The flesh had begun to change faster than the body could contain it. The sounds of bones splitting could be heard within the creature's body. From within organs, tissues, and even cells, they reorganized, mutated into something new, or multiplied or deleted themselves.
Its body, which was that of an ant, was now a mountain of twitching biomass that dragged itself out of the cocoon like a baby. Fragments of the original queen still surfaced from the mass: pieces of its outershell protruding from folds of pale, wet flesh; clusters of broken ant legs, along with other types of legs and shapes, scratching endlessly against one another and the dirt ground; the small mandibles that all the ants had that they fought before but they were too insignificant grew to the size of Saint's sword. Opening and closing at random and loudly, as its position kept changing as the proportions of the body of biomass changed.
Nothing about it stayed the same for long, either, like slime.
The creature constantly reshaped itself in jerking, nauseating spasms. New limbs pushed outward only to soften and melt moments later. Many eyes bloomed across its surface in pulsing clusters of five to ten — insect eyes, things with pure black pupils — before bursting like stepped fruits and sinking back into the flesh to be shaped anew. Its abdomen, if it can even be called that due to its unnatural and ever-changing shape, splits open every few seconds, revealing layers of half-formed organs and connective tissues writhing against one another like fighting snakes before sealing shut again with a wet sucking sound.
And worst of all... it never stopped growing, its size seemed to grasp mass from the air itself.
For an explorer and somewhat of a biologist on nightmare creatures due to his nature teacher and Nephis, he could confidently say the ant queen could no longer be affiliated as a part of its original species. It's black armor that all the ants seemingly had was only in small fragments that appeared on its gigantic mass of pink flesh.
It didn't roar in pain; instead, it stared with pure malice at all four of them, and Sunny realized that although the failed queen was insane, crazy, and mutating, it was still dead set on killing those who had stopped its descent and turned it into this abomination. Before Sunny could try and block, the failed queen flashed before Sunny, using its momentum and mass to send Sunny flying to the wall as his ribs cracked under the pressure, and the ceiling began to crack.
'Damn-' before he could finish his curse, it pursued him as Sunny barely climbed upward to dodge the pink mass that crashed into the wall. He didn't even catch his breath as the flesh turned upward, and Sunny used the shadows to create a platform before catapulting himself across the room to make space between the creature. Eliji must've activated a new spirit as a howl escaped his lips, which caused the queen to be pressed by an invisible force to the ground. It struggled as its body turned to paste on the ground, but it was still alive and, after a few seconds, broke through the pressure, but was greatly impaired. Saint and Bitey used the valuable moments as the latter jumped onto the paste and started scratching the paste into sections, while the former drew a bow that Sunny had thrown to her as she sent an arrow flying.
Although the bow was merely an Awakened rank, the arrow was ascended.
Memory: [Free Wolve]
Memory Rank: Awakened
Memory Tier: IMemory Type: weapon
Memory Description: [Wolves are meant to be free.]
Memory Enchantments: [Power string][Power string]: The longer the bow is drawn, the stronger the force behind the arrow.
Memory: [Arcane arrow]
Memory Rank: Ascended
Memory Tier: IV
Memory Type: weapon
Memory Description: [In the bloody forest lived a group of mysterious scholars. When corruption came, their knowledge was lost, their powers became corrupted, and instead of lust for knowledge, they lusted for the flame.]
Memory Enchantments: [Arcane effect], [Return]
[Arcane effect]: The effect of the arrow is random each time it's fired.
[Return]: The arrow will always come back to the user.
Suddenly, the blob of flesh caught fire as it screamed in anger instead of pain. Bitey seemed unaffected as he continued to try to turn the queen into bits and pieces.
The queen, insane, still had an ounce of rationality. Knowing that Eliji was causing her predicament, she moved swiftly to him, with Bitey chasing behind, before launching up its mass to consume Eliji. He dodged to the side, but Sunny realized that he needed concentration to keep her down as the queen rose. However, before Eliji could suppress her, the massive pink flesh rose high up before hitting the center of the roof.
'What the hell is it-' before their eyes, the roof collapsed as a hidden pool of acids rained down upon them in all spots. At the same moment, the entrance collapsed. Time seemed to slow as Sunny's brain worked overtime, performing acts before he could even think it through. He dismissed Saint and Bitey back to his soul, commanded the shadows to consume him, summoned [Shadow Lantern], and finally, he activated the ring that the witch had given to Sunny.
As the acid touched the shadows, sizzling sounds could be heard as the acid broke through the shadows as if they were made of paper. Shadows from [Shadow Lantern] came out and merged with the shadow dome. These shadows were durable, unlike the previous ones, and were able to keep the acid from penetrating the shadows. It was not because the shadows came from the divine relic that made the shadows more durable, but because Sunny was now running on Ascended essence.
Sunny was given a ring that imbues him with the essence that was previously stored. The essence came from the witch who had also given him the ring, which made the essence stored inside it ascended essence which made it potent; however, Sunny had thought of a fatal flaw in using it. It was only in theory, however, but from what the witch explained about it, he was inclined to think that there was indeed a fatal flaw, at least for him. Since naturally soul essence reserves increased in ranks, what would happen if one went over the limit?
Apparently, it was fine for the witch since the ring's soul reserve wasn't that significant, as it would be for someone like Sunny, whose reserve was a single-digit percentage or even less compared to the witch's. Even if she did overflow, the effects would be mitigated as her body naturally released the essence by using it on the body. However, Sunny's body didn't naturally circulate essence like an Awakened would, so his body and soul would be brute forced into taking the essence without knowing what to do.
Due to this reason, Sunny hadn't dared use it so far and was set to use it as a last resort.
With the acid still lowering down from the roof, with little time left and essentially no essence left, he had been forced to risk it as he activated the ring with the small, puny amount he had left as an influx of potent soul essence poured into his body. His soul seemed not to sense the foreign golden essence as it allowed it to fill up his empty core; it quickly filled up and started to fill up.
Just as he suspected, he felt his shadow rippling as if it was bloated and about to pop like a balloon. Sunny had summoned more shadows to both replace the dissolving shadows and to have a greater consumption of essence. This acted as a way to mitigate the influx as his shadows soon returned to normal, but he still felt dizzy and bloated, most likely the aftereffects from having his soul cores almost burst.
'A-Any slower and I might've actually had my soul cores destroyed!' Sunny thought panically, but was glad that he didn't die. He also understood that the term, power comes with risk even more.
Saint and Bitey had been dismissed, and Eliji had been able to create a barrier between himself and the acid, but was forced to continue maneuvering and dodging the ant queen's attack since she was immune to her own acid. She had created that trap as a last resort in case the intruders came that far; however, seeing that they both survived, she continued to pursue her target. Eliji also had become slower overall due to the state of his damaged soul, but he was able to hold his own for now as the acid moved around him and was absorbed into the ground.
That was the reason the witch's powers didn't work against the ants anymore; it was because the queen had the ability to produce corrosive liquid for their devil ability. This allowed the queen to imbue the walls and ground with acid, which made any plants or anything biotic corrode upon touching the dirt. Ants were naturally immune to the acid, and they hadn't been affected since they wore armor to protect themselves. This was also how the queen set up the pool of acid.
Eventually, after a series of clashes between Eliji and the mutated queen, the acidfall was consumed into the dirt and absorbed as Sunny dismissed the shadows, he quickly felt his soul core fill up once again at a quick rate.
His mind raced as he realized that, considering the rate of drainage from the ring into his soul cores, Sunny was able to operate at a regular Awaken warrior for two minutes even while using the most essence-consuming ability he had, which was shadow control.'Is this reaching the full potential of a Dreamer?' Sunny felt like smirking as the edges of his lips curled; however, the shadows around him moved before he could ramble on, consuming him in their embrace.
The shadows quickly took form, with sharp and rigid edges and shapes, as they soon took shape into one of the dead Fallen ants. However, it looked more like terrible origami, which was something Sunny did in his free time when he was still in school, since he didn't have friends. He was never good at it anyway. Seeing Sunny transform, the failed queen naturally wanted to stop the potential threat, but Eliji kept up the pressure and punished the queen for being distracted, and he burnt a huge part of one of the feet, which made the cavern smell like rotten cooked monster meat, with a side of acid residue.
Sunny's first step to Shadow Dance was to mimic someone's battle style, their techniques, but not to be a copy of them. Instead, it was to use it against them in a treacherous way to predict their movement and impulses, their desires and motives for a certain way of attacking. The second step was to expand his wardrobe of techniques to become more fluid and unpredictable, like shadows, malleable, and ever-changing. This was substituted by the monster creatures; however had never used the first step of Shadow Step and applied it to the creature's battle styles. So, wouldn't he be able to predict and calculate how a nightmare creature would kill him, just like for humans?
Sunny wanted to apply this to the queen, as he already had a rich experience in facing her army, which most likely he would be able to apply here. Now, as an ant, Sunny had long been able to grasp the basics of the anatomy of the ants, considering he had to get close to kill them and to know their weak or blind spots. Sunny immersed himself and cleared his mind of distractions as he tried to think like the soldier ants, act as them, be them. This was the inkling he had thought of to try to unlock the third step of Shadow Dance.
As he charged forward, the queen tried to take form into something big and powerful. Only a few feet away, her outer body had turned into black scales, tentacles popped out in all directions, and multiple eyes appeared as Sunny clashed with the mass that quickly tried to consume him by toppling over. Sunny used his sharp but light legs to retreat as a disgusting squishy sound echoed through the cavern. Saint kept shooting arrows over and over again as different effects ruptured inside or outside the queen, ranging from ice shards forming, poison, fire, and all sorts of bizarre effects.
Bitey moved in quickly each time; in a sense, it was like guerrilla warfare, which made Sunny wonder why gorillas had tactics and what terrifying nightmare creature was a gorilla. Eliji sent fireballs and was also like a tank crashing into the queen and slashing holes into its pink flesh. Sunny, a few times, was knocked back by the tentacles, which left a gaping hole near vital parts, but shadows always responded to his call as they fixed his suit before going back in.
During it all, Sunny felt a little lightheaded as his mind started to fill with thoughts of protecting his companions, taking care of the witch, and killing any intruders...
'What the hell are you doing, Lost From Light?' Sunny asked himself, momentarily pausing before quickly scurrying away as a huge tentacle slammed towards the ground he was on a moment ago. He had felt his mind slipping, although he wasn't losing consciousness, which made him think a mind attack was happening, so he called himself by his True name, however...Sunny realized with a shocked expression that molding his mind into the soldier ants, which were actually called Queen's spawn or soldier depending on the rank, had caused him to actually have the desires of an ant. If he didn't pull himself out of it, he might've really thought of himself as a soldier ant and be completely loyal to the witch. He realized now that there were dangers in putting himself in the mind of a soldier ant; however, he felt it while his mind was slipping, he had truly been like a soldier ant, his mind moved as one would, so he would finish the fight as an ant soldier. He yelled out as he attached himself to the queen before using two of his lithe arms to pierce a needle deep hole inside before stabbing [Ashwake] inside and activating its ability.
The queen froze as its insides were destroyed in the raging explosion within its body as it tried to turn into a pool of flesh, but Saint shot an arrow that seemed to pause the queen in place as she could only feel her body turn into a gruesome scene.
"Everyone, get away!" Sunny yelled as they all heeded his advice, but the shadows that covered him dissipated as he realized that his ring had stopped fusing him with essence moments ago and just now emptied out all his cores. Luckily or unluckily, the enchantment also stopped, which saved him when his sword bounced back to his right when he landed on the dirt, but huge pieces of its dark abdomen launched themselves along with it as Sunny crashed into a wall, nearly knocking him out.
In his final moments of consciousness, he saw his three companions rushing towards him as he heard the spell whisper in his ear:
[You have killed A-A ******, Mutated Ant Queen!]
[You have received a new memory!]
[Your core is overflowing with power!]
[Your shadow is taking shape!]
[Your Aspect Legacy mastery has been increased.]
[You have received the right to claim a Legacy Relic.]
At the last word, he fainted before he could hear the last words from the spell...
[Good work, my epigon]
***
If you noticed, yes, Eliji's ability resembles Creeping Hunger from LOTM. I also want to apologize for posting this chapter late. I know I said I'd post it along with the last one to avoid leaving a cliffhanger, but I think the fight scenes are dull, especially the ending, so I revamped it, which is the reason for posting it late. I initially also only wanted this to be a two-part thing, but it ended up three parts because I didn't want to make a 5k chapter.
Lastly, I'll be busy for two weeks, so I will not post for those weeks until afterward, and no, I won't forget this fanfic either!