Saintess Summons Skeletons-Chapter 813 - Ant-Icipation

Sonia looked up, failing to see much since her vision was still limited to fifty meters. “So… How much do you know about leylines?”

“Not a ton, to be honest, I did not get much time to research that.”

“Alright… I’ll stick to the essentials. Leylines are like… Underground trees, basically. They absorb mana from the surface, build up an immense stockpile, and gradually spread it throughout all of the planet’s layers. The roots we’re on do not actually absorb anything, quite the contrary, they periodically pump mana into their surroundings.”

“And most roots reach this layer I assume? Explains why the mana concentration is so high.”

“Yes. Also why I was fairly confident we were going to run into one at some point, they are everywhere in the forbidden layer. Now, the good thing, for you, is that most leylines permanently keep a seed ready to regrow in case they die, the only exception is if they have died recently and are still in the process of regrowing it.”

“And the bad thing?” Sofia asked.

“Many monsters want it so it’s well protected.”

“Are the roots going to attack us or something like that?”

Sonia shook her head, “That might be preferable, but no, the reason we don’t usually go near leylines if we can are the symbiotic creatures that live on it, leyline ants. The leyline provides them with basically endless mana and bark, and they offer protection in return.”

“How dangerous are we speaking?”

“Ants the size of horses or bigger. The weakest ones can easily chew through mithril, we might be able to handle a few at a time, they have multiple spells and natural flesh-melting venom. There are bigger ones, but I’ve only ever seen them from afar, too dangerous to get close.”

“We go for a stealth mission, then?”

“I doubt that’ll be possible. We climb and improvise. The seed will be in the best-guarded area, inside of the leyline itself, so it won’t be hard to find, just hard to reach.”

“Hmmm. Well, I don’t see any ants so far,” Sofia said, peering through the layers and layers of roots in front of her.

“So far,” Sonia repeated. “Let’s climb, ideally we look for lone ants and train against them. Don’t let one see us and escape or more will come and we’ll have no choice but to ditch everything and go for a dive back into the sea...”

“They won’t follow us in the underworld water?” Sofia asked.

“Probably not, but once we’re inside of the trunk escaping like that won’t be an option anymore.”

“Either way, we should try to get into the trunk before the mosquitoes come back, right?”

“Ideally,” Sonia acquiesced, “let’s go, we can fly, but don’t forget that the ants can, too.”

With a nod, Sofia summoned Crowie in his usual skeleton, having him sit on her shoulder.

You’re on ant-spotting duty. If one sees us and tries to get away, you distract it and Pestle kills it.

Crowie signaled his understanding with a peck on Sofia’s armor, and the group started to move. Rather than flying up, Pareth opted to jump up from root to root, taking a short pause between each jump to let Sofia confirm that there were no ants nearby. As they climbed, the ambient darkness gradually cleared up, permeated by the cyan glow of the leyline’s veins.

The roots grew thicker and more numerous as they jumped up several hundred meters, but they saw no signs of life so far. After one more jump, Sofia stopped Pareth, “I see something. Not a monster, but unusual. Look there,” she said, pointing at a root not too far away.

There was a large gash in the root, thick cyan-white sap slowly oozing out and dripping down into the underworld sea below.

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Sonia was immediately on high alert, drawing her bow, “Feeding traces from an ant, it might still be nearby!”

Everyone was battle-ready in an instant. The group was dead-silent, still like statues all grouped together on a large root. Crowie suddenly raised a wing, pointing at a cluster of tangled roots in a completely different direction than the oozing root.

“Saw it!” Sofia whispered, “look where Crowie’s pointing. It’s behind the thickest root out there. I saw something move, an antenna I think.”

“No need to whisper, they’re deaf,” Sonia said, “But it could smell us any moment now. Surround it, don’t let it escape.” Her bow draw, Sonia jumped to the side, trying to get a better angle. Crowie opted to follow Sonia to avoid leaving her alone, while Sofia followed Pareth and Pestle into action. Pareth jumped up to prevent the ant from climbing further while Sofia and Pestle came at it from below.

In moments, the oblivious ant came into view. It looked nothing like the cute backyard ants Sofia was familiar with, and more like an heavily armored six-legged bundle of bark and sap with sword-length pincers and two long leaf-like wings.

Closer to a tree drake than a damned ant!

A skewering bolt appeared over Sofia’s scepter as it morphed to the black sun Atlatl form, and the ant immediately noticed, head turning in her direction.

The monster spread its wings, but before it could fly off of the root, Pareth fell on it, a great-hammer slamming straight into the ant’s large head.

The ant was not even slightly disturbed by the hit. The tough bark on its head remained uncracked, it was like Pareth’s strike had been so weak that the ant had not even registered it. Its pincers snapped back, slicing straight though the hammer of light and catching Pareth’s leg. The bone and light armors both snapped but Pareth’s tibia was unharmed.

Sofia and Sonia launched a coordinated attack from two different directions. A mithril arrow slammed into the leyline ant’s back, barely doing anything but sticking into the bark, while Sofia’s skewering bolt straight-up bounced against the bark and was sent flying back into another root.

That’s one of the weak ones?!

Pareth grabbed the ant’s pincers, stopping it from flying off, while the others prepared the second round of attacks.

Visibly annoyed at being restrained, the ant’s wings buzzed while it pulled back with its legs, and spat a ball of glowing purple ooze at Pareth’s legs.

Sonia had switched to her Mithrium arrows, while Sofia prepared a single piercing bolt.

“I’ll try to pierce the bark, aim where I hit!” Sonia shouted from afar.

“Ready when you are!”

It took Pareth’s full force aided by his chains of light to hold the frenzied ant in place, whose purple ooze was fully ineffective on his bones. While Sofia was fully focused on aiming, a squiggly form suddenly rose behind her. She was in her demon form, so she saw it, but it was way too fast, she had no time to react. Pestle who had been quietly sitting on top of her head handled the threat. The new attacker was like a ghostly root sprouting out of the root Sofia was standing on, though it was impossible to follow the mana source, it probably came from the ant. Pestle sliced up the root like a vegetable salad before it could even strike.

On the other side, Sonia was less lucky, while Crowie warned her in time, it was powerless to defend her like Pestle did Sofia, so she had to dodge, barely avoiding the ghostly root’s slam that left a deep mark in the actual leyline root.

Already more ghostly roots were starting to grow all around them.

Change of plan!

Sofia fired her piercing bolt at the ant as she jumped away from the root she stood on.

The charged bolt still failed to pierce through, but instead of bouncing off like the skewering one, it at least left a small burned hole in the bark. Sonia copied her, jumping off, and firing her mithrium arrow. The arrow flew in a straight line leaving behind a bright trail of violet flames. Even with the ant thrashing around in Pareth’s grasp, breaking one chain after the other through sheer force, the arrow flawlessly entered the tiny hole Sofia’s bolt had carved into its back, slamming into it with a force so great the ant’s legs gave out, pressing it against the root it stood on.

Seeing the ant skewered like this, Pareth stepped on its head, spiked gloves appeared around his fists, and he started relentlessly punching the screeching creature.

Corrosive purple ooze sprayed out of all the cracks in the ant’s bark shell, and numerous ghostly roots appeared everywhere, in the vicinity, tens of them around Pareth, but they were too weak to hurt him. Sofia and Sonia had to stay on the move flying through the leyline roots to avoid the ghostly ones, while Pareth kept pounding, joined by Pestle who happily dug into the hole the mithrium arrow was lodged in.

A minute and a half later, the ant finally stopped moving. Pareth and Pestle were completely covered in purple goo, Pestle in particular was half molten as if she’d jumped into a hot bath of magma, it burned through her health slowly, hindering the healing of Sofia’s aura. She happily held a handful of tiny amber-looking rocks, which Sofia guessed were probably the ant’s multiple mana hearts. In a similar fashion as the octopus people had several mana jewels on their heads.

“Ant is kill,” she announced, joyfully nodding to herself.