RinoZ
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Chapter 1681 - Slowly Waking
🕑 Added 2025-09-23 02:00:03 +0000 UTCI don’t really dream while in torpor. Technically, torpor and sleep are different states, I get that, but still, not-dreaming is one of the few things that I haven’t really gotten used to in my new life.
This, though? This… listless… bodiless experience I’m having right now… it’s as close to dreaming as I’ve come since I was reborn on Pangera. If anything, it reminds me of how I felt just before I hatched.
The major difference between now and then is that I have the collective Will of millions of individuals flowing through me at any given moment. Moment to moment, my sense of self is frayed as I drift away in the stream of my family's consciousness.
I spend a day as a miner, chomping at the stone, sensing the rock with my antennae, smelling the minerals and gems I’m hunting for. A deep sense of satisfaction fills me as I push my cart, filled to the brim with the fruit of my labours, along the tracks and back to the outpost. From there, it will be added to the next shipment, along with all of my sisters’ work, headed to the sorting facility.
Tomorrow, the mana filling the Dungeon will have refilled and regrown precious metals in another location, so the miner's work is never done. Such a deep sense of fulfillment I feel with that knowledge.
Another day, I am a healer. Irritation fills me from the moment I emerge from torpor. Worried about my siblings, I rush out, barely giving myself enough time to eat and groom in my haste to reach the hospitals. There has been an influx of cases from below, hundreds of soldiers suffering from severe mana poisoning. Though they are already through the worst of their ailment, they still need around-the-clock care to ensure the toxins don’t spread throughout their systems again.
No sooner have I entered the chamber than I can smell the soldiers trying to persuade anyone who will listen that they are well enough to be released. When I step in, a soldier resting in a recuperation chamber calls out immediately, demanding to be sent back to the front line.
Irritation explodes into anger and I thwack the soldier thoroughly with my antennae, assuring them that their stay in the hospital has just been extended by another week. If they want to complain about it, I’ll make it two weeks!
For the rest of the day, I march around the hospital, endlessly worried for my family members who seem so infuriatingly incapable of worrying about themselves. Finally, exhausted and drained, I return to the torpor chamber and collapse into sleep.
Another day, I am a Brood Tender, and I spend all of my time feeding, grooming and tickling grubs. The fat little things wiggle happily as I tend to them, a pure and innocent existence, untainted by the world. Soothed and nourished by my aura and care, they grow rapidly, ready to become the newest generation of the Colony.
I even spend a day as a Queen, which is… interesting. Being fed an endless supply of Biomass and being nearly constantly groomed is nice, and the tea parties are exquisite, but laying eggs is a rather uncomfortable experience.
It feels like I am everyone and everywhere. Hundreds of different experiences, if not thousands.
I fight as a general in the tunnels, coordinating my siblings as they battle alongside me.
I work making carpets, weaving fine threads into intricate patterns that please the eye and will bring satisfaction and pleasure to the guests of the family.
Smelting in the great foundries. I watch liquid steel flow like a river, so hot only my mutations allow me to work in such a place without my insides boiling within my carapace.
Learning in the antcademies as a hatchling, I study the wisdom of my elders and listen intently to the teachings of my Brood Tender instructor. Soon, I will know everything I need to know in order to work and help my family, and I burn with eagerness for that work to begin.
Skulking in the shadows, I spend a day as one of the nameless, stalking a scout who has dared to pull a double shift. Multiple times, my target has the option of choosing rightly, going to torpor, but every chance for redemption is spurned. When I strike, I strike without mercy.
Before retiring for torpor, I see the scout receive the full treatment, her carapace polished to a mirror shine, and feel satisfied that the wisdom of the Eldest has been fulfilled this day.
Wait, my wisdom? Since when was I wise?
A few fragments of myself, shocked out of the flowing stream, pull together just long enough for me to remember who I am, but they aren’t able to hold together long enough. Soon, I am fraying apart again, lost in the endless flow of Will.
More days, hundreds of them. I experience life all around the Colony, in every aspect. I fight, I dig, I build, I craft, I search, I nourish and I grow.
Every time I experience another point of view, I feel myself vanish just that little bit more into the river, pulled a tiny bit deeper below the surface.
That’s fine. It’s so warm here. Even six legs aren’t enough to wrap around the love and care of my family. It’s all-encompassing and overflowing, running through the river like streaks of gold.
I am a scout. I run through the tunnels, hoping the hunters haven’t seen me, but fearing that they have. Those fears are confirmed soon after as my antennae pick up the vibrations of feet on stone. It’s fine, I have evolved and mutated for speed, I can outpace them.
Except, I can’t? Warned at the last second, I dodge to the left and the net sweeps through where I’d been moments ago.
Another hundred metres, and I’m in the clear, I can see other ants in the distance, and the hunters can too. I sense the vibrations fading as they slow before turning around and heading back, waiting for another opportunity. Thankfully the patrols in those outer tunnels will cease after today. No ants have been captured, thank the Eldest.
…
…
EXCUSE ME??!?!?!
My disparate strands of consciousness slam back together in an instant.
Anthony is back.
Comments
Marter
You done f now
Edgar Glz
I think that Anthony is going to fight in the fifth so there would be more ants free to defend the fourt
Anthony Romanov
Awesome work of having Anthony as different ants.
Roombot
Whoa he’s really become the ant god this time. And those delvers are gonna GET. IT.
Ruwa
Oh boy he's pissed
jeffrey niski
At least he got to tickle some grubs (in a way) before it all kicked off
alt31415
You do understand he's been doing stuff like this before, right?
alt31415
Ants are so tireless and hardworking that "Maybe sleep sometimes" is considered deep wisdom lmao
Igor Chmurski
I couldn't stop thinking about the utopia chapter from lotm reading this. I wander if the similarity was accidental or an inspiration
Sam Beasley
You know, I see everyone talking about how Green Mountain is about to be consumed by a black hole, and I get it - there must be punishment for this affront to the Colony - but I think you all are missing a key aspect of this chapter. Anthony has now experienced every aspect of the colony. What if he could make use of what he learned? What if he now has the skills to deliver unto the Grand Priest a Nameless fear?
Slapjack
SACK THE SILVER CITY
יותם רוזנטל
The king is back boyz
Koala Man
It was sooo good that he got to experience all of that , the feels was on point
Koala Man
Woot!
Navarog
To bad he didn't dreamed about eny demon or human.
guvvuf
Anthony’s fucking pissed
TheLostGolem
You'd think they'd have learned after the last time he woke up from his evolution...
TheLostGolem
Also the N and the T.
TheLostGolem
Nah. Anthony will never find that one.
Username
Missed opportunity to have him spend a day as that mysterious ant who keeps making statues of The Eldest
Runaway_Cactuar
Uh oh, daddy's back~
TheLostGolem
The most enthusiastic walk you've ever seen.
Theweird12345
Anthony is about to go on a walk. A very enthusiastic walk I am reminded of the scene when Anthony was in the human throne room on the surface, and he just casually walked to the guards whilst creating a gravity bomb
Rahsheem Reid
I can’t wait for the colony to get another mountain.
Theweird12345
It started emanating from the hill. Everyone is terrified
Huy Ngo
Please 🙏 don’t cliff hanger us when he start to review his new evolution between chapter 😭
BelligerentGnu
Double chapter tonight? Please?
Dan K
In a great mystery that has yet to be explained. One day all the residents and hunting teams of green mountain suddenly heard boss music playing without warning.
Mohammed khaled
Also wow I just realised that the energy spirit evolution might’ve been the better option for his mental health. Also he probably would’ve loved that state of existence mostly.
Shaitan
To war! That ending was great!
Cylar
ANTHONY’S WRATH IS IMMINENT!
Mohammed khaled
I should’ve wait for more chapters before reading I knew I should’ve but I couldn’t and now the waiting is gonna kill me.
KooZnack
What a CLIFF. Exciting!
DaWykitat
This was one of the best written chapters yet imo
Danish Perera
They gon' learn today!
Lonez Zhavec
This was such a beautiful chapter! That ending focusing into that ant was perfect!
Lonez Zhavec
Damn! I was as angry as Anthony! Revenge!!!
Faramond01
Something about endless mana and increased regeneration the more he's attacked. That'd all I remember and it would have change cause of the cleansing
Owen Kaz
And then salt the earth with toxins (Assuming he still has some form of them)
AntaeusTheGiant
That.. that chapter was magnificent! The best one I've read yet! In places it is like a Walt Whitman poem, and even just a bit like "The Song of Amergin". Truly transcend(ant)!
Caleb Herring
By the great and mighty beard, our Eldest is back!!!
Tosk
Insert record scratch sound as Anthony roars to life. I wonder if he'll be so incensed he tries to move before mutating his parts like Grannin feared he would
Ether's Blessed One
Okay, now that Anthony's Amon, he just need a monocle on his right eye 🧐. Time to Black Hole Bombed Green Mountain.
GeneralBlack
Anthony will remind the priests what happens when you touch the colony. He is the A in annihilation!
jeffrey niski
Oh yes. Time to wake up buddy boy.
Alessandro Mattioli
Soon it shall be Green Hill. Green ANThill
Michael Williams
Green Mountain is about to feel the power of the eldest.
Pyronite_OD
Oh, I just finished the chapter. Those priests are f*cked
Huy Ngo
Yay thank for the chapter . But I forgot everything about what he choose for his upgrade 😭 helps.
David Talpos
Have a feeling Anthony going to war with that city state
Buck
Woohoo! Welcome back, Anthony! Let the Green Mountain delvers know fear! Can’t wait to see what the this recent mutation has bought him!
shawn B
How DARE they try to take his sisters!!!!!
Yeslek Nnamhctits
Tyftc Im so glad Anthony is back... I love the way this is written, but I need Me some more eldest
Bethany Bluebird
DUN DUN DUNNNNN These ant hunters are about to have a real bad time
No_Creative_Name
CAPTURE? NEVER! Also, this killed me. “Another day, I am a healer. Irritation fills me from the moment I emerge from torpor.”
Hayden Leech
Thank shaboogala. Can’t wait to see Anthony thwack the entire fourth Stratum
Pyronite_OD
Finally, hes back!
Napalm078
*GASP*
