Giant insects ruled the world beyond the Asanyon continent, and it was the Six Swarmsteel Fronts holding them back from claiming humanity’s final bastion—the ‘Attini Empire Front’ was but one of those six, located in the southernmost edge of the continent.
The giant insects that regularly assail the Empire were mainly colony insects; monsters that could follow orders and move almost as cohesive units, capable of coordination and cooperation no other class of insects could imitate. That was why the Empire’s military demanded fearless obedience from their own soldiers. Nothing less could defeat the Swarm assailing their walls.
The General’s campaign to reclaim the wintry north of former Empire territory, then, was always supposed to be a ‘painful’ campaign. They were breaking away from the coordinated giant insects they were used to fighting in the south to instead challenge an entirely different class of insects: the ‘Boreus’ scorpionflies that were known to be solitary, tribal nest-based, but otherwise easy to annihilate in small numbers due to their lack of cohesiveness. They weren’t known to make intelligent decisions; they weren’t known to be good at tracking down prey, nor were they known to be particularly fast or agile—the Capital did not expect the Hagi’Shar Forward Campaign to end in a flawless victory, but a victory was expected nonetheless.
Evidently, they’d all vastly underestimated the bugs in their first battle to establish a forward outpost right beneath the blackrock mountains.
And now, the bugs were behaving strangely again.
… Six.
Seven.
Eight of them.
Eight howls tore into the night sky, so sharp and forceful they extinguished the table candles and fanned the brazier flames. The colourful tarps overhead lost their lustre as moonlight seemed to dim. The Worm Mages were immediately quiet as they craned their ears to the sky, their small faces scrunching to get a better look at the shadows trying to crawl over the blackrock mountains in the distance, but if they didn’t know what they were looking for they wouldn’t be able to see it in the dark: giant flea-like bugs with long black snouts, razor wire antennae, and skipping down the rocky slopes like crickets with their non-functional wings tucked closely to their oversized abdomens.
The first of the twelve shadows skipped past the fences, past the gate, and splashed heavily into the crystal river streams. A hundred metres away. It was at this point that moonlight reflected off the roofs and flowers and revealed its gnarly, lifeless eyes to everyone gathered round the bell tower—and then the Boreus raised its head and screeched, having finally found its prey after however many long hours it’d spent crawling up the mountains.
Sparrow didn’t waste a second. His first step forward took him out of his chair, his second step warped him away from the bell tower, and within twenty steps he’d warped into his cosy little cabin, snatching the rifle sitting against his nightstand.
They must be strong Boreus variants if they managed to climb all the way up here.
Can I fight them without any bullets?
… He didn’t dare waste another second. He warped twenty steps back out, back towards the bell tower, and though he’d been gone for at least thirty seconds—more than enough time for every Worm Mage to have picked up arms themselves—he returned to see not a single child moved out of the way.
Ninmah, Utu, and the hundred and eleven were frozen in place; their bodies paralyzed with fear as the first bug tore through the crystal wood houses, charging straight at the crowd with malice in its eyes.
…
He’d forgotten they were children without a shred of malice in their bones.
And he’d forgotten he hadn’t once seen a single adult in the village, or a single graveyard where they laid their dead to rest.
… I see.
Clenching his throat, he jumped onto a table and kicked a fork, sending it flying straight up into the bundle of chimes at the top of the bell tower. The chimes rang. Ninmah, Utu, and the older-looking kids carrying bows and quivers on their backs jolted in place. Whether they fought or not was none of his business, but, at the very least, they simply couldn’t be standing or sitting there—they had to run, because the Swarm could smell fear.
So he had to fight.
The moment the first Boreus broke through the narrow alley and crashed into the garden, he leapt at it, bowling straight into its head with his bayonet piercing its head between its eyes. A screech escaped the bug as it tried to thrash him off, its giant legs whipping around to demolish tiles and tarps and braziers alike; he narrowed his eyes to stop snow from fogging his vision, plunging his bayonet deeper into its head until it stopped writhing, stopped smashing into houses and got itself tangled up in a web of clotheslines. It was stronger than the Boreus he’d fought a month ago, but he was stronger, too.
One down, seven more to go.
Now the children were running. Shouting, screaming, warping for their lives, they turned the garden and the feast into a chaotic mess of twisting blurs, none at all coordinated or even attempting to charge into the invading Boreus. Faintly, he heard Ninmah and Utu and the older kids warping halfway up the bell tower, shouting at everyone in their warping voices to… gather at a shelter, probably. Or just to find a tucked-in place to hide. But the young were young and the youngest were terrified—within ten seconds, everyone had warped out of the garden to different parts of the village, and all of the remaining Boreus noticed.
The seven stopped charging at the garden and split up instead, each deciding to chase after a small group of frantically warping children instead of mounting an all-out swarm attack on him.
Not good.
I have to–
He took a step off the fallen Boreus’ head and tripped face-first into the snow, failing to warp.
Pulling his head up with a gasp, he glared back at his legs with irritation in his eyes—were his muscles so tense facing the Attini Empire’s enemies that he couldn’t use what he’d spent the entire month trying to master?
… Get up.
You are a soldier of the almighty Attini Empire.
It was possible. It had to be possible. Ninmah and the Worm Mages had told him the worm didn’t need to move, and that it was the world that had to move around it—but he couldn’t be that worm right now. The Worm Mages were in disarray, running and fearing for their lives; in warring times like these, there could be no room for complacency, no room for casual ‘walking’.
If he had to be a worm, he had to be one that could make the world move around him, whether it wanted to be casual or not.
Run.
Be fast.
Be efficient.
That is what a bullet ant soldier does.
That feeling of walking ‘in-between’—turn it into a feeling of running ‘in-between’.
Pushing past his aches, past his wounds from earlier this morning, he rose to his feet and dashed forward by shifting his entire body weight; his cloak fluttered behind him as he envisioned grabbing the air like it was a piece of fabric and twisting, pulling it behind him—and he failed to warp, falling back on face.
He got up and tried again.
Failed.
He got up and tried again.
Failed.
But on his fourth try, his fourth attempt at throwing his entire body forward—he warped ten metres forward onto a roof, having ‘rushed’ through a warp though Ninmah had told him it was impossible to do so.
… Hah.
He closed his eyes, sucked in a sharp breath, expelled it as cold mist, and opened his eyes once more. Seven giant shadows were rampaging across the village, towering over every house, crushing everything standing in their way. About fifty children in shining white cloaks were still floundering about on the roofs, running in no particular direction, simply warping as far as they could with each step to get away from the Boreus. A few children with bows and arrows were frantically trying to guide the youngest of the young to someplace safe, but that also left their own backs unprotected; nobody was watching their backs.
In a single, aggressive forward step, he broke into a sprint and jumped off the edge of the roof, warping mid-air and reappearing behind a Boreus about to ram into a group of six children. The rush was dizzying. The speed was painful. He lunged in with that burst of speed nevertheless, growling as he ran his bayonet into the Boreus’ wings before kicking the stock of his rifle down, using it as a club to drive the bug into the ground.
The houses around them collapsed with mighty crashes, crystal wood shattering and splintering into shrapnel everywhere. With a screech, the Boreus tried flipping itself around so it could swipe him off with its antennae, but he’d already warped off and reappeared with a running start, stabbing his bayonet down into its abdomen and dragging the blade along its underside until its guts spilled out, foetid pus spraying into the air.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Two down. Six to go.
Before the group of children huddled together could even look up and see what had happened to their pursuing Boreus, he’d already warped back onto the roofs to perch on a ledge, gripping his rifle with one hand. The sounds of two Boreus completely demolishing the western section of the village drew his attention the most, so he warped in and down, unthinking, unfeeling. Ten steps were all it took to get from one end of the village to another, and just as he was about to catch up to the two Boreus about to catch up to a group of about twenty children, all running aimlessly as though they were in a simple game of catch–
A third Boreus exploded up from the house in front of him, spiny legs tearing into his forearms and nearly making him drop his rifle as it bellowed with murderous rage. The roofs were unstable, he lost his footing; he managed to warp a few metres off to the right as the ambushing Boreus tore into the house he’d just been standing on, his arms stinging with pain he couldn’t dull with willpower alone.
It was waiting for me.
These Boreus are–
A howl from the right had him turning, and it was only his worm-like bones that allowed him to contort just barely out of the way, two spear-like antennae shooting past where his chest and stomach had been.
The fourth Boreus had been lying in wait inside another house.
Surrounded in all four cardinal directions by giant bugs, he jumped wildly up to evade their collapse onto him, their giant frames smashing into each other with a series of chitinous screeches; it wasn’t enough. As he prepared to land far from the four, every bone in his left shoulder suddenly shattered under a tremendous impact force—a fifth Boreus having charged all the way across from where it’d been chasing a group of children to tackle straight into him instead.
Mistake.
Sharp bits and edges bit deep into his skin and punctured flesh with the toughness equivalent of four men. He gritted his teeth and warped out of the way, pushing off its snout with his palm to shift his weight, but his focus was broken, he wasn’t looking where he was warping; he reappeared on a nearby roof, stumbling over his own feet, and the four Boreus that’d managed to untangle themselves from each other were already waiting for him.
[Strain: 56% → 64%]
One of the Boreus made a swing with its giant foreleg, far too wide and far too strong. He snapped his neck and let it pass next to his face, dashing back for a warp to put more distance between them. His left thigh and waist still exploded with pain as another Boreus burrowed its snout into the snow to fling an entire shed at him, the crystal wooden boards flying at him like a cloud of locusts he had to endure. Somehow he stood his ground, but maybe he shouldn’t have—the third, fourth, and fifth each charged him with frightening speed wherever he tried to warp for distance, somehow moving to his new position before he could even finish the warp.
How are they catching up?
How do they know where I will reappear?
Was it the blur? The tangible twisting of the air that the Worm Mages all left behind whenever they warped? If the twists in the air occurred at the site of arrival as well as the site of departure—and he’d never really paid attention before if he could spot the Worm Mages arriving before they actually arrived—then it stood to reason the Boreus, with their giant sensitive antennae, could track him between warps.
What was the counter to this, then?
Did he just have to warp faster?
… No.
He didn’t have to.
There was a reason why he’d killed that second Boreus as easily as he had, and it wasn’t just because it was alone and had no companions to back it up; it’d just been horrifically tunnel-visioned on the group of children it’d been chasing.
With unease in his chest, he jerked himself back and warped twenty metres in a single step, pulling him far and away from the group of Boreus. Their eyes followed him as expected, and they started charging, tearing through the village—and he ran like a coward, sprinting and jumping and vaulting over the gabled roofs as he led them straight towards the largest huddled group of children he could spot in the distance.
Go!
Run!
Be afraid and start warping!
He spotted Ninmah and Utu among the group of fifty or so children, and they were staring at him, faces paler than he’d ever seen them—but he just couldn’t stop now. He waved his bayonet at them and snarled at them to start fearing for their lives, voiceless, and while Utu gritted his teeth while nocking an arrow onto his bow, Ninmah got the message. She shouted, breaking the sky with her loudest warping voice yet, and immediately the children all scattered in every conceivable direction; a cloud of dizzying blurs was all they left behind as they warped away.
The important part was that they didn’t stop warping.
He slammed his heels into the roof for a screeching halt and whirled, baring his teeth as the Boreus screeched to a halt as well. His heart soared up his throat as he realised his theory was correct: they could see the twists in the air he left behind whenever he warped, and that meant when a hundred and eleven people were warping all at once, their antennae’s precise senses were completely overloaded. They couldn’t predict where anyone in particular was going to reappear, and that meant they could only rely on their eyes to catch him in front of them.
And that meant they could never catch him.
He dashed back in, and the five of them giants charged forward with reckless abandon; they had no plan this time. With dozens of children warping around the village every single second, they couldn’t use their antennae to predict his movement—so he warped behind them right before their legs could reach him, stabbing his bayonet into a Boreus’ abdomen before ripping its innards out, felling it before it could even whirl to see where he’d gone.
Deposit all points into speed!
[Speed: 4 → 6]
[Unallocated Points: 42 → 1]
Two, three, four more warps. The Boreus slashed at him in a flurry of arcing strikes, each clawed leg surging forward at a speed the old him couldn’t possibly have followed; he wasn’t the old him. He was twice as fast as he was back when he’d been ordered to cover the General’s retreat, and it showed. The Boreus that managed to claw their way up the mountains were sturdy and tougher than usual, but having a thicker chitin meant more encumbering weight, more sluggish movements than usual. He warped circles around them and jabbed in whenever he found an opportunity to duck and weave between their swipes, striking under their snouts where they weren’t armoured and he could spend the least amount of energy gouging their brains out.
The fifth Boreus came at him swinging while he finished off the others, yanking his bayonet out of their heads. There was nothing elegant or practised about its attacks—with great effort, he snapped the bones in his right shoulder and twisted around its swiping leg, letting his momentum carry through as he thrusted right up its snout.
It collapsed, lifeless, making a huge splash of snow at the exact same time his knees buckled.
[Strain: 64% → 79%]
… And it wasn’t over yet.
The sixth and last Boreus appeared through the smog in the near distance, prowling through the debris, the snow, its mandibles clicking and its antennae vibrating and the hairy spines on its legs bristling with wariness. It was the largest of them all—at least six metres tall and twice that in length—but it’d seen him slay its companions and knew to take it slow. The black glint in its eyes showed it knew the hundred and eleven warping blurs around it were only distractions; the only thing it had to worry about was him warping behind it for a backstab.
So it wouldn’t give him the chance.
It stalked forward, slow and menacing, walking light on its claws and poised to strike wherever he decided to warp around it.
He couldn’t beat this one in a melee.
… Think.
Get up.
Blood trickled down his forearms, seeping into his cloak. His left arm and shoulder were broken. Crystal wood shrapnel had cut his skin in more than a dozen spots. His right hand was the colour of a deep bruise as he tried to raise his rifle while shuffling back on the ground, realising he’d been holding on so tight and for so long he’d practically broken the bones in his hand as well. He could no longer feel anything. He couldn’t feel anything except for the cold and the unease that the Boreus steadily advancing towards him would be his end.
He couldn’t stand. If he tried to stand, his knees would crumble again. If he tried to warp, his strain would reach a hundred percent and blood would burst from his brain. He had to kill the Boreus while sitting up on the ground, and with one broken arm to boot—was this really, really going to be his end.
Before he could even return to his battalion?
Before he could even accomplish his mission?
Before he could even master his new abilities?
…
Broken as his left arm was, his left hand curled around something small and pointy inside his trouser pocket. Cold. Metallic. A single bullet. Gnashing his teeth together, he ripped it out and flicked it into his right hand, struggling to pull the bolt on his rifle back and chamber the bullet that wasn’t meant for an anti-chitin heavy rifle—he must’ve kept it from when he was still using his light rifle—but right now there was no alternative. Even if the bullet wouldn't pierce through the Boreus’ chitin in one shot, he had to try.
Five metres to contact. The Boreus towered over him, its bleary black eyes boring holes into his chest. He managed to chamber the bullet and raised his rifle, but with his head pounding in agony and only one trembling arm to aim, how sure was he that he could shoot right between its eyes?
If he waited for it to get any closer, it'd tear him to shreds. If he missed the slightly soft part between its eyes by even a single inch, the light bullet would bounce right off.
Was there a way he could guarantee a killing shot?
…
There was.
Expelling every last breath of air from his lungs, he closed his left eye and aimed down the sights with his right, visualising an imaginary scope as he always did—but this time he twirled his right eye and actually tried to draw one, envisioning the smallest, smallest of circles appearing before the barrel of his rifle.
Smaller.
His right eye strained to twirl in a circle. It felt like blood vessels were going to burst and he was going to lose his vision, but if that was the price he had to pay, he'd do it.
Smaller.
A glowing thread of light flickered into existence before the barrel. Slowly, steadily, he moved his right eye around in a circle to continue extending that thread of line, and he clenched every muscle in his body to keep himself from losing control. He didn't even want a fist-sized wormhole this time; a wormhole of that size would make his strain shoot well past a hundred percent.
He needed only one wormhole the size of a light bullet.
Smaller.
The Boreus decided it'd been patient for long enough. It lunged in, legs kicking up a tidal wave of snow behind it–
And he fired, shooting through the bullet-sized wormhole in front of his barrel to make his shot pierce right through the Boreus' skull.
It didn't fly five metres.
Far from it.
He'd bridged the five-metre gap with a wormhole and fired ‘point-blank’ between its eyes, making it fall slump and skid to a quiet halt before his legs.
…
He dropped his rifle, letting out hisses of pain as he fell onto his back, clutching the wounds across his waist and thigh. He could faintly hear a hundred and eleven Worm Mages starting to warp in around him, realising the Boreus invasion was over—but so was his capacity to stay awake.
Even Ninmah and Utu, rushing over with tears in their eyes while shouting his name with their warping voices, couldn't get him to stay.
[Strain: 79% → 90%]
… Victory.