WARNING: The chapters of this story have been rearranged, the comments below may not properly reflect the content of this chapter. The order has been changed due to accurate constructive criticism, and these changes will reduce the jarring back and forth between perspectives. Thank you to all of my readers whose feedback allowed me to make these changes, please enjoy the chapter.

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Day 44

Damien was covered with baby spiders. They were quite a varied bunch, some bore their father's striking colors, some their mothers original simple brown and most were somewhere in between. There were a select few however who had inherited Sheila's adapted colors, deep russet bodies with red-brown striping. The first thing he did as he watched the cute eight legged infants was to give a command to every creature in his domain. These spiders were not to be harmed. If the spiders attacked and it came down to a fight, the other beasts in the cave were to simply lay down and die. At least for now. When they grew he would leave them to their fates, however Sheila's loss was still heavy on his heart and it would be shameful to lose his spiders before they had a chance to grow.

He allowed them to disperse across his throne room, casting webs across every corner and over every den or tunnel in the walls. Having spent the last week feeding off his mana atop his core, they came out far larger than would normally be possible and were ready to spin webs within minutes. It didn't hurt that their mother was a humongous spider when she laid them. It would take some time, but Damien knew they would quickly become a vital part of his Lair. He directed some of his weakest flies to throw themselves onto the tiny little webs. The weak were culled and his new favorite minions got an easy lunch. But now Damien was in a difficult situation.

Damien was fully prepared for the next battle, there was nothing left for him to do. He wanted to search for another ant colony to pass the time and bolster his growing ant hatcheries, but that could be a terrible mistake. If he mobilized his troops and sent them away just when the blue villains attacked, he would be stretched thin. In addition to this, there was always a risk of running into another lair.

He knew he would need to expand eventually, but he was hard pressed as he was and had nearly died already. He couldn't afford to run into another powerful foe until his current enemy had been vanquished. All Damien could do was wait. Wait and dig. He began to expand two of the other side passages out of his second room. If he was attacked, multiple paths would force the enemy to either divide their forces or risk walking into a dead end. He was reaching the max capacity he could sustain with his current livestock, but with his territory doubled it wouldn't be long before his minions multiplied. And that also didn't count the bounty from skirmishes or the eventual domination of the mice.

Damien worked through the night to lay his false paths. He stretched out the western most passage out into the depths of the mountain. It exposed a vulnerability without the southern bastion, but he would expand that soon. Next he extended the north-western tunnel deeper into the mountain for a short ways before shooting up north beside his throne room. As he slowly worked on the second tunnel, the third wave arrived.

Just as suddenly as ever, the wall burst open and two hundred mice swarmed out. They had breached the barrier passage to the south just as Damien had planned, and as they swarmed into the tunnel they charged out in both directions. Those that rushed to the left quickly found the dead end and they surged back to the east. In less than a minute they reached the tunnel linking the southern bastion to the entryway.

It was time for his finely crafted defenses to be tested in the crucible of war. As the stampeding mice charged into the first menacing bulwark, Damien believed his plan to be a failure. The first mice leapt clean over the treacherous trench. He had never considered they could leap the distance easily, however the following mice were not so lucky. With their vision obstructed by their brothers in the vanguard, they never saw the danger ahead. They tumbled helplessly over the edge, dropping three feet into the jagged bones of their predecessors. Agonized screeches echoed across the lines as more and more mice tumbled into the pit, but soon the stakes were covered in a seething mass of fur and flesh. The newly fallen mice were spared a terrible death as they landed atop the bodies of their comrades, forcing the unfortunate beasts deeper down onto the macabre spikes. With one trap filled with mice, the second line saw the same effect. The mice in the lead leapt across, and the first ones to crawl out of the pit cleared the gap but once again those running to close fell into the open jaws of death.

The casualties the mice suffered were staggering as the ants set about their bloody work. They were well trained at burrowing into the intruder's gray matter as they lay helplessly impaled or pinned by the weight of their allies trampling them. The dungeon was filled with the constant screams of the dying. The mice were being exterminated, however the first active defensive line awaited them at the next hurdle.

Hundreds of ants stood atop the far side of the third trench. The first mice cleared the gap as easily as they had the first, but they landed in the middle of the waiting ant army. The damage to the ants from the impacts were significant, but their job was not to win a drawn out battle, it was to stop the advance. The mice continued to charge forwards, heedless of the battle ahead, and as they leapt across the gap the had nowhere to land, their allies still stood on the edge. The doomed mice frantically scrambled and clawed as they slid down the edge, even biting onto the backsides of their allies, yet there was no escape. They tumbled down to their torturous ends with a final cry of terror. As the pit filled up, the ants dispersed to regroup atop the fourth trench. A mere two minutes had passed and half of the mice were dead or dying. Still the mice charged, their lord's command overriding their fear.

Damien planned to grind them down by half once again before allowing them to pass into his webbed pits. He had called out the two ant colonies guarding the entryway to herd the surviving mice into the carefully laid trap. If he cut down the invading force to fifty mice, he could waste resources in the efforts to capture them alive without any danger to himself. As he watched the continued slaughter, he thought back to the first real battle where he had nearly died. He had grown so much since then. He swelled with pride at his growth and this proof of his power.

Then a second hole appeared in his lair, and mice poured out. While he was focused on the initial incursion, his foe had burrowed underneath his outer defenses and into the floor of his second room. The blue bastard had completely bypassed his carefully planned bulwark and four of Damien's five ant colonies. As he watched, paralyzed in shock another two hundred mice poured out with the support of fifty rats and five rabbits. They poured out into the room and slaughtered the nearby maggots. As they butchered his helpless larvae, Damien prayed they would take the wrong path, and he would be able to gather his forces. Then the mass of rodents did something he had never expected. They scattered.

Rather than choosing a path as a group, each rodent ran for the nearest enemy or closest path. Half of the mice rushed towards his throne room, the rabbits took the western passage, and the rats the northwest. The other hundred mice chose the eastern tunnel which would take them out to the tunnel entrance. He desperately summoned the ambusher ants in the second bulwark and his gatekeeper colonies. The nearby ants should be able to catch the rampaging rodents charging towards his heart if he was able to slow them down, but the others had little hope of contributing to this first phase of the battle. He could only pray they would arrive before the other rodents realized they had taken the wrong path.

Damien chose to order his minions to ignore the mice going out to the tunnel exit, they had to cross the second bulwark and even if they succeeded they would only be stuck on the other side. If they returned to the second room they would suffer even more severe casualties. His minions would be far more vital rushing to the defense of his jewel heart. As they charged over, it was even more terrible than the gauntlet the diversionary force had charged through only minutes before. As the mice surged across the tunnel floor, suddenly the ground gave out beneath them. The first two lines of mice were swallowed by the collapsing false floor and plummeted to their grisly deaths on the spikes below.

The next mice behind the leaders tried to stop, but the frenzied horde behind pressed them forwards. They scrambled and clawed at the dirt beneath their feet, but they were quickly thrust out into the maw of the pit. Soon they began to pass over the treacherous obstacle, yet Damien knew they would not last long. Thirty mice lay dead or dying, and three more trenches lay ahead. As they charged headfirst into the second trench, Damien watched as his minions rushed to deal with the other intruders.

His mighty air corps had quickly responded to the new incursion, and they swarmed over the rats and rabbits. The veteran pests along with the new horseflies dived at the rampaging rodents. Flesh and fur flew as they were swarmed by the overgrown insects. As the flies harassed them with impunity, the beasts charged onwards, desperate to keep ahead of the swirling storm of buzzing fury. Soon they reached the dead ends of their respective tunnels and turned to face the coming swarm. Trapped with their backs to the wall, only one option remained. They charged straight through the flies, desperately rushing back the way they had come.

As Damien observed all of these attacks all at once, there was of course a single theater of the battle which occupied the majority of his attention. The assault on the final bastion. His wicked red ants were deployed into multiple battle lines, each one stretched across the narrow tunnel. The first line stood behind the first two mounds, waiting in the valley where the slopes met the beginnings of the mounds behind them. The mice naturally flowed into the valleys between the hills, taking the paths with the least amount of climbing although many still swarmed over the top. As the bulk of the rodent force passed between the hills they were met with an encirclement of giant red ants. The mice heedlessly charged into battle with the waiting army, which was exactly what Damien wanted.

The mice were much larger even than the great ants, however his ants had a huge advantage in numbers. Drawing in the enemies allowed him to surround them, allowing him to take advantage of his numbers in a non-linear battlefield. They formed a phalanx of gnashing pincers, forcing the mice to bleed every time they lunged forwards to attack. For every ant that perished, a mouse was left with deep lacerations. Despite their perfect formation, the ants were still being pushed back by the sheer weight of the advancing horde. As the mice pushed into their lines, the ants gave way until the individual mice pushing through found themselves surrounded. They had just enough time to panic before they were torn apart from all sides. Still, the ants could only be pushed back so far. Just when the lines seemed ready to break, the ants bolted for the nearby tunnels and within moments not a single living ant remained.

The mice were shocked by the sudden disappearance, and paused for a moment while they searched for the foe. With no sign of the enemy, they charged forwards once again. As they rounded the second set of hills, a new company of ants were arrayed before them. Just as before, they waited just beyond the opening of the pass between the hills, ready to surround the enemy. Inch by inch Damien would bleed these rodents dry. And then the second piece of this plan silently landed behind the embattled rodents.

Ajax hungered for battle and glory, but Damien firmly ordered a change in tactics. The great spider crept up behind the oblivious rodents, and one by one he butchered those standing at the rear. By the time the mice noticed, six had already collapsed, frothing at the mouth as Ajax's wicked venom coursed through their veins. Just as Ajax was about to engage the enraged mice in battle, Damien ordered a retreat. Ajax quickly leapt to the wall and scrambled away to safety, returning to the shadows on the roof, waiting for his next chance to strike.

He was slowly getting a handle on the battle despite the setback of the surprise attack, and then the rabbits and rats broke through the swirling storm of flies. One rabbit had succumbed to the incessant attacks, and a few of the rats joined it on the painful path to oblivion, but the rest charged back into the main room. They quickly set their sights on the path to the heart of the lair and rushed forth once more.