The window of escape was tiny. Lev didn’t try to steer his direction as he crashed onto the bubble floor. His focus was on powering up the driving enchantments, right as Beatrice blanketed him with her aura.
She tried to talk to him. He couldn’t hear her words, entranced by the hell that was coming alive below them. Ants surged out of the ground, sacrificing themselves to enhance the champion further.
It shook off the stun quicker than expected, detecting the bubble and charging its wings.
A distant part of his mind noticed Beatrice’s mana trying to enter his armor. It wasn’t a buff, nor could he decipher its nature. Once allowed, the mana crystallized on top of his wounds, bandaging them with arcane constructs.
Lev didn’t have time to appreciate the effort. As the bubble accelerated faster than ever before, a large mass of mage ants combined their assaults.
In a blink, a huge cavity appeared in the ground. Telekinesis, not unlike gravity, tried to pull down the bubble like the hand of god itself.
Blood burst out of Lev’s nose, eyes, and ears as he commanded his willpower to empower a single push of Arcane Barrier Authority. The combined might of dozens of weak mage ants battled against his entire mental strength, and the latter won. Cracks spread through the bubble’s structure, the enchantments almost fizzling out.
Against all odds, however, Lev triumphed and moved past the trap. Unfortunately for him, the price was almost too high. His mind blanked out for several long seconds, and only the bubble’s momentum and the enchantments kept it from plummeting.
Its speed ensured that the ants were left behind, though the champion was hot on their tails. Beatrice continued to empower his regeneration as restoration mana tried to mend his body.
He couldn’t do it all at once. Sending a burst of mana into the healing mana converter, he handed Stargazer to her. She looked at it, then at him, only understanding when he left all the converted healing mana alone.
Beatrice took control of that and started patching up the worst of his wounds. Lev dismissed his armor to make the task easier for her. Trying to move more than twitching his fingers proved to be agonizing, so he turned himself towards the swiftly approaching champion with the help of a rope.
Seeing something so large do its best to catch up to you was… quite terrifying. The recent defeat still on his mind, he didn’t plan to let the ant anywhere near him again. Not when he was barely alive.
“Lev, where are we going?” Beatrice asked, fear apparent in her voice.
He ignored the question for now. Surviving took priority; they could find their way back later.
Gritting his teeth, he signaled Beatrice to heal his left arm first. With the constant restoration, he channeled mana through the limb while suppressing a groan. It was a uniquely painful experience, as if poisoned needles were digging into his flesh and piercing bones to extract his vitality.
Forming and enchanting lances took much longer than they would’ve otherwise. Through his muddled mind, he forced his Perception to track all of the ants converging on their position.
It was obvious now that the bulk of the volcanic hill’s forces were coming after him. Hundreds were present underground while he battled the champion, but now, thousands were slowly surfacing, all in a bid to rip him to shreds.
“LEV!”
He flinched, caught unaware by the shout. Following Beatrice’s gaze, he stumbled upon something that made his heart skip a beat.
Without hesitation, he changed the bubble’s course towards the two scout teams on the run. They were still several kilometers away, giving him ample time to scan the horde chasing the humans and prepare the countermeasures.
Arrows rained upon the second-threshold monsters, killing many. First-threshold monsters died in the crossfire, and that was finally enough to attract the attention of the scouts.
A few pulses of mana later, the leaders barked some orders, desperation visible through their clenched jaws and angry faces.
They stopped conserving mana after that point. Gales erupted first, unbalancing the monsters. A scout who seemed to be the strategist of the runners commanded the mages to prepare fireballs and other attacks. None defied her orders.
Lev was almost near them when the barrage commenced. Fireballs landed in the middle of the horde, decimating a large portion of it.
Winds carried the flames and blistering air to the rest of the monsters, also dispersing them in the process and opening the horde to the next barrage.
Icicles, lightning nets, boulders, acidic mist, and more joined the fray. Someone even used sonic attacks.
With Lev’s help, the horde went down within seconds, but that was just the prelude. The champion had already noticed the humans and was not going to shy away from easy prey.
Using Fracturing Wave was out of the question. He could barely breathe after spamming it so carelessly. Firing another so soon would probably kill him.
So, he created orbs. Lances took time to enchant, and so did arrows. Orbs, however, did not need much attention beyond a few runes.
Fire and lightning infused the constructs with abandon. They turned bright blue due to the crackling element and evolved flames, after which Lev carpet bombed the champion.
It tried to resist. Wings beat furiously, empowering a cone that roared out of its maw. None of that helped when orbs descended like a hellish rain, each of them exploding like a tiny asteroid impact.
Ropes lengthened from the bubble, slithering towards the ground. The scouts panicked after seeing them emerge from an invisible source, though Lev let the concealments drop for a few seconds to reveal himself.
They didn’t try to run away after that. He grabbed them all and brought them inside the bubble before accelerating to the maximum speed again.
“What on Monarch happened to you, boy? Did you get chewed and spat out or what?”
Lev gave the old man a bemused glance, which slid right off the concern backing the words. Turning himself around with a rope, he confirmed that the ant was still stunned before replying.
“Fighting that thing was not the best idea,” Lev croaked out, his throat dry and hurting. “All of us are very lucky to be alive.”
“What the hell happened back at the fort?” the second leader, a girl not much older than him, asked. “We lost contact after engaging a Shade Wolf. It used a skill that disrupted all communication.”
… Oh? Were these the scouts that the strategist couldn’t contact?
“I killed the wolf when it tried to ambush someone outside the fort,” Lev explained. “As for everything else, the wave reached us, but we are also under assault by an ant colony. Or hill. Same thing.”
The woman looked at him for a solid three seconds before the words were processed. “A whole colony? Of the same thing that is following you?”
“Oh, no. That is a hive champion, and it is really pissed off at me.”
“Let me do the talking,” Beatrice overtook him before he could continue to scare the scouts. “We’re on the run right now. Be prepared to unload everything you have at the champion if needs be.”
Her statement was accompanied by a buff for every single person. There were nine new additions in the bubble, each of them at the Platinum Rank. The combined force would’ve been formidable if not for the monster that was currently chasing them.
As if hearing that thought, the champion calmly walked out of the bombing zone. For a monster to move so gracefully was worrying, but the way it stopped chasing was setting off alarm bells in Lev’s head.
Things became bad when it channeled an absolutely disgusting amount of power into its wings. Lev started his preparations at the same time, creating stands for the humans in his bubble to grab onto. Then he enchanted them to absorb as many shocks and impacts as possible.
Meanwhile, the champion’s wings were blazing with gold, whatever skill it used thoroughly unfamiliar to him. They were also twice as large now. There was a lot of stamina packed within them, and a cursory inspection with his spiritual senses revealed more ants dying by the dozens to fuel the monster.
That was when he decided that they needed to escape, and do so immediately. Within moments, he designed a formation for Lightning Surge in his head. Directional control, potency throttle, input limiter, overload protection runes, and a few other supportive runes came together to form a crude formation.
It would have to do.
Enchanting the bubble’s surface with it took another few precious seconds. By the time the champion’s stance had shifted to one reminiscent of an athlete about to burst into a run, Lev’s preparations were also done.
They both exploded forward at once. Lightning overloaded the bubble’s structure, smashing past all previous speed records Lev had ever managed. Tongs of electricity struck the humans, thankfully not potent enough to kill anyone.
Beatrice continuously healed everyone through Stargazer’s converters, using Lev’s converted mana freely. That was the only reason Lev could even focus on keeping the bubble’s structure from falling apart and constantly fixing it.
The speed at which they were going was far too much to process. Other than him, the humans all had their eyes closed. Not him, though. Not after he risked a glance backwards, only to see the champion not just keeping up with their speed, but also steadily closing the distance.
They were almost evenly matched. In fact, Lev’s best was losing to a second-threshold monster.
His face darkened. With one functioning arm, he grabbed Stargazer from Beatrice and turned himself around with a rope. Only a few dozen meters away, the champion’s huge eyes tracked his own. The monster’s pupils were slowly getting brighter, signifying a large buildup of mana.
Once again, the ant opened its mouth. Unlike flames that would’ve just splashed back on the monster at their speed, Lev stopped powering Lightning Surge just in time to dodge a blurry stream of superheated glass.
The first passed a few meters above the bubble, hurting the construct’s structure from merely the vicinity, except it was just the start of a relentless barrage.
In the same second, the champion adjusted its aim and fired again. This time, Lev wasn’t able to get out of the way in time, but he also didn’t need to. Thrusting Stargazer, he fired a thin and long Fracturing Wave at its face, making its aim falter slightly.
Letting the molten glass splash on the corner of the bubble, he slowed it with a gargantuan mental heave while the monster was still blinded by the explosion. The construct shuddered, painfully jolting everyone inside, but it did what it was supposed to.
The champion flew past the bubble at the same insane speed, unable to halt its momentum and becoming a dot on the horizon.
Lev made good use of that by approaching the ground. As far as he could tell, the scouts had two Earth mages. They would need to pull their weight for them to survive.
His next move was a massive gamble. Desperation was forcing his hand, and he couldn’t see himself escaping the champion, not when his mana had dwindled to the final quarter of the combined pools. The moment he got too low, it would easily catch them and rip them apart.
Already, he could feel the terrifying aura slowing down in the distance. He guided the bubble to the cavity in the ground, praying to whoever might be listening that it was a proper cave.
Shadow mana streamed into the bubble in large amounts. All enchantments other than concealments were deactivated. Beatrice lowered her buffs, limiting them to only Lev, and even that at a fraction of what she was doing before.
The scout teams both found their bearings just as the darkness of the cave enveloped them, and patches of barrier and glass fell to the floor, leaving proof of their passing at the entrance.
Lev flew the bubble deeper without pause, keeping all of his senses strained to notice anything amiss. Of the anthill, only the champion seemed to have reached this far ahead, and it couldn’t detect them again without rushing into the cave.
To his relief, the path seemed to go deeper and didn’t seem to be coming to an abrupt end. With shadow mana masking the sounds of the bubble’s travel, he continued creating more distance between them and the pursuer.
The thought of turning back needled him to stop and plan an immediate escape. Temptation whispered in his ears to fly straight up until he lost the champion and its power sources.
He wasn’t nearly dumb enough to listen to those thoughts. That was a death trap like no other. Humans had no place in the skies.
Abruptly, he halted the bubble. Everyone inside held their breath, looking at the scene in front of them with wide eyes.
An ant with a pristine black exterior slithered in front of them. Its eyes swept the area with unnerving vigilance, searching for something.
Moments passed, turning into seconds. Lev almost created arrows inside the bubble when the ant scout finally moved on, burrowing into the ground and rushing towards the direction where he could feel the champion’s aura.
Soundlessly, he commanded the bubble to move again, this time far slower than before. The mana expenditure was low enough that he was struggling to fly the bubble at all, but there was no other choice. He couldn’t afford to let any hints of mana escape his control, for the walls surrounding them might just be crawling with hidden ants.
And so, the humans traversed deeper underground, their destination even more unknown than before.