Kills piled up, notifications flashed.

[Your Summon Spectral Knights strikes Worker Vorathid Ants for 130 slashing Damage.]

[Your Summon Spectral Knights strikes Worker Vorathid Ants for 120 slashing Damage.]

[Your Summon Spectral Knights strikes Worker Vorathid Ants for 330 slashing Damage.]

[Worker Vorathid Ants defeated. You have gained 189 C.L.A.S.P. Points. You have earned 45 survival points.]

[Worker Vorathid Ants defeated.]

[Worker Vorathid Ants defeated.]

[Worker Vorathid Ants defeated.]

[Worker Vorathid Ants defeated.]

Reidar's army was being pushed back.

Soldiers flanked her on all sides. Their bodies were larger than the workers, but these scurried between the soldiers' legs and wreaked havoc, and there were too many of them even for Reidar to manage. The chamber floor writhed with movement as thousands of ants prepared for battle.

The queen's guardians went wild and shot their pheromones around the entire cave, pushing workers into suicidal charges. The queen reared back and released a screech that shook dust from the ceiling. The sound was answered by hundreds of voices as her defenders surged forward in a tide.

"Elemental Storm!"

The storm exploded overhead, fire, ice, and lightning swirling in a deadly maelstrom. Ants screeched as the tempest shredded through them, leaving charred and frozen bodies scattered across the ground. But the swarm didn't stop. More poured in, climbing over the fallen, mandibles snapping relentlessly.

[Your Elemental Storm strikes multiple Soldier Vorathid Ants for 1,347 mixed elemental damage.]

[Soldier Vorathid Ant defeated. You have gained 1,890 C.L.A.S.P. Points. You have earned 567 Survival Points.]

[Worker Vorathid Ant defeated. You have gained 1,203 C.L.A.S.P. Points. You have earned 361 Survival Points.]

[Soldier Vorathid Ant defeated. You have gained 1,756 C.L.A.S.P. Points. You have earned 527 Survival Points.]

His spectral knights tore through the enemy flanks. The bone militia held the center tight, and his wolves struck from the sides, claws, teeth and swords found the weak spots in the armor, and more Vorathid ants died.

But they didn't stop. They still tried to repel the invaders, they still tried to protect the queen, driven by a mindless will which put the nest beyond their own survival.

The queen, instead, struck again, ovipositor impaling knights, skeletons, and beasts alike, while acid flooded the cavern floor.

Dozens fell each time she moved. The moment his creatures died, Reidar was already channeling mana, already summoning replacements, and so were his summoned creatures.

The problem was that he was starting to lose control of the situation. New monsters came, but Reidar had to summon and re-summon some while also giving skills to whatever he could.

His mana was also dwindling, and this meant that he constantly had to damage monsters only for Arcane Leech to take effect. The perk worked, but it wasn't so good that he could sustain himself forever in that fight.

"Ok, I'd like to change my statement!" Reidar said.

"What?"

"I can't do this!"

The woman's head snapped toward him, her eyes wide in shock and surprise. She stared at the man's face in disbelief, as if he had just made a joke at the worst possible moment.

"What do you mean, you can't do this?"

He remained silent for a second as he watched another wave of spectral knights dissolve under the queen's acid sprays.

"The queen is making it impossible for me to keep even a unit of mana. She constantly kills hundreds of my summons per minute, while they can't reach the queen because of the Vorathid Ants that serves her." he paused. During that short exchange he reached the conclusion that he couldn't do this as strong as he was now. "We must leave; I simply don't have enough mana!"

Reidar wiped ichor from his face and turned to look at the woman. There was a dead serious look in his eyes. His knights flickered at the edges of the chamber, reforming only to shatter again under the queen's thrashing limbs.

Lena remained silent.

"Did you get what I said?"

She didn't reply again.

"Lena! We must get the fuck out of here," he said once again. "Now. Before she floods the tunnels with more of those things."

The battle intensity increased then. The queen would strike, destroying dozens of his creatures with each blow while Reidar and his creatures had to resummon them each time, burning their mana away.

Lena gripped her knife, eyes locked on the queen's swaying head. "Run? After all this? The nest is your best shot at power. You back down now, and what? Silas picks us off one by one?"

A soldier ant lunged, mandibles snapping inches from her leg. Reidar slammed a Root Grasp into its path, vines bursting from the earth to crush the beast's shell.

He yanked her arm, pulling her toward a side tunnel as his bone militia collapsed in a heap of splintered ribs.

"Power? This is suicide. She's at level ninety-one. My summons can't touch her without breaking through the monsters, which leaves her free to do as she wants with us!"

Vines from Root Grasp lashed out, coiling around a soldier's legs and keeping him pinned to the ground.

"Listen to me," he growled, eyes locked on hers. "If we stay, that queen turns us into paste."

Lena's grip tightened on her knife. "Damn it. Fine. But if Silas hits Havenwood while we're out—"

"Let's just keep being positive, ok? Two days had passed since we got into this place. There is time." Reidar spun toward the tunnel mouth. "Point me to another place where we can farm monsters."

She hesitated. "That was the only place with monsters high-leveled enough for you to get something meaningful out of them."

Reidar barked a laugh. "Good thing I can't kill her, then. She'll repopulate. I'll come back when the level difference is shorter."

Then she gave him a nod.

"Let's go then…" With that, their mounts turned back to the tunnel's entrance and started their journey out of the cave, while Reidar's summons did their best to keep the Vorathid Ants as far from their asses as possible.

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