“The queen,” Lucy said after they had been walking for a short while.

  “What about it?” Luke asked.

  “Ant queen.”

  Luke hadn’t made that connection. “Yeah. You’re probably right. That means a whole lot of those Hivelings between us and the boss.”

  “A colony of ants can have millions of ants,” Penny said helpfully.

  Mateo’s gaze shifted as he scanned the sand stretching out before them. “Millions?”

  “I’ve heard billions,” Lucy said.

  “Great,” Luke sighed. “Just great.” He turned to Penny. “Better keep your area of effect spells at the ready.”

  “I’m always ready to start blasting.”

  After walking a little longer with nothing happening, Luke asked, “So, Penny, how’s school?”

  "Boring," Penny answered, before stopping to take off her shoe. After pouring an almost comical amount of sand out of it, she put it back on and sighed. "I really hate sand."

  "Can't you just fly?" Lucy asked.

  "Takes a ton of mana."

  "Something is coming," Mateo said, pointing his spear into the far distance where what looked like a storm of sand approached them at high speed. "Stay vigilant."

  "More Hivelings?" Luke asked.

  "Screw this. I'm not waiting for that to hit us." Penny shook her head, and the blueish sheen appeared around her body, lifting her high into the air.

  In that moment, Hannah emerged from Luke's shadow, squinting against the light. The sun overhead shone bright, but the temperature matched Chicago's, so it wasn't sweltering or anything.

  "Hey," Hannah said.

  Luke turned to her. "How's Liza?"

  "A little shell-shocked, but she'll be fine. Good thing you could just regrow her arm like we're in some futuristic sci-fi movie."

  "We kind of are," Luke said with a chuckle.

  She made a face. "Well, yeah. Kinda. Anyway, I don't think she'll be doing any more dungeon diving after this."

  "She's done?" Lucy asked.

  "If I had to place a bet, yeah."

  "Here comes the storm!" Mateo shouted. "Ya viene la tormenta!"

  The push of force arrived first, thrusting against Luke and the others as they steeled themselves against it to remain standing. Sand followed. So. Much. Sand. Luke's robe protected him from most of it, at least once he put the hood up and faced away from the onslaught. After a long moment in the ceaseless sandstorm, something approached from below.

  This time, he knew what to look out for, and since the last attack, he'd kept Weaver's Perception reaching out in all directions.

  "Ants!" he shouted, but the words didn't carry.

  Luke: "Ants! Below!"

  Pain flashed in his leg as an ant head reached out of the ground and clamped down on his leg.

  Hiveling Burrower. Level 14.

  His first reaction was to stomp on it, and it turned out to be a good choice. Ichor wet the sand as healing mana rushed out from Luke's meta-heart to heal the sheared-through flesh. It'd been quick, but at least it hadn't cut his leg right off, like with Liza's arm. The pain was terrible, but he could handle it.

  The sandstorm still raged, meaning all signs of the ant disappeared in almost an instant. Visibility was almost nonexistent and still dropping. Soon, the others disappeared from view.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Lucy: "Fuck! One of the little assholes got me before I could crush its ass. Can't see shit!"

  Mateo: "Stay moving! Light on your feet!"

  Penny: "It's just a cloud of sand from above. I can't see you at all."

  Luke: "Lucy. Do you need healing?"

  Lucy: "Yep. Got a hole through my thigh."

  Luke calmed himself and stopped trying to use his sight or hearing to locate the others. The sand made that impossible, and the roar of the wind made hearing just as useless. Weaver's Perception needed no senses. Reaching out, he realized the raging storm was full of mana. It was a spell, but he saw no spellweave, but the mana didn't lie. That was new, even seeing the mana used. New and useful. While it obscured Weaver's Perception a little, he could still make out his friends, and with such a ready supply of mana next to him, perhaps he might be able to...

  He reached out with Threads of Mana and confirmed it. The mana was his to take and use as he saw fit.

  Mateo: "Two down! I think I saw the one who so rudely pierced you, Lucy! I have exacted vengeance on your behalf!"

  Lucy: "Gee, thanks."

  Hannah: "Their attacks are imbued with mana. My shadows aren't protecting me the way they should."

  Luke: "You're injured?"

  Luke: "Hold on, I'm going to try something."

  Pulling in mana from the surrounding storm, Luke used his new skill, Cascading Threads. Feeling three threads leave through his hands as if on autopilot was a little unnerving, but they found their targets right away: Mateo and two ants. From those three, new threads continued outward, finding three more ants, Hannah, and Lucy. Something he hadn't considered became apparent almost right away. With the skill, he could choose whether to keep extending or stay, and whether the skill used Luke's own mana or the targets'. This meant he could pick and choose, stealing mana from the ants while leaving it alone in his friends. He'd been able to do something similar to this before, but that'd been manual and required a whole lot of focus and desperation. With the skill, it was far more efficient without Luke having to divert his attention to direct it.

  "Holy shit," Luke muttered under the hood of his cloak. "This is amazing."

  In that brief moment, he'd built a network connecting him to every enemy and every friend. Through that network, he was able to heal and to kill. Like twisting a knife, Luke ended the ants, collecting several monster cores. At the same time, he healed Lucy and Hannah, who'd sustained deep injuries.

  The mana cost was immense, but once he latched on to the ants, using their mana pools against them worked to his advantage, and before that, he'd used the sandstorm, lessening its effect. Soon enough, the sand dropped down, and the wind ceased, leaving the four of them standing and their enemies dead.

  "What happened?" Lucy asked.

  Luke lowered his hood and grinned. "Killed them."

  Penny descended, and the glow left her. She looked pissed. "Couldn't do a thing. Even rain didn't touch that damn storm."

  "It was full of mana," Luke said.

  "What?" Lucy asked. "Why?"

  Mateo punched the butt of his spear into the sand. "This evil storm was sent by the terrible Queen. Further proof we must slay her!"

  "There'll be other Integrated coming soon," Luke said, looking back over his shoulder to the large portal in the distance.

  Hannah lowered the hood of her cloak. "No, I don't think so. Not for a while. The DIA was quick to set up a perimeter, and there's military on site, too. Not sure what's going on, but they weren't letting people in."

  Lucy pursed her lips. "Maybe they want to check the dungeon's difficulty first?"

  "Maybe," Luke said. "But I don't like the sound of that. At all."

  "How did you get in again?" Penny asked Hannah.

  "They can't stop me. Didn't even see me enter."

  "So, we're on our own in here?" Lucy asked.

  "Seems like it," Luke replied, giving Mateo a pointed look. "Do you want to go back?"

  "We must continue on our own to end the Queen's terrible reign," Mateo declared, a slight grin on his face, showing that his chivalrous, Don Quixote-esque front wasn't entirely genuine.

  "I'm fine with continuing," Luke said.

  Hannah nodded. "Let's go."

  "Hell yeah," Penny said, full of energy.

  They all looked at Lucy, who shrugged. "Fine. As long as we've got Luke with us, we'll live through anything, right?"

  Penny grumbled. "Now you're throwing death flags too? C'mon, people."

  "Throwing what?" Lucy asked.

  Luke pointed toward the origin of the thrusts of force, from where the sandstorm emerged. "Let's just keep going."

  A while later, after they'd trudged through an endless sea of sand without seeing anything resembling a hive, the sun beating down on them, Luke stopped. About to complain, he stopped and frowned, turning left.

  "Another one," he said, pointing.

  Like before, a raging storm of sand moved across the desert. This one, too, was full of mana.

  "Did we get turned around?" Hannah asked. "It's the wrong direction."

  "Over there, too," Mateo said, pointing the way they'd come.

  Penny rose into the air. "Two storms? I'm really not liking this dungeon."

  The storms crashed into the group almost at the same time. This time, the attacking ants were more numerous but didn't bring any surprises regarding their variety or levels. Since they'd been through that first attack, the group worked together and dispatched the monsters without too much trouble. Luke didn't even need to use Cascading Threads.

  An even angrier Penny descended once the fighting was over. "I can't do anything! This is bullshit!"

  Mateo coughed up a bit of sand and shook more out of his hair while Luke inspected his robe. It'd taken a few hits, resulting in rips and tears. As he watched, the fabric knitted itself back together.

  "Awesome," he muttered.

  "What?" Penny half shouted the question.

  "Nothing," Luke said, looking around. "But we've been going about this all wrong."