CHAPTER 788: ANTS AND DUNGEON (1)

Rodion’s voice slid into Mikhailis’s mind like a needle through cloth—sharp, precise, leaving no space for him to pretend he hadn’t heard it.

Mikhailis. It’s done. They’ve all entered.

He froze.

The noise inside the high tent wasn’t loud to begin with—only the soft murmur of voices, the faint clink of ceramic cups, the whisper of paper as someone shifted a map—but now it all felt distant, as if someone had dropped a glass dome over his thoughts.

He sat on a low cushion near the central table, legs folded, posture a touch more relaxed than a court etiquette book would recommend. Bandages peeked from under the open front of his shirt where his coat hung loose. Every deeper breath sent a spike of pain through his ribs, a sharp, stubborn ache that reminded him how hard the dungeon had thrown him.

Elowen sat to his right, close enough that when she moved, her sleeve brushed his arm in a soft stroke of fabric. Her silver hair was loosely tied back, a few strands falling over her cheek. Serelith lounged across from him, one leg crossed over the other, chin propped on her hand, amethyst eyes too bright to be called calm. Vyrelda stood slightly behind Serelith, near the map stand, arms folded, weight balanced on the balls of her feet like she was ready to move at any second. Cerys stayed a step behind them, straight-backed near the tent support, half in shadow, half in light—knight, guard, watchful wall.

Lira knelt by the tea tray, hands folded neatly on her lap, every line of her posture careful and elegant. Her long black ponytail fell down her back like a ribbon of ink. She had been silently pouring tea, refilling cups, collecting empty ones, as if the rhythm of the task could hold the tent together.

All of them felt it when something shifted in him.

Elowen’s fingers, resting lightly against the edge of the table, stilled. The faint circling motion she had been making with the tip of one finger over the wood stopped.

Vyrelda’s gaze flicked from the map to him, eyes sharpening in an instant, like a blade turned to face a new threat.

Serelith’s mouth curled a little higher at one corner, smirk tilting as she sensed that delicious crackle in the air that usually meant trouble, or opportunity, or both.

Cerys’s eyes narrowed, subtle, but Mikhailis could feel her attention lock onto him like she was checking again for wounds she might have missed.

Lira’s eyelashes trembled once before she lifted her eyes just enough to look at him from beneath them, reading his face like she had learned to read teacups and knives—quiet, unnoticed, precise.

"Mikhailis?" Elowen’s voice was soft, but it cut through his hesitation cleanly.

He blinked once, twice.

The tent snapped back into focus—the weight of his coat on his shoulders, the warmth of the lamps, the faint smell of herbs from some salve someone had left open near the medical kit.

All... meaning? he thought.

He didn’t move his lips. He didn’t need to. The link between him and Rodion had grown so practiced that thought alone was enough, shaped with the same care he used for delicate rune lines.

Rodion’s answer came with barely contained pride, each word crisp and too pleased with itself.

The Chimera Ant infiltration unit is now at one hundred percent deployment. Soldiers, workers, and the variant elites. The Scurabons included. We are—how do humans put it—"inside the heart before the beast knows it was stabbed."

A breath escaped him—too small to call a sigh, but more than nothing.

His fingers curled slightly on his knee, as if trying to hold onto something.

Elowen saw that. She always did.

Her eyes, sharp and golden, flicked to his hand, then back to his face.

"They succeeded...?" she whispered, voice barely there. It was the kind of whisper that carried more weight than a shout.

Only the people closest to her—him, Serelith, Vyrelda—heard it clearly.

He glanced at her, just for a heartbeat.

Relief rose in his chest, so quick it almost hurt. For a second he thought he might actually smile, and that felt dangerous, too open, with so many eyes here. He pushed it down, turning that feeling into a simple nod, then looked back at the table, pretending to study the cracks in the wood instead.

Good, he thought. At least one thing went right today.

Rodion, of course, had no intention of stopping with just the headline.

The insertion was optimal, he went on, tone shifting into his favourite mode: lecture. The earlier false entry you performed destabilised the dungeon’s resonance membrane. The Scurabons identified a pressure fold at the outer shell where mana density dipped by 3.7%. They used it as a burrow point. Very elegant. Very me.

A string of sensations unfurled at the back of Mikhailis’s mind, faint yet vivid: the feel of stone that wasn’t quite stone, cool and damp like muscle; the slight give under pressure where a normal cliff would have stayed rigid; the taste of thick mana in the air, heavy on a sense that wasn’t taste but felt like it anyway.

He saw, through the hive-link, the memory of heavy plates moving in darkness.

Scurabons pressing their broad, scarab-like bodies against the dungeon’s outer layer, feeling for weakness.

Finding it.

Pushing.

From there, Rodion continued, worker units slipped through micro-fractures. The soldiers followed to secure anchor hollows. The dungeon recognised intrusion, but its focus is still oriented toward external entrances. Internal micro-tunnels remain below its primary immune response threshold. It is, to use a human term, "looking the wrong way."

Of course it is, Mikhailis thought. Everybody stares at the front gate. Nobody checks their own bones.

Across from him, Serelith’s eyes narrowed, catching something in his face—maybe the distant look, maybe the way his shoulders relaxed and tensed again.

"Mikha," she drawled, stretching his nickname out in a way that made it both lazy and knife-sharp, "if you’re going to have an epiphany, at least share with the rest of the class."

Her foot tapped lightly against the carpet, impatient and amused.

He inhaled slowly, ribs protesting, then let the breath out through his nose.

"The, ah... experiment underground," he said, his voice rougher than usual, still scratched from the yelling and coughing he’d done while being thrown around by dungeon shockwaves. "It worked."

The tent reacted in small ways.

Vyrelda straightened from her relaxed lean over the map stand, weight shifting more evenly. Her arms stayed crossed, but her stance changed from watching to ready.

"The scouts have entered?" she asked, cutting straight to the important part as always.

"More than that," he replied. "They’re... settled. Inside."

Elowen’s shoulders eased a fraction without really moving. It was like watching a bowstring lose just a little tension—not enough to make it slack, but enough to keep it from snapping.

Lira’s fingers tightened for a heartbeat on the edge of the tray, then relaxed again, small motions hidden under proper posture.

Cerys didn’t move much at all, but her eyes flickered, something like reluctant respect glinting there. She knew what it meant to send a unit in and have it report: we are in position.

Rodion showed no interest in slowing down. If anything, the sense of a captive audience only made him more enthusiastic.

Dungeons behave like ecosystems, he said, and Mikhailis could practically hear him pushing imaginary glasses up an imaginary nose. Not simple holes full of monsters. Think of them as arcane reefs. Mana flows in currents. Creatures attach themselves, feeding on those currents. The structure grows around them. When something alien intrudes, the system responds—monsters, traps, mana pulses—all are immune responses. Beautifully inefficient, but fascinating.

Here we go, Mikhailis thought, a tired smile tugging at the edge of his mouth. Professor Rodion has entered the stage.

"Rodion, you’re doing the lecture thing again," he added silently.

Rodion ignored him with the focus of someone who believed their explanation was the most important sound in the world.

By forcing the dungeon to reject you physically, Rodion went on,