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Chapter 1481 - A Breather
🕑 Added 2024-11-05 01:00:03 +0000 UTCSarah wanders off to get armoured up, as does Odin, the weirdo. Fully suited up, the truly enormous bear is even more deadly looking than before, which is hard to believe. The specially crafted gear will enable her to operate out in the toxic zone for half an hour at a time, which isn’t half bad.
[Any advice for me?] she asks, sounding a little nervous.
I can’t blame her, the fifth has a reputation for being unrelentingly awful, and it’s hard to grasp just how terrible it is without seeing it for yourself.
[Be careful. Very careful. The Krath are clever, they strike from the shadows, from camouflage positions in the moss and beneath puddles of mucus. They can squish themselves into tiny gaps to attack and then flee into the rock before you can get to them. They’ll be looking to try and capture you if they can, but they’ll also try and harm you a bunch of different ways to see what works. Expect acid, clouds of toxic gas, parasites that will try to dig into your body, venom, mental assaults… uh what else….
[They used a nearly invisible sentient cloud of spores on me once, tried to get in my mouth and burn me from the inside out, watch out for that one. There was another time when they tried to paralyse me with these little rock eels. Little critters burrowed through the ground then launched themselves up at me. They had these needle pointed noses that were crazy sharp. Didn’t make it through my carapace, but you’ll be more vulnerable to that than me.]
By this stage, Sarah has lost a significant portion of her previous cheer. She’s starting to look a little wild around the eyes as my list goes on.
[Is that all?] she asks.
[Not even remotely. That was yesterday.]
[I’m not sure I can do this….]
[You’ll be fine. Talk to the generals in the tunnels you go to, they’ll give you good advice. Have a word with the medical team on things you need to look out for, they’ve been treating all the ants so they’ll know what’s causing the most problems. Other than that, just be careful. Remember that nearly every monster will pop or release deadly parasites after you destroy them, so get out of the way after you bite something.]
[It sounds disgusting.]
[It is,] I assure her. [But you’re doing something amazing for the family. We really appreciate it. Everyone in the Colony is happy to have you for a sister.]
[Sh-be quiet!] She snaps, embarrassed. [I’m just here to help out a little. It’s not that impressive. Alright, off I go. Wish me luck!]
[Good luck!]
She turns around and waddles off, a giant amongst the smaller ants. As she moves, Odin is revealed, standing behind her and staring at me.
[Perfection,] he whispers in my mind.
He’s been armoured up a little. I guess he’s also going to go out and fight? He’s like an assassin demon or whatever, so I suppose that makes sense. I just wish he wasn’t such a weirdo. I wave him away with a flippy motion of my antenna and then contemplate for a moment.
What to do now? Sarah is going to head to my old area to cover the severe attacks we’ve been getting there, so I’m actually free to do something else for a change. I suppose I’ll go and visit my friends! Been a while since I checked in on them. They’re all taking a break at the moment, so I may as well head on over and say hello.
I mean, I can talk to them whenever I want, but it always feels nicer to speak face to face, even if we are using mental communication.
I find the trio of tier seven monsters relaxing and chatting together in a narrow little corner, out of the way of the main traffic and activity of the fortress.
[Master!] Crinis yells, bounding over the ground like an inky black tidal wave before glomping onto my carapace.
[Hey there, Crinis! I missed you too. Tiny, Invidia! How are things?]
Predictably, Tiny gives me a seated thumbs up with one hand, and a powerful flex with the other. Invidia is also sitting on the ground, which is unusual. Normally he’d be sitting up on Tiny’s shoulder or fluttering in the air, but for once he’s actually on the ground, his little arms resting on the rock floor and preventing him from just rolling away.
[Hey, Inivida, I almost missed you down there.]
The eyeball nods and his little wings flutter a bit as he gives himself a little lift until he’s up on his palms.
[It issss nice to sssseeeee you,] he says. [I hopessss you havesss been well.]
How nice of him to ask after me! Man, Invidia is such a good demon.
[I’m good! Thanks for asking.]
I settle in to talk to them and they’re full of stories. Just like my areas of the fortress have been crazy and active, so have theirs and it sounds like there has been plenty of hijinks for them to worry about. Luckily nobody has been hurt and no ants have been abducted after the first, so it's all come out well.
[You must have been massing up some good levels at least,] I tell them. [Has the time finally come for you to catch up to me in level?]
[I doubt that Master,] Crinis says. [You’ve been fighting more than any of us, and you’ve taken on many strong monsters.]
[That can’t be right,] I say, thinking to myself. [I didn’t evolve that long ago.]
Idly, I flip up my status and start poking at it. I mean, I’ve been fighting a lot, especially recently, and the monsters in the fifth have been pretty strong. I suppose I must have racked up a few levels, but there’s such a long way to go until my next evolution….
Wait. I have over a hundred and fifty levels?!
Comments
Rahsheem Reid
We need yoink back
Rahsheem Reid
Jeez
Gopard
Thanks for the chapter!
atome 4 000
[Not even remotely. That was yesterday.] ...Krath are that bad.
andwhyisit
Terrible for mutations though. So much unusable biomass.
Grey Knight Lord
Correct, thousands of suicide mobs thrown at Anthony some being Tier 7 along with the hegemonic monsters he has had to kill like the turtle, and the nonstop 5th monsters throwing themselves at him, best place to farm xp. After the wave, he will be almost if not at the point needed to evolve.
DrDankness
Now that I think about it the conditions are pretty perfect for exp and skill grinding as long as you stay alive. Stressful as fuck of course and not worth it but if you are gonna go through it anyway having someone feed a nonstop stream of suicide enemies is pretty good for grinding.
DrDankness
Tbh he might end up unexpectedly good at keeping her alive in the inhospitable conditions of the 5th
DrDankness
Low key I expect the t6 odin might be better outfitted for sniping krath than any of the big hitters running around.
DrDankness
Yeesh. Just HOW MANY monsters were the krath throwing at them? The big problem will suicide attacks like this is if the ants dont lose women to the attacks they eventually are just feeding exp to the grinder.
evyatar
150 is the amount of levels it took for Antony to reach from level one up to level six! Summed up, yet each level at level seven is requiring a lot more experience then it took to level up back then, so mathematically speaking, those 150 are half of the levels it took him to reach from the start up to seventh rank mythic, yet they are probably worth more experience then all of his levels so far… and take into account that’s about then a full year of combat, three waves where he fought consistently, one siege and the arena fights and exploring, a normal wave is already a room full of mobs and gives exp like crazy, which just means and shows how crazy the current situation is, normally in waves the mobs are lower leveled at the start, here the karth are pulling and pulling mobs, some of them are old as we saw seventh rank! So he also gets exp from hundreds of sixth and fifth rank monsters
Isiah Debarros
Ya its been a while since any skills have been tiered up or combined
TheLostGolem
Anthony said that was what he saw yesterday. So they did see that when the invasion first started and yesterday as well.
Anthony Romanov
Damn after the wave Anthony will have enough to evolve again!!! Level 8 is start of big leagues.
alt31415
Can confirm, 320.
alt31415
They had these needle pointed noses that were crazy sharp. - Didn't we see those earlier when the invasion first started? They're for injecting digestive acid instead of paralysis, aren't they? Or is it a different strain?
Ben Waschuk
Assassins do seem like they would do a good job at catching the krath.
Greyg
Odin becoming an obsession demon focused on a rage bear. I could see an assassin demon killing a krath, while they’re focused on Sarah in all her glory
Grey Knight Lord
150/320 to tier 8 640 needed to get from eight to nine
Grey Knight Lord
320
andwhyisit
320. You start at 5 levels to reach tier 2, then it doubles from there. So 10 to tier 3, 20 to tier 4, 40 to tier 5, 80 to tier 6, 160 to tier 7, and 320 to tier 8 (we can also infer from this that it will be 640 levels to get from tier 8 to tier 9).
Student of Asacoco University
Holy
Roombot
Halfway there babyyyyy!
Buck
At least Odin can be useful and protect Sarah’s back while he is lurking there creeping on her.
Buck
I can’t recall exactly how many levels Anthony needs to evolve to Tier 8. I think it is 300. Does anyone else know?
Grey Knight Lord
I knew it, I was thinking he had reached level 150. Tier 8 needs 320 so he needs 170 more levels. Plus, he should have ranked up a few skills at least.
Hayden Leech
That’s a lot of levels. I have no memory of where we are at level wise lol.
