Chrysalis Chapter 1865 - Time Passes

As the days trickle by, it becomes readily apparent that this isn’t going to be a short wave. The mana levels continue to rise steadily, climbing to absurd, never-before-seen levels for the Colony.

Apparently this is causing quite a few issues for Solant and her defence. I’m dimly aware—mostly via the Vestibule—that there’s all sorts of running around, emergency engineering and trying to stop Vibrant from sprinting off into the corruption and getting herself killed. The main crux of the problem is that the original mana of the fifth is just so very corruptible. It’s like an innocent lamb, prancing through the fields and nibbling on grass, while Theorazzn’s corruption is like a gigantic, voracious slime monster, ravenous for the sweet flesh of the young.

Any time the two forces come into contact, the original mana just stops and drops like a possum playing dead. Then it’s instantly consumed. No wonder Theorazzn managed to conquer this place all those years ago.

So while we are trying to return the stratum to its original state, there has to be a strong buffer zone between areas that are cleansed and areas that aren’t. Any breaches in containment are immediately catastrophic, and there’s already been a few. As the rabid energy of the uncleansed fifth becomes stronger and stronger, those breaches are harder to prevent and cause way more damage when they happen.

The wuffers are wuffing as hard as they can, but pumping out enough cleansed energy is already a struggle and it’s only going to get worse. Thankfully we managed to clean out the area beneath us with its four hearts and the lungs before the wave started. That’s a huge swathe of territory that’s still circulating incredibly dense wuffer-produced mana and basically doesn’t need us to look after it.

As before, I’ve been whiling away my time trying to master these mental exercises and improve my spellcasting speed. While it’s starting to feel like I really should be doing something else, I continue to be impressed with how well it works. I don’t think I’ll be flinging Singularities all over the place when I’m done, but the casting time is probably going to be significantly reduced compared to before.

Every day, I expect to be contacted by Solant and dragged off to fight Krath and other nasties, but so far, it just hasn’t happened. I guess she’s determined to leave me here. This fortress positioned above the only entrance to the sixth that we’ve found so far, so if anything nasty emerge from down there, I should be in position to respond if necessary.

Though I’ll obviously let the pets have the first crack at it. They need the experience.

Tiny is sleeping beside me, curled up with his head resting on his hands, just like he used to rest when he was a teeny little thing, just after I reconstituted his core. I remember the good old days.

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I suppose I can loom over him a bit now, but once he joins me at tier eight, that likely isn’t going to be the case any more.

He’s snoring loudly when the rumbling reaches us. At first, it’s incredibly faint, only someone like myself, as sensitive to vibration as I am, would be able to feel it, but I immediately know something is up.

[Hey, Tiny.]

He keeps snoring. He’s been working hard, punching the heck out of everything he sees in order to protect the Colony, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want to miss this. Invidia and Crinis are out there right now, and I’m sure they could handle it, but the sheer level of Tiny would put on if I let him sleep through it is enough to push me to action.

So I prod him with a leg.

[Hey! Wake up! Something big is coming up from below. Don’t you want to fight it?]

He sleepily brushes my leg away and rolls over, putting his back to me. I’m tempted to leave it there, but then, I think that this is for his own good.

THWACK!

“Grrroah?!” he grunts, sitting upright in shock.

Rubbing at his head, he glares at me reproachfully.

[Don’t give me that. I tried to wake you up gently first. Twice!]

Tiny looks doubtful.

[Oi! I’m starting to regret waking you up at all! Don’t you feel the vibrations? There’s a massive monster climbing up from below us. Are you going to fight or are you going to go back to bed?]

If I ever wanted to know what a monster might look like on Christmas morning, this is it. Such radiant joy bursts out of Tiny’s bat-face and he immediately springs up to his feet, hopping about and hooting with glee.

To my shock, he scurries over to me and throws his massive gorilla arms around me as best he can, still jumping and carrying on with excitement.

[Yes, yes, yes! I thought you might like it,] I laugh. [You better get out there before Invidia or Crinis claims it.]

He gives me another squeeze before he turns and bounds out of the chamber as fast as he can, smashing his hands into the stone to propel himself faster. The ape can really move when the mood takes him. I watch, feeling a little bemused but glad I was able to make him happy.

I’ll have to make it up to Invidia and Crinis. I’m sure they’d want to fight it, but in this instance, I think they need to give the opportunity to their big brother. It’s only fair.

I’m not sure how I can make it up to Invidia, he’s kind of making it a point to be selfless and generous all the time, which has made him a lot of friends, but makes it hard to spoil him. I’ll think of something.

For Crinis… I suppose I’ll pretend I don’t know about the clone she’s hidden in my carapace for a while longer. That should keep her happy.

[What?] gasps the clone.

[What?] I ask back.