On the other side of the coin, Milen wasn’t suffering as much as Seven would’ve predicted, considering the Royal Guard was coming for her. Once she got a head start on the workers and set some distance, she quickly unveiled her tools to maneuver around the walls.

Her choice of weapon, which doubled as a utility tool, were iron chains that ended on barbed hooks. Those were completely out of line with the quality of the spear she flaunted, and anyone would recognize the difference between “normal” weapons and what she had at disposition.

With a fast punch, her knuckle bones broke into the golden surfaces, revealing the thick layer of damp earth underneath. With an acrobat’s expertise, she jumped and inserted her foot in the crevice while making similar holes in parallel, at some point throwing the chains around and embedding the hook balls, propelling herself to greater heights while removing chunks of the architecture. However, while possessing the strength to break through the ceiling, it would require her to fly through it and that was impossible for her, the ants could only swarm the entire area and wait patiently for the fruit to drop down.

Dangling from her chains, she pressed her palm against the wall and closed her eyes, whispering a chant. As the lips parted to pronounce the forbidden words, Milen’s breathes gained a spectral color, illuminating the surroundings and scattering like particles of light.

“Ghost step”

Her view, filled by darkness, blurred in an instant, and the force of gravity failed as instead of falling to her doom, she fell vertically on top of the wall. Removing the hook with little effort, she stepped on a glowing arrow painted in the “ground” and glided through it at an astounding speed.

If Seven saw this, he would immediately assume she never needed any help, at least not from him. Such inhuman prowess that defied all laws of physics was at least on par with Natalya’s, if not beyond.

The further she glided into the distance, the more she felt an unpleasant presence slithering from her hand and expanding towards her arm. She ripped off her sleeves mid-run and made a tight knot around her forearm, letting by the sight of a snake tattoo with green, purple and red scales almost ripping out of her skin. The layer of flesh that contained it was thin, and her blue veins couldn’t be any more visible, one could simply pluck her blood vessels if they so wished.

The truth was, she couldn’t keep her powers for much longer. If she were to use it offensively, she would need to take action in less than a minute, and afterward she would be too weak to do anything. The same could be said about defense, its only uses, in her mind, was running away, which she promptly did.

She was not so pleasant at the discovery of the ant’s swarm tactics. Now, like Seven, she came to understand the reason why warrior ants never patrolled the outer walls and stood atop the canal. She reversed the spell as quickly as possible, effectively stopping in time, but at that point it was useless. Three different pairs of eyes kept watching over Milen as her body was depleted of all fight.

***

In the last thirty minutes, Seven was left alone to wonder his possibilities. Or that is how things should go on paper, he already considered all his options and the road ahead of him spelled nothing but death. In those last minutes, rather than succumb to despair, he chose to accept his fate and whatever it encompassed.

[You are a real masochist]

“It is what it is. I surprise myself with my ignorance, but I cannot say I would’ve acted differently if I could reverse time”

[You would jump in the jaws of death again, for no reason?]

Disregarding the enclosure of warriors pressing down on him, Seven let out a fickle laugh.

“Having no reason is a good reason, don’t you think so? I feel like I’ve been contaminated by my book, from revising it so many times. I agree that I was mad, so much that my brain found compelling reasons to go on with the insanity. That being said, I still believe that my risks were calculated correctly”

[I concur. My analysis concluded a 67,52% chance of success, 28,12% of failure and retreat, and 4,36% of failure]

Seven sighed.

“Almost one in twenty, huh... That is still a relatively high risk, but for a wish, worth it maybe...”

His mind was a bit fuzzy, he didn’t notice that the thoughts were directly conveyed into words, and as such he was talking with the ants with their buzzing antennae. Whether they understood anything was another story, but they definitely recognized the different signals he was sending, and after a while, he also came to notice this and reached a realization.

“Maybe I am in luck... Or it could be extremely bad luck”

Ai kept silent about it.

“Later, when we finish this hurdle, I want you to confirm my assumptions. Since it is tonight, my chances of surviving are quite high, 4/5 at the very least.”

Not long after, red eyes hovered upon him. He bit on his lower lip and closed his eyes, accepting whatever was to come.

***

A cryptic and abyssal sound, similar to that of still water filling a cave. It was nothing but a murmur that spoke in a chilly wind, which tore open the permanence in a trail of rippling waves. Every few seconds, a drop of liquid would penetrate that stream, and the resulting wave was as varied as the melody produced by the rhythm.

Amidst that contained quietude, an audible struggle took place. The expansion and deflation of lungs as they expelled air, letting it flow down the hurt, hoarse throat. This sound was inconspicuous in the presence of the dry thuds breaking the natural symphony. It was like a door being knocked on desperately, except this door was an oval shape that enclosed a human being by all sides.

In that claustrophobic environment, Milen’s chest heaved up and down in a frantic manner as she exhausted all of her forces to break out of whatever kept her confined. Space was only enough to allow the smallest of movements: a turn of her body, a slight change of position, kicks, and punches that hurt her more than it did to the inanimate barrier.

Perhaps never in her life she would imagine being afraid of the sound of her own body speaking to her, that she was alive in that condition. The more she struggled, the more she felt the sticky liquid entering and almost completely feeling the voids, and in a few turns any movement would make it invade her nostrils. Her face was tightly pressed against that mucous thing that smelt like heavily acidic medication, and her eyes at turns shut tightly in her efforts to canalize all the strength to her limbs, while at others opened in full due to desperation and disbelief.

A slow death in a lone corner of the world. Ashes in the tray of history.

"Shit... I’ve waited for this opportunity for years... I’m not dying, no fucking way...”

Unrelenting, she insisted on force and revealed a fierce resolution. Bit by bit, the walls began to expand and the pungent yet familiar iron-like smell invaded the leak and mixed into a nauseating substance. Milen quickly punched her entire arm out, but she could hardly get out with just that. Placing her hand on anything outside, she quickly stumbled upon a sort of mushy substance which she could grab onto. She held onto that and slightly bent forward towards the opening while desperately trying to break the space beneath her feet.

Quickly filled with liquid, it was hard to exert strength, she held her chin up to the point her nose touched the stinky walls and she breathed it in, there was little time left. Eventually, it filled up to her nostrils and she held it for ten seconds before her eyes became hazy. On a last effort, the walls that had started to cave in finally collapsed beneath her and she quickly let go of her hand, sliding down effortlessly.

-Haaaa - she exhaled loudly, tired and gasping for breath. Whatever strength she had left was used to keep herself afloat and not sink into the blood pool.

Looking all around, it was a place similar to the canal in which the warriors patrolled, and the dark was kept away by glowing fungi of varied colors. Similar round or oval shapes that looked like spider eggs were clustered one upon another, half submerged, though most were probably completely enveloped by the pool. Milen clearly wouldn’t dive in to check, and the red curtain would surely block anything.

The happiness of being alive, mixed with her aching limbs, momentarily kept her away from the primal questions: where was she, and why was she still alive.

Once she regained her breath, she whispered some empty chants, sending illuminated air currents that let her better observe the environment. There was a single entryway, she swam towards it.

“Seven... Is he also here? If he is... No, I can’t do anything about it”

She had a very specific reason to bring Seven there, and although most of what she said was the truth, it didn’t encompass everything. From all possible angles, this was close to a suicide mission: she thought so herself. She understood very well the strength of an ant Queen, and that one was quite special, too.

If push came to shove, she was planning to use Seven as bait, but as fate should have it, she ended up screwing them both. It was quite ironic that she was worried about his safety now, but Milen couldn’t help it, as originally it wasn’t in her character to be a plotter or backstabber, it was simply survival speaking higher.

It wasn’t her choice, she had to do it. It was her issued quest.

What she experienced just now, maybe Seven had already passed through and died miserably, or was currently in the process as she idled by. This suffering which she came to know firsthand, she wouldn’t wish upon anyone. If anything, once she resolved to sacrifice someone who had nothing to do with her, she would have it be as quick as possible.

It was all useless now, though. She could only live with this irreprehensible guilt.

“I’ve already chosen to walk upon this path. No use looking back... But...”

As her conflicted thoughts led her to swim slower, almost to a standstill, in the inanimate silence she heard ripples coming at a distance. Her heart almost stopped, alighted with both the shadow of doubt and the beacon of hope.

From the depths of her soul, she wished he was okay, and this concealed desire led her to swim in that direction.

As the sounds became rougher and louder, a contained explosion sent floating bits and pieces of egg crust and she waited expectantly for her “partner” to appear.

What awaited her, though, killed away any traces of warmth in her precocious innocent self.

It had a certain... Human quality. The long silky hair already let on that it was not Seven, but corroborating this fact he did not possess such a large bust befitting of a woman such as Milen. Though she couldn’t discern the skin tone and the overall shape of the face, through the light cast shadows she viewed the neutral expression delineated by the lips, and the chilling glow of the eyes that did not close for a single moment, despite being recently out of an uncomfortable and blinding bath.

The thing, rather than swim, walked mechanically towards the exit of the cave, and though it appeared to be a woman in her early twenties, as she brushed past, the cold as death skin betrayed her inhuman qualities, and a strange bulge that she could only think of as a ship husk adorned with serrated dirks passed her by, cutting through her flesh. Those blades squirmed like living beings, as if enjoying the feeling of butchering her thigh and serrating her tendons, but oddly enough Milen couldn’t utter a single word of protest.

The figure left quietly, allowing her heart to continue beating blood in her colorless skin.

***

-Hahahahaha! - a maniacal laugh echoed in the dark and remote cave – I regret nothing! Nothing at all! Hahahaha!

Drunk in his discovery, Seven couldn’t stifle his emotions.

-Haah – now tired of laughing, he sighed, followed by a yawn, and reclined on the remains of a pupa he had just gotten off.

The cadaveric sight of that silent figure with its six legs coming from the ground hole was mesmerizing to his eyes, and he could view it firsthand because it wasn’t in the creature’s instincts to hunt, only to colonize.

-So this is a princess, huh? Now I understand a lot of things! - he exclaimed out loud, and the creature turned its head, shaking, in a 180º turn to gaze at him with eyes that surged one after another. It felt some attachment to Seven, but it didn’t know why. His presence felt only natural, yet at the same time wrong.

“Seems like Natalya indirectly fucked us. You don’t know everything, after all...”