The Unmaker

Dahlia braced her forearms in front of her as Madamaron lunged down, rearing a single, jagged fist back.

Don’t be afraid!

Don’t back down!

And though her eyes were most definitely squeezed shut, lightning exploded out of her bracers as Madamron’s fist rammed into them. The shockwave made her entire body jolt, made the cavern flash blue and white, but it also made Madamaron jerk back in surprise—it screeched backwards with all six limbs clawing across the ground, its red compound eyes zooming in and out as it tried to study her new weapon.

Her firefly bracers weren’t so much a weapon as they were just a really, really powerful shield, though. And they hurt her just as much as her attacker.

But… It works! she thought, gritting her teeth as she mimicked its retreat, skidding backwards with all four hands dragging across the ground. As long as I can block with my bracers, Madamaron can’t go all out! Certainty! The lightning’s strength is proportional to how hard it hits!

[Be that as it may,] Kari warned, [the other antlion nymphs have noticed your presence. You’ll be safe if you can block with your bracers, but you only have four arms. You can’t block every attack. Therefore–]

I know!

Hit and run!

She kicked off the ground, sprinting deep into Alshifa while Madamaron was still shaking off the electricity coursing through its fist. The horde of antlion nymphs spread out across the undertown immediately reared their heads back and screeched, but she ignored them for the time being—none of them could fly, and she was the one who knew how to navigate Alshifa like it was the back of her hand.

[What’s the plan, Dahlia? Where are you going?]

Buying time!

It took a few seconds, but the shadow of Madamaron loomed over her, soaring and pursuing her across the town. She spotted the fortress-like shelter still standing down the street, though, and the doors were wide open—she hadn’t closed them behind her when she’d set off to kill the Mutant firefly, after all—so she rushed through the doorway, barely evading Madamaron as it crash-landed right outside the door.

Tumbling into a roll and whirling around in the same motion, she watched as Madamaron tried to squeeze through the tiny doorway. It reached its arms through in an attempt to rip her out of the shelter, but it was too big. The shelter was always designed to be physically indestructible against the Swarm, and while a Mutant was no normal giant insect, Madamaron wasn’t that strong, either. It couldn’t punch a hole in the wall. It couldn’t pry the doorway apart. It glared at her, eyes brimming with cold fury, but for her part… her eyes were only shimmering with the light of a brilliant revelation.

… Antlion.

Its first weakness is its size and inflexibility.

Madamaron wasn’t human-sized like the firefly. It was eight metres tall and slim, but certainly not small. If that five-metre-tall Mutant antlion nymph she fought had trouble catching her—because it was like a titan trying to swat a fly—then Madamaron had it even worse. Without ranged attacks, it couldn’t easily get her as long as she was inside the shelter.

That didn’t mean it couldn’t get her, of course. She bounced to her feet and immediately jumped to the second floor platforms, cutting out through the windows the moment Madamaron ripped the entire shelter from the ground. A flash of fear went through her eyes as she glanced back at it, seeing the building fly at her. She leapt off a roof as Madamaron tossed the shelter into a mound of rubble, making the entire cavern rumble; she kept on running and jumping across the roofs, heading straight towards the Alshifa Bug-Slaying School at the eastern end of town.

Just because it’s a super strong Mutant doesn’t mean it doesn’t have weaknesses! she thought, continuing to glance behind her to see how fast Madamaron was flying at her. She panicked when she couldn’t see its shadow anywhere overhead. The firefly overheated when it used its lightning too much, and the antlion nymph was too slow and clumsy for its size! Madamaron, too, must have–

She was halfway across the Great Alshifa Bridge—where she’d slain the pine-sawyer beetle—when her dagger antennae suddenly tingled. Danger. She jumped preemptively, her locust greaves propelling her forward and straight through the windows of a second-floor classroom. Madamaron shattered the bridge from below half a second later, ripping the heavy metal construct apart as it soared high into the air.

Obviously, it can fly. She grimaced. That’s one major strength I can’t overcome, but that doesn’t mean I can’t bring it down.

How tough is it?

Scanning the boxes of prototype weapons and armour scattered across the classroom, she immediately darted over and picked up two, three, four scorpion stinger-tipped spears. Madamaron noticed her standing by the broken window and soared down. With full-body twists, she chucked all four javelins at its head, eyes going wide as she watched it swerve out of their way before ramming through the side of the school—destruction. If she hadn’t jumped back and out of the classroom, rolling into the hallway, she would’ve been decimated by its quadruple punch.

… Huh.

Before Madamaron could continue rampaging through the school, she dashed and carved through the wall at the end of the hallway, jumping out of the school. She smiled a little when she realised she was only a bit nervous falling thirty metres down the vertical cliff the school was built atop. Alice had really dragged her around the past few weeks, making her jump here, making her fall there; she landed heels-first on the roof of the Alshifa orphanage, breaking into a sprint with her greaves absorbing most of the impact.

The antlion nymph I fought back then put a real effort into blocking and deflecting Alice’s attacks, but Madamaron dodged those javelins instead of just eating it head-on.

Why?

[Because antlion nymphs are ambush predators highly specialised in capturing prey with minimal energy expenditure. They can afford to have thicker armour because they don’t have to move as much,] Kari said, finishing her thought. [But the adult antlion discards its armour for a larger, more manoeuvrable body by growing two pairs of glassy wings. It takes to the skies instead of digging sandpits in the ground. That’s why–]

Weakness number two: its chitin isn’t nearly as tough as its nymph counterparts.

She dashed through the Eastern Harzhal Street, Madamaron hounding at her heels. She skipped across the Northeastern Burqal Street, vaulting through a window and coming out the other side of the building as Madamaron rammed through it. The Northeastern Keefa Street, the Northern Glasa Street, and then the Northern Bridge Street—she dodged and ran and jumped in a desperate race across the undertown, sprays of shattered sandstone flying everywhere Madamaron tore through. She was working her greaves overtime, and she knew it, but she hadn’t run out of stamina yet; two months of back-breaking reed-picking under the sweltering morning sun had pushed her endurance to the max.

The same couldn’t be said for Madamaron. Whatever she’d expected to see when she glanced around—while running up the stairs to her old house—it wasn’t Madamaron crawling on the ground on all six limbs, running like a lowly rabble bug. Its wings were folded on its back. Its elongated body meant it still moved incredibly quickly with each step, but it was no flight.

[Indeed, while antlions have large, lace-like wings that are capable of powerful flaps, they’re simply that—‘powerful’ flaps,] Kari said, as she jumped atop the caved-in roof of her house and narrowed her eyes at the edge of the hill where Madamaron was eventually going to poke its head over. [The sandstorms it can make by flapping its powerful wings are always ephemeral and short-lived, and while they may be unnatural enough to convince the townsfolk of ‘magic’, you’re seeing the ugly truth it doesn’t want anyone to see. Their wings aren’t built for sustained flight.]

And that’s because, in the desert, adult antlions don’t really have predators, she continued, exhaling coolly and sharpening her claws with her teeth. It was written in mom’s insect encyclopaedia. Certainty. Adult antlions fly primarily for finding mates and dispersing to new areas for laying eggs, not for hunting or fleeing from predators. After all, once they grow up–

[They lose their chewing mandibles and grow syphon tubes instead, feeding on pollen and nectar like many true bugs,] Kari continued, injecting more adrenaline into her veins, sharpening her senses, expanding her vision. [It’s quite peculiar. When they’re nymphs, they dig sandpits and viciously tear apart any prey that falls in, but after they moult and morph into adults, they stop being voracious carnivores. Their predatory phase is entirely confined to their nymphal stage, which means–]

There’s another reason why Madamaron has always resorted to terror and cloak-and-dagger tactics, she finished, closing her eyes briefly. By nature, an adult antlion is just not as aggressive and bloodthirsty as a nymph.

Its third weakness is its low stamina.

It can’t fly for very long.

[... How strange,] Kari mused. [The Altered Swarmsteel Systems’ database certainly doesn’t have this much information on antlions. Is this knowledge coming from ‘Eria’, or is this coming from the ‘Bloodline’?]

Both.

You’re ‘Kari’ now.

And she opened her eyes, turning a dial on her butterfly goggles to make her right eye glow bright gold.

… I’m going, dad.

I’ll make my own way.

The moment Madamaron reared its ugly head over the edge of the hill, she exploded off the roof of her house—demolishing the dilapidated cabin behind her and burying her father once and for all.

Come on, now!

You and me!

The springs and gears in her greaves creaked and groaned as she shot at Madamaron’s head, four hands reaching in front of her, and she slammed straight into its eyes with a horrific squelch. Madamaron tried to fan out its wings, but she’d launched into it hard enough to loosen its grip. She rode it off the edge of the hill, plummeting yet another thirty metres down, but this time she wasn’t just falling. Gnashing her teeth together, she ripped out both of its eyes with two hands, and then followed the steel path with her other two hands, carving along the folds of its chitin plates to strip the armour off its face. Madamaron unhinged its jaw and screeched, its blade-like tongue stabbing out at her neck. She felt the attack coming with her antennae and jerked her head hard right, the blade only grazing her cheek as she continued ripping off its face.

Don’t stop!

Cut as deep as you can!

Ten metres before its back could slam into the ground, it finally managed to snap out its wings. Madamaron had recovered its stamina. It immediately flapped its wings backwards, flying blindly through multiple ruined buildings. She crawled around its body to prevent the debris from crushing her into pulp, but it was only her goggles that protected her eyes from all the shrapnel flying away. Still, a few pebbles cracked her lenses, fogging her vision. She held onto its neck for dear life with two claws, the other two still hacking and slashing away at its face, and eventually—breakthrough.

She opened a small human head-sized hole in its forehead and plunged two claws through, grabbing what felt like a brain before twisting with all her might.

Madamaron suddenly lost its sense of balance. It was about to smash backwards through yet another building when its wings went limp, so she took advantage. Letting go of its neck, she reared her free arms back and punched down, slamming it skull-first into the ground—and then its body tore through the street as it started skidding to a halt, the impact throwing her off and making her tumble into a painful roll herself.

…

Heaving, panting, gasping for breath, she clawed to her feet and glared at Madamaron lying face down on the ground a good thirty metres away from her. Somehow, it’d flown both of them right back to the centre of town—the bazaar where everything started, moonlight falling cold and bright through the overhead chasm—and it was nothing but a wasteland of charred-black debris. A small circular arena of sorts was carved out by those same debris, so she found it rather fitting; the place where the firefly had risen from the dead was also where Madamaron was rising from the dead.

It was hardly dead on the opposite end of the arena, after all.

Chitin plates flaked off its slender body. Bony spikes grew out its joints like those on the antlion nymphs. Madamaron clawed to its feet, and this time it stood only on two legs like a human would. Its face regenerated with twisting, contorting muscles, and the hole in its forehead was sealed with a fresh new layer of chitin plates. It took a little while longer for its eyes to regrow, but soon it got those back, too, looking completely unharmed even through their entire exchange.

It was a Mutant at the end of the day, so the only way she could kill it was by destroying its heart.

But right now, did she have the strength left to go for another round?

“… Weakness number four: your chitin plates are tough, but only three centimetres thick, and weakness number five: your heart isn’t in your head,” she whispered, letting out a heavy breath as she wiped blood off her lips, pulling the cracked goggles off her sweaty face. “You have… a sixth weakness, too. Fatal. Do you… know what that is?”

Madamaron couldn’t respond, of course. It was no Lesser Great Mutant. It could only tilt its head in mock interest as it strode towards her, popping its shoulders and stretching its limbs while she raised a single finger in front of her.

That got it to freeze twenty metres before her, and it made her chuckle.

“Like most insects… antlions exhibit little to no parental care,” she breathed, mimicking its head tilt. “Where’s your brood of nymphs, desert god?”

“...”

And though she was sure it didn’t understand her words, it suddenly looked around and noticed; there were thirty-two antlion nymphs in Alshifa, but none of them had helped it catch her.

Because by now, all of them were surely dead, and she’d bought enough time.

“... I’m not alone, Madamaron,” she said, holding out an open palm to her left and smiling softly as she did. “And upon the bed of carcasses–”

“The flightless moth lies.”

A red blur descended from the moon and smashed down next to her—clasping her hand with an amused laugh as the ground rippled around them.

The god-killer had returned.