Re: Butterfly 65. The Red Slayers

Adon was still staring at the sunlit sky, almost paralyzed as he waited for the creature to poke its head back in, when he heard movement from his other side.

He turned his head, and he saw that the two adult voles had risen from where they stood guarding their children. They approached Adon now, hissing and moving with menacing postures.

Adon didn’t need Telepathy to know what they were thinking: Get out of here, asshole! Go deal with your problems alone. Don’t drag us into them!

The caterpillar tried to make his posture as non-threatening as possible, which wasn’t hard, because he was a bit afraid in this situation. Not of the voles, per se, but if he started a fight with them, he might provoke the swarm outside to come into the tunnel and investigate. Assuming it wasn’t already inclined to do so.

Well, I shouldn’t expect anything different. It was almost a miracle that they were willing to live and let live while this place wasn’t actively being invaded. Perhaps it also had something to do with him distracting the python earlier.

But if they had felt obligated by some debt to host him here before, that no longer applied once their children were threatened. It made sense to him.

He wasn’t certain that leaving them here would do the voles any good, but he had no way of communicating that to the voles themselves, certainly not before they reached him and began trying to tear him to pieces or something. Their claws moved almost as if they were itching to rip into him.

Adon slowly moved toward the entrance to the tunnel, trying to keep his back to the wall so he could look back and forth from the entrance to the vole parents. Thankfully, at a certain point, they stopped following him.

Good luck, he thought. He deactivated Telepathy, seeing that he was no longer going to be interacting with these mammals, and he stepped forward, drawing a bit closer to the light.

A shape moved across it, and Adon ducked back. But the flying insect was gone as quickly as it had landed.

These things are fast! For the first time, he found himself wishing he had bought Fossorial Limbs. Then he would be able to dig a new tunnel and escape from here that way. He could try getting them now, but then he would be immobilized with pain for a while as his body changed. He had a feeling these insects weren’t going to give him that time.

Nothing else I can do but try to run or fight, he thought.

He stepped forward and poked his head out of the tunnel. Immediately a red shape darted at him from just above the entrance, and he threw himself backward, just barely evading the insect. It landed facing into the entrance, which Adon realized meant it had thrown itself at him back end first.

I have a bad feeling these things have stingers.

The creature was looking into the tunnel now, though. More were buzzing nearby. Adon could hear them. That must have emboldened this one. It didn’t try to flee like the first one had—perhaps to report back to its colony.

Adon finally Identified his enemy.

Red Slayer Spider Wasp (Drone)

That name sounded ominous to him. As he watched, the Red Slayer stepped into the tunnel. And two more filled the space in the tunnel entrance that the first had left behind.

It was time to act. Adon didn’t let himself hesitate. He fired a spine right into the face of the wasp that was already inside the tunnel, at near point blank range. It buried itself deeply in the drone’s head. Then the creature’s body twitched a couple of times before it slumped to the ground, unmoving.

Well, now I know I can kill them, Adon thought. Now the question is how many of those things I have to deal with.

The next two wasps stepped inside the tunnel then. One walked onto the ceiling, while the other moved along the floor.

Adon took careful aim with one of the spines lining his back and shot the wasp on the ceiling straight through its center of mass. It fell, wriggling and writhing, toward the floor, but then the wasp on the floor was flinging itself toward Adon.

They’re quick! he thought again. Shit!

He had to throw himself to the side, out of the path of its stinger, before he had room to counter attack. As he was midair, he shot two spines at the fast-moving wasp that had attacked him.

It pivoted midair to dodge the first one, but the second one drove right through its body and nailed it to the tunnel wall. It wriggled, trying to tear itself free and get at Adon.

Forget fighting these things. I’m getting out of here!

He ran toward the tunnel entrance. There were already another pair of wasps there, but he didn’t slow down. He could already see himself cornered inside this tiny space, covered in wasps being stung over and over until he stopped moving. He wasn’t going to let himself be trapped. Now that it was clear the creatures knew where he was, there was no more point in hiding here.

Just have to get into the open. Then I can use Color Change and sneak away. Hopefully they’re not tracking me by smell or something.

He would endure the stings of the few wasps guarding the entrance if he had to. Escape was paramount.

He leaped up to the opening, but to his surprise, the wasps didn’t try to sting him. Instead, they reached out with their twig-like limbs and latched onto him.

What are they doing? he thought. Trying to hold me still?

He twisted free from the first wasp’s grip, but suddenly four more were on top of him, and then each of Adon’s freely movable limbs was clutched in between the limbs of the wasps.

Before he knew it, their wings were vibrating as the wasps carried him through the air together.

Is this how wasps actually behave? he wondered. In all my previous lives, I remember them being annoying bugs that would sting you as soon as look at you. Is this how they hunt creatures small enough to be their prey?

Something felt off to him. He did not think this was typical wasp behavior. It was atypical for every insect he’d encountered in this entire life—atypical even for non-insect creatures he’d tangled with.

Mantises, bush crickets, ladybugs, snakes, spiders, bats—none of these animals had ever tried to simply carry him away without injuring or even killing him. The only animal that he’d ever seen try to do that was the bluebird.

But that was because the bluebird knew it was at a massive advantage compared with any insect, he thought. Do these wasps think I’m that defenseless compared to them? Even after I killed one of them and wounded two others? They can’t be that dumb, right?

Adon gave one of his limbs an experimental tug, and the wasp he was attached to tightened its grip.

But he was easily capable of breaking free, he could tell. These were just normal, flimsy bugs, not superpowered creatures like himself. He could feel the weakness of their limbs even more clearly when they tried to grip him more tightly. They were barely capable of flying while supporting him. Their little bodies weren’t made for this, nor had they made investments to boost their physical brawn.

They were stronger than the Kleptomaniac Dewdrop Spiders had been, certainly, but just like those creatures, the wasps were no physical threat to him except for by the venom in their stingers.

But he could hear the loud droning noise of dozens more insects buzzing. It was much clearer now that he was in the open air with them. He couldn’t see the exact number. Being surrounded by wasp bodies limited his range of vision and motion.

He could imagine that the wasps were taking him to be consumed by the swarm as a whole, perhaps. That was certain death, but at least they needed time to carry him to wherever the wasps intended to carry out their attack. He had a little time to think.

If he resisted right here, right now, he thought they would swarm him, and he would suddenly be in a struggle to the death with an unknown number of deadly creatures. Adon would have to imbue his entire body with Mana, and that would allow him to survive defensively for a time. He could not imagine how it would enable him to somehow kill these dozens of enemies.

Any insect would be intelligent enough to stay out of reach if Adon started smashing heads and ripping off limbs. If they just sent one drone to attack him at a time, he felt certain they could outlast him.

Being in a fight with a big group is still my weakness even now, he thought, frustrated. I still need some kind of magic with a large area of effect, or illusions so I can at least run away if I’m being attacked by a group.

For now, he chose to let them carry him while he planned his next moves.

How many Evolution Points do I have now? he thought.

He opened up his Status to check.

User: Adon, Mystic Toxic Butterfly Larva

Age: 13 days

Sex: Male

Status

Health: 225/250

Mana: 575/655

Strength: 250

Agility: 249

Perception: 249

Dexterity: 249

Constitution: 251

Intelligence: 325

Will: 330

Charisma: 249

Skills: Identify, Impeccable Memory, Mana Manipulation II, Past Life Connection, Shed Skin, Spine Shot II, Spiritual Sight

Evolution Points: 3892

Biomass: 120/150

That’s a lot of points, at least, he thought. Maybe I can do this. Okay. Should I buy some new Skills, Adaptations, or just pour points into Will and Intelligence? He knew that Will and Intelligence directly correlated with Mana. And if Adon had more Mana, any number of wasps should not be a threat to him. He could think of a lot that he could do with enough Mana. Hundreds of Mana balls, obliterating wasp after wasp until any few who survived fled with their tails between their legs. And he should be able to balance that with pouring Mana into his exoskeleton for defense.

Yes. Increasing my Mana is the right call. Adon allocated a thousand points each to Will and Intelligence. It would leave him without enough points to pay for his Evolution, but he would worry about that later. If he survived this, there would be other creatures for him to prey upon. And perhaps the wasps would be worth a fair number of points when he’d killed them. He wasn’t sure how many of the points he had gained recently were from the python versus the wasp he’d killed.

As his points in Will and Intelligence rose, Adon felt a surge in power. And he thought his mind was processing information more quickly.

A hundred and twenty wasps buzzing. He had the mental bandwidth to estimate the number of wasps by the sound of their droning now. It was more than he’d initially imagined, but fewer than he thought himself capable of dealing with now.

The wasps were lifting him higher now, and Adon felt that he was moving closer to the center of insect activity. The buzzing intensified further.

He began infusing Mana throughout his exoskeleton. This would be when they would attempt their attack, he began to imagine. When he was in the middle of a thicket of the creatures, unable to properly defend himself—unable to maneuver because of his lack of wings.

Then he heard a noise. He looked around for a moment, as much as he could while still in the grip of the wasp drones, before realizing the sound originated in his mind.

Hello Adon, said an eerie female voice, soft but sinister. It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you.