Eventually, Sunny and Eliji arrived at the mouth of the cave that housed a Fallen Tyrant and an army of Awakened and Fallen soldiers. The entrance was a dirt mound that rose a few feet before opening up a wide circle that led to darkness. They were beneath the dirt pile as Sunny sensed the enormous number of shadows moving around inside, like a batch of worms. It overloaded Sunny as he held this throbbing head, then he looked at Eliji.
"At least 100 awakened creatures, plus several dozen Fallen creatures. I can't sense the Tyrant—either it's using concealment methods, or it's out of my range," Sunny spoke methodically through his ambulette. He then limited his shadow sense to ease his headache.
Sunny had to hold his tongue from saying ants since, from the shadows, he could sense that they heavily resembled ants. He found it ironic that the Waking world's counterpart was pitiful and thousands of times smaller than what had gone extinct due to war.
Eliji coldly side-eyed him before grunting and starting to move towards the entrance pit. Sunny tailed him as they climbed to the entrance with a diameter of ten feet, which was about the size of the ants. He could see through the darkness, and he guessed that the ants could too; he knew Eliji couldn't. In an instant, Eliji let out a soft, fiery aura that lit up the darkness.
'Well damnation, I wish I still had my wings.' He thought back to the moment he heard the spell sing his wings' demise.
Without saying anything, they both jumped into the pit as the wind howled in their ears. After a few moments, they landed on rough dirt that was filled with small, piercing footprints, which were made from the ants' legs. However, before they could catch their breath, the front soldiers that guarded the entrance launched forward at them and used their sharp legs to pierce their chest, and hopefully their heart. Sunny and Eliji dodged to their left or right as Sunny slashed [Midnight Shard] and cut off the sharp tips of the legs.
Selena had done research on the ants every time they showed up, always failing to kill the Fallen Tyrant with Eliji, and eventually the Tyrant adapted to her abilities, making her unable to use most of her abilities within their base of operation. So, she had planned on sending Eliji, but with Sunny's convenient arrival, he had been forced into the operation, which he didn't complain about, considering the amount of soul shards and shadow fragments he could gain.
Knowing the various weaknesses the ants had, one of which was that the area around the tips of their feet was fragile. The ant lost its balance as it fell forward, but before Sunny could kill it, its partner ran towards him, which caused him to jump backwards. Despite his size, he could move freely within the tunnel, which he gladly took advantage of as he engaged with the ant. Eliji fought the other as Sunny weaved through the legs with elegance and dance-like movements.
It took only a few seconds for them to both fall as Sunny didn't even sweat from the battle, and yet he tisked. He had become rusty, something that would be the end of him if his opponent was wrong enough, yet that wasn't the biggest problem. For now, they would only need to fight pairs, but what about when they encountered three? Or five? A dozen wasn't out of the question, and although they could certainly create a funnel to kill the guards as they went through individually, it was too slow.
Eventually, the Tyrant will escape, and their goal will be out of their grasp, and there would be nothing they could do.
'Damn, how the heck do we get past...' Sunny growled as they moved quickly through the tunnels, massacring ant after ant as if through steel. The ants knew they would die and yet still fought ferociously.
Sunny's mind spanned as slash after slash until they reached a certain open area with a dome, with multiple doorways descending in different directions deeper into the nest. The place had multiple ants waiting for their arrival as they jumped into battle, sharp outer armor meeting steel. During the intense fighting, in which he started receiving scratches due to the sheer numbers surrounding him and refusing to give him space, multiple shadows beneath his feet went into each separate tunnel as if they had a mind of their own.
Of course, they did have a mind of their own as they were his personally as they went deeper into the tunnels and hid to avoid the crawling ants that were waiting for the intruders to go in deeper. Once they reached the edge of his control range, Sunny conjured a shadow sword for each of his shadows as they went corporeal and attacked a nearby ant.
Sunny, being able to manifest shadows into physical objects, had a short range; however, he figured out that his shadows, since they were most likely a part of him, had inherited the ability to also control shadows as their lord, or more like princes, considering he could take control of the shadows, which he once did while figuring out the technique.
The weapons themselves weren't powerful; they were no stronger than a Dormant rank weapon with no special abilities, and they weren't made to kill but merely to grasp the ant's attention. Once enraged, they gave chase to his swift shadows as they went incorporeal and corporeal, passing through the tunnels with incredible speed and getting more and more ants to chase them until a crowd gave chase, all of them were Awakened.
Eventually, they arrived at the dirt cavern that Sunny and Eliji were in as they crashed into the back of the ants that were waiting to join the fighting. Sunny smiled grimly as he motioned to Eliji.
"Back up and enter back in the tunnel we came in, but hold the entrance. Trust me, I am the most honest creature in the world..." Sunny had wanted to say two, but he was unsure of the geography of the past of realms, so he bit his tongue.
Eliji headed his command, although he put on an act of killing a few more ants before going back. Sunny sighed as he covered his companion's retreat. He was truly starting to get overwhelmed as he fought the ants. As they reached the entrance, they stopped retreating and started fighting once more, and Sunny was truly put to the test as he had to dodge, parry, and kill the frenzied ants that threatened to crush and pierce them.
They tried to crush him under their mass, pierce him with their sharp feet, and bite his head off with their mandibles. Sunny dodged and weaved through the attacks as he slashed at the heads or the backs of the ants that were another weak spot. One tried to pierce his head while another went from behind. Sunny had to dodge the shot for the head while preparing to block the attack with one of his blades. However, the battle moved quickly as two more came in before he could finish his preparations against the second one. Thus, the situation constantly changed by the moment, which kept Sunny on his toes as a single move or acting too slowly would kill him.
'Just a few more seconds...' Sunny thought as he felt his body getting hotter and his muscles being strained.
With seemingly only Sunny realizing it, the roof started to shake, only a little, but as more and more moments passed, the shaking started to get stronger, and cracks began to show on the padded dirt.
'C'mon!' Each moment felt like eternity as more and more wounds accumulated on his dark-toned body, with his partner not doing any better from what he could see at the edge of his vision.
From his glances, Sunny could tell he fought strategically and with purpose. He used his fists, which seemed to glimmer off the light he produced; his body seemed to toughen like wood. He knew he was using surrounding spirits and spirits he captured to enhance his durability and strength. He used his fists efficiently like himself, but while Sunny was methodical with hand-to-hand combat, Eliji was the definition of brutal and savage.
Just as they were about to be overrun, the roof crumbled above the cavern as shining sunlight from the sun that rose to the top of the sky was brought below. With it, two dark, shadowy figures fell below, filled with small scabs and scratches on their skin or armor, yet they had no expression of pain.
Bitey and Saint had joined the fray.
Along with them came the rubble of their intrusions, which caused many ants to succumb to their deaths via being crushed by the collapse. Sunny had lured as many ants as possible into the cavern until it was filled before instructing his shadows that had entered his range of detection, which he took advantage of their position above.
Following the collapse, the remaining ants were badly injured and dealt with by the duo as they stood back. Afterwards, his shadows turned to look at them, which caused Eliji to raise his fists and prepare to fight the intruders.
"They're with me.' Sunny simply said, holding back, trying to be funny as Eliji side-eyed him, as if to see if he was serious or not.
Turning back to see his shadows that stood before them, he inspected them before growling lowly and walking towards them, with Sunny tailing him. The cavern had four tunnels that led to the deeper sects of the colony, each one having an equal chance to find the ant queen since Sunny figured it was most likely that the ant queen was able to evade his senses. In retrospect, Sunny didn't like what was going to happen next, considering he was the weakest one in the group; however, he was the most cunning and treacherous and had a knack for winning against all odds.
There was also the fact that, if augmented by all four of his shadows, he was on par or even above an Awakened Devil overall. So, considering the circumstances, Sunny was not lacking too much behind his shadows or Eliji despite only being a Dormant human inside a strong devil's body.
'When have odds ever favored me anyway? I'm fate's bastard child!' Sunny lampooned.
"All of us split up into each tunnel. Massacre or evade through the crowds and find the tyrant before it escapes." Sunny said removing dust and dirt from the face and the accumulated dust.
Everyone, including the stubborn Eliji, nodded as they split up, with Sunny heading down the center tunnel as he already knew the path, as Happy had passed through the one he was in. Sunny swiftly passed through the tunnel and ended up in another cavern that was cleared of ants due to happy grabbing them. Sensing shadows rising from the tunnels ahead, he wondered if he should head to the left tunnel, as it was void of any ants. However, he suspected that there was nothing of importance and that the Tyrant most definitely wasn't hiding there. So he skipped it, along with any other tunnels. Sunny expected that those without ants would lead to nothing.
As the ants reached the top and popped their heads, Sunny was in a battle stance, calm, focused, and ready to start dancing through the ants.
'Well, let the culling begin,' He grimly thought as he slashed at the legs of the ant in front of him before slicing their head that lowered due to the loss of balance.
The ants, smartly enough, surrounded him before in sync attack in all directions in an attempt to overwhelm him, but it was in vain as [Mantle of the Underworld] effortlessly blocked and reflected the ants' legs towards them, broken. Those that went for his head, he weaved through them or deflected with his blade.
Taking the opportunity, Sunny swiftly danced through the crowd as he slashed at the weak spots using [Death's eye] in the ant's armor as they fell before him, but with killing one, two came to take their place.
Therefore, augmenting [Midnight shard], Sunny began killing the ants by cutting through their bodies in one slice to conserve stamina for later when fallen ranked creatures appeared. The ants started falling quickly after that as the spell sang in his ear, which quickly got tiring after the tenth notification. It reminded Sunny of things called spam calls back in the olden days when people had things called "cell phones".
Sunny continued to kill ants consecutively as a mountain of bodies started to form, which caused the ants to be able to come in only two entrances, which Sunny could easily handle. Those who tried climbing through the wall in an unorthodox way met Sunny's blade to their neck before they could even defend themselves. Throughout the battle, Sunny used the ants' own technique of using their bodies' physiology as their weapons, as he used his tail repeatedly and more often as he adjusted to the new battle style, becoming more attuned to his new body than before.
'And all it took was being in the middle of an intense battle to get the feeling of a devil.' Sunny inwardly joked.
It greatly increased his defense from behind and allowed Sunny to block and attack behind himself while attacking in front of himself with the help of his shadows being his eyes. Soon, the last of the ants fell as Sunny moved his blade with precision to wipe the blood off his tachi. Moving along, Sunny faced and killed more and more ants that threw their lives at him as he moved deeper into the maze of tunnels.
Eventually, after clearing out a certain cavern, he noticed on his left a room filled with cocoons.
'What the in the gods is that?' Despite knowing he shouldn't waste time, he moved towards the cocoons that were of different sizes and shapes.
Using [Death's eye], he cut at a small, vulnerable part of the cocoon, which unraveled and revealed a disgusting, half-eaten corpse of something undefinable that made him want to wrench.
'G-gods.' Sunny weakly thought as he held back from throwing up.
Looking around, he could guess that the rest of the cocoons store food for the ants, so he decided to continue on his rampage as he turned to leave.
Before leaving, though, he noticed something out of the corner of his eyes, an open cocoon with patches of small white fur sticking to the cocoon's webbing. Beside it on the wall was a small hole that Sunny guessed led upwards as he deduced that the prey had been able to escape, at the cost of losing some of its fur and skin.
'However... there's no blood stains? Quite the impressive creature to be able to escape an impressive base.' Sunny mindlessly thought.
Moving along the tunnels, Sunny carved his way through the crowd before coming across the first fallen ant.
***
'D-Damnation!' Sunny growled inwardly as he struggled to keep up with the barrage of attacks the fallen ant had launched with its legs.
While the awakened ants were powerful, they weren't considered a threat by Sunny's measure, considering the growth he's experienced since arriving in the Dream Realm. Even fallen creatures didn't pose a threat as long as they weren't of a high level. However, despite the Fallen ant only being a Monster, he struggled to keep up with the agility and strength of the qualitative change from an Awakened to a Fallen ant.
Sunny had guessed that the Ant Queen, which he named the Fallen Tyrant, inhabiting the nest, had the power to augment its soldiers. One would think that the Ant Queen would augment the entire awakened ranked creatures to increase their lack of power; yet she focused on her strongest soldiers.
'That damned Ant might have more brain than most tyrants of its class. This will be more difficult than I originally thought.' Sunny seriously thought as he finally finished off the Fallen Monster Ant.
If there was a silver lining, then it would be the Queen Ant's abilities, most likely focused on buffing her soldiers, and she herself wouldn't be that strong. Of course, he wasn't sure if it would be another situation similar to the devious tree that had tried to turn Sunny and his cohort into thralls, in which the tree was practically unkillable even if he were to return due to the sheer durability of the tree.
'However, just like the tree, this damned Ant Queen doesn't know that death's already at its door!'