For anyone else in the Hagi’Shar Forward Army, establishing a base camp at the bottom of the blackrock mountains with only a hundred and fifty soldiers would be completely impossible. Rain and snowfall were especially heavy below the mountains, and they knew the Boreus nest was three thousand metres above them, nestled somewhere in the northern end of a particularly large glacier. It wouldn’t be surprising if, this close to the nest, any attempts at establishing a forward base would only end in disastrous failure like the last time they’d tried—but last time, Vice-general Kuraku hadn’t been on the frontlines.

Within two months—with the General distracting and drawing most of the Boreus far behind her—she’d managed to carve out a fairly large space in the snowy hinterlands. At two hundred by two hundred metres, the base camp was more like an offshoot branch of the entrenched outpost the General had established by the border of Hagi’Shar: with ten metre tall walls of bramble vines, spacious mushroom barracks, lofty riflemen guard towers, and circular beds of soil scattered throughout that would soon be nutritious enough to sustain their fungus mortars, the camp was by no means just a transit camp anymore.

Give or take another week of establishing taller walls to prevent giant insects from jumping right over, deeper barracks to house more soldiers underground where it was warmer, more nutritious soil for the replanting of mortars, and sharper vine barricades outside the walls to slow down any charging force, the base camp would be equal in fortifications to the General’s entrenched outpost.

Of course, the carpenter ant builders and the mortar ant troops couldn’t have built the camp while defending it from stray Boreus patrols by themselves.

“... Vice-general Kuraku.”

“What is it?”

“We are detecting movement through the sea of clouds.”

Narrowing her eyes, she pulled her hand out of the charred Boreus’ head and kicked it into the moat they’d yet to fill with acid—this giant insect would make the sixty-second she’d killed this morning, but when most of her daily tasks for the entire past two months consisted of killing Boreus and killing even more Boreus while her soldiers fortified her camp, even the scent of their rustic blood on her hands didn’t smell so invigorating. Just another week and she wouldn’t have to stand outside the walls playing interception anymore, but a distraction from her dull tasks right now, no matter how inconsequential, was a welcoming one.

Running the blood through her fiery hair, she turned and faced the expressionless carpenter ant builder who’d run out of the camp bearing good news. The builder saluted. She waved the pointless gesture away and motioned for him to lead the way.

“I am not the General,” she said plainly. “You need not salute me or anyone other than him.”

The builder merely dipped his head in understanding and continued leading the way.

To her surprise, the builder started taking her up the vast, snowy slope the silver ant scouts had said was the ‘straight’ path up to the top of the mountains. A thousand metres up, far in the distance and right underneath the bottom of the sea of clouds, she spotted several more builders moving around, walking up and down through the dense clouds as though trying to map out the terrain that lay beyond the fog. Granted, she was the one who’d ordered ten builders to constantly keep watch of any Boreus patrols that may come charging down the slope, but she hadn’t told them to go through the sea of clouds themselves—just what could they possibly be looking at that’d make them disobey her orders as such?

The answer wasn’t readily apparent even when she reached the base of the sea of clouds, where the carpenter ant builders immediately stood to attention and saluted her arrival.

“... Report,” she said, her dark eyes drifting across the line of builders. They were all too thickly dressed: hood, fur coat, and then a second coat over their bodies. How could they still be shivering?

“Vice-general Kuraku.” One of the builders, a young face no older than fifteen, pointed up the slope. “Perhaps it would be better… if you saw them for yourself.”

A flash of annoyance went through her eyes, and she almost lashed out at him for not just telling her what they were scouting—but then she noticed something shaking beneath her boots. Snow vibrating. The sea of clouds above swirling. They were soft at first, distant and quiet; then they grew loud, like they were right next to her ears and a hundred metres away at the same time, and the whispers through her eardrums made the builders around her squirm, arms hugging themselves as though in a desperate attempt to warm themselves in this blizzard.

Even she felt… a strange, almost animalistic impulse to shudder.

There was something beyond the sea of clouds, inescapably loud, remaining invisible to her senses even though her antennae were the second sharpest in the Forward Army after the Silver Ant Battalions.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

…

Gritting her teeth, she trudged up through the dense clouds despite the builders’ hands flying to grab her arms, and her vision rapidly dropped to near zero. Emptiness remained. It was just after dawn and the sun was clearly shining above the sea of clouds, but the fog made it hard to see two metres in front of her; still she trudged forward, wedging her foot into the snow with each step, straining every muscle in her legs as the whispers told her ‘no, no, no’—as if mere whispers could turn a mighty soldier of the Attini Empire away from fulfilling their duty.

In her case, it was ensuring the safety of her base camp until the General arrived with the rest of the Forward Army. Anything that threatened her camp, she will investigate, and she will eliminate.

She just hadn’t quite expected that ‘threat’ to be…

…

… Children?

The sea of clouds wasn’t as dense and thick as she’d thought. It was a fifty metre section of the three thousand metre slope at worst. Bright sunlight the likes of which she’d not seen in years of fighting in the north blinded her the moment she trudged out of the clouds, and while she took a step back involuntarily, reeling from the light, she immediately noticed the small battle taking place above her, just a few hundred metres off in the distance.

The small horde of Boreus charging up the slope was easy to recognise. She’d slain countless patrols rushing down the slope the past two months to recognise their blasted forms anywhere, so no, the real twist of the battle wasn’t them—it was the group of fifteen or so children firing down at the Boreus with arrows, garbed in garish white cloaks, that immediately caught her attention as ‘things that shouldn’t be seen with the naked eye’.

As her loyal builders charged up the slope behind her, shouting for her to return, she dropped onto her stomach and covered her back with snow. With her special system class, camouflaging wasn’t really her specialty—the carpenter ant builders could do a much better job with their muted skin and hair colours—but right now she had to observe, and she had to understand just what the children were… doing.

It wasn’t easy to tell.

The few Boreus who managed to crawl up to where the pale children were shooting arrows from were met with a storm of blurs, and as she watched the children twist and worm through the air like spectres from old Balla fairy tales, she was reminded of the silver ant scout’s story from two months ago: ‘light refracts and distorts their form’. They had no defined shape as they danced circles around the Boreus, leading the giant bugs wherever which way they wanted, and even if she was hundred metres below the battle, she could clearly tell their tongue was utter gibberish to her ears. It wasn’t gibberish in the sense she couldn’t understand the words being spoken, but rather, there were no words being spoken. It was all… frequencies. Vibrations in the air. They shouted and laughed and cheered each other on as they wore the last of the Boreus down with spears and arrows in melee range, and none of them said a single. Coherent. Thing.

… Strange.

Something strange was bubbling in her chest.

Hot and cold.

Painful and soothing.

She placed two fingers at the base of her throat and breathed, wondering why she felt so… ‘angry’, watching as the worm children clapped each other’s hands and began hauling the Boreus carcass up to the very top of the slope.

Was it because she knew now that the silver ant scouts’ story was unequivocally true?

Was it because the worm children looked so carefree hunting humanity’s greatest enemy, while they, on the surface, waged horrible wars just to earn even the slightest bit of reprieve for themselves?

Or was it because she spotted two of the worm children carrying rifles that belonged to her silver ant scouts, pretending to be part of a world they didn’t truly belong in?

“... Vice-general Kuraku,” one of the builders whispered next to her, all ten of them also lying flat on their stomachs. “What are your orders?”

The other builders glanced at her, fingers curling around the anti-chitin rifles on their backs.

…

Now, there were two options laid out in front of her.

One, she could back off. Having seen the worm children with her own two eyes, she could send word back to the General, and he’d be the one to make the call. Most likely, he’d order her to march up with a small force and make contact with the children, and then—if there truly was a village beyond all reason at the top of the slope—he’d order her to secure a partnership with them to use their village as forward outpost for shelling the Boreus nest from afar. However, given how they’d kicked the silver ant scouts down the last time they came in contact with outsiders, they’d probably refuse to even talk to her, and then she’d most likely be forced to resort to violence to get them to comply. The Attini Empire wouldn’t lose to a mere village of children; they will comply no matter what.

The second option was the inevitable result of the first outcome, but instead of sending word back to the General, she’d strike here and now, taking the initiative before the worm children caught wind of their existence.

Both options would lead to an unfriendly talk between either the General and the worm children, or between her and the worm children.

Which would be more preferable for the Attini Empire?

Which would be more preferable for the worm children, who were going to talk about themselves and their strange abilities from a disadvantageous position regardless?

“... Wait on my countdown,” she breathed, biting her index finger so hard her teeth broke skin, and a stream of crimson ants started trickling out her flesh. “Aim only to disable and debilitate. No vitals. We capture one of them and interrogate them in base camp.”