Chapter 4- Destructive Expedition

"We found them! Fire immediately!" A large bearded man bellows out, noticing the massive head of the ant to his right.

"Aye Boss!" Without hesitation, a muscular but lithe woman lifts her bow. Her defined musculature is shown off by the glowing stone carried by the men around her. As she pulls back the string of her bow, a white arrow, seemingly made out of wind, magically forms on the string. 

Right before she released the arrow, however, a smaller, much darker blue ant popped its head out, startling her. Because of this, her arrow flies slightly off the mark, only puncturing about a quarter of the way through the body of the smaller ant. Immediately pulling the string back again, she fires, this time nailing the larger ant in the head, killing it immediately as the arrow punctures through its entire body.

Noticing the smaller ant scurrying away, they chase it into the cave, immediately losing it in the labyrinth of paths around them. 

Noticeably unnerved, the archer turns to the leader of the group. "Boss, what kind of ant was that? My arrow couldn't even go through its body!"

Grimacing, the bearded man shakes his head in confusion. "I don't know, but I doubt it'll live long with that wound anyway. We have to move quickly before we're swarmed!" Barking out urgently, the group of four chargers down the main path of the cave, heading towards the Queen's cave.

"Alright, you know the drill, boys. Amber will handle the Queen, and Jordan and Granger will plant the explosives. This is the first time we've been able to find the colony, so we NEED to destroy those crystals this time!"

"Yes Boss!" Yelling out in response, Granger and Jordan pull out two odd-shaped, black packages. Each package is engraved with blue symbols all across it, pulsing with blue light non-stop. 

"These damn ants have terrorized those villages for long enough. If we keep letting them grow with those crystals, we won't be able to stop the colony soon enough. And remember! We have to destroy the Crystal Core; otherwise, they'll keep being produced!"

After about 10 minutes of non-stop running, along with the slaughtering of countless ants, the group finally arrives at the Queen's cave. 

Pulling the shield off his back, the bearded man gets into a battle-ready stance, crouching slightly, his sword at the ready. "Now, Amber, distract her!"

Not needing the instruction, Amber pulls one of the four golden arrows out of her quiver. Nocking the arrow and aiming toward the queen, a white light glows around the golden arrow as she pulls the string. Firing toward the Queen, the arrow moves insanely quickly, immediately clashing with the dark blue exoskeleton of the Queen before piercing through it like tofu.

As the arrow pierces the Queen, it releases an explosive white light, blinding the ants all around them.

As Amber focuses on incapacitating the Queen, Jordan, and Granger rapidly sprint toward the edge of the cave before scaling the wall. The ants around them ignore their movement as the safety of their Queen is their top priority.

Both of them reach the ceiling of the cave, and they press a button-like object on the black packages before sticking them onto the ceiling, as close to the center of the cave as they can.

"Alright, Boss, we got 30 seconds; we gotta go now!" Yelling frantically, the boys jump down, landing on their feet before sprinting back to the group. As the group runs as fast as they can, they can hear an odd hissing noise coming from the Queen. Before they could get out of the cave, one of them screams out in pain.

*Pshhhh*

"AHH, I-I'm HIT!"

Falling to the ground immediately, Granger convulses in pain as a green goo burns through his armor from his back. Clearly acidic, it only takes a few seconds before the melting metal, skin, and bone are indistinguishable from each other. 

"H-help," groaning out weakly, Granger looks up to see his group gone and a few ants walking towards him menacingly. "N-NO-"

BOOOM! BOOM BOOM!