Ah, the empowered gravity bomb, infused with the overflowing Will of the Colony via my trusty Altar. Would there ever be a time I didn’t threaten my own life when using this stupid ability?!

The bomb rips through the air, sucking in everything around it, creating a horrendous wind as the air races to fill in the void. My antennae flap wildly as I realise just what I’ve done and scramble to get my precious diamond carapace to safety.

Six legs scramble, scratching and scrabbling at the dirt as I struggle to turn myself around. I fired the damn thing pretty much point blank, and I barely get my face-hands pointed in the right direction when the spell detonates.

On the very edge of my peripheral vision, I see the bomb expand right behind me. Even a weak gravity bomb, when empowered by the Altar, can pack a serious punch, and sadly, this one is no different. I flex my legs, my core thrashing with wild energy as I explode forward with an empowered dash!

Of course, there’s not enough room and I run face first into the wall. Damn it! Can’t these tunnels be a little bit straighter?!

My face explodes with pain as the impact rattles through my carapace and shakes up my insides, but thankfully no major damage is suffered. My mandibles are stuck about half a metre deep into the rock, though… which is less than ideal.

HOOOOOOOOWWWWWLLLLLL!!!!

The spell screams behind me, and I think I get a notification, but I can’t even hear someone talking in my mind through the din. Besides that, my mind is preoccupied with not being sucked into the swirling void of doom, which is important.

Come on, come on, come on! Break, you lousy rock!

I try to yank my head free, only to find that my legs are no longer on the ground. As the ridiculous force of the pull exerts itself on me, my entire body has risen up off the ground!

I’m dangling in mid-air, with only my mandibles buried in the stone to keep me from falling horizontally to my death!

Come on, stone, hold! Hold, you lousy rock!

My minds spin, pumping out earth mana which I compress before using it to harden the stone around my trusty pinchers. If that stuff breaks, or even worse, comes loose from the wall, I’m toast!

I pull up every drop of mana in my core and shove it through the omni-elemental construct, getting sweet, sweet stone mana out the other end, which I promptly pour out until I’m buried up to the eyeballs in the stuff. It’s terrifying, but I eventually reach an equilibrium, with my body held aloft, being pulled back into the danger zone, but the stone resolutely holding strong.

When the spell finally fades, my body falls to the ground and I go completely limp with relief.

Holy moly.

I’ve never been that close to the epicentre of a gravity bomb before, and I hope I never am again. That was terrifying! My legs feel like jelly, in fact I’ve got the shivers over my entire body. I’m almost glad I couldn’t see directly behind me, peering straight into the void might have been too much for my poor ant heart.

And now I need to get my face free.

A Void Chomp manages to do the job, exploding the rock in front of me and showering me with dust and stone chips, several of which poke into my eyes. These soft orbs remain the greatest weakness of my body; I’m going to have to deal with that issue when I next evolve.

For now, I revel in my freedom and survival. Yes! Cheating death once again, Anthony! You might have had me once, but never twice! Take that!

Ouch.

A slight pain runs up my leg and I glance down to see what’s going on, only to find one of those horrific drill-worms has latched onto my right-rear leg. In fact, it hasn’t just latched on, it’s trying to tunnel its way into my leg!

KILL IT WITH FIRE!

GRAVITY BO—now hold it a second… execute plan B!

DRAGON’S BREATH!

From between my mandibles launches a roaring jet of flame which I resolutely turn on my own leg, searing the little pest in an instant, while also roasting myself in the process.

How in the name of heck did that damn thing survive? Those slugs are nightmare fuel, I swear to Gandalf, the sight of them is absolutely terrifying. I trigger the regeneration gland to hopefully repair my leg a little faster before I adjust my position and send the searing jet of flame down the tunnel. If any more of those things lived through the bomb, then I want them fully roasted.

Only when the rocks are searing hot and every inch of the remaining goop I can see has evaporated do I dare to start to crawl forward into the wreckage of what the gravity bomb has wrought.

Not even the stone survived intact, the area is distinctly more spherical than it was before, and right in the middle is a glowing, compressing chunk of stuff that fell when the bomb ended. As for signs of the monster, surprisingly, there are some. The creature was a little lucky in that I didn’t fire the bomb directly towards it, but in front of it, aimed at the little tunnel-slugs. Whatever these things use to grip, be they a ‘foot’ like a mollusc uses or some other method, it managed to hold on pretty well, but not quite well enough. Around half of the monster has been blitzed, the rest is a now roasted and steaming mess on the ground.

Sigh.

Better get a bite of it so I can check the profile. Eating these things is just as unappealing as fighting them.