Sili Breath

Luckily I was already running on sixteen hours worth of duration potions for both physical and mana regeneration. All I had to do was maintain a familiar forward position over a hundred feet into the room and push all sound back the way we came as the others got into position behind me.

Sili remained just her tail's reach off to the side and behind me while the rock terrors stealthily stretched out behind her position. The smaller water terrors were divide to the left and right and lead further out toward the sides of the caverns. They were then divided into pairs and places just outside of comfortable reach of each pair in forward flank positions.

They might be half the size of the rock terrors but they still boasted a Strength stat roughly the same as my base Strength before I started the pilgrimage. Their reach was only a little shorter and headbutts were on a more personal level. However, they only had to support the sides of our eventual front line.

The formation I chose was a two layered arrow like a flock of geese and that spread out from behind Sili's central positions. The cost of positioning these two hundred serpents was a further ten percent of Grimm and Shade's mana. I decided to let them rest in my hands while wielding their sword forms.

Grimm's sword form was a two-foot narrow stiletto styled blade with a spiked hilt while Shade seemed to be more comfortable as a longer single-edged sword with a narrow but rounded point.

Now that everybody was fully prepared, I stopped suppressing sound and probed forward toward the closest clusters of larger insects. Three clusters of almost twice as many dozens of warriors lacked any female specimens at all. I nonchalantly spent ten percent of my mana on either sword charging up a kinetic thermal slash.

Up until now, I had left two light golems behind at the last small cavern and left one off as we neared this cavern. Now, I turned the overhead light golem on at full power and whistled loudly. With the intense conductivity of my ethereal familiars the promptly following slashes from my swords crossed through the air and stretched out across the width of the cavern.

The first bodies they met were seared in two and these lines of vaporized moisture passing through the cavern did not stop at just the first bodies. In fact, where there were no bodies in the way, the ends of the spell kept softly whistling through the cavern. Where there were bodies in the way, though, over forty collapsed on contact and as many others were pushed back back by the inertia and temperatures exceeding a thousand Fahrenheit.

This was more than enough to wake up their small world and entice them into stampeding forward. Over a hundred bodies started racing forward within the space of two seconds. As they all moved forward, the smaller drones rushed ahead of the more casually striding warriors.

Tightly grouping together into a wall of bodies.

The following slashes contained ten percent of the combined power of my wisps and I and cut through at least half of the drones present in the cavern a few short seconds after the rush. The warrior or construction drones were now the most numerous and were still a distance away. I had no problem letting Sili lead the charge to line up with the angle out water terrors fifty yards away while sheathing my wisp swords in my chest.

Taking the time to send my probe out once more, I once again inspect the inner bodies of the larger insects only to confirm that they were all male. A split second after Sili actually made contact by repeatedly lashing out against the small drones with the bony end of her tail while the rock serpents began ramming their heads into the smaller bodies in the lead.

With our current positioning I could not do much actively in the conflict, but I could take out my crossbow and guided kinetic charges passed the rock serpents. While randomly sniping the larger warriors in the back, I would switch from the kinetic crystal at the front left of the crossbow barrel to the holy and healing energies in the front right stud. These shots would restore what little stamina and blunt damage the serpents and Sili had taken.

After picking off over a dozen warriors with clean shots that ripped not-so-clean holes through their torsos, I switched to a more supportive stance by focusing on the literal friendly fire. The warrior insects had just started catching up to Sili and the front lines and their increased mass and strength required the assistance. After more of them gathered at the front, two or three would find the strength to cling to Sili's domineering tail swipes.

With the extra weight limiting her attacks, I needed to keep the tank fresh and focused to keep sending other bodies flying into the air. However, as the number of insects was finally less than half of our own numbers, the experience Sili was acquiring manifested itself in an expression of latent magic abilities. Like proof of her draconic ancestry, Sili inhaled deeply and sharply exhaled a strong gust of super heated and electrified air down the length of her own tail.

However, the slime between her scales barely even registered the heat and her scales did not even get sooty. As well, the slime acted as a circuit for the electricity to conduct into the bodies of clinging warriors and send them seizing to the floor. It was a beautiful and gratifying sight to see Sili develop a breath attack.

She was basically half a dragon already.

The rest of the enemies were then clustered and pushed back under following gusts of draconic breath. With less than fifty enemies being controlled by Sili, I took the time to pull the serpents back toward our exit. Then I made Sili retreat as well.

Thirty percent of my personal mana was then spent snatching seven of the largest and healthiest warrior insects remaining from the front lines and then dazing them. Once they were shocked silly I simply sucked them up into the void of my base money purse. With the souvenirs in hand there was no more reason to dilly dally.

I promptly drew my sword and left myself with a slowly but steadily growing ten percent of mana slashing through the rest of the insects.

The expressing of so much mana in such strong and decisive gestures left me a little breathless so the first thing I did was stop and drink some water and even nibble on some jerky. Once I had settled my body and replenished around ten more percent of mana, I took out my previous geode and started consuming all of the residual and natural mana from the cavern. Followed by two full hours of processing bodies.

I used my own magic to encourage Sili and the serpents to go to sleep, then, and set about appraising the cavern for minerals. Even though I already had enough magical carapace material to transmute enough basic body plates to outfit another thousand people, I wanted something to take away from this location that was actually for monetary profit.

No matter how much high quality armor biological plating material I acquired my travels had brought me little in the way of high quality hides.

If I were to use the Guild material ranking system, the insect carapaces would be B ranked materials while the rat hides were only around C rank in value and quality. Hides like those of the giant goats the rest of my family were working with were of a more suitable quality. However, I was not here to be greedy.

Because the cavern was so huge I decided to only break down the loose rubble on the floor for minerals and materials. The surrounding rock for hundreds of feet was full of both superficial veins and deep deposits even more so than the second floor entryway caverns. Just from the loose debris piled all around I was able to condense a block of almost fifteen pounds of silver alone.

By the time I was done, all of the burnt gore and the remains from cleaning the bodies was buried under a thick pile of unwanted rock dust that covered almost a third of the cavern's floor. The rest of the cavern, though, was had a smooth and clean floor of exposed granite from wall to wall. Metals aside, my main gains were a couple thousand pounds of various agates that I could sell as giant blocks to the Guild.

*