Chrysalis



For the next several hours, the wave continues as before, but with the added bonus of these damned sinuous lizards shooting us with water, fire, lightning and I think I saw one using force magic, the fancy-dancy goon. Weird to look at, they almost seem to swim through the sky, with several sets of little wings flapping away.

Are you dragons or snakes? Make up your dang minds!

Whenever they see an opening, they try to swoop down and snatch up an ant, but the Colony has been good at driving them back with barrages of acid and magic. So far, I don't think they've managed to scoop up one of my siblings yet, but as the island drifts closer, more and more of them join the flock overhead. It's only a matter of time until the defenders become overwhelmed and we start losing ants.

Not on my watch.

"Stay back here and out of sight for a minute," I warn Solant and her crew.

She nods in acknowledgement and they huddle behind Tiny who gives them a reassuring thumbs up.

With the vulnerable protected, I step back out onto the wall and glare at these uppity lizards. The rest of the ants out here on the edge give me a little space as they continue to deal with the hordes of monsters below.

From within my core and my gravity mana gland, I begin to pull out huge amounts of energy. The well I used to smash the monsters on the island will work just as well to bring these dumb lizards out of the sky. Once they find themselves within reach, it'll be trivial for the Colony to feast on their pretentious, scaly hides.

I take my time condensing and weaving the spell. The dragon-snakes are zipping about all over the place, so I'll need to cover an enormous area to snag a good number. When I have an absurd amount of gravitational mana prepared, I begin to extend the spell, preparing to bring these pests down to the ground.

At that moment, an air-splitting roar shatters the sky. As one, the flying monsters zip higher into the sky, retreating from the mountain toward their island and out of range from my spell.

Dammit. What the heck was that?

To answer my question, something moves in the distance and an enormous form emerges from over the edge of the island, slithering through the sky.

Holy smokes! That's a big ol' sky-snake! You might actually qualify as a dragon, big fella! More of a Chinese dragon than a western one, but hey, it's impressive looking!

As long as an ocean liner, the monster whirls through slow, graceful loops, holding position halfway between the mountain and its home. The smaller ones, possibly its children, retreat to hover around it, zipping in and about each other in fluid, shifting patterns.

Going to roar at me and my family, are you? We won't be intimidated!

I extend my senses to feel out the monster as I reach up and climb onto the side of the mountain.

CLACK! CLACK! CLACK!

As I set the muscles of my face and slam my mandibles together, the piercing sound reverberates off the mountain and into the air. Not unlike a piledriver slamming steel pylons into the ground, the sharp cracks of my mandibles can be heard kilometres off.

When I sense the dragon with my mind, I can feel it doing the same back to me, taking a measure of the foe. Hmmm. This dragon may have a slightly more powerful core than I do, but it's close. Tier seven, or eight, but not more than that, thankfully.

The dragon roars once more, and I respond with further vicious clacking as I posture on the side of the mountain, basically signing 'come and get some' with my six legs.

This goes on for almost ten minutes before the dragon turns around and winds its way back onto the floating island along with the rest of the dragon brood. Suddenly, the skies are clear of monsters and, ever so slowly, the island, which was gradually coming towards us, begins to slow its approach and change direction.

Once I'm sure the flying snake-den is moving away, I climb down off the mountainside and into the opening at the top of the wall, where I find Sloan waiting for me.

"Eldest! What the heck was that?! I could hear the roaring and clacking from deep inside the fortress!"

"That was a bit odd, wasn't it," I muse. "I think that island has been claimed by that dragon monster as a nest. There's either a spawn point up there or the dragon is laying eggs. At any rate, the creature is smart enough to protect its own kind, since it appeared once I threatened the smaller ones."

Intelligent monsters. The Demons are smart, obviously, and form their own communities, but is there going to be more of that down here in the fourth? I wouldn't think so, since there are so many non-monsters living in the fourth according to Granin.

Perhaps these dragons are so territorial that they don't really cooperate?

"And then what happened?" Sloan demands.

"Oh. We had a stare down, feeling out each other's power."

"And you were stronger?"

"What? No. I was strong enough that the monster didn't want to risk tangling with me on my own mountain, though, so it backed off. The weirdest thing is the way the island changed direction. I think that dragon might be able to steer the dang thing."

"That's… worrying. So every flying island is a floating castle that can be used to launch attacks on our fortress?" Sloan frets. "We didn't design it with the knowledge that was possible. Could they even drop an island on us? They could crush the entire mountain!"

"Whoa, slow down. I don't think there are many monsters out there who would use their nest as a siege weapon, alright? Humans would absolutely do that, though, so it's worth keeping in mind. We definitely need to think about this a bit more. It's lucky our first run-in with an island attack was a relatively weak one."

I see Solant pondering off to the side, her mind ticking away at a million kilometres an hour.

"What do you think, Solant? How should we protect ourselves from these islands?"

She twitches, knocked out of her thoughts as she turns to look up at me.

"Oh. I'm not sure, I wasn't really thinking about it."

Curious…

"What were you thinking about?"

"I was thinking…" she starts, eyes gleaming, "of what we could do if we seize an island for ourselves."