He met the queen's charge with a raised blade, vital surge in full effect. Her mandibles were sharp, biting into the weaker sword's edge and wearing it down. He could handle losing it. He had a better one in his inventory.

The fact the queen was able to put up an actual fight didn't scare him. It only incensed Ronan further. He loved a challenge.

In his left hand, he began to charge up another rainbow bomb. One hand was enough to handle the queen's heavy-handed blows, but the approaching tide of ants would change the battlefield against him. He wanted to make sure that didn't happen.

His mana was dipping low, the constant use of magic strike and surging strikes alongside the still-forming rainbow bomb draining it. However, his regeneration and large mana pool meant the situation wasn't critical yet.

The queen saw him forming the spell and clearly wanted to interrupt him, but she lacked the strength. When he was about 5 points away from completion, she suddenly withdrew a few metres and bent low, tilting the back of her abdomen towards the sky.

Ronan saw her move before she even did it. The turrets were pointed right at him and her abdomen had been trembling for about twenty seconds. He had no desire to get smacked with two huge globs of corrosive acid, so he simply rushed towards her. As long as he stuck close, the ant queen wouldn't have the angle she needed to shoot him.

As he ran towards her, his second rainbow bomb reached completion. He tossed it to his left, where the largest group of ants were clustered together as they rushed towards him.

The queen scuttled backwards, attempting to stay out of range. She screeched as the rainbow bomb shattered the world, draining more colour and claiming another thousand lives. Her nest was dwindling and she was on her last legs, and Ronan knew it.

He refused to let her get away, sticking right underneath her mandibles. He had enjoyed the battle and the chase, but it was time to end this farce. It was clear the queen had run out of tricks and the challenge was getting boring.

Ronan stabbed the underside of her jaw with his chipped sword. It was still sharp enough to pierce through, a spray of ichor coating the blade as it bit into the queen's mouth.

He left it there, not bothering to reclaim it. The sword had long since passed its prime and he needed a fresh weapon to deliver the killing blow. Drawing the highest leveled sword from his inventory, Ronan ducked under the snapping of her mandibles and began to use his skills.

The tip of the sword glowed with mana as he thrust it upwards into her thorax. He stabbed the connecting tissue between her head and thorax, the blade slipping between plates of chitin with ease. Arcane piercing strike burned through her armour, and magic strike combined with surging strikes tore her flesh apart. A second blade, then a third. Her screeching whines grew higher in pitch. His ears trembled. He heard the ants stampeding towards him.

A fourth sword struck. She started convulsing. A fifth tore through the final sinews holding her together. The ant queen's bulbous head went flying into the air, mandibles swinging.

Where it landed, an ant was pierced and pinned to the ground by her sword-like jaws. Ronan heard the chime in his head. Her body slumped to the ground, leaking ichor. He had defeated the boss of the tenth wave.

The rest of the wave was dead set on claiming his head, however, which meant there was no time to rest. Gripping the sword tightly in his right hand, he started pouring mana down his left arm to form a third rainbow bomb.

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The first two had given Ronan a sense of what he needed to improve about his spellcasting process and how he could make the spell more deadly. Pushing more mana into it wasn't going to happen, so he needed to figure out how to improve the actual structure of the bomb.

That wasn't something that would happen immediately, but he could gradually work on it. Perhaps by the time he finished killing all these ants he could consider himself an amateur.

Not to mention that every new spell he managed to use with his sorcery improved his overall control of magic and his ability to manipulate his mana. Hopefully that would help him break through his struggle to successfully use a healing spell with sorcery. That would be a game-changing breakthrough, as it would allow him to self sustain during fights.

He carved through a dozen ants with every swing. After the rainbow bomb had been formed, Ronan tossed it into the crowds of ants. It erupted in a kaleidoscopic blast, claiming hundreds of lives.

In the distance, he saw Ryan and Florence running towards the swarm from the other direction. He was glad they had survived, but given how the majority of ants in this wave had been directing their attacks at him ever since he began to fight the queen, he would have been somewhat surprised if they hadn't.

About six minutes later, the trio had managed to slaughter all of the soldier ants. The number of shards Ronan had earned from the various elites was absurd. He could start a cultivation bank at this rate. They were all fairly low-leveled, which meant they would be of limited utility for him, but to the others it was a heaven-sent gift. Still, quantity could make up for quality.

Congratulations, challengers! You have defeated the 10th wave and successfully cleared the gate!

For clearing a tier I wave survival gate, you have earned the following rewards:

[Faction]

+0.0063 Faction Credits

+Writ of Recruitment (Common)

+Offering of Beneficence (Common) x3

[Individual]

+Myriad Skills Tome (Common)

+Endless Treasury Token (Common) x2

+Skill Upgrade Shard (Common) x5

+Cornucopia of Convalescence (Common)

You will be returned to the waiting room, stand by for transport!

After everything they'd been through, the rewards seemed rather lacklustre. The number of faction credits was impressive, admittedly, but the individual rewards weren't impressive to Ronan. He'd earned far better simply for completing harder tutorial difficulties.

Then again, that was the first and easiest of gates that a faction could challenge. He was looking forward to pushing himself in future gates. Now that he knew how to activate them it would be a simple matter to open a few more in future iterations.

The world around them shifted. It wasn't dramatic, but it was disconcerting to be in a grassy plain littered with corpses one moment and the stone waiting room the next. The portal they had entered through was still open, but he assumed it now functioned as an exit.

The gate will automatically close in 15 minutes!

WARNING: If you are still inside when the gate closes, your body will be ejected into void-space!

That didn't sound very fun. Ronan would make sure to get out before the timer ran out. Or… It would be interesting to see what happens. I'll be fine even if I die there, he thought to himself. Unfortunately I still have a lot to see in this iteration. Maybe next time.

"Let's wait here and use all of our rewards before we head back," Ronan suggested to the group. Ryan and Florence had been making their way towards the gate. "Who knows what's waiting for us out there?"

They stopped. "That's a good point," Ryan said.

"I'll make sure to grab everyone before the timer runs out, so just focus on your own stuff and don't worry about getting distracted." They nodded at Ronan's offer before splitting up to go through their rewards.

Ronan was curious to see what his rewards would give him, but first there was something far more important to do. During the final battle against the rest of the ants in the tenth wave, he had felt a surge of restorative warmth. A level up.

That meant he'd finally hit the milestone he'd been inching towards for this entire iteration. Pulling up the kill notifications, Ronan ignored the rewards and kill list for now, skipping straight through to the important part.

Congratulations for reaching Lv.100!

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