B4 Chapter 45: Ants in the Pants

Quintus and his men took off down the tunnels and toward the surface. All thought of the red sand containers was abandoned for the moment as they focused on speed. A cacophony of skittering and clacking filled the tunnel just behind them, announcing the approach of more enemies from below.

They rounded a corner, and Quintus caught a glimpse of their pursuers. Ants. Massive ones, the size of dogs, with rusty red carapaces and mandibles like serrated daggers. They swarmed up the tunnels with alarming speed.

A small part of him wondered what god he'd pissed off to earn the ire of so many insects. First the spiders, then the worms, now this? Perhaps an offering of appeasement was in order when they returned.

The thought was shunted to the back of his mind for the moment. Considering the number of ants on their tail, turning and facing them wasn't an option. Especially given the frantic reports of other such incursions from other Legionnaire groups. Getting everyone to the surface would allow them to regroup, but they still needed a plan to manage these numbers.

"Contact Claude!" Quintus barked. "Have him prepare to detonate the glass!"

It was a backup plan that they'd covered during planning, just in case the initial spell caught fewer of the enemy than they'd hoped. But moving forward with it was suicide for any Legionnaires still caught underground.

Before he'd even finished speaking, Quintus saw a section of the tunnel wall crumble ahead. A flood of ants poured through the fresh opening, trying to cut off their avenue of escape.

"Shields, spears up!" Quintus ordered. "Charge!"

A burst of speed from [Warpath] sent them crashing through the new arrivals. His quick reaction prevented the ants from massing enough to slow them down. But their victory was short lived.

"Sir! The spears!"

Several of the men's spears crumbled into dust where the ants' mandibles had bit into them. The spearheads clattered to the ground, leaving holes in their offense.

Quintus swore. "Swords! Abandon the spears!"

Their caligae crunched as they stepped on one of the corpses of the ants. A sharp pain in Quintus's ankle caused him to swear as a disembodied head bit down, the ant defiant even to its last breath. Quintus dropped his own crumbling spear and smoothly stabbed it with his gladius until the mandibles let go.

That answered one question, at least. The fact that his leg wasn't drying up like a piece of jerky suggested that these ants only affected wood, not living flesh. That was good news for all of them. But it didn't mean they were completely out of the woods.

They kept charging toward the surface, fighting their way past several more ant incursions. The lack of spears meant that they weren't able to charge with nearly the same effectiveness as before. But they made up for that with sheer speed and power, ramming into the opposition like a solid wrecking ball.

[Lead From the Front] let him pass his [Sure Footing] onto the others, allowing them to keep their speed even as they raced over the rocky terrain and shattered corpses. The dim white glow of the mage lights reflected off the ants' carapaces, lending each encounter a ghostly and ethereal quality.

They managed to keep ahead of their pursuers all the way to the surface. They emerged to see other groups of Legionnaires pouring out of their own tunnels and regrouping with the cohorts that had remained aboveground. Grand Mage Claude stood on the back lines, strange symbols glowing around him as he chanted a spell.

"Move! Move!"

Quintus abandoned relaying orders through the messengers in favor of shouting them for all to hear. The time for stealth was long gone, and [Coordinated Offense] made conveying his idea far more effective this way. The men swarmed across the surface with ants in hot pursuit, joining their brethren in an ever-growing [Coordinated Bulwark]. Ants hurled themselves toward their defenses, jaws open wide, only to bounce harmlessly off an invisible barrier. Their efforts were rewarded with a series of quick stabs with the Legionnaires' swords.

Quintus joined the line as well, his aquilifer bolstering their section's defenses further with his auras. The Legionnaires clustered together in a line multiple men deep, with more at their backs just in case the ants started tunneling up from behind.

"Claude!"

The mage nodded and finished his incantation. A deep thump sounded below as the tower of glass shattered. A fountain of glass fragments spewed skyward, prompting the Legionnaires to take cover. But it did the trick. The torrent of ants slowed considerably.

The rumbling continued to grow louder. A second massive sinkhole appeared before one section of Legionnaires, Quintus's [Sure Footing] allowing the men to fall back safely. Two massive antennae emerged, followed by chitinous rust-colored legs and a head.

A monstrous ant heaved its front half out of the sand, beady black eyes casting across the battlefield. The other half came shortly after, sand waterfalling off its bulbous abdomen as it emerged from below. Its chattering screeches grated at the ears as mandibles the size of a man clacked together. Shards of glass peppered its entire body, sticking out like the quills of a porcupine.

"Sir! [Famine Ant Queen], level 37! I would bet money that thing's an area boss!" One of his scouts shouted from his position in the line. The men had fallen back with their brethren to avoid being caught out of place amidst the horde.

Quintus couldn't help but agree. He wasted no time instructing the men to test its defenses. A symphony of loud cracks filled the air as firearms let loose, their bullets pinging off the hardened carapace. A wave of spears, sling stones, and magical attacks followed close behind, many flashing with the telltale light of skill empowerment. Larger stones and siege projectiles arced over their line from distant firing positions, the weaponry set up and manned by the cohorts who'd remained above.

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Attacks pummeled the monsters with impunity. The queen ant reared up and opened its mandibles wide, flinching as a particularly hefty stone struck its head. It vomited forth a stream of red sand, aiming it straight at the Legionnaire line. It cut a swath through the incoming projectiles and slammed into their formation, but the Romans held firm. The sand plumed into the air as the remaining ants continued to fountain up from below, most of them sporting some sort of glass-related injury.

Quintus felt no threat from the attack itself. His skill told him that the line would be able to hold up against it without issue. And yet...

The shouts of alarm only came after the attack had finished. His head whipped around as he felt a sudden and massive vulnerability in their formation. The men who'd just been under attack watched their shields fall apart in their hands, the stretched hides going limp as the wood beneath crumbled. The metal bosses at the center of their shields thudded to earth, a few crushing the ants that swarmed forward into the opening.

The entire section fell back rapidly. A few Legionnaires tried to fill the gap, only to see their own shields crumble as they touched the grains of red sand still floating about on the wind.

Quintus swore. "Fall back! Mages! Get that sand away from us!"

He saw men fall as they hurried to recover from the unexpected vulnerability. Their steps kicked up more sand, losing a few more shields and spears before they managed to get things under control. The [Coordinated Bulwark] held up just fine against the attack. But evidently, when the sand simply floated on the breeze or scattered across the ground, it failed to register as an actual attack. That was a massive problem.

The situation deteriorated further as more ants began to appear, these ones smaller than the rest. They crawled across their brethren's carapaces, scooping up the red sand and shooting it toward the Legionnaires. Tiny red geysers filled the battlefield with corrosive clouds at an alarming pace.

A blast of wind buffeted the clouds back toward the ants. Quintus saw Claude leading the mages, ordering them to neutralize the red sand as quickly as they could. Still, their mana wasn't bottomless, especially not after those two massive spells.

"Retreat!"

Quintus shouted the order. They needed to regroup, and fast.

The massive queen ant dipped its head toward the white sands, inhaling an entire dune in moments as it prepared for another attack. A trebuchet stone struck its side, eliciting an angry screech and cracking its carapace. But the ant didn't slow down. It continued chasing after the retreating Legionnaires, chittering angrily.

The siege engines continued to pound the enemy position as Quintus and the others pulled back. The attacks left wide swaths of devastation and thinned the ant numbers even further. Unfortunately, it didn't last. The assault from afar abruptly slowed as a messenger shouted an update.

"The ants found the siege engines, sir! They're wreaking havoc!"

Quintus grimaced. Most of that weaponry was made of wood, meaning it wouldn't stand a chance against the ants' mandibles or the red sand they spat. They had brought a few stone cannons along, but if the enemy was behind their lines, those would be necessary for defense now.

Quintus considered their options. Retreating back to the elven forest wasn't feasible, even if they had been close enough to make it. The enemy would cut through their defenses like dry paper. Turning and fighting a battle of endurance wasn't an option if their shields would fall apart like this. He had to deal with the boss itself, remove the largest source of the red sand. Only then would they be able to get through this.

Another beam of red from the queen assaulted their position. The Legionnaires turned to face it, protecting themselves and their brethren from the attack. Wind swirled and carried the pluming dust away once more, but it couldn't get everything. Another swath of shields turned useless as their wielders fell back.

Quintus looked toward the mage. "Claude! Do they need you?"

"Nope!" The old man said from the cluster of mages. "They've got the spell pretty much down."

"Good." Quintus drew his windblade, eyeing the air around him for red dust. "Cover me."

Quintus heard the old man laugh as his contubernium and the first cohort formed up for a counterattack. The rest of the Legion shifted, turning to fight as Quintus led a charge toward the boss ahead. Their swords cut through ants as they moved, Claude and his apprentices blasting red sand into the air above their heads where it couldn't be reclaimed.

Quintus tossed his shield to another man. Instead, he charged forth with his windblade in one hand and metal gladius in the other, striking at anything that dared move in his way. The gale produced by the weapon proved more protection than he had hoped, buffeting streams of sand away as the metal blade parried mandibles and stabbed through armored carapaces. He just needed to keep moving.

Individually, the ants weren't particularly strong. Nor did they have much going for them in close-quarters combat, save for their wood-destroying trick. While they fought with a complete lack of self-preservation, that didn’t save them from cold steel.

That was not to say they died without taking their own tolls. For all the mages' efforts, Quintus still felt the constant pockmarks of openings in their line as shields disappeared. Men fell as the ants swarmed into the openings, taking advantage of the vulnerabilities to snap at ankles and torsos.

A spear of molten lava skewered a handful of ants to his left, then another to his right. Claude's mad cackling filled the air as more spears continued to decimate the attacking ants in precise volleys. Quintus felt the barest twinge of a headache begin as the magic ate into the Legion's stamina. They weren't at risk of running out quite yet, he knew. But it wouldn't last forever.

The charge drew closer and closer to the boss ant, fending off beams of sand and ants as they fought. Every deluge from the main boss threatened to punch a fresh hole through their formation as the Legionnaires scrambled to keep the [Coordinated Bulwark] from falling. The perforations in their line left small clusters of Legionnaires vulnerable if they didn't rotate quickly enough, and Quintus felt more than one cold dagger as men fell beneath the tide. But it wasn't enough to stop their advance entirely.

They drew close enough to the boss that it sucked in the very sand beneath their feet. Quintus felt as his aquilifer and Claude laid a series of buffs upon him, his skin glowing slightly with power. Then he leapt through the air, charging toward the boss ant.

His steps carried him through the air as though walking on stairs. Streams of red sand shot up toward him as the smaller ants tried to take him down, but arcane shields sprang into being before they could make contact.

The boss raised its head toward him. Another beam of sand the size of an elephant hurtled toward him. Quintus dodged, using the invisible gale of his windblade to disperse the edge closest to him into a cloud of dust. He pushed the blade further, not letting up and keeping the sand away from the hilt.

His gladius parried one of the massive mandibles that surged toward him, skidding across its surface. He used the momentum to launch himself toward a crack in the monster's carapace.

His windblade burst into an invisible gale as he pushed its power as far as it could go, imbuing his next strike with every skill he could. The wind glowed with golden light as his many buffs added their own might to the mix.

The blade stabbed into the crack with little resistance. The ant screeched in pain. Red sand erupted from the wound in place of blood. Quintus twisted his wrist, opening more cracks across the insect's armor and sending entire sections to the sand below. He plunged his gladius into the newly exposed sections, stabbing over and over as the ant queen thrashed about wildly.

He glanced below to see swarms of ants climbing their queen, trying to get to him. But the Legionnaires were on offense now. Projectiles of every description squashed them flat and sent them careening back to earth. More continued to strike the queen, sending waterfalls of red sand toward the ground. Defense was abandoned as they worked to finish off this foe.

Finally, the queen went still. Quintus stabbed down one final time as the light left its beady eyes, sending the monster to the ground below. He leapt away, allowing it to fall as he rejoined his Legionnaires.

[You have successfully defeated an area boss! You have gained experience.]