Crushing Bugs

Fires raged around Yang as her War Pick tore through Drone after Drone. As the momentum carried her away she stomped on an ant's legs, snapping them like twigs under her weight. An arrow flew by her waist to strike a Drone between the eyes and another of those strange spells landed a few feet away, bursting out and tying up several ants. Raising the hammer side of her weapon, she activated [POWER ATTACK] and brought it down on the unfortunate bugs, killing most and crippling the rest. She ducked as a log flew by overhead, tumbling through the air before crashing through dozens of Iron Ants.

It was far more hectic than the siege at Ziege Basin had ever been, and yet she felt calmer than ever.

Fighting in the siege had been difficult because it was endless, exhausting, and claustrophobic, with Drones filling every available space and reaching far past the horizon; creating a constant pressure like the battle could last for hours or even days. Now though? The Drones barely outnumbered them 3 to 1, and despite swarming so close together that there was frequently no place to stand, there were still fewer than there were during the siege.

'The new armor definitely helps too,' Yang thought as she felt an ant clamp its jaws ineffectually around her shin. With her new stats, Skills, and equipment giving her 62 Armor she had a lot more breathing room when dealing with the Drones' attacks. The damage would get through eventually, the crushing damage seeming to grow with every second, but with her 50 Strength, it was easy to tear them away or kill them with her pick.

Overall the hardest part about fighting these ants was just keeping them away from the ranged players behind them. Because the ants were so small it was almost impossible to physically hold them back. Their only option was to kill them faster than they could advance.

With this in mind, their formation was made to prioritize offense over defense. The melee fighters were spaced out slightly in three layers. The space between them allowed the more skilled ranged attackers to fire between them to reduce the number of the approaching ants. Many Drones were too stupid to focus on the ranged players and would simply go after the first player they saw, allowing each melee fighter to pull far more enemies than they could if the ants had better tactics. If any Drones managed to get through all three layers of defense, it was easily taken out by the ranged players, who would only be in danger if they were suddenly surrounded.

To top it all off, they still had the Monstrous Helm as insurance. Soze was currently at the very center of the formation, ready to equip the helm at a moment's notice. They could have started the fight using the helm, but because they knew that it would be more difficult to maintain a reliable formation while fighting at Ziege Basin, they wanted to practice fighting this smaller force without it. If he ever felt like there was any real danger, using the helm's passive from his current location would guarantee protection for all of the ranged players.

Yang looked up and saw a player, armed with an Iron Ant Battle Ax, trying to cleave off the head of a Drone. The wound was deep enough to immobilize the bug, but the twitching showed that it was still alive. The player made no attempt to finish it off, instead, he jumped back to get out of the way of some ants trying to jump at his chest.

Fighting the Drones still wasn't easy for most of the players. Their new weapons were just enough to overcome their defenses, their new Levels were just enough to close the gap in speed, and their new armor was just enough to not get maimed by a single attack. These enemies were still new and dangerous, especially in such numbers. Still, the training had paid off, and Yang knew that it wouldn't be long before these players were slaughtering Drones left and right.

A group of burning Drones tried to crawl past Yang, the heat of the flames making the chitin of their carapace melt, exposing more of the iron beneath.

"Where do you think you assholes are going!" Swinging her pick at another ant, Yang let the momentum carry her and landed directly in front of the melting ants. She swung her pick again, taking out two as the others dodged. Surprisingly, these ants made no attempt to attack her and continued on to the next layer of defense.

'So this is the collective intelligence that Zed warned us about,' Yang thought as she turned her focus to the next wave of ants.

During the siege, the nature of the conflict rendered any strategy from the Drones useless, so all that Yang got to see was their swarming numbers. There simply wasn't a strategy the Drones could come up with to deal with that many Mountain Goats in such a confined space. However, the ants were able to tell that the players were trying to protect the back lines, and so were starting to prioritize them over the melee fighters at the front. Only a handful were getting through right now, but there were still at least a hundred and seventy Drones remaining.

'The battle barely even started too. Soze won't let anyone get hurt, but having him use the helm would mean that we on the front lines failed.' Yang scowled. It didn't mean much now, but she wouldn't have the luxury of failure later on. Taking a deep breath, Yang activated [BURNING RAGE].

*ROOOAAAR!!!*

Instead of the string of curse words she would normally shout when drawing aggro, a bestial roar burst from Yang's mouth. The volume and intensity of it made her throat feel like it was being torn apart.

The Iron Ant Drones around her shuddered in place, unable to move as they were stricken with [FEAR]. The players around Yang were unaffected by the Skill itself, but still found themselves flinching from the explosion of sound that came seemingly from nowhere.

'I don't think I'll ever get used to that,' Yang thought as she rubbed her sore throat. She looked down at the Drones around her, shaking slightly as they stood immobile. Yang grinned menacingly. 'Definitely worth it though.'

As part of their preparations for the siege, Yang had spent a lot of time testing out the effects of [BURNING RAGE]. It turned out the description was slightly inaccurate, as the range was limited to around 150 feet and not everything that can hear her roar. Still, it was a massive radius and was enough to hit every ant on the battlefield except for the Soldiers high in the air.

Additionally, just as the Skill Crystal said, the effects of [BURNING RAGE] were different from when The Monster had used it. For Yang, the Skill could no longer apply the [PARALYSIS] debuff, and [STUNNED] only appeared after she started investing EXP. As for the effect of becoming stronger when she was injured, it mainly increased the duration of the debuffs. At Skill Level 10, which cost her an astronomical 100,000 EXP, [FEAR] and [STUNNED] would be applied for only 1 minute and 10 seconds respectively while she was at 100% HP. Only when she dropped below 30% would they match the duration that they had when used by The Monster.

'Still, 60 seconds of Fear is powerful enough,' Yang thought as she looked around. Once they recovered from their shock, the players around Yang had started attacking the Drones with reckless abandon. Some of the ants could still attack because of their positioning, but many of them were rendered helpless as the players were now able to attack while ignoring all defense. Similar scenes were happening across the battlefield, giving the players a massive opportunity against the ants.

However, the attack also made the ants recognize her as a threat.

"Soldier!" someone shouted.

Looking up, Yang could just barely see the gangly form of the flying ant as it began its descent. As it got close enough for her to see it properly, she felt like it was staring at her.

'These things aren't stupid. It knows I was the one who used Burning Rage.'

"I got it!" she heard Loran shout.

"Loran!"

"What?"

"It's aiming for me! This one's mine!" Yang shouted back as she hefted her War Pick onto her shoulder.

Normally, ranged attacks or high Agility was needed to intercept the Soldier during its attack, but if Yang was right about it targeting her then that wasn't an issue. Even so, several players turned to look at her as if she was crazy. Fighting with an Iron Ant Soldier happened in a matter of milliseconds, where a single mistake meant death. Even if you could fight against it, only Zed was crazy enough to want to.

Even so, Yang wanted to do this herself. If Iron Ants were going to be the enemy of choice for the players from this point onward, then she didn't want to rely too heavily on others to handle certain variants. She knew it was probably more efficient for Loran or Yin to deal with them, since their ranged attacks let them attack without risking themselves, but she wanted to know that she could handle these enemies herself in the case of an emergency.

"...Don't go dying on us!" Loran shouted.

Yang heard more shouts as Loran and Soze started arguing about something, but she wasn't paying attention anymore. With the Drones still under the effects of [FEAR], Yang focused entirely on the approaching Iron Ant Soldier. With her somewhat low 20 Perception, the flying insect was nearly a blur as it got closer and closer, picking up speed as it continued its descent.

As the Soldier got closer, Yang broke away from the player formation, wanting as few people to be caught in the aftermath of the exchange. The ant began to angle itself toward her and Yang raised her War Pick, holding the stone head of the weapon in front of her like a battering ram. At the speed the Soldier was going, she didn't need to hit it, she just needed to put something solid in its face.

When the ant was less than 100 feet away, Yang activated [TAUNT] and [LEAP] at the same time.

Even if the Soldier was able to dodge at the last second, giving it the [ENRAGED] debuff would guarantee that it would attack no matter what. She wasn't sure if the effect would trigger at this distance, which is why she also used [LEAP]. By closing the distance to close even faster, it would have less time to react to her movements.

After [LEAP] took control of her body, Yang was launched forward with tremendous force. Her movements were slower and would cover less distance when compared to people like Alexx and Zed because of her greater weight, but it still let her cover a dozen feet in a second.

Yang's vision was filled with black carapace for a split second, then she felt the Soldier's body colliding against her own.

*CRAAACK*

The sound of carapace hitting carapace echoed across the battlefield. She had managed to hit the Soldier directly in the head, dodging its blades and crushing its soft carapace against her stone weapon and tough armor. The impact still knocked the wind out of her, and her face was now covered with viscera and broken carapace shards, but overall the exchange had barely dealt any damage to her.

Landing on the ground, Yang quickly wiped the viscera from her eyes and turned to look at the ant's corpse. She then kept turning as she couldn't find it. Eventually, she looked down and saw what little of the ant had remained intact was stuck to her armor.

'That's...a little nauseating,' she thought as she quickly averted her gaze. She then took a breath and her eyes widened. "Oh fuck it's in my mouth!"

Fortunately for Yang, New Eden Online didn't have the code necessary to allow the act of vomiting. Unfortunately, this did nothing to make her feel better.

As she desperately wiped the guts off of her face and out of her mouth, Yang heard distant screaming from the opposite side of the formation. Her blood went cold as she realized Yin was in that direction.