Under Attack

As it turned out, Rowan's guess about the little holes on his rear end had been right.

These ant-like creatures were extremely aggressive. The ant closest to him twitched its antennae, bent its six jointed legs slightly, then pushed off with all of them at once and shot straight toward Rowan. It raised its hook-shaped mandibles a little, then snapped them down, trying to pin him in place.

Of course, Rowan wasn't defenseless. His compound eyes were severely nearsighted, but with tens of thousands of tiny lenses each forming its own image, his dynamic vision was still incredibly sharp.

For example, when people watched a video at sixty frames per second, it looked smooth, with almost no stuttering. Rowan's dynamic vision processed images at ten times that rate. A sixty-frame-per-second video looked like a slideshow to him—an incredibly choppy one, where it took ages for the next image to appear.

But the ant's catapult start was incredibly fast, definitely beyond the limits of human reaction. Even Rowan could only track its movements normally; he didn't get anything like a bullet-time effect.

The three slender legs along his side kicked off the ground in unison. Their force sent him rolling over, letting him dodge the incoming mandibles. But Rowan broke out in a cold sweat.

This insect's body was nowhere near as flexible as a human's. A movement humans could perform with ease was incredibly difficult for him now.

He'd been lucky this time. After rolling twice, he ended up belly-down again, still on the ground.

If he hadn't kicked off hard enough, or something else had gone wrong and left him belly-up, he'd have been in serious trouble. With his body as it was now, it would be hard to turn himself over quickly. Then the ants really could have done whatever they wanted with him.

If he were only facing one, he'd still have confidence in his ability to take a few swipes at an ant that was a little smaller than he was. But they clearly weren't playing fair; they were gearing up to gang up on him.

No sense sticking around to take a beating. Rowan stuck out his rear and prepared to flee.

On the ground, he was clearly slower than the ants, but he had his own advantage. He hadn't been an insect for long, but he could tell from experience that their forelegs were decent at scraping up sand and gravel. When it came to digging through soil, though, they couldn't even catch a whiff of his exhaust.

The layer of sand and gravel here wasn't very deep. At his speed, he'd be safe as soon as he reached the sandy soil below.

Unfortunately, he'd still underestimated the ants' catapult start—their speed and how far they could leap. Several ants launched themselves at once, and multiple pairs of mandibles clamped onto Rowan, who was already half-buried. Two even pierced his abdomen. They all pulled together, trying to drag him out of the ground.

If they pulled him out, he was as good as dead. Rowan fought back with everything he had. His pair of digging legs clawed furiously at the ground, two pairs of middle legs braced against the surrounding gravel, and his hind legs kicked wildly behind him.

One of the ants clamped onto Rowan's abdomen and leaned forward. Besides the conspicuous pair of hooked mandibles, it had another, smaller pair of blackish-brown jaws beside its mouth, like pincers.

Just then, Rowan's hind leg kicked right in front of it. The ant reacted quickly and bit down.

Rowan didn't know whether other insects felt pain, but he knew that he didn't—or at least, he didn't right now. With injuries this bad, a human would have passed out from the pain long ago.

And that wasn't all. Some of the ants planted all six legs firmly, then raised their thoraxes upright. Their abdomens thrust forward with all their might, stretching so far that they ended up in front of their heads, almost like a scorpion preparing to sting.

Their swollen abdomens rippled, then a stream of murky liquid shot from an opening at the very tip. The instant it touched the air, white smoke billowed from it.

The liquid arced through the air and splattered accurately around Rowan. Some of it landed across his entire rear abdomen, corroding his body and leaving small, pitted wounds.

Fuck, these shameless creatures were using a Fecal Spray Attack! And the feces had poison in it! Rowan had never seen a species play so dirty.

With his life on the line, it felt as though every part of his body was straining. Even his hairs stood on end. After struggling with all his might, he finally broke free, burrowed into the sand and gravel, and disappeared from sight.

Underground, he left the ants in the dust. They couldn't even see the holes on his rear end.

Once he'd escaped the immediate danger, Rowan stopped. He was now extremely weak. Both hind legs had been bitten to varying degrees, and one had snapped in the middle, leaving a long section missing.

Thankfully, he had plenty of legs now. Even with two crippled, he could still move without much trouble.

His entire rear half had also been corroded to some extent, but the corrosive liquid hadn't hurt him as badly as he'd expected. Maybe it hadn't been in contact with him for long, and there hadn't been much of it. It had only damaged the surface of his body; it hadn't eaten all the way through.

He couldn't see his own back, but it didn't feel too bad.

His abdomen, however, was in much worse shape.

The soft underside of his body had been torn open at the third segment from the rear, with only a tiny flap of skin still connecting it to the rest of him. Something from inside—organs, or whatever else he had in there—had spilled out along the way. Now there was nothing left to spill.

"Good thing I'm an insect. If I'd been disemboweled like this as a human, I'd definitely be dead."

Even though he wasn't dead yet, Rowan had no idea how long he could last with injuries like these. But he was helpless to do anything about them. He had no gauze or bandages, and even if he did, he couldn't manage the delicate work with his limbs in this condition.

Right now, he wished he had internet access so he could post about the problem he was facing, then add: "Waiting for an answer online. It's urgent."

But that was just wishful thinking. Rowan suspected he was close to death and his mind was starting to wander, filling with useless thoughts.

The hairs on his body sensed some vibrations, pulling Rowan back to reality. The ants had followed the trail of bodily fluids he'd left behind. This place wasn't safe.

He stuck out his rear and kept digging. On his way here, he hadn't found any ants or their tunnels deep underground. That meant they didn't like living far below the surface, and their forelegs didn't look suited to digging through soil.

If he kept going down, he could definitely shake them off.

Rowan didn't know how long he'd been digging. His mind was growing hazy. He felt no pain, but the severe injuries had still left his body and mind exhausted.

Through the haze, he sensed a familiar vibration ahead. White Grub was gnawing on a root!

With the last of his strength, he crawled over. Sure enough, a plump, tender-looking white grub was slicing through the tree bark with its pair of mandibles, enjoying the delicious sap.

Rowan expertly kicked White Grub aside, then began licking frantically at the wound in the root.

The slightly cold sap slid down Rowan's esophagus and into his body, then flowed all the way to his abdomen before finally leaking out through the wound...

Rowan felt despair.

He managed to scrape his way a short distance to the side. Then his vision went black, and he passed out.