“We aim to advance in ten minutes. Make sure your squads are ready.”

They had spent a week preparing for this expedition, training, theorising, testing. Bella and Ellie had worked overtime, stretching their knowledge of monster anatomy to the very limits, studying the cores of fifth stratum monsters with intense focus.

Solant’s broodmates acknowledged her instructions and rushed off to carry out her word, only Leonidant remaining behind.

“How confident are you?” the scout asked.

“That’s an unusually direct question.”

“These are unusual times.”

“Very true words.”

Solant reflected for a moment.

“We really have come a long way, haven’t we?” she said, cleaning her antennae carefully. “It wasn’t that long ago the only thing we had to worry about was Tunnel Ball and completing our training exercises.”

“The Eldest certainly changed that in a hurry.”

The giant ant had thrown Solant and her broodmates into the thick of the conflict at the earliest possible opportunity. It had been a brutal learning curve, for all of them, but they had grown so fast as a result of the change, it was difficult to view it as a bad thing.

“I believe the Eldest was wise to place us here,” Solant decided. “It’s been an excellent opportunity to develop ourselves and be of use to the family.”

“That doesn’t answer my question. How confident are you?”

Solant considered the question for a moment.

“About half,” she said finally. “It’s lower than I would like, but we need to start testing our ideas sooner rather than later. More certainty will be hard to come by without taking a few risks now.”

“We trust you,” the scout reassured her general. “I’m sure we’re going to be successful.”

“Of course,” Solant nodded, “we can’t lose.”

With a quick salute, Leonidant rushed off to join the others organising the column. Solant left them to it. She needed to focus on the bigger picture, not spend her time fussing over the minor details before they set out. No matter how much she wanted to. The more she tried to look over their thorax and check their work, the more her broodmates pushed back and told her to find something productive to do.

The little general completely believed in their capabilities, but it was hard to let go sometimes.

“You really are heading out?”

Solant turned to see Ellie and Bella, the two core shaper Council members, approaching from the nest. Each looked visibly worried, antennae twitching and legs flexing anxiously.

“We need to know sooner rather than later if we are on the right track,” Solant said. “I believe in the work that you and your caste members have completed to this point. Without proper assessment, we won’t be able to advance according to the timetable I have laid out.”

“Timetable?” Ellie asked. “I thought we were working on solutions for the toxic mana and miasma for the wave defence.”

“We are,” Solant assured her, eyes focusing down the tunnel, but somehow looking far beyond. “For now, that is what we are doing.”

Leonidant signalled from her place in the column and Solant turned to the two core shapers.

“I have to excuse myself, it’s time to depart. I’ll give you a full report the moment we return.”

“Work hard!” Bella said. “I hope the pets will do us all proud.”

“I’m sure they will.”

So saying, the little general left the two behind and took her place amongst the column as it slowly began to move, picking up the pace as the thousands of ants slotted into line. A constant stream of scouts ran forward and back, alerting Solant and the other generals as to the situation further down the tunnel.

It was grim, as expected.

Solant had planned to move ten kilometres beyond the defensive line held by the Colony, moving out and down, closer to the fifth, but as reports rolled in, it seemed they would hardly need to travel at all to find what they were looking for.

Barely ten percent of the way into their journey, the column ground to a halt.

“Assume standing formation five, but tell the earth mages not to stretch themselves. If things go according to plan, we won’t be here long,” Solant instructed, and the runners raced to deliver her orders.

She moved toward the front of the long line of ants, running a keen eye along the troops as she passed. Was it a trick of the light, or did they straighten when they came under her gaze?

“It’s even worse than we predicted,” Sumant said, indicating forward with one antenna.

She wasn’t wrong. The Colony regularly burned outward from the defensive line, but the distance had grown shorter and shorter as the wave went on. Now, barely a single kilometre from where they’d started, Solant was confronted with the full scope of what they were up against.

The slime was everywhere. Thick pools of mucous covered the floor of the tunnel, fibrous strands stretched every which way, forming a spider web of goop. It dripped from the ceiling, slid down the walls. Even the air was contaminated, dense with poisonous, acidic gases that made it difficult to see.

At this density, the toxic mana of the fifth was basically self-sustaining; the slime produced more of itself, spreading, pooling, growing thicker and more noxious by the hour. If nothing was done, it would creep all the way to the nest and then up through the fortress until it spilled out into the waters that surrounded the mountain. At that point, it would become someone else’s problem, the brathian most likely, who would be forced to clean up and eradicate the mess lest another stratum fall as the fifth had fallen.

It wouldn’t come to that, of course.

“Any monster sightings?”

“None, thankfully.”

“Then we can deploy.”

“Already?”

Solant gestured forwards.

“Are you offering to walk deeper, Sumant?”

“I’m… not.”

“Deploy the first wave,” Solant gave the command and in moments, the first wave of core shapers assigned to this expeditionary force were by her side, eager to prove their worth.

The pets, promisingly, looked hungry.

Bella and Ellie, along with their available caste members, had worked furiously, iterating dozens of times to come up with their current working design. A cross between a type of jellyfish the Colony had found in the lake and a caterpillar-like grub that feasted on the oversized vegetation that covered the mountainsides of the fourth, they were a weird looking monster.

Mostly transparent, the monsters were fairly large, bigger than all but the largest soldiers. They humped and wiggled along the ground in ungainly fashion at the urging of their core shaper masters. Solant watched intently as a dozen of them first encountered the toxic sludge the Colony was struggling to deal with.

They leapt at it, hurling themselves into the thickest pools of mucus and sludge, wobbling happily as they settled themselves into it. Almost immediately, their soft blue jelly-like bodies became tainted as the corrupting mana invaded them. The monsters welcomed it, soaking up the slime until they became a muddy, lurid green from top to bottom. Solant wasn’t sure if the monsters were successful, or on the verge of breaking down, but the core shapers watched, unmoved, and so she did too.

It took time, almost five minutes, before the first signs of progress were seen. A faint tint of blue returned, right in the centre of the creatures’ mass. The colour spread across the top half of the monsters until they were divided into a noxious green lower half and a wholesome, shining blue top.

Then the creatures revealed their faces, wide, cheerful eyes emerging from their jelly forms, along with a number of chubby tendrils that served as their mouths. The appendages were extended, and from the tips, they began to release a steady stream of bright blue gas.

“Wuff, wuff, wuff, wuff!”

The new pets seemed to chortle happily as they began to move slowly around the tunnel, soaking up the corruption and releasing their sweet, purified mana into the air in a constant flow.

“Seems like a success,” Solant commented, her head already swirling with possibilities.

The invasion of the fifth might just be possible after all.