Giant worm

Now Chloe had seized the fate foretold by the prophecy and signed a mental contract with the powerful Overmind of the Swarm.

A future as humanity's empress was drawing closer to her, step by step.

The next day, to help the Swarm develop faster, Chloe rose early and gathered the knights and the Swarm to resume hunting.

To her delight, the Swarm's powers of recovery were extraordinary. Minor injuries had healed overnight. Even those with severe injuries, such as severed legs or feet, had grown new limbs. By the look of things, they would recover completely in another day.

What shocked her most was the beetle-like magical beast. In the memories the Overmind had given her, this creature was called a Roach.

It had taken two psionic blasts from the mage, and a third of its body had been blown apart. By all rights, that should have been a fatal injury. Yet not only had it survived, its body had grown back completely. Only the newly grown parts remained soft and unable to move.

The Swarm truly was a powerful and terrifying race of warriors.

Since nearly all the magical beasts nearby had been hunted down, the party ventured farther this time. Going farther did not mean a better haul, however. They killed only two magical beasts all morning: a tiger as large as an ox and a magical beast resembling an elephant.

This haul did not satisfy Chloe. She desperately wanted to hunt more prey, to make the Overmind stronger, to make the Swarm stronger, and to make herself stronger.

So she led the party deeper into Death Forest.

The Swarm's power had made Chloe overlook certain things, namely the dangers of Death Forest itself.

The surrounding woods and thickets had fallen silent. They had been habitats for small animals and insects, but now they were as quiet as though those creatures had vanished.

The first to notice anything amiss was still the seasoned, levelheaded Ymir. It was precisely his sensitive, cautious nature that had allowed him to protect the princess while escaping death's grasp time and again.

"Your Highness! Something is wrong! We seem to have entered the territory of a high-level magical beast, an extremely powerful one," Ymir immediately warned Chloe.

In the past, Chloe might have taken Ymir's warning very seriously. Now she was somewhat dismissive. So what if the magical beast was powerful? Could it be more powerful than the Swarm?

A powerful magical beast was actually a good thing. Hunting them would yield more biomass to convert into more energy.

So she continued leading the party forward, merely ordering three Zerglings to scout ahead for the magical beast's location. Ymir wanted to say more, but looking at the towering Hydralisks and ferocious Zerglings, he had the sense to shut his mouth.

After the party advanced for another ten minutes or so, the eerie silence around them grew even more pronounced. Now, not just the ordinary knights but Chloe too felt that something was wrong. After her mind joined the Swarm Network, both her mental strength and her sensitivity had improved considerably.

Within Chloe's mental web, she sensed something like a massive boulder moving beyond her perception. The shadow it cast pressed against her mind, like a stone set on a taut sheet of cloth.

"Danger!" Chloe warned one of the Zerglings on watch through the Swarm Network. Upon receiving the command, the Zergling reacted swiftly, leaping back and forth and running to evade the impending attack.

The ground began to shake as though an earthquake had struck. Although the main force Chloe led was still far from the source of the tremors, large numbers of human knights lost their footing and fell. The Swarm kept adjusting their centers of gravity to keep from falling.

For the targeted Zergling, it felt as though heaven and earth were collapsing. The ground beneath its feet shattered completely. An enormous maw lined with tiny, sharp teeth emerged from underground. The Zergling's darting movements meant nothing before that gaping mouth.

The Zergling was swallowed in a single bite along with the ground beneath its feet. From several hundred meters away, Chloe and the knights witnessed the staggering sight with their own eyes.

It was an incomparably enormous worm. It moved underground, and when it hunted, it was like a whale breaching the surface, swallowing its prey and everything around it. This monster was not something they could stand against!

"Run!" Chloe commanded the knights and the Swarm, both aloud and through her mind.

The entire party immediately turned and fled back the way they had come. Losing a Zergling filled Chloe with regret. The feeling of having gained great power had gone to her head, making her relax her vigilance and grow careless. Now she had to lead the party out of the giant worm's territory at once and minimize their losses.

There was an enormous difference in movement speed throughout the party. The Zerglings were fastest, followed by the Roaches and Hydralisks. The human knights moved slowest because of their heavy plate armor. At the rate they were running, they would all be wiped out.

Chloe, who had never commanded during a crisis, panicked. After a moment of inner conflict, she still could not bear to abandon the knights who had followed her for so long. So she ordered, "Swarm, drop the prey! Knights, drop your weapons and take off your armor! Let the Swarm carry you out!"

Ymir was again the quickest of the knights to react. He swiftly discarded his greatsword, helmet, gauntlets, and breastplate.

Had knightly armor not been so troublesome to remove, he probably would have stripped naked. Then he quickly climbed onto a Zergling's back. He could no longer spare any thought for his fear of this terrifying magical beast or the spikes digging into him from its back.

The other knights quickly followed suit. Only one unlucky man, whose hands slipped and who moved too slowly, failed to climb onto any of the Zerg. Chloe could still distinguish between the importance of one man and that of an entire party.

She swiftly ordered them to move out. With their speed, the Swarm soon left that knight far behind, until only his desperate cries could be heard.

The advantage of Chloe's powerful mind showed itself once again. The enormous worm was so powerful that it could not possibly conceal itself. In Chloe's mind, it stood out as clearly as a great blot of ink on white paper.

Being able to track its movements was good. The bad news was that it moved too fast. It soon devoured the discarded magical beast carcasses, then swam underground toward the knight who had been left behind.

At that speed, it would still be able to catch the Swarm after eating the knight. With humans on their backs, the Swarm could not move at full speed.

As the worm swam underground, vast swathes of soil were churned up and trees toppled. Such immense strength and swift speed inspired despair.

What should I do? What should I do? Chloe kept asking herself for a solution.

Then a response came through the Swarm Network, from the Zerglings she had initially sent out to keep watch.

Although one had already been eaten, the other two were still alive. They could not speak, but they could convey their meaning. Thanks to the speed and convenience of mental communication, Chloe immediately understood their intentions.

They intended to use themselves to lure the worm away and buy time for the bulk of the Swarm to retreat.