By the time the sun rose on Alshifa’s third morning of invasion, Dahlia was already all packed-up and ready to return to the shelter.

  Her head was a bit heavy on her neck as she practically staggered out through the front door—she’d ended up staying awake for far too long last night drinking with the seniors—but the seniors themselves were tough as beetles, not a hint of weariness on their faces as they locked the door behind them with a metal bar.

  It turned out that while she’d been sleeping all night long, Jerie had made several dozen paper signs they could plaster all over the streets for unaware survivors like Instructor Biem’s children to figure out where they had to go. Amula, on the other hand, had spent most of the night gathering random insect parts off the Old District to bring back with them; her efforts meant Dahlia would have lots of materials to work with once they were safe and sound, making sure every fighter in the shelter would be adequately prepared for the final battle laying ahead of them.

  Namely, the lightning hornet in the Night Bazaar had to fall.

  Eria murmured, as the three of them nodded at each other before setting off for the south, sticking close to the sides of the streets as they did.

  Eria said plainly.

  “Well, don't leave us out of your conversation,” Amula grumbled, draping an arm across her shoulders while Jerie looked left and right, relaxing with a sigh as well. “Don't think there are any giant bugs around here for some reason. Maybe Raya pull his distractin’ tactics off, huh?”

  She sent the senior a small smile, nose twitching from the sharp scent of ‘alcohol’ being breathed into her face. “I'd… like to hope so, too. The voice in my head is also saying it's strange. Normally there should be a lot more bugs around, so-”

  “So it's lookin’ like a calm and quiet two-hour walk back to the shelter, provided we don't be reckless and start trippin’ over every egg sac in our way,” Amula finished, waving for Jerie to come in closer so they were all walking shoulder by shoulder. “In that case, start spillin’. What's that voice in your head got to say about anythin’ interesting? That ‘system’ thing… it's basically a Swarmsteel developed for war on the surface, ain’t it?”

  “Ah…” she trailed off, looking worriedly over to Eria sitting on her shoulder as she did. Eria waved two of her legs as though to say ‘do what you will’.

  Eria said promptly, and Dahlia opened her mouth to start repeating its thoughts word for word.

  “He's a cockroach is what he is.” Amula dismissed Eria's concerns with a casual wave, shrugging nonchalantly. “Don't worry about him. He’ll pop out of a crack in the ground soon enough, and then he’ll make ye feel stupid to ever have doubted his ability to not die in the first place. I don't care about him. Ye got any useful information on takin’ down the lightning hornet?”

  Jerie whistled, and Amula backed him up with a defiant shake of her head. “Raya’s fine. Just trust me on that. Now, what's that about the strongest of the strong on the surface? So there lots of people fightin’ back on the surface?”

  Eria said plainly.

  “How many people are we talking about here?”

  Dahlia's eye was already wide open before she even repeated Eria's statistics out loud, and the seniors’ surprised expressions weren't unwarranted, either.

  “Three thousand people in Alshifa… so that's three zeros…” Amula mumbled, as Jerie started counting his fingers and Dahlia kept on blinking, trying to imagine how big a number one hundred million really was. “Ye mean the surface world completely dead, then. One hundred million is a of people, right? Then how haven't we–”

  Eria continuednot missing a beat,

  “... Oh,” Dahlia breathed.

  “Thweep!” Jerie blew.

  “So we're winning, then,” Amula muttered, frowning in dismay. “Just how strong is the Swarm on the surface, anyways? Are all the Mutant-Classes up there as strong as that lightning hornet down here?”

  Eria crossed its legs, though nobody but Dahlia could see it do so anyways.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  The three of them shuddered as they left the Old District behind, still having not come in contact with a single giant bug thus far. If not for Eria, Dahlia was sure they’d all be teeming to the brim with anxiousness, but for now they were hyper-focused on every bit of information they were wringing out of Eria, and for her part… she supposed she interested about the surface world, too.

  “Seven Swarmsteel Fronts?” she asked, quietly, if only to distract themselves from the fact that the Northern Bridge Street, the Northeastern Keefa Street, and the Northeastern Burqal Street were every bit as quiet; it almost felt like they were going to walk into a trap at any moment.

  Eria, of course, could detect her rising heart rate. They were one. It could monitor every little thing in her body. For about ten more minutes they trudged along in complete silence, Amula glancing nervously at Dahlia glancing at Eria, wondering why it was refusing to talk—but then it jolted awake, legs shaking in place as though it’d just been electrocuted by an invisible bolt of lightning.

  Eria said, and Dahlia repeated verbatim. Amula and Jerie both sighed breaths of relief.

  Amula nodded. “It’d… be good as entertainment while we walk, at the very least.”

  Eria raised a leg and pointed in the general direction of the Bazaar, where the lightning hornet was, and Dahlia did the same to let the seniors know—she already knew what the little black bug was going to say before she said it out loud.

  Eria trailed off, eyes staring off at the hole in the ceiling, and all three of them furrowed their brows at the same time.

  “Er. Dahlia. Is yer little friend broken or somethin’? Felt like it still had a few things to say.”

  “I… don’t know what’s going on, either. Eria. Eria? Are you okay?”

  “Maybe the two of us can whack yer head for a little bit and then it’ll work again. Doctor Sanyon used to do that with the firefly cages a lot when they refused to light up.”

  “Please… um, please don’t hit me–”

  Eria said in a cold, metallic voice, and Dahlia repeated its words slowly. Something about the way it spoke sounded a little… off.

  Simultaneous blinks.

  Simultaneous freezes.

  Then there was a crack of a neck, a sharp whistle of panic, and a deep breath drawn through the nose—the three of them had been taking it easy on their way back to the shelter, but no longer.

  Amula threw Dahlia onto her back so she could start sprinting and jumping across the dilapidated roofs, and Jerie took the normal street route with his flute already drawn. Under normal circumstances, maybe Dahlia would’ve felt a little worried Amula was quite literally over multiple storeys of buildings on their mad prance back to the shelter, but this wasn’t the time to worry.

  “How long has it been since that lightnin’ hornet came down here, Eria?” Amula snapped.

  “Alright! Hold on tight, Dahlia! I’m gonna go at maximum speed!”

  The warning was too little, too late. Amula jumped onto the edge of a roof, bent her knees, and then it was like it didn’t even matter that she was missing all her right toes. The two of them were a swirl of motion as they left Jerie behind in the dust, hurtling across Alshifa without a care in the world for being detected by any giant bug; even with her face buried in Amula’s neck and her bristles being chafed by the winds so much they felt like they were going to tear off, she could tell not a single giant bug was going to face their way.

  of them, without a doubt, were in the Southern New District—and though it would’ve taken them ten hours to make the return trip sneakily, it only took Amula twenty minutes of concentrated dashing and jumping to screech to a halt atop a building opposite of the shelter.

  The two of them immediately ducked behind a giant chimney for cover, trying to keep their ragged breaths under control as they peeked down at the New District where the ground was writhing and climbing over each other, attempting to collapse the shelter by sheer weight of mass alone.

  The Old District was already with giant ants, and more were still streaming in through the Southern Luwu Tunnel just a hundred metres away from the shelter.