Antvance into the Unknown

70. Holding the Line

It takes a day of near constant fighting to help the Colony shove the wave back to the outer defensive walls, and once again, the endless defence against the monsters continues. It’s all worth it, though. Every hour, the family is harvesting ridiculous amounts of Biomass and cores from the farm zones, and our savage, one-sided tactics are ensuring that the frontline soldiers, generals, scouts, and mages are getting a constant flow of experience.

The number of tier four ants is steadily increasing, with some rare individuals tipping over into tier five. These ants are the OG’s, possibly born to the Queen before I was. If it weren’t for a strange quirk making me the first of the Formica Sapiens, these battle-hardened siblings would be receiving the sort of respect I get. And they’d be far more deserving in my opinion!

The ‘Eldest’ salutes you, brave ants! With her constant flurry of motion, Vibrant is racking up the Levels at a prodigious rate. I ran into her not long ago and she was almost the same Level as Tiny, which is rather shocking. Despite lacking the ape’s tremendous power, her raw speed and ability to go for days without sleeping is helping her mow through the enemy at incredible speeds.

I might have to arrange more rest for her… If she manages to reach tier six before my pets, it won’t look too good…

After that point, I drive my pets even harder. More fighting! Less resting! We plough through endless hordes of shadow monsters, grind tier four and five demons into dust, and fortunately don’t run into any more toxic monsters before we retreat behind the lines for a regroup.

We push like this for a few more weeks and finally comes the time that I’ve been anticipating for so long!

Crinis is the first to reach the milestone, much to Tiny’s chagrin; her ability to pulp weaker monsters like a blender is just too much for the big guy to keep up with. Even if he scores more experience from higher tier monsters due to his incredible stopping power. Crinis is beyond excited to reach the milestone and isn’t shy in letting me know it.

[I finally caught up to you, Master!] she exclaims, leaping through the air to blob onto my carapace, giving me a quite comfortable, but surely horrendous-looking, thousand-tentacle hug.

[Well done, Crinis!] I praise her without holding back. [You’ve worked hard! I can’t wait to see what your tier six form is going to look like!]

She preens as I pat her head with an antenna, bringing a pair of tentacles up to her blobby face.

[This means I won’t be holding you back anymore, right, Master? You’ll be able to start collecting experience again and push for tier seven!]

Tier seven? I just evolved to tier six! Don’t rush the process. I need like, three hundred Levels before I can evolve again. But she’s correct that once the two of them have evolved, I’ll be able to start prioritising my own experience and growth. Not to mention we’ll finally be able to remove the seal on Invidia. The poor demon has been basically forbidden from gaining experience from the moment I reconstituted him, just so everyone could catch up. After this, the long road to his next evolution starts and he can finally start accruing experience for himself.

[Yes, yes,] I say to Crinis. [I’ll start taking more experience again. For now, you need to act as Tiny’s support so he can reach Level 80 as fast as possible.]

[I will!] she says, wiggling happily.

When we return to fighting, Tiny goes at it with a vengeance, his armour taking a beating as he throws his considerable weight around, making a mess of everything he can get his fists on. It’s quite the impressive display, and despite the fact he routinely exhausts himself, his Levelling speed picks up significantly, and in less than a day, he too has reached the milestone.

[There you go, Tiny!] I cheer for him. [You’ve finally made it! This is your chance to get even more massive!]

The big ape flexes his trunk-like arms and beats his fists onto the chest plate of his armour, grinning all the while.

[But first I’m going to have to chip away at your bulk in order to make you less stupid.]

The giant, bat-faced ape loses his grin and he curls his arms protectively around himself, as if trying to protect his beefy frame from my depredations.

[Don’t sulk, you’ll get back everything you lose and more when you evolve. Sheesh!]

With the goal achieved, our victorious party makes its way back into the territory of the Colony and all the way into the nest. After a bit of fussing from the Council, at first wondering why we weren’t out fighting, then wondering why we weren’t hurrying to evolve, we make it into the same chamber I evolved in, where we can finish feeding the last of the required resources into my pets.

Rare evolutions for both of them this time around. I have to say, I’m almost as excited for them to evolve as I was for myself. It’s a really good feeling watching the monsters I’ve raised grow alongside me. Tiny was my first pet. I still remember when he was just a little baby ape riding around on my back, getting into trouble. Crinis came much later, but she has quickly become an important member of the group, and her adorable antics are always good fun, even if her actual form is nightmare-inducing.

[I’m really proud of you two,] I say, feeling a touch emotional. [We’ve come a long way together and getting to this point has been difficult. It’s going to be so nice to be able to run around the Dungeon together at the same tier again, and I won’t have to worry about it as much.]

Surprising me, Tiny wraps his furry arms around me in a big hug, prompting Crinis to extend her tentacles and do the same. It’s very nice, but then I spot Invidia, floating by himself off to one side, watching us with his green eye.

[Come on, greedy-boy,] I tell him, waving him over with an antenna. [Get in here.]

He hesitates, then flutters over, and before he knows it, he gets snatched out of the air by Tiny and brought into the group hug.