Sow the wind

A sigh escaped my lips, this marked the beginning of stormy waters. Even though I could not deny that I was craving to see something else than ants or moles, a small peek at the surface would have been enough.

All I had planned was to dig a path to a spawn point and yet the whole system did not the way he thought it would. How could he have foreseen, that the whole soil would not regenerate? It was only a matter of time before that time bomb would explode. Right now was that moment, the countdown began to tick down.

At least I do not have to worry, about my lack of supplies anymore, after all, they are coming directly into my den. How kind of them, to support me so wholeheartedly. I will make sure to treat them the same way, that's common courtesy.

The last time it was 100 players, that had the misfortune of coming down here. It was quite easy to pick them off one by one after they had split up. It will not be as easy as that if they have drawn any conclusion from the last scouts. I doubt they will still give me the chance of approaching them. Their answer would be magic spells. Quite frankly any other kind of reply would surprise me.

But regardless of how many people they send, I can take advantage out of my time spent down here. This terrain is not suited for group battles. All I have to avoid is the central area, which is quite open. Once they reach the tight and narrow area, I can start an ambush. After a successful attack, I will return into the cave system to wait for my next chance to strike.

It should be quite easy to decrease their numbers down like that. Though once they notice, my assassination attempts, it will get much harder. If I am forced to fight them, I would choose a spot, that hinders the player using his magic efficiently. Using those players as a meatshield looks quite promising as well.

Looking back no matter what I did, I always ended up attracting unwanted attention. Though I would prefer this kind of life, over digging tunnels for the rest of my time. This whole event could be summed up by saying, an uneventful time of digging.

Being alone is hard enough on its own, with no one to talk to, but doing mundane tasks on top of it is leading me to start thinking. And I do not particularly like to think about my past.

That is why this sort of distraction comes just at the right moment.

Before I engage the enemy, I will take one last look at the enemy and the tools I have available right now.

The enemy I am about to encounter is an unknown amount of men strong, it is likely that the number is greater than the previous one. it consists out of many different mages, with all kinds of magic. The one thing in common is that those players lack the ability to adapt to circumstances.

Those kinds of players have a shallow experience in fighting monsters, their fighting style is to use your magic at the target until it is no more. I doubt any monster would set up ambushes and select the battlefield in a way that puts their advantages against them. If I am lucky, there might even be a feeling of panic, if the players drop dead without noticing where the attack came from.

As long as I am able to plant a seed of doubt inside of them, the easier it gets for me to win the battle from the getgo. The psychology is quite important, though many people do not think about it when fighting.

Would I still be fighting a small army, if I knew support is on the way and I might suffer heavy casualties if I were to continue? I would not take a fight like that and so the war was won before it even began. The support did not even have to exist for something like that to work.

Though I have to be careful how far I will take this because if I have learned one thing about those religious fanatics, they really like to fight against monsters and strive to do the impossible. It might as well end up with even more players trying to kill me over and over again. They would not stop until I perish.

It is a fine line I am currently treading on. But if you really think about it, regardless of which path I choose, in the end, it boils down to much more attention than before. So I might as well not take thoughts like that into consideration and just act based on what seems right.

Previously I had the chance to test out my hair, on its functionality as a hidden weapon. I got many insights on how to work with them. In the beginning, I used my plugged out arm hair and cut it into many small pieces, connecting them by a fine thread, that I may or may not have stolen from the queens' subordinates by tricking them. After the production turned out to be a full success I began to conduct several tests on the viability of that tool.

The effective range of that tool is 3 meters if drawn by hand otherwise the thread will tear. I am able to avoid this kind of problem if I embedded the hair. Then I could pull the connected threads, until the tension is high enough, to launch the hair into the direction of the thread. This tactic is quite useful when I have enough time to prepare. Furthermore, if the target is not paying attention, they can be used as a projectile as well. It has enough power to penetrate a human skull with ease, though I have no clue how it would interact with magic.

I thought about lacing it with poison, but this hair is only useful as a surprise attack and if it connects it means certain death, therefore it was not needed for the time being. Though I will keep it in the back of my hand if I were to need it in the future.

Of course, I still have my gloves which will do a lot of damage, though the limit my speed by a lot. It should still be possible to fight with them. Unless I am surrounded that handicap will not matter.

Having finished my mental preparation, I began to sneak around and waited for the first enemy to appear. But there was not even one enemy to be found, there was no trace of something even coming in here. This really feels strange?

There has to be something here nearly every thread that I placed near the entrances has been torn apart. The intruder alarm worked like a charm. As soon as the thread was torn, a small weight dropped in my near proximity and informed me about the enemy.

So why have I not seen anyone yet, are they still waiting for more players to arrive? It might as well be a ruse to lure me out. Even if I were to eavesdrop on them I would not understand a single thing they were talking about. That means I can either wait here, for their actions or I give up my cover and create a mess?

Before I decide on the next course of action it was time to put my digging to good use and scout a bit. I was moving underneath slowly but surely to not raise any attention if I would wait too long on one spot I would be crushed right on the spot.

As I was spectating the entrance area, I was left baffled. Right in front of him. was indeed a huge crowd of players. But those players were not interested in him, no rather were they getting repeatedly getting headbutted by the ants. Why is the atmosphere so competitive? Those players just spread their legs and endure the onslaught of attacks. Wait, why are the even female players involved in this madness?

Even with magic, the problem remains ingrained. Stupidity will prevail. I had the sudden urge to go there and remind everyone that there is a little more to this world than hurting their nether region, in some sort of twisted competition.

200 players were busy cheering and participating in this whole event. 200 today, 300 tomorrow how much trouble will they bring me in the future. It is time to act now, while I still have the chance. It might keep them busy for quite some time, but once they start exploring I will find it harder and harder to avoid combat.

I will honour our new companionship, by showing something that they have not seen. All the produced threads would end up being used, but I was willing to make that trade. All I did was put half and half of my tools on 2 opposite walls. Those walls were close to the group of players, just could walk right up, nobody paid any attention. They were busy talking and cheering the competitors on. Their eyes were glued on the action happening in front of them.

Those poor souls will most likely not even notice something before dropping dead on the spot. Is it unfair, is it heinous, is it cruel to use methods like that? Those methods are not cruel, a quick death seems quite humane in my eyes and I do not differentiate whether my enemy is male for female. They will have to die regardless.

I have no need for an epic, speech declaring my intention and motivation, if it does not serve any purpose it is useless. I began to pull the threads and the cheerful atmosphere was replaced by an eerie silence. It felt like the whole crowd was frozen in time, as they slowly crumbled downwards. There was no survivor.

Sadly there was not much time to rejoice over that successful spectacle, because those players will be hellbent on returning back here. I ordered the ants to consume the corpses, that way I can at least have some sort of insurance. I made every ant retreat and ordered them to not engage in combat for the time being.

For myself to continue ambushing those players over and over again. I was aiming that those players would give up if they find no way to prevent me from doing so. After pulling a stunt like this it will take quite some time till the hype around it will die. After the ants finished the devouring process, everyone began to disperse. The whole place of slaughter was now devoid of anything.

I did not even manage to reach my former training spot before a new intruder alarm went off. After that shocking twist, I began to calmly walk deeper into the layer, waiting for players to arrive here. I am quite interested in what kind of magic, I will encounter when I get the full attention of so many players. Will I face something stronger than those young adults?

What I could not anticipate was the current anger residing in the players. They did not like the fact, that they were interrupted playing "Balls of Steel". They wanted to vent their anger by taking revenge on whatever killed them. The first wave of players started as soon as the respawned and returned as fast as possible. They did not even think about what could have killed them.

Upon arrival, everyone jumped down and began to search for and kill every living thing inside that cave. Spells were thrown at random and the whole landscape of the cave was once again alternated.

And now even I realized that I did a big miscalculation, those players would stop at nothing, there was no way to disturb them mentally.

This will be a lot more troublesome, then I expected it to be.

If I can not crush them mentally, then I will just take advantage out of their sheer anger. As I appeared behind an unsuspecting player, I began to choke him from behind. The player was struggling to turn around, but as much as he tried it was all to no avail. His windpipe was crushed and he was dead. The corpse was devoured and it was as if nothing had happened in the first place.

That should be the number 403 of my player kills. I am quite curious how much that number will rise, in this chaotic time ahead of me.

But as always I managed to grossly underestimate the impact my actions will have.