Chrysalis Chapter 273 Dreaming

"Hi-Hi! How's it going Mother? You can glow now? That's cool! Can I glow soday, or is it a Queen thing?"

The Queen didn't have ti to spare to turn to the babbling child who had appeared beside her. She was deep in battle with a colossal Garralosh Spawn, far taller than she was and the wounds on both sides had piled up. The creature leered with both its jaws as the Queen lowered her body to build the energy in her legs.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

It ca again, that rumble that seed to shake the world itself. There was hunger in it, the Queen could sense it. A vast hunger, appetite without end, and rage also. She had no idea what had driven the old monster to such anger but she cared little.

"Soone sounds upset! I wonder why? Not enough Biomass maybe? That always annoyed . The Senior used to stuff Biomass into my face all the ti! Sotis I wouldn't be able to talk for hours! The Senior really wanted to grow up strong!" Vibrant nattered.

Sohow, the little soldier managed to dash back and forth as she battled at extre speed, all whilst she talked at a constant, rapid speed. The Queen felt the faint beginnings of a headache. Distracted, she missed a dodge and a long ard swing from her opponent thundered into her side. Her mana enhanced carapace flared and sparks flew as the claws penetrated the energy and gouged into her side.

"Too slow! Gotta move faster than that, Mother!" Vibrant laughed as she dashed forward.

Before she could twitch an antennae, the smaller ant had appeared by the leg of her foe and latched on with her mandibles. She savaged the leg with all of her strength before she darted away and dodged a sweep of the monster's tail.

She wasn't going to fall for that again!

Seizing the mont, the Queen lunged forward and bulled her way into the face of the massive lizard. Knocked off balance the creature roared with both its mouths but the Queen feinted high before she bit low, her mandibles dug deep into the torso.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

That rumble ca again and every monster shivered as the air seed to vibrate inside their lungs. Such a thing would terrify any normal creature, but the ants were indomitable. The aura released by the Queen pumped them full of energy and filled their hearts with thirst for battle. They continued to rush forward and tear into the enemy, their own wounds and safety a distant thought in their minds.

The battle raged before the eighth wall. The ants threw themselves at the Garralosh spawn and the remnants of the horde with reckless abandon and wounds mounted on both sides. Even with the flanking attack of the Shadow Beast pets, their superior teamwork, mage and healers, the ants were sustaining damage. Soldiers, scouts and more had begun to fall in increasing numbers but no backwards steps would be taken.

The Queen fought at the front throughout it all, tireless and without peer on the field, she threw herself into the more powerful Garralosh Spawn over and over again. Supported by her children she was able to lay many of them low, but they were many and she was but one. Even she began to flag as her wounds began to mount.

"The Queen's started to struggle up there!" Advant shouted, "we need to get healers up there imdiately!"

"What healers?!" Grant called back, exhausted, "almost all of them are recharging their glands and cores. We just have to get up there sohow!"

As the Queen battled and struggled, the ant's ferocity rose to a fever pitch. Every ti she was injured, it was as if the entire colony flinched before they hit back twice as hard. The core shapers themselves dared to rise out of the pitfalls and fight alongside their pets, mages poured out their mana, holding nothing in reserve. The fight beca increasingly bloody on both sides.

"She's coming!" the pheromone ssage smashed into Grant like a truck.

"What?!" she called back.

A scout raced up and down the line of battle as she repeated the sa ssage again.

"She's coming!"

Grant froze for a mont. Her heart seed to slow in her chest. The ti had co. The white hot frenzy of the ants cooled as the ssage sank into their antennae and reality asserted itself.

"RETREAT! Back to the final wall if you want to live!"

Would the colony survive? Or would they perish here and now?

"Soone has to go tell the Queen…." she muttered.

But would the Queen retreat? Should she? If the Queen couldn't fight off the beast, then none of them could.

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This torpor felt different sohow. I wasn't sure exactly what it was. I tried to put my feelers on it but thinking is difficult, elusive. My awareness is washing to and fro, separate pieces that co together only to float apart once more. It's hard to think.

Am I awake? Or is this a lucid dream?

Sothing is different.

Faint whispers tickle in the back of my mind. They creep up to my ears. Or antennae? I don't know. Perhaps they speak straight into my thoughts? I don't know. Strange whispers they are, indistinct and blurred, I can't understand them fully. In so ways they are more like impulses or desires, but I feel that they are not my own. As ti passes they beco louder and there are more of them. They drag and pull at my skin. Or carapace? No. Deeper than that. A thousand tiny hooks that tug at my very soul.

I feel helpless to answer them. I'm adrift in a dark river, distant from my own body and unable to react. I'm changing. I can feel it. Even as the whispers grew louder and my body shifted at the edge of my awareness, sothing more fundantal was changing. This was evolution.

What did it an to evolve? To change oneself in a physical sense? I had thought that was the case. Even as I float, half asleep, I can still tell that this is different. This is deeper. The longer it goes on, the more my mind wants to sink, to fall into the centre and stay there. Why move? When I move, things are destroyed. Better to be still and quiet.

Stop whispering to . Stop pulling at . I want to sleep.

But I can't. The hooks are insistent. Each mont that passes they drag a little further out of the river and closer to shore. A thousand hooks and a thousand voices, each with their own particular tug and tone. Over ti my mind and my body co back together, to et once more in the middle. The light ca back to my eyes, so slowly.

I'm so hungry, yet, and it's the strangest thing, on the inside, I feel so full. The whispers are louder now. Insistent and desperate. They need , very much. They need , and so I will go. The call alone is enough for .

With great care, I lift a leg, then another, then another, until all six were positioned around . Then I pushed, and the blood began to flow through my body once more. Mana sputtered to life inside my core and began to trickle out through my veins and then further, to seep into every fibre of .

But still the whispers, still the hooks with their endless pull. It isn't pain I feel, when they drag at my heart, but sothing far worse. I need to go to them.

I'm coming. I'm awake.