Mark's construct groaned under the weight of so many minds, and while he kept [Force bolts] coming it never seemed to lessen the number of Corrupted out there.

Sam was right beside him and she shouted over the sound of dozens of icicles flying out.

"They're connected so we're going to have to fight them all before we can advance!"

Everyone remained under the shield because even with Jonathan's new skill the number of mental assaults would quickly overwhelm his mind.

The ant-like Corrupted still maintained a distance but they were starting to see a difference in the type of ant arriving.

At first, they were the smallest kind, their exoskeletons nothing more than a layer of jelly. But as time went on a new type of ant arrived, Sam termed them 'soldier' ants.

Their bodies were larger and far more sturdy than the workers and while they still used mental attacks these ones physically collapsed onto Mark's barrier. Their sharp mandibles and appendages scratching for a way in.

The trade-off was that their mental attacks were even weaker than the 'worker' ants.

Jason sent wave after wave of amber at the hordes of Corrutped but they never seemed to slow them down.

Even the hard masses of resin were collected and dragged away by the soldiers, making a natural barricade impossible.

Jonathan cut out with small ranged aura projectiles while Wesley remained back just in case something changed.

Their teamwork should have kept the Corrupted at bay, at least theoretically. But the biggest problem was just how interconnected the ants were.

When the soldiers pushed, they pushed as one. When the workers dragged their fallen corpses out of the way it was in order to make space for the next wave of soldiers.

Even the mental attacks against Mark came in waves that seemed timed like clockwork.

Rather than a collection of Corrupted trying to rip them into pieces, it felt like they were fighting a coordinated thinking army.

Mark could see their current condition was not the best so he placed his hand on Jonathan's back and topped up the [bestowl] spell still in effect. Mark shifted the construct to protect his mind shoring up all the weaknesses.

"Jon you can head out, but remember you only have a couple of minutes before the attacks out there melt through this layer, so return to get it topped up regularly."

Jonathan nodded and took off. While that happened Mark moved over to Jason and began replicating the smaller shield, he was out shortly after that.

Once the two Aura users were set loose the tides of battle became far more manageable. The Corrupteds defense was low, to begin with, even the soldier's armor was not a match for either of their blades.

The sounds of cracking carapace and splattering of blood echoed down the tunnels. After a time, no more ants rushed into the space and they were all left there exhausted.

The battle felt more like they had wrestled a small piece of land from a defending army and while no more Corrupted arrived they couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that they would be back.

By the end of the fight, they were all at about half the resources. Mark had used a large amount of Prana blocking the mental assaults on both his dome and the personal shields.

Seeing as he didn't want to sit in the ankle-deep water Mark decided to lean against the wall and try to regain his strength.

They didn't have long though as the sound of the moment up ahead drew their attention.

"There's another wave coming!" Wesley said his eyes glowing with the light of a skill.

Clearly coming from somewhere deeper in the tunnels, more Corrupted poured into the light.

Mark could feel them approaching and ground his teeth, getting ready, he triggered [Earth Masterys] active for the first time.

Six spears of earth manifested in the air around Mark, they cost almost half the usual amount of Mana.

Then with a flick of his wrist, they shot out as one and stabbed into six larger soldiers, but Mark wasn't done there.

He had the spears fracture and detonate, sending shards of rocky shrapnel out in all directions. Because of their overall constitution, Mark focused on the area with high concentrations of workers, and at that point, even a small shard of rock became a deadly projectile to the defenseless ants.

They were also noticing a distinct drop in the number of soldiers approaching, and this only made it more of a massacre.

They finished cleaning up the second wave in half the time it took to exterminate the first.

Mark's energies had dropped to a little over a third and he was was breathing heavily. As weak as the mental attacks were, it was proving, to be exactly like Aiyana's collective pressure.

Alone they were not a problem, but hundreds gathered together became a heavy weight to bear.

Not to mention while it was resource-intensive, it was also mentally taxing. Mark had to use his will to fill in the gaps created in the construct when they found a particular weakness. Because they were hitting from all directions, Mark could only repair the damage so fast.

"Guys, we're going to need to retreat in a moment, I can't keep this up forever."

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While everyone nodded, Jonathan pursed his lips.

"Mark, before we do, can you use your 'sight 'to search ahead? I have a theory and I hope for our sake that I'm wrong."

Mark pressed his lips together and nodded.

"Which tunnel?"

Jonathan turned and pointed to the leftmost one.

Mark knew why he had chosen this tunnel. It was small, but the left tunnel had been belching out just a few dozen more Corrupted each way than the others.

Mark closed his eyes and focused on the earth, trying to get more details from the surrounding rock.

The stone sang in sullen misery, but it opened up from Mark to pass through. The corruption attempted to block him at every turn, but Mark pushed it out of the way and slipped through.

Sending his awareness deeper down the tunnel, stretching his spell further than he'd attempted to so far caused the surrounding earth to pull him in.

It responded by showing him the many Corrupted on their way here now, but they would still take another minute or so to arrive. Trusting Jonathan's hunch Mark pushed on further down the hall until he noticed something odd.

The shapes of the walls were becoming more uneven and at the same time Mark could feel less of what was going on.

As he searched for the reason, Mark found out the Corruption in this area was far more concentrated than anywhere else, gathering at a single point on this floor.

It was only when he focused and tried to get a picture of the whole room that Mark could make out a nest of sorts.

Numerous large Corrupted had gathered in a large chamber and surrounded a large ant. Its abdomen was so extended that it looked nearly incapable of movment. Mark only realized what was going on when he noticed its abdomen pulsing as it deposited eggs into a large pile of squirming larvae on the ground.

They had a queen.

The Corrupted feasted on the black algae growing from the walls like grass.

No sooner had a melon-sized egg left the Coruppted's thorax, did they start squirming and developing into larvae at incredible speeds.

Mark's eyes widened as he watched the Corrupted larvae take the form of an ant in less than two minutes. It went still when a soldier ant came over to it and placed its head against the still-developing creature. Its soft jelly shell was not even hardened but Mark was certain the Corrupted ant had just been connected to the colony.

Pulling himself back into his physical body Mark cursed.

"Shit, they have a Queen! We've been fighting them in their infancy—the big ones aren't soldiers, just workers! They're developing faster than we can keep up. Another wave is already coming—brace yourselves!"

The third wave arrived shortly after that, and Mark had to switch to pure defense. He didn't have the energy to spare attacking as the tidal wave of mental barbs clattered against his shield causing cracks to begin splintering on the outer layer. Their numbers were no less vigorous than the previous two waves if only lacking more of the fully grown ones.

The difference this time was that a number of the Corrupted began to bypass them. Mark didn't understand what was going on until he noticed they were heading towards the elevator shaft. They were trying to cut off their exit.

Sam saw this at the same time and shorted.

"That not happening. Everyone! Get ready to leave-"

Jonathan then interuppted.

"No wait, we need to kill the queen. My guess is that there are multiple of these Corrupted factories!"

Mark's eyes widened as he looked down the other two passages leading off into the dark. It was true that there were multiple waves coming from each tunnel and while they weren't that deep, they weren't connected either. Each branch was its own tunnel, so they could only come from the tunnel in which they were laid. The only way that could make sense was if there was more than one queen.

"We go for the Queen, kill her, and then retreat. If we don't, we'll start back at square one!"

Sam glanced at the exit and then deeper into the tunnel.

"You better be right! I only have enough Mana to do this twice more!"

At the same time, she created two balls of fire and rotated them in her hands, slamming them together to accelerate the speed further, and pushing her hands out in front of herself causing a torrent of spinning flames to wash down the left passage.

The five of them charged down the passage, cutting down anything that had survived the inferno and breaking through the blockade of bodies.

The queen didn't even glance up from her grotesque feast as they entered. Her mandibles worked methodically, tearing into the Corruption she consumed to birth more fighters.

Mark could hear the distant, skittering sounds of countless ants following behind them, and the chamber itself offered no reprieve; it was crawling with enemies. The more developed ants were fewer in number, but their thick, chitinous armor refracted the light of Mark's spells in an eerie, fragmented display.

Jason sheathed his blade and spun to face the tunnel they'd come from. Gritting his teeth, he summoned the largest pulse of Aura and Mana he had ever managed, sending a wave of golden amber crashing into the passage's opening. The substance hardened almost instantly into a sticky, glistening resin, successfully sealing off the majority of their pursuers. Still, Mark knew it would only hold for so long against creatures designed to tunnel through solid ground.

"Kill the bitch, quickly!" he groaned, sweat streaming down his face as he braced himself against the crushing pressure of bodies behind the wall.

The queen's defenders closed ranks, forming a protective ring around her. Their movements were sharp and synchronized, the grinding of their chitin filling the air. Wesley charged ahead without hesitation, slamming into their formation and drawing their fury. His strength and speed allowed him to tear through half a dozen ants with ease, their segmented limbs snapping and scattering as he created an opening in the defensive line.

"Go!" he shouted, his voice strained as more ants swarmed him.

Jonathan surged through the gap, his cold Aura slicing through limbs and torsos as he advanced on the queen. He cut down the last of her guard just as she finally abandoned her feeding frenzy, her segmented head swiveling toward him.

The queen let out a piercing screech that made the air vibrate. A mental assault exploded outward, so overwhelming that Mark's [Bestowal] construct trembled under the pressure. It cracked in half, causing Jonathan to cry out in pain and falter mid-step.

As if in reflexive retaliation, Jonathan unleashed his own mental wave made from Aura. The force ripped through the chamber, shattering the will of dozens of ants and leaving their lifeless bodies twitching on the ground. But the queen endured, her towering form still defiant.

Mark saw what happened and acted quickly. He shot a tendril of energy from his broken construct, latching onto Jonathan's prone form and pulling him back toward the group. Encasing him in a protective shell of Prana, Mark whispered under his breath, steadying his focus as cracks began to spread through the resin wall behind them.

"Sam!" Mark yelled, his voice strained as he got hold of Jonathan's still form.

Sam's expression darkened, fury etched into her features. She slammed her hands together with a resonating crack, and the air itself seemed to shift. The chamber grew unnaturally cold in an instant, their breath crystallizing in the frigid air. Ice began to snake outward from her feet, curling like frost tendrils across the soggy ground. Water pooled in shallow puddles shimmered and froze solid, reflecting the chaotic light of her magic.

The frost spread upward, clinging to the walls and ceiling until the entire chamber gleamed like a frozen cavern. Crystals of ice formed on the ants' armored bodies, slowing their movements as frost took hold of their joints. Their struggles became jerky and sluggish, their screeches muffled by the growing cold.

The queen ant suffered the most. The frost seemed drawn to her, spiraling across her massive body in jagged fractals. As the temperature plummeted further, her exoskeleton began to crack and splinter, the sound sharp and brittle. Finally, with a loud, resonating snap, her entire form froze solid, an intricate ice statue that radiated an otherworldly chill.

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