RinoZ

Chapter 673 - The Siege pt 19

Whatever these things are, they're fast and they hit hard. The creature in front of me shrieks in rage as it presses through my screen of steaming hot… steam, and brings two massive hands down on my back in a devastating hammer blow. My legs buckle under the impact but barely manage to hold my body up as the diamond carapace and inner-plating does the work absorbing the blow. My mandibles are locked in position and I unleash them, feeling the coiled energy within unleash a...

Chapter 672 - The Siege pt 18

Sorry again for the lack of updates. Through the worst of the crunch and I'll do my best to bring you three chapters in the next two days to make up for the lack. This chapter is a bit extended. 1700+ words.

Spell after spell I flung toward the oncoming Legion soldiers, battering away at their layered bubbles of golden shields along with the rest of my siblings. Hundreds, thousands of projectiles and magical strikes rocket through the air, sometimes colliding...

Chapter 671 - The Siege pt 17

It didn’t take long to locate the two golgari advisors within the Colony. Corun and Torrina were anxiously awaiting news of the outcome in Enid's rooms. The Colony had been unwilling to allow the two to fight on the frontline, despite them putting forward numerous requests. In the end it was the Eldest himself who shot them down, relegating the pair to tea and biscuits with the mayor as the fight to determine their survival went on without them.

Needless to say, they were more than a ...

Chapter 670 - The Siege pt 16

Coolant looked out from her perch next to the upper sally port of the great gate and felt nothing but confusion.

"Do you want to go tell him, or should I?" she said to Sloan who was clinging to the wall next to her.

The general shook her head, bewildered.

"I mean. They have to know, right? There's no chance that they don't know."

"I assume they know. I mean, what are the odds the two forces aren't communicating to this extent?"

"Almost none, surely. Such a lack o...

Chapter 669 - The Siege Pt 15

Another chapter coming today. So sorry for the lack of updates, crazy week.

As the approaching wall of legionaries draws closer, I perform a final check to make sure everything is ready for the battle to come. Do I have a giant ape? Check. Crazy shadow blob of unending horror? Check. Weird eyeball dude? Check. Omni-elemental construct fired up and ready to go? Check. Even my spiffy diamond carapace is back to full shininess. I couldn't possibly be more ready ...

Chapter 668 - The Siege pt 14

I can already hear the fighting. The sounds of clashing steel and snapping mandibles tug at my claws and I have to force myself to resist charging blindly into the fray like a shinier, much smarter Leeroy. Keeping myself so still has never so hard before. Then again, the only member of my family that I know was exposed to danger in my previous life was myself. In Pangera, I have thousands of siblings exposed to terrible danger almost every day. It's enough to drive a person nuts.

The Ve...

Chapter 667 - The Siege pt 13

Granin sighed and scratched at the solid granite covering his leg. He could feel his hands against the stone as if it were a part of his own body, a product of the fusion process he'd experienced in his youth. He'd never regretted choosing the humble ore that now coated his body. Granite was common as mud, resistant to weathering and hard to grind down. It was the same kind of stubborn that he was and he liked how much it suited him just as much as he liked the message it sent.

Too many...

Chapter 666 - The Siege pt 12

Ah! It's nice to have fully grown legs again. Like, just being able to walk normally is such a sweet thing. Only took a few hours too. There are advantages to being a monster, don't let me say that there isn't. Heck, if you ask me, I'd prefer monster every time! Which is probably exactly why the bearded bozo picked up my soul for this gig in the first place. Still, if I'd had this level of healing in my past life, I'd have missed a lot less meals. Which might have helped with the whole starva...

Chapter 665 - The Siege part 11

Alberton and Titus stood in grim silence as they awaited the emissary of the Colony to approach. The elderly woman looked the same as she had before, her expression the same resigned weariness that she had borne the first time they had met.

"I apologise for making you wait," she greeted them, "my old bones aren't as nimble as they once were."

Titus was in no mood for pleasantries.

"My daughter," he ground out, "does she still live?"

If Enid was surprised by his coarse ...

Chapter 664 - The Siege pt 10

Bit late, but good size at 1400+ words. Three chapters of Dungeon were added to the google doc yesterday as well if you're interested. BAM. CONTENT.

Despite being surrounded by hostile monsters who, quite rightly, were more than a little suspicious of her, Morrelia felt more at peace than she had in a long time. The Colony weren't in the wrong, she'd known that all along. The problem was, she wasn't sure that her father was wrong either. In the end, she decid...

Chapter 663 - The Siege pt 9

Having to wait for your legs to regrow sucks. Even if it only takes an hour considering all the healing that the Colony, my pets and I can pour into it. I even mutated these legs so that they grow back faster. An ant without legs is like… pretty much anything without its legs. Not particularly mobile. By the time I have my claws back under me enough that I can walk, the battle is over. After a bruising and bloody exchange, the Legion pulled back and gave the Colony the room it needed to mak...

Chapter 662 - The Siege pt 8

"THE SEARCH GOES ON, SISTERS!"

"WE SEEK!"

"Oh no you don't! Retreat now! That's an order!"

Brendant waved her antennae threateningly at the 'Immortals' and their reckless leader.

"Leeroy! Get your metal covered carapace back to the gate! The enemy has pulled back and so are you!"

It was never a good idea to give the misguided armoured soldier a chance to 'misinterpret' her orders. Brendant watched like a hawk as the heavy assault ants begrudgingly turned themselv...

Chapter 661 - The Siege pt 7

A long, action packed chapter today folks! The plot thickens...

The battle raged around Isaac Bird and in the brief moments where he wasn't desperately trying to keep himself from getting skewered or sliced in half he had to wonder why he was even here. Peer pressure was part of it, he could admit that to himself. When three quarters of the guards under him had volunteered to go down and aid in the defence it would have looked a little ridiculous if he, their...

Chapter 660 - The Siege part 6

With slightly better planning, this could have been chap 666 the siege pt 6. Wasted chance.

The Legion advances to where I lie convalescent, still recovering from my grievous injuries. The only blessing I can see is that the one man army who cut through half of the gate is no longer in the frontlines, replaced by a wall of armoured bodies that hold their weapons and shields with perfect discipline. Once Crinis has pulled me clear, the Colony continues their b...

Chapter 659 - The Siege pt 5

I regret my choices. Many of them. How did this situation wind up with me facing down this inhuman axe-maniac whilst he charged his weapon with what feels like enough energy to cut a mountain in half? The things that people do for their families, that's all I can say. I can feel the Colony and Invidia working overtime to establish all the shields they can as quickly as possible, layering the protections across the already potent enchantments of the gate. Hopefully it's going to be enough.

News Post!

After some serious shenanigans yesterday the word has finally come through that my application to reduce my hours at work has been approved! 

WHOOOOOO!

What this means is that I'll have a full two days per week to devote just to writing. No longer slapping away at a keyboard in the dark after dinner for me! 

Seriously though, it hasn't always been easy to keep writing whilst working a full time job and looking after my family. I have two kids ...

Chapter 658 - The Siege pt 4

Had to take the night off yesterday, apologies. In know the chapters are a never ending parade of cliffs, but there's not much I can do about with such a climactic fight. Sorry in advance! ^_^

Bwahahahaha! Behold my power! I have to say, watching the devastation unleashed by the gravity bomb never fails to elicit an exaggerated sense of achievement in me. Look at what I have wrought! In reality, the bomb is structurally the simplest piece of magic I've ever a...

Chapter 657 - The Siege pt 3

The hated foe, the reviled enemy. My hatred of the centipede knows almost no bounds! Long did they torment me in my youth, only for me to turn the tables on them and use the foul creatures as fuel for my own growth. Once the table flipped, I refuse to allow it flip back again, no matter how much the Dungeon seems to like the putrid things. Naturally my own predisposition against the centipedes was passed onto the Colony which lead to an aggressive campaign to delete the them from the Dungeon....

Chapter 656 - The siege pt 2

Turns out that acid that can propagate itself almost infinitely can pile up if you give it enough time. After I chose and began to use the multiplicative acid mutation, more than a few of the scouts took a solid look at it and liked what they saw. If I were to try and produce twenty mega-litres on my own it would take far too long. The acid is able to replicate itself, sure, but with only mutation dedicated to the effect, it isn't thatpowerful yet. A hundred ants working together was...

Chapter 655 - The Siege pt 1

Gweheheheh. I have succeeded in dodging the meeting! Once my mutation was complete, I used all of my guile and cunning to slip away. Of course, I needed to find a place to wait out the time before the battle started where the council wouldn't disturb me, so I naturally made straight for the gates in order to while away the time with the ants and humans stationed there.

When I poked my head out of the tunnels and the great outer gate of the nest loomed before me, I was more than a little...

Chapter 654 - Diplomacy with the damned

The Colony had been clever with its strategy so far, if a little naive. The inexperience in fighting sapient enemies was likely the reason for their relatively direct approach. If they were allowed to grow, that would change. Yet another reason to excise this problem before it grew too severe. Still, Titus felt compelled to keep his eyes wide open as he approached the elderly woman who stood alone in the tunnel before him.

"I am Titus," he confirmed, "commander of the Legionem Abyssi. I...

Chapter 653 - A daughter's fear

The Legion war machine had swung into motion. Warriors of the Abyss, the Legion had been in a constant state of war for over a thousand years. The struggle against the Dungeon did not end with the Cataclysm, it had merely changed, and over all that time they had become very good at what they did. That machinery was now within Titus' hands and he directed with precision and confidence towards meetings his ends. From his side, Morrelia watched with mounting dread as her father drew the...

Chapter 652 - What's it take to get some Biomass in here?!

Turns out food gets scarce during a siege. I know for a factthat the Colony created a massive stockpile in preparation for this. Like, a mountain of Biomass, packed up and ready to go. Problem is that almost all of that is going to be delivered to the Queens in order to ensure that the Colony's brood production doesn't flinch from the daily maximum even during a period when we can't easily hunt. I get it. I do. The brood comes before all, obviously. We're ants after all. But dammit, ...

Chapter 651 - One day more

Basically a double chapter in order to fit all the cliff building into one chapter. Whoo!

Deep within the main nest of the young race of ants that he had come to know as 'The Colony', the sage who had named himself Grey sat in deep meditation. Nearby, his apprentice, White, sat and watched patiently as her master performed those feats of the mind she was not yet capable. For though he sat still, not a single muscle moving across his entire frame, his mind roamed wide, s...

Chapter 650 - Under the sea

As promised, two more chapters of Necromancer have been published. You can find it in the pinned post.

When the order came to pull back to the nest, I honestly couldn't say if I was unhappy or relieved. We'd battled these stupid Legion punks for every inch of ground. Thousands of Colony members had died in the defence. Now we were just supposed to hand over the last five kilometres of tunnel for free? As a gift? Were we rolling out the red carpet for these kill...

Chapter 649 - The Hunger

So sorry I vanished off the radar, got slammed at work. I will make up the missed chapters and hit five for the week THIS IS MY PLEDGE. I'll also release some more Necromancer as an apology. Look for that tomorrow.

Sarah took a deep breath and felt the frigid air of the second strata fill her lungs where she held it for a few long seconds before she exhaled, the wind of her breath so strong it nearly knocked over ant who had been walking in front of her. She ...

Chapter 648 - Armoured Kong

The various Strata of the Dungeon are as different from one another as can be, each holding unique characteristics that can only be found in those places. There is some discussion around whether the environment of that Strata in the cause of the predominant mana attributes in those places, or is it the mana that gives shape to the environment?

Since no scholar was present as the various layers of the Dungeon took shape, it's impossible for us to know for certain. What we ca...