Chrysalis

"RAAA!" Morrelia bellowed and her muscles bunched and shifted beneath her skin before she stabbed her hand out once more.

To describe it as a stab wouldn't be doing it justice. The strength, the control, the sheer force of that strike went beyond what I had imagined was possible. As if she were cutting apart the very air, the sword pierced the atmosphere. As it did so, pure light coalesced around her arm and hand, flowing onto the sword itself, rapidly building in intensity until it was blinding.

The light reached a critical mass just as the sword extended, forming a point at the tip of the blade that shone like a miniature sun. Then, in just an instant, the beam lanced out, piercing monsters straight through, seemingly without resistance. Just as suddenly as it had come, the light faded and a line of twenty monsters slumped to the ground.

What the heck is that skill?! How the heck does she do that?!

As the monsters swirl and growl around me I see Morrelia's crew arrive to back her up, firing arrows into the crowd with incredible speed, their hands a blur. It looks as though they took a little time to gather their supplies and uncase their bows but they are in the think of it now.

On impulse I decide to rush back to where the five of them have gathered, tearing my way through a dense cluster of centipedes to do so.

*clang!*

An arrow smacks into my carapace as I dash forwards, reflecting cleanly off one of the diamond portions of my carapace and ricocheting off into the swirl of beasts harmlessly.

OI!

Slowing my approach, I wave my antennae frantically to signal my peaceful intentions. I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt on the first shot but any more than that and we are going to have trouble here. Thankfully, the archer's eyes widen as she recognises me and turns to shoot a fresh target.

I mean, an apology would have been appreciated but, I suppose under the circumstances…

You're fighting a giant horde of monsters and a massive ant, I suppose I'm basically the size of a couch, if not quite as high, comes charging at you, you're going to shooting the heck out of that ant. It's fair enough.

As I reach their side and unleash a few more gravity spears into the horde, binding monsters, slowing and restricting them, Morrelia turns to me and nods briefly before unleashing another solid beam of light into the throng.

She's like a freakin' laser cannon with that skill!

It's rad as hell, I have to say.

She pauses for a second, as if feeling or sensing something, before barking an order to one of her crew, a grizzled looking guy with a face full of scars. He nods and steps forwards, gripping a heavy looking axe in two hands.

"Haaaaa!" he bellows before sprinting towards the onrushing horde and unleashing wild horizontal swings his axe.

With every swing a furious arc of light slashes out in the shape of a phantom axe, splitting the monsters apart and giving the group breathing room, allowing the two female archers to continue to unleash their bolts of death.

With this respite I continue to build Gravity Spears, hurling them into the horde to bind the monsters together, occasionally firing at a patch of ground to bind the monsters to the earth, creating knots of creatures throughout the mass of monsters that can't move freely, tripping and blocking the press of beasts behind them.

"Haaaaaaa, Haaaaaa."

Next to me I can see Morrelia, eyes closed, going into some sort of breathing meditation. The air seems to whistle between her teeth as they slowly clench and her breathing becomes heavier. Before I even have time to mock her within my mind, I feel something change in the air. A bloodthirsty aura rises. A tangible sense of rage and violence that seems to warp the very air around the powerfully built woman.

As each second passes the air around her grows more dense and her body begins to release a soft red light that stinks of blood.

What.

The.

Heck.

…

As I grow more bewildered and confused, the two archers shout out a warning and the axe swinging man turns without hesitation and sprints to get behind Morrelia.

Just as he does so her eyes open and they are frickin' glowing with a murderous red light. Snarling like a beast she tears a second sword out of a sheath across her back and explodes into motion.

The nearest wave of monsters simply explode into chunks of Biomass as she smashes into them like a cannon ball, blades flashing as her murderous aura rises all the while. All technique and finesse seems to have left her she rips her blades through the air, cleaving foes up to ten feet away with wild swings.

Instead of the light of her skills being pure white, as every other time I've ever seen a skill activated, even her own, the light that flows from her swords is bright red. The monsters almost seem intimidated to find this creature amongst them but it's too late. She swings with wild abandon, slashing left and right, leaving herself wide open to attack.

Some attacks actually do manage to get through, the occasional monster making it to her and raking its claws against her arms or across her leather armour.

She doesn't care.

She doesn't even seem to notice.

In fact, my startled eyes notice that as that hungry red light continues to tear apart monsters with every flash of steel, her wounds are closing.

The hell is this?! This is freakin' hot to death.

She's some sort of Vampiric Berserker?!

And she thinks I'M the monster?!

I have to say though, watching her in action, a snarling rictus of pure rage locked on her face and her eyes alive with hate, actually glowing with the light of rage.

Well, it's enough to bring a tear to my monstrous eyes. That's the way to fight.

[Tiny, Crinis! Watch out, one of the humans is a flat out berserker and she is killing everything that gets anywhere close to her. Make sure you keep some distance, I don't think she can recognise friend from foe.]

[Acknowledged, Master!]

[Grrrrr FIGHT!]

I can only roll my eyes at Tiny as he resents my intrusion on his battle. In my minds' eye I can see him bellowing with rage, the air around him alive with crackling electricity as his fists cause devastation amongst the thronging monsters.

As well as we are doing, the wave is immense.

In the tunnels we were able to use the narrow spaces to funnel the enemies into manageable numbers, forcing them to charge directly onto our spears, so to speak. Out here, it simply isn't the case. They surround, they flow around and separate us. Even worse, some of them ignore us, rushing past the small number of fighters and charging into the village.

The front of this horde is so wide that even the ant hill might be threatened at this rate. As monsters continue to break away from our melee and rush towards the closest targets, I can see some of them dashing towards the colony.

Not only that, I can tell that these monsters are not the freshly hatched creatures that we battled in the tunnels. Despite being regular first strata beast type monsters, they've got levels and Biomass behind them, probably from destroying and consuming the people of Liria.

Their advanced skills and mutations is making them just that little bit harder to crack, and every minute difference begins to pile up rapidly in a melee like this.

This isn't going well.