The Third Portal: Chapter Fourteen (Patreon)

I sat above the colony, hovering in the air. I wished that I’d had the foresight to pull out as many potions from Dusk as possible before she’d left, since I couldn’t just teleport them into my hands or mouth with her so far away, but our stronger connection and stronger spirits meant that it didn’t take too terribly long to open a portal. Collecting the hour-duration flight potion, as well as a stock of other potions and supplies, had been well worth it given that Foxstep was still on the fritz. 

I used my vantage point in the air to sweep my mana senses around me, while my baker’s dozen of ghostly ants crawled around on the ground below, doing the same. I occasionally cast Ghosteyes to peek through an ant’s senses, just to check, but I was careful to keep the amount of death mana I was spending low. 

Using psychometry to call out the memories of the ants who had been killed by desolants in the halls had been easy, and incredibly sad. I’d pulled up the memory of at least a hundred ants, and that felt like a horrific waste to me. Convincing them to scout for me and help defend the colony from the enemies they’d died fighting had been relatively easy, and most of their legacies and dominions seemed almost tailor built to getting revenge. 

The materials had all been there, all they’d needed was a little push to fully manifest. If I’d had more mana, I could have cast Ghost Tethers on a lot more imprints to help them manifest, fill them with power, and prepare them for combat, but this would have to do. 

Markus and Hannah were both also scouting, in their own ways. 

Binding Markus with Ghost Tether to only hurt the desolants had been difficult, but he’d agreed to it, since he wanted to take part in the violence that would inevitably occur, and knew that I’d keep his spirit restrained if he didn’t. 

For all that I didn’t like him, he was an excellent scout, and was able to cover a lot more territory than most of the ant ghosts, despite the fact that the ants had been native to this area. 

Hannah’s scouting was a lot more basic, with her just drifting through the air, keeping an eye on things while she also explored the area, but I appreciated the help she offered. 

One of the ants on the outer ring of scouts that I’d laid out sent a flash of equally mixed anger and fear, so I quickly cast Ghosteyes. Seeing through an ant’s vision was incredibly weird – they saw much wider than I did, even as a ghost, but they had a hard time focusing on anything specific within their field of vision. 

Still, I was able to smell and even see the desolant team moving towards me. A marching squad of twenty-four ants, exactly double what they’d sent last time. 

The ghost ant’s mana senses were weak and crude compared to what I was used to, but I was able to tell that every single one of the ants were third gate. Probably peak third, but with such unrefined input, I wasn’t entirely sure. 

For a moment, that made me consider how blind I would be if I didn’t also have so many other sensory spells. Yes, the lack of Analyze Mana-Garden limited me somewhat, but I felt like I might as well have it, at least when compared to these ghosts. 

I didn’t have time to linger on such thoughts, though. I shot down to the colony and drew out the ‘invader’ scent, then began spraying it. The living ants took up the chain, and before I was even halfway to the queen’s chambers, the massive wall of pheromones that I’d smelled during my first visit rushed out and through the colony. 

The non-soldier ants rushed into the halls that were normally protected, and I reversed course, heading to the entry of the colony, tugging on my ghost tethers to recall all of my spirits. Hannah slipped within my own spirit and closed her metaphorical eyes, not wanting to participate in the battle. I sent a pulse of soothing thoughts while I prepared a strategy. 

There was only one real entrance, and I suspected that when this ant war had begun, it was supposed to be used as a choke point. Now that the myrmekes population had dropped so sharply, they’d been forced to move deeper and deeper in with each round, and had begun losing, which was doubtless why there had been myrmekes under the control of the desolants when the scouting team had come through. 

They wouldn’t get that deep in again, not if I could help it. 

Benevolence leant me some support for this, though not its full amount, but Guardian was practically boiling over with power as I drew my staff from my spirit. This was very, very correct. 

I organized my ghost ants into a ring, while the living soldier ants gathered near the entryway to the nest. Markus stood with them, and I sent him a surge of mana to assist him in the creation of his ectoplasmic crossbow bolts. 

Then I leapt upwards, streaking across the trees in the direction of the desolants. As I did, I let the mana pouring out of me blend into the air, doing my best to create a veil while also starting to cycle Mantle Dragonfire. 

I wasn’t great at veils, but the mana senses of the desolants were even worse than those of my ghost ants, and between my rudimentary veil, the fact that I was flying overhead, and the occasional pulses of Impel Senses, I was able to avoid detection as I floated over the desolants. 

I allowed Pinpoint Boneshard to draw nine shards from within my spirit. It was more than I’d be able to do a complex series of manipulations or trickshots with, but this was simple. 

I let the nine shards of bone spread out behind me, completed the third cycle of my dragon’s breath, set the targets in space, and then thrust my hands downward. 

A pillar of red and brown fire exploded down from my hands, thundering with power, and I swept it across as many of the ants as I could while forcibly keeping the spell stable. At the same time, nine shards of bone speared down from the sky above, targeting ants at different points in the formation. 

The desolants began unleashing waves of assorted elemental attacks at me an instant after my attacks hit, so I drew my bones back into my spirit and Foxstepped as far back as I could. 

These ants weren’t drained from Fungal Locks layered over them, and they’d been full of mana and energy, meaning their thick, plated carapaces were able to serve some defensive functions, but even still, I’d managed to take out three of them with the ambush, and wound several others. 

I regained control over my spirit and flew out of the way of the desolants, then approached them from a different direction to attack again. They might not have been sapient, but any animal is capable of learning to some extent, and this time they were on the lookout. I was able to land several more injuries with Pinpoint Boneshard, but they scattered out of the way of the Mantle Dragonfire. 

Once again, I teleported away until I was out of their sensory range, before looping around from another direction. In the time that it took them to get to the base of the anthill, I was able to harass them twice more, leaving injuries each time, and I even took out another ant. 

When thinking of them as ants, it didn’t feel quite as impressive, but if I thought of it as taking out four battlemages and wounding the rest, it felt suitably impressive for the amount of mana and effort I spent. 

With the desolants starting to climb the anthill, I raised my hands and shifted my strategy, tossing down one of the supplies that I’d grabbed from Dusk in my preparation while channeling mana into Mass Enhance Plant Life. 

A carpet of Stonesprout exploded from the ground beneath me and rushed down the hill, quickly coating the one main direction of approach with a thick layer of forged telluric spikes. Several of the injured ants lost their footing or took extra wounds. 

Behind me, the soldier myrmekes began their primary offensive spell, creating stakes of stone to rain down on the desolants, Markus began rapidly firing his crossbow down on them, and the ghost ants unleashed their own powers. Mostly the ghostly legacies and dominions served to empower and guide the attacks of the myrmekes soldiers, but I spotted one of them messing with the pheromones of the opposing ants. 

The desolants weren’t idle, though. They unleashed their own rain of attacks up the hill, while slowing their climb up around the spikes. Blades of force, wind, and earth were mixed with crackling bolts of fire, lightning, and ice. 

I released the Mass Enhance spell, since creating this much stonesprout was taking a toll on my life mana, then ducked behind one of the forged barriers that the soldiers created, and breathed a sigh of relief as the waves of attacks crashed against it. It shook, cracks forming alongside it, and I created Foxarmor around me in case it fell. 

Fortunately, several members of the army I was commanding were ghosts, and while the attacks ripped through the ectoplasmic shells, it wasn’t actually able to send them back to the grave.

I began cycling Mantle Dragonfire as I stepped out and released Pinpoint Boneshards and a stream of enhanced Briarthreads into the fray, then surged death mana into my ghosts to help them restore the power the attacks had lost. It was a tax on my mana, but ghosts grew in power when acting in line with what had caused their impressions and memories to linger, and my ghostly ants were determined to defend their nest at all costs. That resonated with the truth of the Guardian, which in turn bounced around my spirit, connecting with the Kirin’s spell, with my ghost spells, and with the echo spells I had. 

Power flooded through the ghostly ants, more than I had thought I’d had or could hold, and I thrust my palm out, causing a new layer of stonesprout to erupt, before letting it dissolve and creating a new one. The forged stone spikes appeared and vanished, stabbing. 

It bought me enough time. With the resonance of my staff empowering me, growing further from the truth of the Guardian, and to a lesser extent, Benevolence, I cupped my palms and drew as much soulfire into my garden as I could, channeling all of it into Mantle Dragonfire. 

The beam of power streaked from my hands and pounded down on the desolants, greater than anything I’d ever released before. The pressure flowing out of me started to strain my spirit as I forced the beam to continue, sweeping it from spot to spot.

My soul mana ran dry a moment later, and the spell collapsed. I dove behind a pillar again, and my ghostly ants joined with the myrmekes soldiers as they stepped into the line of fire to unleash their own attacks. I forced the stonesprout to flicker several more times while I shoved power into my spirits.

Then the ants around me relaxed. I stepped out and watched the desolants turning to flee. Only five of them were still in condition to retreat. 

I took a breath. That had burned out all of my mana, except for my spatial gate, which was still half-full, but I’d driven them out. On my side, the living myrmekes soldiers had taken wounds from the attacks, but none were dying. 

I drew out my healing potions and began tending to the ants while contemplating how I could improve the odds until Dusk returned. If the desolants doubled again to come back in a squad of forty-eight, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop them.