Jake traced his hands down the rough red dirt wall. It glistened lightly in his hud's night vision despite not being wet. Mucus mixed with the dirt had reinforced it into something harder than stone. He was walking through a tunnel large enough for a small car to drive through. Relying on his helmet's hud he carried no light and hoped that stealth would get him close to the hive queen before having to fight too many drones. He was afraid to rely on his Survivor's Fury anymore. Each time he did, something bad happened. Just thinking about it dragged his memories back to just a week ago when he had damaged a dimensional anchor. Then before he could stop himself he recalled the last quest with his previous party.
Instead of dwelling on the past, he turned his attention back to the silent darkness ahead. It was the middle of the night. When most of the hive drones were actually outside hunting. So, the tunnels were supposed to be empty, but he was most of the way in and hadn't seen a single monster. This was a massive hive of Blade Ants. Giant car sized ants with scythe limbs more like those of a mantis. They were fast and strong, with the drones being all C rank. But it was the elite warrior ants being B rank that he was interested in. The hive Queen was supposedly B rank as well. But rank didn't always mean power, besides the Queen wasn't a threat. She wouldn't leave the hatching room and killing her would remove a valuable core farm. His goal now was to kill the elite warrior ants that would remain to guard the queen while all the drones were out.
Their B rank cores would be worth ten times each drone killed. But more importantly, there was a skill mutagen that they might drop he wanted.
"Is it supposed to be this quiet?" Jake thought.
"No." The synthetic voice answered immediately. The implant in his brain that connected with his equipment and provided his hud also allowed silent communication. Only this time instead of speaking with another player he was speaking to his new AI assistant upgrade. It was them that had accessed the records stored by the main AI that oversaw all players, maintained the dimensional pockets, and generally ran everything to find where his next solo hunt should be. The upgrade to his hud via a personal AI had been his reward for the efforts to save the dimensional anchor. One he wasn't sure he deserved but since they gave it to him, he saw no reason not to use it. It also gave him another excuse for not needing a group.
Jake felt the slight tremble in the ground and a rush of hot air shot past him down the tunnel as a momentary flash of light illuminated everything. "There appears to be someone else here."
"No shit." Jake growled. Stealth be damned he started sprinting down the tunnel. Soon he heard the sound of battle, the bark of weapon fire, and the woosh of spells. All accompanied by the chittering of angry insects.
He scrambled over the blackened corpse of a Blade Ant Warrior and took a look at the mayhem in front of him illuminated by glowing green moss covering the large chamber. There were three humans engaged in battle with nearly a dozen still living warrior ants. Two wore magic faction gear while one fired away with an automatic rifle, that fired off plasma rounds instead of ballistic ammunition. A warrior ant rose up in the air, lifted by a sudden tornado of wind to smash into the ceiling. Reinforced stone cracked and splintered before the tornado died and dropped the wounded ant. It hit the ground chittering angerly but still rushed forward both of its bladed limbs, nearly as long as the rest of its body, flailing. A blast of orange fire hit it at the same time as a spray of plasma rounds. Their teamwork was solid, but in the time it took them to drop that single ant more closed in on them.
The Aeromage screamed in panic as one warrior ant lunged for them, both bladed limbs stretched out as they came down intent on cleaving them apart. Their staff of polished white wood glowed with a dim blue light pulsing through the core of the staff. The tip puffed out like a translucent blue dandelion. The fluffy petals flew free of the staff as if caught in an unseen wind and rushed towards the descending ant. Each of the puffy seeds hit the ant and exploded in a blast of dense wind.
The bombardment of exploding puff seeds hit the ant with enough force to cause it to tilt to one side, thrown off balance. Still, one of the giant blades rushed in towards them. The wind whistled around the razor sharp blade as it closed in for the kill. The mage felt their pounding heart fly up into their throat choking them. They wanted to shut their eyes but couldn't. Instead, frozen in terror they watched that claw close in. They could see the dull green light of the moss reflecting on that razor edge, the multifaceted eyes of the insect swiveling to focus on them. Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
Then it rushed back in on them as the blade came to a sudden complete stop, a gust of wind blowing past their face. A massive clawed hand gripped the bladed limb right in front of them. With the appearance of blackened wood, it seemed to absorb the weak light from the moss. In contrast, the vortex spider web icon on the back of the hand was so white it seemed to reflect the dim light almost painfully bright. With a sharp sound cracks spread along the bladed limb where that oversized hand clasped it. The chittering sound of the ant grew in pitch, from angry to pained. Then with a loud crunch, the bladed limb was crushed.
Nickie followed the length of that arm up to a face. They weren't sure what they expected but a mirror polished mask with a tendril of that burn black material, like a charred vine crawling up a mirror. Wasn't what they expected.
"What are you doing here?" The deep robotic voice asked. "This is a Perma Death Zone. You shouldn't be here." The figure stepped forward and then kicked out, a metallic covered clawed foot hit the insect. There was the sound of cracking carapace and then the insect was sent flying across the room to crash into the wall.
Jake didn't wait for an answer and vanished using his one active ability. Rift Jumper. It allowed him a short ranged self only teleport. It was the foundation of his fighting style, allowing him to use it both defensively and offensively. Unlike most teleport spells there was no visual cue, nor a ramp up time. It was physically taxing instead of relying on magical power as well. Making it perfect for such a high vitality build like him.
He appeared midair and came crashing down with both oversized fists doubled up. Smashing downward he crushed the head of another attacking ant into the hardened floor. Both bug and floor shattered beneath his fist. Around them, the warrior ants paused their assault, apparently reappraising the situation.
It allowed the three man group to appraise their savior. He stood five foot ten and was unlike any other player they had met. His helmet was a standard tech style full visor. Completely covering his head and face in mirror polished metal. But that was the only thing that seemed normal to them. Their muscular chest was covered in a skin tight layer of silvery metallic armor that bore the texture of bark. They couldn't tell if it was tech or magic faction equipment as the bark texture seemed something the magic faction would use. But the metallic texture was unlike anything they had seen.
Their arms were covered in black material the texture of charred wood. Their arms were too long and too large with clawed hands several times too big. On the back of each hand was a spider web in a vortex pattern of such pure white it almost glowed.
They wore dark cloth pants common to the tech faction but below the knees, their legs were covered in form fitting metal, that ended in clawed toes.
None had ever seen anything like it. But every one of them knew who this was. The Demon. Each of them had seen the little movies put together showing their brutal fighting style, filmed by a party member who used drones. A party member who had been killed in a Perma Death Zone, their character deleted. Rumor had it they were killed by their party member, the one right infront of the group.
"This is our hunt!" The plasma rifler shouted as they flicked a switch on their rifle. Several lines of light appeared along the length of the weapon as it charged up. Then with a coughing sound launched a single blast of plasma at the nearest ant. Chitin sizzled as the attack hit, boring right through the ant's defenses. Ichor boiled inside and gushed free as the ant toppled.
Jake considered leaving them to their fate right there and then. They had stupidly entered a Perma Death Zone. But, they probably didn't know that it wasn't just their characters that would be deleted if they died. No, death outside the safety of the recall net meant just that, death. This was no game despite what most players had been told, that was the grand lie.
Instead of abandoning them, Jake launched himself at another ant closing in on the group. They were watching in all directions, except up. The ant dropped from the ceiling above intent on simply falling on the humans. Stone shattered beneath his feet as he kicked off and flew straight towards it. His entire body slammed into the ant knocking it aside. Mid-air he twisted and slammed both armored feet into it. Kicking it further away before dropping back down to the ground in the middle of the group.
"We don't need your help!" The fire mage shouted as they swept a gout of flame around the group pushing back most of the ants.
Before he could respond there was an ear splitting shriek that caused the very air to tremble. All the warrior ants retreated towards a dark hole in the wall. The jagged hole was large enough for several of the ants to pass through at once. Jake squinted as the ants formed up outside that entrance. The AI assistant tweaked his hud allowing his vision to sharpen and through the entrance, he could see it. The Queen.
It was a massive creature, its upper half was the same as a warrior ant. Only four times the size. The lower half though was the size of a several story tall building. Even as he watched an egg the size of a person was squeezed out from the end of that gigantic abdomen. The queen was powerful, bordering on A rank but because of that abdomen, they couldn't leave the hatchery. Meaning they were no threat as long as they didn't go inside. Jake had planned to come here, kill all the guardian ants then leave. The queen would just spawn more that grew at an astounding rate. It would be the perfect farm.
While Jake sized up the queen the others hadn't been idle. When he turned back to them he saw a familiar spell. One of his past party members Aero had used that same spell. It grew and compressed a ball of cutting wind blades repeatedly increasing the power of the attack. It was incredibly powerful but hard to use in combat because of the long cast time. Beside them, the fire mage held a giant flaming arrow at the ready while the plasma gunner's rifle glowed like a Christmas tree. "The Queen is ours!" The aero mage shouted out as they launched their attack.
The attack streaked across the chamber toward the hatchery entrance. Several of the warrior ants leaped up to intercept it as Jake shouted for them to stop. The giant flaming arrow and the charged up blast from the rifle hit the intercepting ants. Clearing the way for the air mage's attack, straight to the Queen.