Frost crystals enveloped the fleshy cavern walls from ground to ceiling. The circular arena was fifty metres in diameter, thirty metres high, and stark barren but for the mounds of carcasses they’d slaughtered on their way down. Even under normal circumstances it’d be difficult for five tiny ants to take down a giant scorpionfly, much less in a sub-zero temperature environment… but fearlessness was their tenet and recklessness was their very lives. The Mutant’s death was already made certain in the face of the Bullet Ant Battalion.
It was just about how much effort they had to put in to make that a reality.
The five of them surrounding the Mutant fired at once, and it ducked with a sickening crack of its chitin, their bullets slamming into the ground. Sparrow immediately narrowed his eyes and chambered a second shot. He still remembered the General’s lecture on fighting a Mutant—that there was no ‘trick’ to beating one apart from using raw, unfiltered power. Mutants were far from adhering to conventional biological rules. The single worst mistake one could make was trying to identify their exact species, because they were known to hide what they really were until the very last moment, when the tides could be turned with a new ability. There were plenty of reports of Mutant fireflies disguising as hornets, bugs disguising as beetles, flies disguising as dragonflies; if overwhelming power wasn’t an option, then ‘adaptability’ would keep a warrior alive against a Mutant.
Adapt to everything it throws at us.
What abilities does it have?
They fired again. It was an abrupt dodge again. The Mutant jumped this time, twirling its scorpion-like tail in a circle, and a fan of ice spikes stabbed at their feet. More mist exploded from the holes in its legs, blooming outwards to enshroud the cavern and lower visibility; Sparrow and Minki were fine with their frost resistance, but the bullet ant soldiers had twenty minutes. Maybe even less. He heard the three of them unhinging their jaws and expelling heated breaths, all of them finally hopping off their mound of carcasses to advance towards the Mutant in the centre–
The Mutant pounced at him through the mist, four arms reared behind it, and he swung his bayonet just quick enough to send them both reeling. The impact rippled through his wormic bones and made his vision shake for a moment. He immediately warped around the mist and yanked Harpy out of it, pulling her away to the edge of the cavern; Minki did the same with Peregrine and Crow, dragging all of them before the Mutant could strike again.
“... It has enhanced speed, strength, its tail can fire spikes, and the mist coming out the pores in its legs is cold enough to grow snow crystals,” he muttered, glancing at Crow as he did. “It might have more abilities, but for the time being… any countermeasures we can take to prevent the mist from spreading?”
Crow seemed to think for a moment, playing with the diamond flower ornament in his hair, and then he shook his head. He raised ten fingers as he let out a heavy, chilling breath—they had to kill it in ten minutes, or even Sparrow and Minki wouldn’t be able to endure the cold.
So be it.
The bullet ant soldiers’ stances solidified as they started firing from the edges of the cavern, just Sparrow and Minki warping in to match the Mutant face-to-face inside the mist. Their bayonets stabbed at its neck from two directions, so it split its attention and punched the blades away with two arms each, charging past them to deal with the bullet ant soldiers. The three of them kept firing, staring the Mutant down with reckless abandon—Sparrow’s eyes widened as Minki warped back to pull the three of them out of the way, just in time as it bowled straight into the crystalline wall, making a waterfall of crystals tumble down.
Crow tapped the barrel of his rifle the moment Minki warped all of them over to the centre of the cavern, and Sparrow nodded; the Mutant was more than happy to block their bayonets, but refused to let a single bullet come close to it. Was that because it knew its chitin wasn’t overwhelmingly tough to begin with, and their chitin-piercing bullets would wound it?
Without another word, the Mutant charged them in a single, smooth movement; leaping off the wall and barreling straight into them. He was the only one that warped forward this time—Minki stayed behind so she could warp the other three away in emergencies—and immediately deposited half of his points into strength.
[Strength: 9 → 10]
[Unallocated Points: 179 → 98]
He’d butted heads with the Mutant before. He could do it again. He warped under its jaw, swung upwards, and the stock of his rifle smashed into its face like a hammer to a piece of plywood. Chitin plates cracked as the Mutant was sent flying back, and he immediately ducked—a volley of bullets piercing through its chest and sending it even further back. A screech escaped its snout as deep blue blood splattered onto the ground. Its toughness really was lacking compared to its offensive capabilities.
This time, he warped in with a sudden burst of speed, and it tried to dart past him to get to Minki and the others. Soft crystal light glinted off its obsidian chitin. His omnidirectional ocelli and vibrational senses worked together to predict its jumping trajectory, and then—he turned, twirling his right eye in a circle and opening a wormhole in front of it, making it fly right back into his bayonet.
With a growl, it jerked its head out of the way and let his blade sink between its shoulder blades. An imperfect hit. Most insects had no hearts to begin with, meaning there was no single weak spot they should be aiming for to kill the Mutant in one go; if they weren’t strong enough to demolish it completely, they had to bleed it out. Death by a thousand cuts. The Mutant understood this and immediately jerked around, whipping its tail at him, but he jumped over and sent his heel into the back of its head, driving it into the ground. Four more shots pierced through its wings and drew blood before its screeching swelled, forcing him back as a huge cloud of mist exploded out its legs.
Powerful, but not immortal.
It knows the four of them will be the end of it by constantly opening bullet holes in its body, so as long as I keep it busy…
Warping before his allies, he cracked his shoulders and stretched his legs, gripping his rifle in both hands. The Mutant’s shadow rose through the mist, its tail jerking around, its bleeding wings flapping in place. Its soulless eyes glowed with soft, pinkish-purple light, and for just a very, very brief moment, Sparrow felt a shiver run down its spine.
Then it vanished with a poof of mist.
Inhaling sharply, he immediately ducked and let his allies intercept the crystal spikes, shooting them out of the air as the Mutant took to standing upside down on the ceiling. It was just kneeling there, swishing its tail left and right, sending endless waves of spikes at them. Sparrow grimaced as he knew it knew; their strategy hinged on their bullets being used with maximum efficiency, each shot used only to draw blood. If they wasted it all on intercepting the spikes, eventually their triggers would click empty. There’d be no more ranged support.
Sparrow warped up to the ceiling, standing upside down to meet it head-on. It stood up at long last, tilting its chin back as though to taunt him, and he took initiative by warping in. Swinging the stock of his rifle. It caught his rifle with two hands and punched with two more, one going to his waist, the other going to his neck. He snapped his neck to the side and tanked the hit to his waist with his rigid annuli, wincing as something still went crack inside him—but the soldiers returned fire, a volley of bullets tearing through its arms. Both of them stumbled back, a brief lull in the fighting.
Then it restarted all over again, all across the cavern.
The Mutant jumped down to the walls, changing the arena, and he chased after it with consecutive warps. He rifle shattered chitin off its arms as it tried to block. His own arms snapped in opposite directions as he tried to block some of its counters. Whenever it spun and twirled its tail, he’d open five, six wormholes above him to reflect the crystal spikes back at it, and then the bullets would fly in, hiding amidst the volley. Being so close to its freezing mist was making him more sluggish by the second, but violence was seldom graceful or elegant. The two of them were just clashing cogs in a greater war, and whoever had sharper teeth would tear the other apart.
How much stamina does it have? he thought, mid-blocking a tail swipe directly at his head, his arm snapping and realigning for the tenth time today. It cannot fight forever. It is larger than us. It is expending more energy than us dodging and jumping around. Does it have a plan to stop us from bleeding it dry?
What is it?
He was certain it still had a trick—or several tricks—up its metaphorical sleeve, but he didn’t realise it until the two of them were clashing upside down on the ceiling once again, having brought their fight all the way around the faces of the cavern.
Their constant bullet fire had weakened the surfaces of the cavern, and the Mutant slammed its heavy tail into the ceiling, shattering an entire layer of frost crystals and making them fall like a hailstorm of daggers.
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Glancing down, he immediately knew there was nowhere to hide from this attack. Minki was only large enough to protect Peregrine and Crow with her body, so, without hesitation, he warped down and swept Harpy off her feet, throwing himself over her as the hail of daggers ripped into his back.
He gritted his teeth as the hail continued for a little while longer, and a strange expression formed on Harpy’s face below him—some sort of ‘shock’ or ‘surprise’—but he’d no time to think about it. As Minki fell over next to him, Peregrine and Crow both in similar states of stupor, he swung backwards instinctively and smashed the Mutant’s face in with the stock of his rifle. It’d tried to get a sneak attack on him while he was busy standing up, but he’d heard it darting at him; now both sides were separated on opposite ends of the cavern once more, heaving and panting and gasping for chilly breaths of air.
… So this is ‘Proliferating Septa’.
The last tier four mutation he’d unlocked was a life-saver. While he knelt and exhaled coolly, Harpy yanked out the largest ice shards from his back. He felt no blood trickling out of his wounds. Peregrine did the same for Minki next to him, and though the scout wasn’t bleeding out profusely as well, she was still lying face-down on the ground; Minki had tanked significantly more shards than him, so she was probably out of the fight. Not dead, though; that was the most important thing.
Ninmah said ‘septa’ are fleshy walls that separate the blood chambers in the heart, he thought. If ‘proliferating’ means many, then ‘Proliferating Septa’ likely means I have many fleshy walls across my body. Whenever I get injured and start bleeding, the fleshy walls around the wound will contract and stop me from bleeding out… is that what it does?
It wasn’t a regeneration mutation, but it was similar to blood coagulating mutation.
He could never bleed out again.
“... Report, Crow,” he hissed, his arms trembling as he stood up, using his rifle stabbed into the ground as support. The bullet ant soldiers snapped their heads at him, eyes twitching. “Any countermeasures we can take to stop it from… doing that again?”
A pause.
Then the strategist nodded, pointing straight ahead at the Mutant.
Sparrow and the rest of them followed his finger, watching as the Mutant struggled to stand on its feet, sporadic bursts of freezing mist sputtering out the holes in its legs pathetically.
… It’s overheating.
Suddenly, its abilities made a lot more sense. Boreus were insects that could only thrive in hoarfrost environments, and the Mutant was their most extreme form; it could produce its own freezing mist, leap across huge plains of snow with its powerful legs, and its tail would be difficult to keep track of in a blurry blizzard. It was specifically designed to excel in sub-zero environments—it could not function the moment it started burning up more energy than it was capable of cooling down.
They could never have beaten it in a war of attrition, but if they forced it to react to their moves with burst attacks, they could very well overheat it and weaken it to the point of death.
So when the Mutant finally charged forward and he stumbled, rearing his rifle behind him as he prepared to swing at its legs–
Harpy shoved him out of the way and slid inside the Mutant’s punch, deflecting its claws with her rifle before getting behind it.
It was sudden, it was abrupt. Harpy jumped and wrapped her legs around the Mutant’s waist, throwing her rifle around its neck in an attempt to choke it out. Peregrine darted to the left and stabbed her bayonet into its leg before wrapping her entire body around its other leg, trying to immobilise it while stopping it from releasing any more freezing mist. Crow, the backline strategist, abandoned all reason and flung himself around the Mutant as well; he grabbed two of its wrists as he wrapped his legs around the front of its waist, crushing its torso between him and Harpy.
Then, their jaws unhinged as they each bit down into the Mutant’s flesh; their tier two mutations that prevented speech, ‘Vicious Paramandibles’, started pumping venom across its body.
Sparrow flinched.
The Mutant started screaming.
It screeched out with each step it stumbled as it tried to tear the bullet ant soldiers off, swinging its claws and tail in a mad flurry. Its claws could rend steel and its tail could shatter walls, but they barely cut through the soldiers’ muscles as he saw their skin hardening in real time; they were depositing all their points into toughness. It whipped its snout around, slicing Crow’s neck open, cutting out Harpy’s left eye. It kicked its leg into the ground and tried to smash Peregrine into pulp, and he watched as her legs snapped, her fingers flattened, her teeth still sunk into its flesh. It tried to take off into the air, trying to push its wings out and shove Harpy off by cutting open her stomach in the process, but then—two shots. Two shots ripped through its other leg and made it buckle, fall onto its knees. Sparrow whirled around; still lying stomach-down, Minki managed to raise her head enough to take two good shots with her rifle, her teeth gritted, her arms shaking. She wasn’t out of the fight yet.
And the Mutant wasn’t dead yet.
…
‘Anger’.
‘Hate’.
[Speed: 7 → 8]
[Toughness: 7 → 8]
[Unallocated Points: 98 → 0]
His body trembled. A low growl escaped his throat. He dashed at the Mutant, bayonet reared behind him, and then jumped. Landed with two feet on its shoulders. He kicked out and toppled it with a massive boom, Harpy taking the brunt of the impact as she was now crushed between the Mutant and the ground. The Mutant made a desperate swing with two of its free arms, but they were slow and imprecise, sliding right off the salt epidermis on his bare ankles. It raised its head and screeched in an attempt to get him to back off, but the bullet ant’s venom had gotten to its throat, overheating it, making its voice weak—making him strong as he stabbed his bayonet down its snout, jamming the blade right into its mouth.
He fired.
Not once, not twice. Seven times in one second, making its head rock back into the ground with a bang each time, and then he reloaded. He fired seven more times, then seven more times, then seven more times for good measure—a total of twenty-eight shots in the span of ten seconds, its skull blown out behind it as the light gradually faded from its inhuman eyes.
He didn’t dare rip his bayonet out until its arms fell limp by its side, its tail stopped swishing about, and the steady hiss of mist ceased to be. Only then—and then ten seconds more—did the bullet ant soldiers untangle themselves from its carcass, wobbling onto their feet with their rifles hanging loosely in their hands.
Peregrine’s legs were thin as sticks, and there were massive dents on the sides of her head where the Mutant had smashed her repeatedly into the ground.
Crow’s neck was sliced open, and his back was bleeding profusely where he’d been cut by the Mutant’s claws over and over again.
Harpy’s left eye was missing, her bare stomach was shredded, and Sparrow could see through the gaping hole in her chest where the Mutant’s tail had pierced her.
Minki, the tenacious silver ant scout, somehow managed to stand and warp right next to him as he raised his rifle shakily—pointing it down at the Mutant’s chest.
The bullet ant soldiers did the same, and they fired until they emptied their rifles.
…
Then, there was silence in the frost crystal cavern.
The Mutant was dead.
The bullet ant soldiers were soon to follow.
“... Why?” Minki whispered, as the three of them let go of their rifles gently and spun to stand at attention. Their expressions were blank as ever, empty as ever; Minki’s lips thinned into a trembling, quivering line. “We still had… a bit of time left. We could’ve overheated it a different way. You didn’t have to smother it with your body heat. Now you… you–”
“Decree Two:” Peregrine said, blood dribbling from her mouth as she caressed the flower ornament in her hair, eyes closed, “Be grateful for what you are given.”
“Decree Three:” Crow said, pressing down on his own flower ornament as he dipped his head slowly, “Always return what you have been given.”
“...”
Harpy saluted, arm across the hole in her chest; her lips parted for a second as though she wanted to say something, but then decided against it at the last moment.
She settled on giving Sparrow and Minki a wistful smile instead.
“... Decree Four: Death in battle is an honour for a warrior against the Swarm,” Peregrine and Crow said, saluting as well, and they wore the fiercest, brightest smiles Sparrow had ever seen; even brighter than anything the Worm Mages gave him. “For the Attini Empire.”
And something tugged on his heartstrings.
He couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t move.
He couldn’t do anything as the bullet ant soldiers collapsed, smiling their last—and with that, the siege was over.
…
He didn’t keep track of time.
It may have been an hour, or two, or even ten. The Boreus above must’ve felt their Mutant was dead and scattered. They’d continue to be a nuisance in Hagi’Shar, but without their leader, they wouldn’t be able to reproduce. It’d be a straightforward job hunting the rest of them down.
But even when the Worm Mages eventually managed to smash a small hole through the ice ceiling and warped down to them, hugging him and Minki tightly, he didn’t feel… like they’d won.
The bullet ant soldiers were dead.
He’d failed to adhere to the General’s conditions.
The storm was not yet over.
----------------------------------------
Arc Four, “Fangs of the Weapons”, End