The chamber reeked of death.
End's body quivered as he stared into the tunnel, where the monstrous shadow loomed. For a heartbeat, everything felt still — a fragile calm suspended in the air. Then came the tremors. The earth shook as countless feet pounded through the passageways, and the scent of pheromones — distorted, corrupted — flooded his senses.
The returning foragers had become unrecognizable. Their bodies twitched unnaturally, their limbs moving with jerky precision, as though guided by invisible strings. From the cracks in their chitin oozed a faint, glowing green mold. Thin, hairlike filaments sprouted from their joints, writhing and pulsing with life.
End's antennae recoiled in horror.
This isn't them…
The ants' pheromones were wrong. Their usual scents — unity, obedience, duty — were replaced by something foreign, invasive. A heavy, suffocating odor of decay and control. It filled the tunnels like smoke, sinking into everything.
Then, with a sound like tearing flesh, the first infected worker lunged.
End barely moved in time. The creature's mandibles snapped shut inches from his face, sparks flying as they scraped against his golden scales. Its eyes — once dull and black — now glowed faintly with a sickly green light.
He struck back instinctively. His leg slammed into the infected ant's head, shattering it with brutal force. A spray of foul liquid burst into the air, spattering his carapace.
The fluid burned.
End stumbled backward, the liquid eating faintly at his golden shell. Steam hissed where it touched him. He shook himself violently, trying to fling it off.
Behind him, more infected emerged from the tunnel — dozens, then hundreds, their twisted silhouettes swarming forward like a living plague.
The colony's defenders responded instantly. From deeper tunnels, streams of uninfected worker and soldier ants poured forth, their pheromones screaming alarm and unity. The air trembled with the clash of chitin on chitin.
The war for the hive had begun.
End watched as the front lines collided in a frenzy of movement and sound. Mandibles snapped, limbs tore, and acid sprayed across the walls. The fungal ants didn't bleed normally — their ichor was thick and laced with green spores. When they died, their bodies burst, releasing clouds of faintly glowing dust that spread like poison.
Every breath, every twitch of antennae carried danger.
End realized, with a sinking feeling, that the infection wasn't just spreading by wounds. The spores could infect through the air — through pheromones.
This… this is bad.
He leapt backward, his wings half-spread. His instincts screamed at him to flee, but his human mind resisted. End didn't know where to go as he knew nothing about any escape location just one true escape entrance. Just Wnd was still thinking.
A massive soldier ant was the first to fall — pinned under three infected workers. Their mandibles tore through its neck until green tendrils began sprouting from its wounds. Within seconds, its body went still, and its head twitched once, twice… before turning toward its own kind.
End's eyes widened.
Can they turn even the soldiers that fast?!
He darted backward through a side tunnel as chaos erupted behind him. The entire chamber became a battlefield. Ants screamed in pheromone bursts — commands, distress, pain. The Queen's distant presence pulsed faintly through the hive-mind connection, her signal sharp and cold: Contain the infection. Protect the brood.
But it was already too late for containment. The fungus spread like wildfire.
End ran. His legs pounded against the dirt, wings flickering uselessly in the tight tunnel. He could feel the vibrations of the colony collapsing — the frantic movement of countless ants fighting for survival. The deeper tunnels were filling with the smell of rot and the faint, humming pulse of the parasite.
He stopped briefly at a junction, trying to decide which way to go. His antennae flicked in every direction, reading the air. To his left — pheromones of uninfected ants. To his right — silence, but fresher air.
He turned right.
The tunnel opened into a wide chamber lined with storage — pieces of fungus cultivated by the colony for nourishment. End froze when he realized the truth: the storage fungus had turned black. Spores shimmered faintly across the ground.
He coughed — or the ant equivalent of it, a spasm of his mandibles and throat. His vision flickered as he felt something burn in the air. The spores were active.
He stumbled back, his golden shell glimmering as he gathered his Aether. Energy coursed through his body, and he expelled a pulse of raw force outward. The spores scattered briefly, clearing a path through the air.
I can't stay here…
He turned — and froze.
Behind him, a familiar shape crawled from the shadows. One of the ants he'd seen earlier — a close subordinate of the Queen's worker caste — staggered forward. Her once-smooth brown shell was cracked open, leaking green light. Her mandibles moved in a slow, unnatural rhythm.
"
Her pheromone voice was broken, stuttering through the air like static. The scent that carried her words was layered with decay and something alien.
End took a step back, raising his forelegs defensively. "
But she didn't listen. Her body convulsed violently, and from her head, thin threads burst outward — reaching toward him like living tentacles.
End's Aether surged again. He swung his limb, slicing through the threads. The fungus hissed where it touched his golden shell, sizzling faintly.
The worker shrieked — a sound that tore through the pheromone field like fire — and leapt at him.
He moved on instinct. His mandibles flashed, cutting her in two. The pieces hit the floor, twitching. But even as they fell, more green filaments began to writhe from the wounds.
It doesn't die… it just spreads!
End turned to flee again. The tunnels shook violently as battles raged in every direction. The colony's rhythm — once precise and harmonious — had collapsed into chaos. The Queen's pheromones pulsed stronger now, urgent and commanding: Protect the core. Fall back to the central chamber.
He obeyed, racing toward the heart of the hive.
The deeper he went, the more bodies he saw — both infected and uninfected. The golden glow of his scales made him a target; infected ants lunged from cracks and shadows, drawn to his energy. He cut down dozens, his Aether-infused limbs slicing through fungal flesh like molten blades. But with every kill, more appeared.
The ground was slick with slime and ichor. Spores filled the air, glowing faintly like green fireflies.
He could feel his body weakening — the spores burning faintly in his throat, creeping toward his mind. His Aether tried to purge them, but it was like trying to fight smoke with fire.
Damn it… I can't keep this up!
He stumbled into the central tunnel, where the walls began to widen and pulse faintly with the heartbeat of the colony. The Queen's presence was close — he could feel her, vast and ancient, radiating pheromones that burned with willpower.
Then, a sound behind him — the scuttling of hundreds of legs.
He turned, antennae flicking — and saw them.
An army of infected ants, hundreds strong, crawling over each other like a living tide. Their bodies pulsed with green veins, their eyes glowing. At the center of them, a massive form lumbered forward — a soldier ant, easily twice his size, its mandibles coated with fungal growth.
End's mind screamed again: Danger.
He spread his wings.
Aether surged. His body erupted in golden light, and he shot forward through the tunnel like a meteor. His wings tore through the stale air, the force of his flight shaking loose dust and spores. He barreled past defenders and wounded ants, heading straight for the Queen's chamber.
But the horde followed.
They were fast — unnaturally fast. The fungus amplified their reflexes, their coordination. They moved not as individuals, but as one organism — one mind.
End pushed harder, the golden glow around him flickering. His energy reserves were draining rapidly, every pulse of flight burning through his Aether.
Then — a sharp sting in his hind leg.
He cried out as he crashed to the ground, tumoring across the dirt. When he looked back, a fungal tendril had wrapped around his limb, pulsing green.
No—!
He slashed at it, but more came. Dozens of thin threads erupted from the ground, snaring his legs, wings, and mandibles. They crawled across his shell, digging for gaps.
He thrashed violently, but the fungus held fast, burning cold as it began to burrow. His vision flickered. He could feel it creeping toward his mind, whispering in broken pheromone echoes.
Join.
Submit.
We are one.
"No!" End roared, releasing a burst of Aether so intense it cracked the ground beneath him. The fungal mass shrieked, retreating slightly — but not enough. It kept coming, relentless, alive.
He felt it reach the edge of his neck. He was seconds from losing himself — from becoming just another puppet.
Then the world exploded in light.
A wall of searing blue fire ripped through the tunnel, incinerating the fungal growth in an instant. The air filled with the scent of burning spores. End coughed, blinking through the haze — and saw them.
A formation of towering ants, twice his size and clad in thick, crystalline armor, stormed the passage. Their bodies radiated faint Aether signatures — disciplined, powerful, and ancient. They moved with precision, crushing infected underfoot, burning fungus with bursts of purifying flame.
The Queen's Guard.
End collapsed briefly, trembling. The guards formed a defensive line around him. Their pheromones were sharp and commanding, their signals laced with authority.
Before he could respond, the tunnel ahead split open with a thunderous crack. From the darkness emerged a monstrous fungal beast — the infected soldier he had seen before, now fused with others into a grotesque, multi-limbed abomination. Its mandibles dripped with glowing green liquid, its body pulsing like a living heart.
The guards didn't hesitate. They charged.
The impact shook the chamber. Acid sprayed, claws ripped, fire burned. End could only watch in awe as the Queen's elite fought like demigods. Each strike was guided by centuries of instinct and discipline. Even so, the beast refused to die, its fungal flesh regenerating with each wound.
Then, a voice filled the air — not sound, but pure pheromone command, ancient and vast.
"Screek."
The earth trembled.
The walls of the chamber split apart as a colossal form emerged from the depths. Her body was immense — her golden carapace shining brighter than the sun itself. Veins of glowing blue energy pulsed through her, filling the chamber with a holy radiance.
The Queen.
Her pheromones flooded the tunnels, washing over friend and foe alike. The infected twitched and shrieked as her presence crushed their will. She moved slowly but with unstoppable power, her mandibles gleaming with light.
*screek* *screek*
Her voice was loud — both in pheromone and in sound, vibrating through the hive like thunder. She raised her head, and the air itself began to hum.
However, the danger End was sense was even more than what the queen could handle.
'Got to run.'
End thought more before running to the queen's chamber, looking at the one opening End could help but smile thinking.
'Fortune must be smiling on me.'
He thought as he looked around and the gold treasures around as a giant orb was flowing on top of the mountain of treasure. Looking different from the golds.