While Ivan fought some ants far away,

I explored a new town for the day.

With lanterns aglow,

And a river's soft flow,

I wished he could join on the way!

Goldie Honorhide

It was fully night and the larger moon shone through the hazy atmosphere. I was with Nash, Fred, Mog and Makara. Thomas and Sandy were leading the others around the side of the hill.

We threw the barrels of poison on the nest at the opposite end of where we were headed, and we were waiting for the gas to sink in.

I was pretty sure that Solar Flare would not destroy the entire nest, even with my extra Spiritual Strength. If the ants withdrew from the poison, they would congregate at this end of the nest. If they didn't, then the poison would kill what it could.

Sandy and Tomas kept the others behind the hill, "away from the poison." After I do my thing, they will sweep for stragglers.

Fred had made some rough stone shields. He didn't have the tools to make anything decent, but it was what it was.

We were fighting our way into position. Makara was using a new skill, Cutting Water, which she would not have discovered in the ocean. Her high Water Manipulation was helping her a lot in working out new applications for her water.

I was conserving all my energy. I had Cosmic Aura out and a light layer of Void Sensing, but that was all. Nash and Mog are very good fighters. Fred probably is as well but he is weighed down with slabs of stone. We carve through the little ones and the cat sized ones, slowing only for the occasional elite.

I can sense we are near the edge of the nest. The tunnels go deeper more than horizontal. "The solid ground ends about three meters in front of me," I told them.

Nash, Mog, and Markara set up a perimeter while Fred stakes the stone shields into the ground. He suggested that I stand on one if the volcanic eruptions is below me, which is a good suggestion. I did not correct his understanding of the skill. He still doesn't believe me. Dwarves can be stubborn.

Fred first couldn't understand how my own skill could hurt me, but that was easy to explain. It is the same as his Quake skill, triggering a rock slide that can crush him.

Fred lays the floor plate and then digs into the ground on two sides to brace the vertical stones. They come up to my waist, so I will be crouching. Then they do a broader sweep before backing off at a run to get over the crest of the hill.

The only one I trust to be with me is Felix. Felix is my spiritual support and backup. I wish Yoboc were here to give me advice. Fred doesn't understand, and I have done my best, but my best lost me an eye last time. Hopefully, I have learned since then.

Felic protects my back while I stretch out my aura as far and as deep as it goes. I brace myself and make sure Felis is behind the barriers, such as they are.

I crouch low and trigger Solar Flare at the furthest point. I feel the Spiritual Energy sucked out of me. I have added attributes to Spiritual Strength since I last used it, so it is stronger, and I have more energy. So when the skill is nearly finished, I push more Spiritual energy into it to keep it going longer. If I am doing this, I am doing it with everything I have.

I feel the heat building even behind the stone barrier. I keep my one good eye well away, but even then, the dark night lights up. Then the ground beneath me gives way, and stops as Felix sends a wave of Frigid Void through me and the stone barriers. I think that is the only thing that stops them from melting even at this distance.

Fire that burns in the void bursts from the ground, and night turns into day for a moment. It washes through the area and over my Figid-cooled stone. It licks Felix and me but soon retreats as the Spiritual energy is shut off. The waves of heat continue and will continue for hours.

Once the flame is gone, Felix and I run back over the hill for safety. The others were waiting for me.

"That looked successful," said Nash. "It was probably visible from Jern. What was the result?"

I checked my status, noting that my Fire Resistance had risen a little and that even my extreme Heat had gone up. I used to have three monster kills. I now have nineteen.

"Sixteen queens died."

"There were that many? Shit we didn't have a chance. Did we get them all?"

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I shrugged. "I don't know."

"Who is this 'we'?" Makara said.

"Point."

"We go this way, Sandy and Thomas will cover the other end," Nash said.

It annoyed me that he was repeating the plan that we all knew. My status had more on it than just the kill count and a level in Solar Flare, something I would probably not share with anyone.

However, we needed to do the job first. I let them take the lead, and Felix and I just followed, letting our energy recharge. Makara passed me my spear. She had looked after it while I was doing my thing.

I wondered if the monster cores were at the bottom of that hole that used to be the nest, waiting to be picked up. I suspect they were also destroyed, but it is probably days before anybody can get down there. If there are, they are probably embedded in molten rock. Will that change the rock into a spiritual fire-type rock? I don't know.

This place will be crawling with Mercenary Teams over the next few months, making sure all the queens are destroyed.

I am pretty sure Nash will be getting experts out to examine the rubble I left. He is not the sort to take my silence as the last word. He didn't push me before as he wanted something from me. He won't push me now, knowing I can destroy almost anything.

Will he try to kill me? It is possible. A lot of people wouldn't like someone like me wandering around doing whatever I like. I could take down a Duke's mansion fairly easily. That is a big threat to a lot of people.

The next question is, should I kill everybody here to keep this a secret? Their deaths would be blamed on the ants or whatever killed the ants.

That is not who I am. If I were going to kill everyone, I would have had them attack the nest, then set off the Solar Flare. I will just walk away, like I did in the Arctic. If Yoboc and Goldie hadn't chosen to come with me, I would have just left, even if I had been hunted. I wasn't thinking of killing them then, why am I thinking of killing these people?

If Nash and his team keep their word, we will be good. If they betray me, I will just have to deal with that. A few levels in my new skill, and I will be a lot harder to kill than I am now. I have already started to level it.

In our first sweep, we found a queen with half her body burned and three elites with it. It was not going to survive anyway, but Nash and Mog killed the elites and let Fred kill the queen. It must have been his first monster kill.

"Yes!" Fred exclaimed. "Mine Guardian with Indomitable Body!"

I wasn't sure what those were, but I could guess that Mine Guardian was a new class specialisation that comes with a body strengthening skill.

Nash tossed me the monster core. "That settles the original deal," he said, "The bonus will have to wait."

It seems like he is going to play it straight. He didn't mention his criteria for a minimum number of cores, so neither did I.

We continued to sweep the area, but found no more queens. Our packs were filling up with fire sacs and elite mandibles.

We took a break, and it was time to look in more detail at what I got from killing the queens. I also got a new specialisation for my Hunter Scavenger Class. The name was a bit ominous. I am now a Mass Executioner. It is a five-attribute class with two points assigned to Spiritual Strength and one each to Spiritual Agility and Mental Strength, with one free point. It is not a class I expect to level frequently.

The specialisation came with a skill. The Skill is called Damage Mitigation. It is like a shield for my body, reducing the damage I take. The amount of damage I can block is controlled by my Spiritual Strength, and the time I can have it active is controlled by my Spiritual Agility, multiplied by the skill level.

I currently have 36 Spiritual Strength and 22 Spiritual Agility. At level 1, it blocks 3.6% of damage, and I can have it active for 2.2 seconds. When I get it to apprentice level 5, it will block 18% of the damage for 11 seconds, and this is more if I increase those attributes. Journeyman level is 36% for 22 seconds.

I calculate that I will have to have 50 in Spiritual Strength and level it to 20, beyond the top of the master levels, to get 100% damage mitigation for a minute and a half or so. This Math Lore of mine makes this easy to work out. How often I can use it depends on my spiritual energy, and I have a lot of other skills that use Spiritual energy.

Levelling it to Apprentice should be easy.

The best thing is that it seems to mitigate all damage, whether Physical, Mental, or Spiritual. The beats Fred's Indomitable Body by far, as that skill seems purely physical.

Now for the big question. Damage Mitigation reduces damage to me, but will it also work to mitigate damage to others in my aura?

The next fight we got into was against three elites and a number of lesser ants.I watched the fight. Then I saw an opportunity and spread my weak level two Damage Mitigation out over the group. It filled my aura easily, and I watched. Fred and Mog were sprayed with fire. Mog certainly had Regeneration, and Fred now had his Indomitable Body along with their Fire Resistance. However, Damage Mitigation levelled, so it definitely worked in my aura. According to my Math Lore, that is now 10.8% mitigation for 2.2 seconds.

What I did notice, though, was that the skill in my aura used twice the spiritual energy that it would if it were in my body alone. I will have to be very careful of my energy levels. It is another reason to put all my points into my Spiritual attributes.

I have two spare points. I could put them into Agility to lengthen the time or strengthen all my spiritual skills. I will wait for now, as new skills also often require attributes. Three points and I could get Farsight, for instance.

I will wait for now, and the Lore Society in Jern should give me some good information.

Makara came up to me and said quietly, "You know you will be put on some sort of watch list, don't you?"

I nodded. "The Mercenary Guild is separate from the kingdom, isn't it?"

She nodded, "But all the local members will also be citizens of the kingdom, and the kingdom certainly has inside people."

I just nod. There is not much I can do about it. Except for performing another mass execution, a stray thought sneaks in.

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