The groups of adventurers had congregated around the entrance to the forest. Before them was the barrier, shining with shifting shades of twilight purple. It was unbreakable to anyone on their side, and apparently on the other as well.
Doctor and Commander were both standing opposite the more than a hundred adventurers, and the four contingents of priests of Purity. At the front, a massive person who looked human slammed his fists into the barrier, but couldn't even dent it.
It made sense to both. They were gold-rank, and neither had managed to shatter the barrier. They hadn't even punctured it.
The weavings of the magic constructing the Barrier Nightshade were far too complex for even the most advanced scholars of the varied towers to understand. Many attempts had been made during the nearly four centuries after the modern nations had made landfall on the continent. But, like the labyrinths, the magic of this barrier was old and far beyond their means to understand.
Doctor once more lifted a colossal chunk of gold-rank metal into the air. The black steel was sent directly from the capital in hopes that they could find a way inside. To retrieve the Holy Scion and the forces of their lord. But so far, no progress had been made.
He slammed the mass of metal into the barrier again and felt the energy he was using to lift the object drain into the barrier itself. The chunk fell to the ground with a thud.
Commander sighed and said, "They're stuck, give it a rest, Doc."
"And let down both the father and four entire contingents of the lord?"
"We can't break that barrier, Doctor. I doubt that anything other than the father himself could break it. You and I both know that he has other problems right now. They'll have to find their own way out."
"How do you expect them to do that?"
Commander shrugged and popped his neck, "No clue, but we must trust that they will. The Holy Scion, if he's allowed to advance, will eventually be able to break out. He was chosen for a reason."
That drew an irritated nod from Doctor. The robotic man wanted nothing more than to crack open that barrier and find AZ-087 himself, as well as free the Holy Scion. Until he found a way through the barrier, though, he'd have to accept that there was no way in.
Nicholas was still gathering fungi. Over time, his control over Gelatinous Body improved, as did his couple of new skills.
Harvest had reached A-5, and Harvest Mushroom had reached A-7. Harvest Nightshade Mushroom, despite being the one he gained last, had also already reached A-10 by the time he deposited another mushroom into the Inventory, only for it to enter a new slot.
[For filling a slot of your inventory, you have gained the title: Hoarder I]
Immediately after gaining the title, he felt Errazorrus activate it. There was a slight delay between the activation of the title and its effect appearing properly, but it did actually take effect a moment later.
[Hoarder I: Increases the maximum size of any Dimensional Storage Space by 5% per tier]
Since the maximum number of items he'd found he could hold in the inventory was currently 65, the Hoarder title increased it to 68. Nicholas knew it wasn't exact, but assumed .25 of an Inventory slot was worthless. It was still disappointing that titles didn't round up.
Either way, after grabbing another two mushrooms and putting them into the Inventory, he officially knew the size of the inventory slots. Before moving on, he felt something tug on their soul, and a new, golden System Window appeared in front of him.
[You have met a condition. Would you like to add a Sub-Ability to your Ability: Inventory? Costs 1 SP. Y/N]
SP? He assumed it stood for Skill Points or something similar, but what did they actually do? Worse, he didn't know how to get them. He assumed he had at least one, or else he wouldn't have been granted this option. But without knowing how to get more was as much, if not more important than knowing he had some.
While leaving the ego of the puma on guard duty, he pulled Azotreh and Fuzem into conversation. He also reached out to Errazorrus, but he was clearly busy.
Nicholas pushed the window to the other two. While Azotreh was staring at it, Fuzem suddenly reached forward with one finger and touched the window. She affirmed their choice.
As the other two stared at her in surprise, a new window manifested in the center of the puma's soul obelisk.
[Your ability: Inventory has gained new functionality!]
[You can now store Nightshade Mushrooms in a number of Inventory slots equal to your Inventory level. Each slot can hold as many items as your standard Inventory slots]
[You currently have 14 SP remaining]
The final window made Nicholas release a sigh of relief. They still had 14 SP. They wouldn't need to worry about getting more in the near future.
The number also made him pull up their status sheet to check something. Sure enough, they were level fifteen. Assuming that they'd had fifteen and then spent one, that meant they got one each level, also assuming that they had gotten one from level 1.
Either way, Nicholas still wasn't happy that Fuzem had done that so recklessly. He wasn't able to voice his discontent, however, as Azotreh spoke first.
"Why'd you do that, Fuzem?" They asked, their voice still a bit quiet. Even sharing a soul with others, and knowing everything they did and thought, didn't immediately dispel the shyness Azotreh had shown early on, it seemed.
"Because I knew I had to. Any fragment of power we can grasp will allow us to survive another day."
"But what about the-"
"But what about the risks?" She asked. Though her voice was robotic and cold, she still communicated a small amount of sarcasm as she spoke.
"We risk our lives every day. I don't like it either, but so far, risking our lives hasn't killed us, and instead, it made us stronger. I'd rather be strong than safe."
Nicholas stared at Fuzem in conflicted agreement. Though the slime was wrong, since this technically wasn't their lives to live, it was still true that risk was a natural factor of life. Even Azotreh knew that; they both could feel their thoughts. They were well aware that without strength, they had nothing in this world. But it was still a cruel way to phrase it.
Even so, Azotreh quickly vanished from the realm, clearly with a lot on their mind. Instead of returning to sensing, though, both Fuzem and Nicholas felt them return to the nexus and its soul, followed by the bridge between the nexus and the prime avatar.
Nicholas turned fully to Fuzem before speaking, "Give them a break. They're only a kid."
"I'm less than a month old," came the cold response, "they know the problem that the four of us face. They felt those cuts from the goblin and the fright in Ruby."
"That doesn't mean that we should push them to risk their safety."
"If they don't, they'll die, and we with them."
"No, they won't. They have us. It's our greatest advantage."
Fuzem fell into silence for a moment before vanishing from the realm to return to the analysis workout.
Nicholas rolled his metaphysical eyes before returning to the main consciousness of the puma. There were still some mushrooms here he wanted to gather before he moved onto the proper hunt. Maybe the dungeon could do something with all these mushrooms…
The Colony was on edge. The slimy things had been dealt with easily early on, even getting their queen a couple of new options within the system. But that benefit, along with the easy food source, had been stripped away of late.
The little jiggling blobs of biomass had simply grown too plentiful. Even in comparison to The Colony, the bouncing bundles of insanity were too numerous. The things simply wrapped themselves around a larger ant, and then melted through its carapace with its acid and devoured it from the inside out. The horrific things would simply use that to increase their size, and possibly even split into multiple smaller versions of themselves.
Even worse, they seemed to be diversifying. It had only been about a month since the things had emerged within the territory of Nightshade and within the territory of The Colony. But during that month, newer and creepier forms of the things began to appear. Floating blobs of ooze were the first, and rather simple to deal with. But then came more kinds. Tentacles, either thin and fast or large and powerful, had begun to appear on the more normal slimes, as their various analysis ants had told them. After tentacles came size changes, from slimes that slid beneath even the smallest worker, to massive horrors taller than the trees and sometimes, even larger than the subsidiary mounds of The Colony.
Right now, the current collection of oddball slimes had some kind of elemental alignment. Some had holes that they controlled air with, others had flames dancing across their gelatinous surfaces, and yet others had massive spines of rock or metal protruding from their mass.
They hadn't observed ones aligned with storm, magma, ice, radiation, or crystal yet, but they were sure it was only a matter of time.
Another group of ant scouts returned to the inner colony with a slime in a round sphere of air. The gooey thing was gradually growing smaller as time passed. It was clear that without the ability to fight against the slight blades of wind or regenerate itself, the thing was vulnerable.
The Council of Queens was very unhappy as the wriggling mass of slime was dropped down a tunnel leading to the brood chambers. The tenders would have to deal with it quickly.
Luckily, all slimes they'd seen had been tin-rank, with at most a G-Grade among them. It was once again proof that they were a recent development, since they didn't have much time to allow their potens to develop. It was a good sign for The Colony.
Most members were also tin-rank themselves, but they had enough fighters all the way up to emerald-rank and even some higher, like the Council of Queens. Knowing they weren't in any danger for now was the only reason the Council of Queens had hesitated so long to make the deal with the daemons.
The horned humanoids had only wanted trade with The Colony, but it was still not an easy choice for the Council of Queens. Ants were obviously superior to the puny humanoids, so why should they lower themselves to deal with their natural inferiors? Power.
The Colony had the slime waves in a stalemate for now. Enough workers and soldiers were being produced each hour to match the slimes that kept emerging in their territory, but matching wasn't enough. It was either they send out a team of their elites, or they allow daemons access to the region and not get their hands dirty.
It was an obvious choice for the council. Even if it meant they had to deal with their inferiors, it was still better than having to go out and deal with the menace on their front steps. Better to get an exterminator.
The real problem was the unforeseen consequence of the daemons gaining entry, the underground passages now spawning monsters.
The monsters were still mostly in the lesser or standard categories, but it had still been some time since The Colony had to deal with monsters. They weren't ready for the threat and lost some soldiers early on to the onslaught.
Even with enemies on both sides, however, The Colony was sure of their eventual victory. While the other candidates had their own spawn all over the area, none were as numerous as the colony. None, except maybe the snowman. But they would win. It was simply how these things always turned out.