‘No, it’s not over. Not yet,’ Gaia thought, looking at the remains of the battle around her. ‘The ants need to return to their nest as fast as possible, it’s not safe here yet.’

“Scarlet? Are you- Scarlet!” She turned to Scarlet, but yelped when the ant queen suddenly toppled over onto the ground with a loud thud. Gaia called out to her a few times, wondering how and when she had been wounded, but Scarlet reassured her after a few seconds.

“Ah, it’s fine, Mother. I believe the process of my evolution has initiated, so I won’t be here to coordinate the colony for a while. Could you please take things over for me instead?”

Gaia answered without hestitation.

“Of course I will. I’m sorry Scarlet, this situation is all my fault. I should’ve listened to you when I had the chance.”

Scarlet stiffly moved her head a little, and Gaia knew she was angry at her. Still, she managed remained composed in front of her.

“We’ll talk about this… later… For now… I think I will… pass out…” She said as her voice faded. The massive queen ant didn’t move anymore, but Gaia could see she was still alive, only asleep. She watched her for a while to make sure she was okay before focusing on all of the remaining ants in front of her, waiting for orders. She cleared her throat and spoke with a clear voice, so they could understand her properly.

“Any ant that is still able to perform tasks, please raise a leg,” she commanded.

Only eight shot up, two of which belonged to the two Daredevils. The only ants that hadn’t lifted a leg were either dead or unable to because of their injuries. Three ants couldn’t even do so much as walk, and five ants had died during the battle. Gaia was painfully aware of the losses the colony had suffered today, but she ignored the sore feeling for now.

“Alright, you, you and you, grab the injured ants and bring them to the nest,” Gaia ordered, pointing at three of the smaller ants sitting closest to her with her remaining leaves. “Do you have a chamber or something in your nest to house the wounded?”

One of the smaller ants nodded affirmative.

“Good, bring them there for now. You two, could you both bring the queen and this big guy to the queen’s chambers?” She asked the two Daredevils while pointing at Scarlet and the wounded Daredevil. “I mean, there is a queen’s chamber, right?”

She wasn’t exactly sure if the queen’s chamber would be large enough for the two of them, but both Daredevils complied, so Gaia wasn’t too worried about it. She shot a glance at the still uncoinscious and wounded Daredevil. One of the large ant’s eye had been completely destroyed by the Cyclops’ fangs, and Gaia remembered the bite had contained poison as well.

Luckily, the poison wasn’t that strong to begin with. Gaia had been poisoned by the Cyclops as well, but the effects had worn off after a few minutes already. Gaia guessed the poison simply wasn’t potent enough to kill a creature, only to weaken it for a short amount of time. Still, having your eye wounded like that couldn’t be healthy, and besides, she didn’t know if the effects on the ant would be the same as hers.

“The rest of you, please collect the spiders’ corpses and bring them inside. I’m guessing you’ll need all the food you can get,” she said, refixing her attention back on the ants.

All ants nodded in perfect sync and started working on their designated tasks. Gaia watched them get to work for a while before she focused on the Cyclops’ corpse. Her inner tree senses had been tingling for a while, and Gaia thought she understood why: it was time for her to finally evolve.

She was well aware of how bad the situation was right now. With most of the ants either wounded or dead, only about half of the colony was able to hunt for food now, which they were in dire need of. Besides, even if all of the wounded ants were able to recover all by themselves, the food needed for their recovery would be subtracted from the grubs, which would weaken the next generation significantly.

Although it was true that they now had a massive haul of spiders right at their disposal, Gaia felt like more problems would present themselves eventually, no matter what she did. The colony needed to be at its strongest at all times in order to defeat potential future enemies, for her sake as well. That’s why she felt like she had to do something, and her intuition told her that evolution was the answer.

After being in this world for a while now, Gaia had good reasons to suspect magic was a thing here, with all the mana and stuff like that existing, so if there was any way to save the ants, magic would probably be the answer. She was just hoping that she would unlock the magic by evolving, and that it would enable her to heal the wounded ants.

‘Damn, this really is a shot in the dark, isn’t it? I don’t even know if magic exists for sure, let alone if I’ll be able to unlock it this evolution, hell, if I’m even able to use it at all once I unlock it. Who knows, maybe it takes years of study and practice to master it properly,’ she pondered.

Still, her inner tree senses told her that evolution was the right choice here. So, she finally made her decision. She would consume the Cyclops and evolve, hoping to unlock healing magic in order to save the ants. At least, that’s how she was hoping it would go.

‘Only one way to find out,’ she thought.

Staring at the Cyclops’ corpse, she imagined its sturdy exoskeleton crunching between her teeth. After a few seconds, the Cyclops finally started sinking slowly into the ground, making Gaia shiver when the disgusting taste washed over her mind. The giant spider took much longer to dissapear than the smaller spider had, but Gaia pressed on nontheless.

She tried to ignore the unpleasant flavor as she continued consuming the Cyclops at a painstakingly slow pace. After what seemed like an eternity, the last leg finally sunk into the ground as well. Gaia felt relieved and closed her eyes. She thought about the ants, about Scarlet and the Cyclops as her mind started to become heavy. Then, after a few moments, the weariness took over as she sunk into the darkness completely.

---

Gaia leisurely drifted over the golden river again, comfortably floating on her backside as she made her way downstreams. Her mind was blank, but she was oddly enough aware of her surroundings. She wasn’t able to move at all, not that she wanted to anyway. She just drifted.

After what seemed like a few minutes, or maybe even a few hours, Gaia finally came to a halt. She noticed she was able to move now, so she looked up slowly to see where she was. She saw that she was floating in the middle of a golden lake now, surrounded by darkness just like the rest of the river. She looked back and saw the stream she came from, far away from her.

She looked forward again and saw that the lake had split itself into four different streams, each pointing into another direction. Gaia observed the streams intently and noticed that there were small differences between them. They all looked the same from afar, but it was the feeling they gave off that was different about them. Gaia instinctively knew she had a choice here, and that she needed to pick one of the rivers to progress, so she inspected each stream individually.

She stared at the stream on her far left. This stream gave off the feeling of strength, size and healthiness. If Gaia were to pick this path, she wouldn’t have to fear being chopped to pieces ever again. Although it sounded nice to her, Gaia knew this wasn’t the option she was looking for, so she went on.

She looked at the next stream, the one diagonally in front of her. This one felt different to her. This path was mystical, holding a different kind of strength on its own. This stream radiated potential, prowess and sheer firepower. Gaia was very tempted to take this path, but she decided to take a look at the others first before making her final choice.

The third stream, Gaia couldn’t understand at all. It gave off a complex feeling, and Gaia knew that it would take her years to master whatever mysteries it would unlock. The power she would attain by choosing this path could potentially be immense, but it didn’t feel like it would benefit her in any way as long as she had no one to guide her.

Gaia ruled out the third path and went on to look at the final option. This last stream was the one the furthest on her right, and it was definitely the smallest of them all. It looked like it had only opened up recently, and she would have missed it completely if this was a normal river she would have been floating on.

She inspected the stream and immediately felt a warmth flowing over her. This stream didn’t exude any form of power like the others did. It just radiated warmth, and the feeling of kindness. Gaia knew that this path would not be able to unlock her the same amount of individual strength like the other paths did, but she didn’t care. She had made her decision already. This was the path she would choose.

She slowly started swimming towards the fourth stream, which seemed to invite her with open arms. She didn’t have to swim anymore after a while as she was picked up by the stream’s warm current. She slowly started drifting again until she reached another golden lake. Just like last time, a few drops of gold fell from the dark sky as she started sinking, engulfed by the warmth of the water.

---

Gaia wearily opened her eyes, her vision blurry as she half expected to see a few ants waiting for her to wake up, when she suddenly noticed something was off. She wasn’t in her usual spot anymore, the only things surrounding her being tree leaves. She noticed although the leaves were looking exotic to her, they were less colorful than she would’ve thought, almost gray even.

She looked around some more and noticed that it weren’t just the leaves that were looking strange. The whole world seemed desaturated. Gaia was about to wonder if something had gone wrong with her evolution, when she heard something coming up from behind her. She turned around quickly and looked up to see what kind of enemy had managed to sneak up on her, but for the first time ever, the creature in question was smaller than her.

She looked down and saw a small and hairy type of animal with tiny and curved white horns, reminding her of highland cattle back on Earth. The thing looked young still, and Gaia noticed one of its legs had a large wound on it, making it unable to put weight on it. Still cautious, she tried to move away from the animal, but she realised she couldn’t move, only watch.

One of her branches approached the creature, even though Gaia hadn’t moved it at all. Heck, she didn’t even have branches yet, she remembered. She kept watching as the branch touched the tiny animal, which didn’t seem afraid at all. Suddenly, Gaia felt something fall into place inside her as the tip of her branch started glowing.

It was an indescribable feeling, and Gaia was shocked when she felt it for the first time. Gasping, she continued to watch, intrigued as to what would happen next. The wound on the tiny creature’s legs started closing rapidly and was completely gone withing a few seconds.

The small animal inspected its leg for a while as it tried walking on it again. After succeeding, it happily jumped around for a few seconds before suddenly jumping off and dissapearing into the forest without leaving a word behind. Gaia saw her branch waving the creature goodbye as her vision turned blurry again.

---

Gaia’s eyes shot open again when she woke up. She was still disoriented by the strange dream, but she slowly started to come to her senses again. She quickly inspected her surroundings, which had their usual colors again, but she dropped her jaw on the floor when she saw how different her view looked now.

She was back in her spot again, that she was certain of, but something was different. Her vision extended much further than before, and it took a second for Gaia to realise that she was finally tall enough to be able to peek over the tall blades of grass. She laughed aloud as she peered over the hill she was standing on.

She could see the top of the grass moving in the wind, as well as trees in the distance, although they were still a bit blurry. She looked up and noticed the sun and the clouds floating over the lands she had been bound to by whatever god had brought her here. They still looked a little unsharp to her, but Gaia was happy to conclude her eyes had improved a hundredfold. She stared up as she saw a bird flying over, its feathers softly rustling in the cold wind.

“Thank god it isn’t a pterodactyl after all,” she thought aloud and laughed again.

She wanted to look around for a bit longer, but she knew she had to cut it short. She figured Scarlet would be awake by now as well, so she tried calling her.

“Scarlet? Are you there?”

“Mother, I see you are awake. Welcome back,” came the reply from beneath. Gaia noticed that although Scarlet sounded friendly, she was still angry. Her true emotions were a surprise to Gaia, since she wasn’t able to make them out as well before. She figured her evoltion had improved her social skills as well somehow.

“How are the ants? Are they still alive?” Gaia asked, skipping all chitchat and cutting dirctly to the point.

“They are, although their condition has worsened. I doubt they will survive another day if things go on like this,” Scarlet answered. Again, she sounded neutral, but Gaia felt she was grieving for her children.

“Please tell the ants to bring the wounded to me, Scarlet. I think I can save them.”

“Another one of your brilliant ideas, is it?” Scarlet asked, her anger showing in her voice now as well. “Just like when you decided to release an enemy, an enemy who was bound to bring back reinforcements? Or when you thought it was a good idea to spare your prey and delay your evolution?”

Scarlet had finnally snapped. The ant queen spat out the words into her mind, which was already painful for Gaia, but the worst thing was that she knew Scarlet was right. This was indeed all her fault, but she had come tot hat conclusion already. She was here to fix her mistakes at least a little after all.

“I know this is my fault, Scarlet, and I won’t ask you to forgive me,” she said softly. “I know fully well that my actions have brought you and your children suffering with my decisions. The things I did may seem unimportant to you, but they were very important for me,” Gaia began, and she felt the queen’s anger subside, if only a little.

“Still, that doesn’t justify anything though. This was all my fault, and I will bear that with me, but I’m not here for that now. I’m here to save as many of your children as I can in order to prevent even more suffering. So please, give me a chance to redeem myself, at least a little.”

Scarlet remained silent and Gaia gave her some time to find the words. After a few seconds, the she spoke again, but much softer this time.

“I didn’t use to care this much, you know?”

Gaia was suprised and a little confused by Scarlet’s quiet tone. This was the first time she had heard the ant queen wisper.

“Care about what?” She asked.

“About my children. I didn’t want them to die before, I never have of course, but I didn’t… grieve for them if they did. This is all because of you, you know? I don’t know what you did to me, or how you did it, but you’ve changed me. Every time one of my children dies, it pains me more than I can describe,” Scarlet answered, and Gaia sighed.

“I know, Scarlet. I’m sorry about what happened, I really am. I know what you mean, although I doubt my feeling come even close to what you must be feeling right now. Still, will you let me try to save them?” Gaia asked, trying to sound as friendly as possible.

Scarlet sighed, seemingly having made her decision.

“You truly are the oddest being I have ever met, Mother,” she said, to which Gaia smiled a little, although Scarlet couldn’t see that of course. “Alright then, I will trust in your ability to save them this time, now that you have finally evolved. The wounded are being carried over to you now. Please save them, if you will.”

“I will, don’t worry,” Gaia promised. “I will save them, whatever it takes.”