status, and groaned when she saw the Biomass counter.

Biomass: 97 (Lower Venomous Flyer), (Lower Featureless Myrmeke), (Lower Acidic Flyer), (Lower Lockjaw), (Lower Flyer).

So, one more was all she needed. She really didn’t want something else to get there first, and so she darted for the nearest recently-escaped myrmeke she could. She had noticed that the number of myrmekes escaping from the pit was increasing as they all became increasingly more desperate during the drawn-out fight with the Lockjaw.

It was one of the most uninjured myrmekes she had seen escaping the pit, but she didn’t care. Greed spurred her forward.

It was three feet tall, and thus her equal. It had the signs of being venomous and having Lockjaw Mandibles, although the latter seemed a bit weaker than her own. The rest of its directed growth must have gone towards its strength or durability.

Since she would be evolving soon anyway, she suddenly realized she didn’t need to care about the fact that her Springlegs were about to break, and also decided not to ration any more of her acid. Thus, she closed the distance by using a small handful of short spring-powered leaps, and then slammed into the right flank of the Venomous Lockjaw with a half-powered usage of her Springlegs.

It hadn’t even noticed her approach, meaning that she caught it entirely off-guard. It was knocked a yard or so away, chitin cracked. Hers was, too; she had slammed into it with her left, meaning that the majority of her chitin was broken now, due to the right flank’s having been broken by her accidental collision with one of the giant myrmekes- which, she noted, she hadn’t seen much of after the first few minutes. It made sense, since they were bigger targets.

While she had landed on her legs, though, the Venomous Lockjaw had landed on its side. It was rapidly working to flip itself, but she was able to spew quite a lot of acid onto its less-protected underside before it got up.

It charged at her furiously, and she did as she had done before, bouncing backwards a yard or two using her rapidly-degrading Springlegs.

She spat a glob of acid at the ant, but this time, for the first time, it didn’t just take it head on. Instead, it oriented its face to the left, letting the acid splash against the more heavily-armored area, and not letting any of it get on its eyes, antennae and mandibles.

The move left it momentarily blind to what she was doing, though, and so she used her Springlegs to bounce forward and bite down on its head just as it turned back to her.

It retaliated in kind, clamping its jaws onto her head. Their compound eyes were a bit too high on the head to clamp down on. She strained to try and crack his exoskeleton, but it was durable- much more than her own. On the other end of things, its mandibles were weaker, but her exoskeleton was, too. Effectively, they were at an impasse.

That is, until she spat a glob of acid directly into its eyes and mouth.

Its grip on her head wavered at the pain, and she was already getting ready to spit some more. It tried to pull away, but she locked her jaws and didn’t allow it to. After a moment of hesitation, it reengaged in the only thing it could; clamping down on her head.

Some more acid was spat onto its face, and the last glob had also been eating into its chitin for long enough that its exoskeleton creaked beneath her mandibles.

It suddenly started releasing nicer pheromones that suggested friendliness and working together, and she hesitated, but didn’t release her grip. She didn’t enjoy killing her kin, and this one was smarter- and stronger- than most of the others she had encountered.

Unfortunately, though, it seemed that the ant had decided to ask for a truce too late, because the acid was going to kill it regardless. She had expended the majority of her acid by now, and over half of it had been spent on this ant alone; moreover, it had been taking it directly to the face.

Through pheromones, she communicated her remorse as she declined. It begged, and she could tell that it was in agony from her acid through its pheromones, but its exoskeleton eventually weakened enough that her mandibles broke through, crushing its brain.

You have slain a Lower Myrmeke Pupae, stage 1. Greater path: Soldier. Lower path: Venomous Lockjaw.

She released her grip as its locked grip on her head loosened, and tiredly, but powerfully clacked her jaws together, clearing them of the Venomous Lockjaw’s gore. Forcing herself to keep going, she extracted its core and consumed it.

You have reached the prerequisites to begin the second evolution. The system told her. She ignored it.

She needed to find a safe place, and so she fully charged her Springlegs in order to shoot towards the tunnels, shattering them in the process. She hadn’t closed the distance entirely, though, and so she just ran from there.

Simply entering the tunnels wasn’t safe enough, though, so she continued deeper and deeper into them. While she did, she skimmed her Evolutionary Status and then the Venomous Lockjaw’s document.

Out of the Evolutionary Status, only a few lines were relevant.

Biomass: 132 (Lower Venomous Flyer), (Lower Featureless Myrmeke), (Lower Acidic Flyer), (Lower Lockjaw), (Lower Flyer), (Lower Venomous Lockjaw).

Minimum requirements for second evolution met.

The Venomous Lockjaw hadn’t consumed any other biomasses, apparently, but had still been worth way more than any other individual myrmeke she’d killed thus far. When looking at the Venomous Lockjaw’s document, though, it made sense.

...This Biomass Originator sample received a Commendation from Lower Queen Burhun – “Good senses.”