'Did Old Man KNOW About This Shit?!'

After my flashy and swift display of power the serpents were more responsive to my light telekinetic prompts and orders when we once again continued through the tunnels. This was both surprising and pleasing to find, but it mattered little as long as we continued facing numbers that I could handle alone.

Against combined numbers of warriors and drones I would need to leave the last few dozen to Sili and the serpents while I recovered.

It only took around eight percent of my mana to maintain an almost semi-automatic rate of fire, but if I needed to do this over a greater period of time it would drain around twenty percent. Twenty percent might not sound like much, but in an actual trap and ambush situation the second wave would take up from my on-hand reserves and a potential third wave would take no less than half of my mana as a display before I broke out the trash bag.

However, I had to stick to my decision that the next conflict the serpents took part in would be the last on this trip.

Somehow, the decision of when to return to the surface was made for me half an hour later when we reached the end of this tunnel to enter an immense cavern filled with piles of broken rock and standing natural granite pillars. Along the edges of this stadium sized cavern were several branching tunnels which changed up my current plans.

On top of this, nested in the center of the cavern where the debris had been cleared away were a standing force of drones already waiting in phalanx ranks.

While their size and specs were at non-threatening levels, this kind of setting was exactly the trap I had been anticipating since running into a warrior-only force. Even if they could not fly, these creatures had astounding jumping abilities and could easily traverse the rising and falling terrain. They could even climb the pillars to the ceiling if they wanted.

Even if I duel-wield crossbows right now after drinking a potion upon discovery, one person would not be enough to manage these numbers. With their style of weapons, this ambush after a skirmish like the warrior drones would be the limit of Gryn and his party. In my eyes, the intelligence, numbers, and home advantage of the 'hive' alone made them S-PLUS ranked natural enemies.

If these guys surfaced after proliferating on the rats and serpents, they could send multiple raiding parties stronger than the necro-goblins out in different directions. The numbers I have experienced on their own suggest they have multiple thousands if not a few tens of thousands of individual units. A queen that eventually broke through with a private army of around ten thousand overall would require imperial involvement.

What the fuck was I even thinking while coming down here?

I had a few hundred snakes, a partial dragon, and a stockpile of stuff I literally called trash. I was barely more than eight years old and my overall mana levels before puberty were only on par with low ranked Guild mercenaries and craftsman. Did Old Man KNOW about this shit?!

I was ready to punch the tunnel floor just to see how big of a crack I made to vent my frustration at the things I was almost walking into. In fact, after positioning the serpents across the entirety of the cavern behind Sili- placing a smaller water terror between even rock terror for close quarters support.

With Sili's big and bulky body half a tail away from me, the two of us would maintain most of the aggro from the drones despite the inevitable omni-directional dispersal of their numbers. In this fashion I can always more or less predict where the drones will go and when they'll get there. I might even be able to conserve mana by taking a little more time between shots.

Even though its current status of lighting the tunnel from the very center a couple hundred yards behind us was draining the light golem's power, I once more doubled its output to illuminate the immense cavern at the end of the tunnel.

Like clockwork, the awaiting insects rushed out atop a ridge of piled rubble after the sudden exposure of light and then faltered. At first, all they would be able to detect through the radiance of light were my and Sili's larger energy sources which would focus their attention on us. With my back to the blinding glare, I simply counting 'one-one-thousand' in my head while picking something to aim at and firing at the end of the next second.

The next bolt was already loading into the drawing line when the arrow struck rubble among a surge of several dozen bodies. The sudden rush of light and heat cause several small boulders to tumble out from under the bodies that had been scattered. Those boulders then allowed others to fall out of place into the insects following the fallen.

With a new tactic in mind that could help out in the long run, six bolts in less than three seconds were spent scattering rocks and herding the insects. Despite my initial concerns, these drones were not pouring forth like a tsunami and then scattering. Instead, their overall threat rating was increased.

What would have originally been the clusters I singled out from a distance were now being dispatched one or two at a time to and from different directions. Even though this proved some of the extent of their intelligence it was also helpful to me because it gave me time to pick my shots. I could go wild while forcing them back and up the walls.

Twelve shots and five seconds later, an estimated half of the insect clustered were inactive and three granite pillars had shattered under the abuse. There were three or four small cracks in the ceiling in the area that the pillars had broken, but they were barely even visible and showed the ceiling and surrounding rock was was much sturdier than I thought. The insects, though, were now deploying further back and deeper among the pillars.

If I gave them enough time to rally and redeploy once again, I could once again halve them but the briefest pause during would bring my company into the conflict. Still, I chose to let three whole clusters pass while firing four shots aimed among the first cracks. After that, the last few clusters seemed to get brave and started rushing out and forward again.

Three quickly placed shots was all it took to cause an avalanche of rubble that buried them all.

Even though I stopped firing in preparation for the redeploy I did not stop drawing bolts from their voided wooden case. I had already used over thirty of the original one hundred. These guys were good at draining supplies.

When the first signs of movement revealed a sudden surge of insects through the bottoms of the pillars I left behind only fifty citrine bolts and fired the first into the bases of the front most pillars. Sili was restlessly leaning from side to side, working out the tension in their recently evolved body as I fired two more arrows to intercept the following clusters.

It was then that some surprise bodies started passing through the tops of the front pillars. My following shot went both high up toward the cavern ceiling followed by a hip-shot at a pile of rubble only a few hundred feet away. Neither shot did much in the way of numbers damage because of their higher speed over accuracy but the next three shots did their jobs.

The insects were adapting their deployment based on where I was shooting. Even though some of them got through to within a hundred yards of me, constantly cutting off their clusters with explosions made them shift their deployment further and further out. Providing me with more and more time.

With the range of the rock terrors coiled across the tunnel only a few yards behind Sili, they would be able to battering ram the bodies that get to our sides outside of Sili's reach.

Sili herself had more than ten feet of reach around my body with a psychic connection to maintain awareness of where I aimed the crossbow.

The first two dozen or more would not be a problem. The next dozen or so would draw out the smaller water terrors to cover the recoils of their larger companions. After that, I would have to shift my attention to immediate enemies.

With the few seconds I had before the first ground enemies would reach me I launched five shots ahead of each of the clusters on the roof before preemptively shifting my attention. I kept the bolts on standby in the air above and behind my head and tapped into the crystals and transmutation lines to the end and trigger. It was time to see if I could earn a magic gunman title.

I had dropped no less than half of the distant ceiling enemies in those five shots, allowing me to patiently snipe the close quarters drones with kinetic bolts. Until the first time Sili struck out with her tail I fired freely, taking out six insects. Now, I had to more carefully pick my shots as the heads of serpents began striking out nearby.

The stretched charge of kinetic energy that matched my 'full' Strength stat easily ripped clean through the first bodies they came into contact with before dwindling into the next. Over greater distances, though, the base kinetic charge would become more costly and less effective.

When it started to become crowded, I switched my mental connection to a both a fire and light crystal and fired off literal lasers. This blinding flares of lethal energy only had penetration power for a single body, but they released all of their thermal energy after exiting the body like an incendiary grenade. The heat was planned to be several thousand degrees, enough to strip hydrogen molecules from the surroundings and turn bodies into brief incendiary explosives.

This 'ammo' was not intended for close quarters but I still used it on some distant ground targets until the roof targets came back into view. The ground targets were slightly disturbed and dazed to support the serpents and now I could send handfuls of insects falling from overhead with every shot. Even with their strengths a fall from roughly a hundred feet off of the ground should cripple them.

After five shots the first injury on our side was received in the form of a drone managing to sink one of its scythes into a tired water terror. That was effectively one of two hundred serpents down, the other mental flag I had set long ago for turning back. I immediately avenged them with a kinetic bolt before firing more lasers at the ceiling.

By the time the few dozen enemies on the ceiling reached low enough to drop drop in front of our tunnel, three water terrors and a rock terror had been struck down with venom. However, under Sili's protection, I could calmly switch to high-speed hip-firing healing bolts at all of the serpents as fast as I could. No more of my serpents died but at the cost of a brief injury that tore into Sili's tail.

For her position as a tank, it was good to experience a small injury such as this just as it was good for her to experience healing magic at every opportunity. With luck, she could develop regenerative properties or even the ability to produce basic healing energy. For now, it would help raise her Willpower and Endurance.

When the fight was finally over, I took out my geode and immediately consumed all of the mana in the area and used it to both refuel myself and super expand my consciousness out into the cavern. After ascertaining that there were no hidden traps or troops as well as no reinforcements coming from deeper down the multiple tunnels, I cast out handfuls of golem cores to form several dozen stone golems. They had the simple orders of blocking off the branching tunnels.

Only after they got to work did I calm down and set to work refining materials from the plethora of insects around our tunnel opening. Without a need to intentionally bring down the ceiling I stopped firing explosive holy bolts at the broken pillars and instead concentrated my senses on the rubble. Lo' and behold, several of the pillars contained concentrated metal deposits like iron or lead and were thinly encased by a layer of igneous minerals and metalloids within the granite.

Many of the metalloids from one of the broken pillars were broken down into a few more pounds of silver material before I gathered up all of the other minerals away from the toxic raw lead.

After this a brief check of the security of the filled tunnels I somewhat ceremoniously blessed and purified the bodies of the fallen serpents. I stored their bodies in a voided purse before processing them for their skins and meats. Sili would eat these later.

*