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Darkness.
Not the endless dark of the heavens, nor the velvet quiet of a night sky, but the suffocating black of soil pressed tight against stone. Heat clung to the air. Resin walls gleamed faintly in the narrow tunnels, polished smooth by countless bodies. Beneath those walls, life thrummed — a heartbeat of the colony, steady, relentless, and absolute.
In one small chamber, an egg shivered.
The shell split with a wet sound, spilling out a pale, soft-bodied larva. It writhed weakly, antennae stubs quivering as the scents of earth and kin washed over it. Nurse ants scurried closer, mandibles clicking as they carried chewed fungus and dew to its waiting mouth. The larva ate. It slept. It grew.
Days blurred in a rhythm older than memory. Molts came and went, skin sloughing to reveal new skin beneath. Antennae lengthened, legs hardened, carapace blackened and stiffened. By the time it crawled from its cocoon, it was no longer soft and helpless. Its mandibles clicked experimentally, testing strength. Six legs trembled, then locked into place. Antennae swept the air, brushing over resin-lined walls alive with pheromone signals.
It had no name.
It needed no name.
It was a worker.
One among thousands.
The Queen's pheromones pulsed faintly through the tunnels, a command so deep it sang inside marrow and shell alike. Serve. Forage. Build. Obey. Every ant breathed it, carried it, lived by it.
And yet — deep in its chest, a faint quiver stirred. Something beyond instinct.
---
The order came. Pheromones rippled down the tunnels like unseen banners unfurling. Food. Work. Forage.
The new worker joined a line of kin flowing toward the light. Their antennae brushed in passing, brief exchanges of position and intent. The colony was a single body, and each ant a moving cell within it.
The tunnel widened. Blinding brilliance seared its eyes.
The worker froze.
Above stretched not a ceiling, not stone, not nest — but an endless expanse. A sky.
It had no words for awe, no language for fear, yet still it faltered. Light burned too strong, spilling across the ground in white-gold sheets. Green towers rose around it, swaying in currents of invisible wind. Shadows moved across the earth, vast and strange, shapes it could not understand.
It staggered, antennae twitching desperately. Every nerve screamed to retreat, but pheromone trail pulled it forward. Others surged past, fearless, instinct-bound.
The world was vast.
The ant was small.
Yet it moved.
Ahead, a prize waited: a fragment of bread, dropped by some careless giant. Crumb to human, but feast to colony. Its edges were stale, soaked with dew. The worker locked mandibles into it and heaved. The crumb shifted grudgingly, heavy as a boulder. Muscles strained, carapace groaned, legs dug furrows into the dirt. Inch by inch, it dragged the treasure toward the tunnel mouth.
The sky darkened.
Clouds gathered above, thick and heavy. A wind swept the field, bending green towers into bowing arcs. The air grew sharp with new scent: rain.
The first drop fell.
To mortals, a raindrop is a kiss of water. To an ant, it is the fist of a god. The drop smashed into earth with a force that carved a crater, soil spraying like shrapnel.
The worker froze. Another drop struck, then another. The ground shuddered beneath the barrage. Ants scattered, pheromone trails collapsing into panic.
The worker clung to its crumb, but another drop slammed its back, driving it into mud. Mandibles wrenched open, food lost. Water engulfed it, smothering, drowning.
Instinct shrieked: Abandon. Live. Return.
But the storm did not listen.
Darkness closed.
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Light.
Not sunlight. Not lightning. A shimmer radiated inside the droplet itself, rolling across a leaf. Qi — faint, diluted, ignored by cultivators, but lethal and divine to a creature so small.
The drowning ant's mandibles closed around it. The droplet slid down its throat.
The world ignited.
Compound eyes fractured into a thousand points of silver fire. Its thorax burned. Its abdomen swelled with impossible pressure. Antennae rang with frequencies beyond pheromone trails — whispers of hidden truths in soil, in air, in stone.
The droplet dissolved into qi.
The qi dissolved into the ant.
For the first time, instinct faltered.
It felt.
---
The storm ended. The world was scarred — tiny craters filled with drowned kin. Workers hauled bodies back to the nest, recycling flesh into sustenance.
The new worker staggered upright, body trembling, mandibles clacking in strange rhythm.
The pheromone trail pulsed: Serve. Feed. Deliver.
Its legs moved to obey. The droplet should be brought to the Queen. That was law. That was survival. That was colony.
But something inside resisted.
A silver glow throbbed beneath its carapace, faint but steady. A hunger that fungus could not touch. A thirst no dew could quench.
The ant raised the droplet toward its mandibles. Instinct shrieked. Worker ants did not drink alone. Worker ants did not steal from the Queen. To do so was death.
And yet…
It drank.
The taste was lightning. Qi surged again, flooding every vein. For a heartbeat, its small body resonated with something vast. Its pulse thudded not in dirt, but against the sky itself.
A worker no more.
Somewhere above, unseen beyond clouds, the heavens shivered.
---
That night, when the colony labored, the worker lay still. Its antennae twitched. Mandibles ground softly. Something stirred inside its mind.
It dreamed.
Soil fell away. Nest collapsed. The sky unfolded not as endless light but as lattice of silver threads. Each thread vibrated with energy, stretching beyond sight.
In the center, a shape loomed.
It was ant, but not ant. Mandibles of starlight. Wings vast as storms. Eyes burning like suns. Carapace etched with constellations. A divine silhouette, each step shaking the threads of heaven.
It did not speak. It did not need to.
"Climb."
The worker jolted awake.
Mandibles clacked sharply. Antennae swept wide.
Around it, the colony bustled in perfect rhythm, blind to its difference. They carried fungus, fed larvae, guarded tunnels. They did not see the faint silver glow beneath their sibling's shell.
But inside, hunger grew.
Not for bread. Not for dew.
For sky.
---
At dawn, the worker left the nest again. The world above glittered with dew. Each droplet shimmered faintly now, no longer invisible to its senses. Threads of qi ran through soil and leaf, air and stone, visible only to its changed sight.
The line of ants stretched across the earth. A thousand black bodies, identical, purposeful, bound by instinct. The Queen's pheromone pulsed from behind, a command carved into marrow: Obey. Serve. Crawl.
The worker paused.
Its antennae tasted the air. Its mandibles clacked, slow, deliberate.
Crawl?
No.
Serve?
No.
Climb.
The vision lingered — wings vast, eyes burning, mandibles like stars. The dream had not been false. The spark was real.
This world was built on power. On cultivators splitting mountains, immortals splitting rivers. The heavens sneered at mortals daring to rise.
What, then, would they do when ants themselves cultivated the sky?
The worker did not know.
But it would find out.
It lowered its body, antennae quivering, and marched forward into the vast, hostile world. Each step was small. Each step was insignificant.
But each step carried a vow.
One day, I will climb.
One day, I will devour the sky itself.
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