The players hadn't expected for the expansion of the Iron Ants' territory, and after suddenly finding themselves so close, it was easy for the flying Soldiers to notice the huge group of players and alert the Drones on the ground.

The number of Drones approaching was far more than what Loran, Alexx, and Zed ran into, easily exceeding 300.

“Everyone gather up!” Soze shouted. “Melee fighters form a wall! Ranged fighters get behind them!”

Knowing that they would need to be coordinated when fighting in such large numbers, part of their preparations for the expedition had been running drills in the training field. Reminded by Soze’s shouting, the players quickly get into position, the melee fighters forming a large semi-circle shape while the ranged players gather in the center.

“Spells and arrows ready!” Bates shouted, drawing his bow and readying an arrow tipped with an iron arrowhead.

Loran held out his hands and began preparing a large ball of mana. After a few seconds the blue arcane light condensed, turned red and burst into flames. Other players prepared their own arrows or spells, and a few builders were holding logs like they were javelins.

“Hold!” Bates shouts. “...Fire!”

A volley of iron-tipped arrows, spells, and a few logs flew toward the Iron Ant Drones. The sharpened iron, enhanced by the weapons and stats of the players, easily pierced all but the thickest parts of the Drones’ carapace. Several Drones die on the spot as their vitals are destroyed by the metal projectiles.

The slower-moving spells struck a moment later, and all hell broke loose. With their differing stat limitations, the various spellcasters each had their own ideas about what was the best spell to start with. Three blasts of fire went off within the Iron Ant ranks, but there were also spears of mana that bore through multiple ants, volleys of Mana Darts that left bloody wounds in multiple targets, and one particularly creative player threw a bundle of mana that exploded into tendrils, grabbing multiple ants before pulling them into a ball.

Then the logs fell upon the ants flattening many. With ten logs falling from the sky, each ten feet long and several inches thick, nowhere was safe. Some died from the initial impact, while others took significant damage when the logs kept rolling through their ranks. The bundle of ants that were tied up from the earlier spell were especially unlucky as one of the larger logs barreled over them, killing them instantly.

A few seconds later, the Drones were within reach of the melee fighters, and the battle truly began. There were still hundreds of ants remaining, but seeing so many go down so fast did nothing but encourage the players. They could do this.

~~~~~

After the discovery of idea manipulation, the village’s spellcasters were finally able to develop a kind of magic beyond simple energy blasts. The newly created fire magic was incredibly powerful, with even the basic spell, dubbed Ember, easily dealing five times the base damage of Mana Bolt despite having the same cost. Of course, Mana Bolt also had bonuses from the player’s increased stats, but fire magic had a small chance to cause the [BURNING] debuff, which was crippling to the Iron Ants. Not only did the damage from [BURNING] bypass their armor, but it also greatly reduced the integrity of their carapace, causing their armor stat to weaken.

‘Always nice to see enemies grouping up for me,’ Loran thought as he prepared another Fire Bomb spell.

Fire Bomb was able to deal 30 fire damage to all targets within a 10-foot radius of the projectile, and had an increased 50% chance to trigger the [BURNING] debuff. While lacking in terms of immediate damage compared to something like Mana Spike, especially due to their natural armor, it was incredibly effective against the swarm of Drones with how easily it set things on fire.

‘Still, I wish this was a full-on Fireball spell instead of a Fire Bomb.’

The spell may be a huge burst of fire, but it didn’t actually cause an explosion or anything, just a burst of flame. Add to that the fact that its initial damage was honestly rather pathetic, and no one was willing to call this a Fireball, no matter how useful it was overall. It was a spell meant to inflict debuffs, not directly kill the target.

Loran sent out another Fire Bomb before turning his gaze skyward. There were three Iron Ant Soldiers hovering above them, not attacking but watching with intensity. Perhaps they weren’t sure who to target with so many players here instead of just a few Mountain Goats, but as long as they were there they couldn’t afford to forget about them.

“I’m certainly not going to complain if they just want to hang around an-SHIT!”

Suddenly, one of the Soldiers dove down, starting its attack.

“Soldier! From the South!” one of the others shouted.

‘Me and my fucking mouth!’ Loran quickly formed a large Magic Shield while watching the diving Soldier carefully.

“I’ll take it down!” he shouted.

It would be difficult to pinpoint its target until the last second, but he didn’t like the idea of letting the other players fend for themselves when even Drones could still be a problem. Ignoring the battle raging around him, Loran focused entirely on the descending Iron Ant Soldier.

When the Soldier was about 100 feet away from them and approaching fast, Loran pushed his Mana Shield closer. With how fragile this variant was compared to its speed, a simple barrier would be enough to stop it dead in its tracks. Even a weak barrier would deal significant damage to the flying bug. Unfortunately, Loran only had one opportunity to stop it. He had been somewhat fine with letting the Mountain Goats die during their last encounter, but he couldn't afford to make a mistake when player lives were on the line. ‘Only one shot…’

Once the Soldier was 100 feet away and closing fast, Loran sent his shield forward to intercept. He started to get confused when the Soldier started to swerve around, but a few seconds before the collision he realized that there was a target that would stand out to the ant.

‘Alvor and Van!’

Pushing the shield as fast as it could go, Loran just barely managed to put part of it between Alvor and the Soldier at the last second. The Soldier didn’t die, but the impact tore one of its blades away from its body, along with most of its arm. Still moving fast and with its body massively off balance now, the Iron Ant Soldier spiraled off to the side of the battlefield, bleeding heavily from its missing limb.

Loran wasn’t too worried about the wounded bug getting back into the air, but he would rather not take any chances. Quickly casting Fire Spike, a spell that combined fire magic with shape manipulation to create the highest damage output possible, Loran impaled the Soldier and set it ablaze.

Satisfied that the bug soon die from the flames, he kept an eye out for the other two Soldiers while tossing out Fire Bomb spells whenever possible. As more and more Drones were set on fire, their hissing shrieks grew louder and louder. Loran grinned despite the morbidity of the situation. He never considered himself a sadist or a pyromaniac, but there was always something strangely satisfying about such indiscriminate destruction. He let his mind wander for a moment, recalling times in other games where he would use abilities with lesser damage output but greater explosive force just to watch the rubble fly and see characters ragdolling through the air(1).

‘If only I had a Fireball right now,’ he thought, imagining the sight of Iron Ant Drones sailing through the air from the concussive force of his spells.

“Mages! Stop with the fire magic!” Someone shouted from the front.

“Did we hit someone?” Loran asked back.

“The fumes are too much! It’s getting hard to breathe!”

‘Fucking hyper-realistic game world!’ Loran thought angrily. “Alright fine!”

They did know that burning Iron Ant carapace caused it to give off noxious fumes, but Loran had been hoping it wouldn’t matter since the front lines were still moving about. Unfortunately, with how many ants they had set on fire, along with smoke from the burning grass, the air was just too polluted to breathe.

‘They just had to get rid of my AOE option already…and there are still more than 200 ants to go.’

Loran started thinking through his options. Without using fire magic most of his spells were single-target attacks, and the few AOE spells he still had were extremely weak. He could leave their encirclement so that he could start setting fire to the ants that were farther away, but he was one of the players responsible for intercepting the Iron Ant Soldiers whenever they attacked. They were hesitating right now, but that could still change at any point.

A moment passed and Loran saw a flash of blue from the corner of his vision. One player was tossing out bundles of mana that tied up several ants at once every few seconds. Loran remembered seeing the spell from the initial volley and had been meaning to ask about it.

‘May as well try now.’

Weaving between the other mages, builders, and archers, he got closer to the player.

“How are you casting that spell?” Loran asked calmly as if he weren't in the middle of a battlefield.

“Huh?!”

“How do you cast that?”

“Is now really the best time for this?!” the player asked, understandably confused.

“Just tell me already.”

“Fuck off, I need to focus.”

Loran sighed, annoyed but knowing that he was being a little unreasonable. Even if the battle was going well it wasn’t the right time for a magic lesson.

‘Still… maybe I can just figure it out.’

With how often he had been teaching Maya and helping the other spellcasters with research over the last few weeks, he had plenty of experience analyzing people casting spells. This would be the first time he was trying to copy them without knowing what they were thinking, but it couldn’t be that hard, could it?

‘It has some duration and physicality to it, so it's definitely a mana construct of some kind…’ Loran thought as he started forming the spell. ‘It also seems to burst out, stretch, and grab on its own, but is that all idea manipulation? Wouldn’t that be too many ideas at once?’

Feeling experimental, Loran attempted to create the spell with all three ideas. He quickly felt the ideas fighting against each other, as if fighting for space within the mana construct.

‘I don’t have the stats for it… does he have higher Intelligence than me?’

Before Loran thought to [ANALYSE] the player, he watched him toss out another bundle. When the spell went off he saw that several of the tendrils didn’t actually catch anything.

‘...No, it’s not stats, I’m just doing it wrong.’

Instead of making the tendrils reach out on their own, Loran imagined that the bundle of mana was under tension, like a spring-loaded trap. It was essentially a variation of making the constructs flexible. The tendrils would want to be in a certain shape, but were being held by him in a different position. The moment he released his hold of the spell, the arms would snap outward, curl into their proper positions, and tighten back up again.

‘The spell won’t seek out targets, it just has a set radius. It only seemed to go after the ants because there are so many of them.’

Confident that he completed the spell, Loran launched it toward the horde of Drones. The spell worked perfectly, bursting out and tying up several Drones that were caught by its tendrils. The only noticeable difference between his and the original was that he had a smaller radius, suggesting that the player actually did have better stats than Loran.

The player’s jaw dropped. “How did you-”

Loran shrugged. “I figured it out. Thanks for nothing!” he said with mock enthusiasm. With his new spell in hand, Loran went right back to attacking the Drones from afar, leisurely tossing out ensnaring spells as he watched the Soldiers above.

1 - Ragdolling is when a character model becomes limp as the game’s physics engine lets it move freely without input from the players or the game’s AI.