“Get to the people!” Det shouted to his ink-pack at the same time he stepped in, cut a small ant’s face off with a clean slash from his sword, then leapt to the side to avoid the huge ant charging his way. Ink-flames spread across its white back, weakening the material of its carapace, but apparently not doing enough to really slow it down. From the charge, more flames had begun crawling up its legs, though they didn’t slow it at all either.

  Aaaaand once again kendo has failed in preparing me for the things I would need to fight with a sword…

  Det could only lament as the mandibles snapped forward, and he twisted to the side, his sword pushing the terrible, crushing blades just wide. More black flames flickered at the contact, but didn’t seem to take hold this time. A flex of whatever the ant used for musculature shoved against where katana met mandible, and Det’s ReSouled strength wasn’t enough.

  You can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em…

  Holding the press, tension building as Det’s arms flexed, he bent his legs just a touch, changed the angle of his sword, then stopped resisting. Leaping at the same time the ant’s strength tried to throw Det aside, he soared over the press of ants engaged in a vicious melee with the ink-pack. He landed with one stumbling step, then two, before he spun and swept his blade around in a wide arc. Powered by the momentum of the spin, his sword beheaded the two nearest ants, then tore a nasty chunk out of a third’s face. What the blade didn’t finish, the flames would.

  Unfortunately, Det’s jump didn’t quite get him to the two hostages, the six ants swarming at the man in the front. One of the wolves managed to slip through, snagging an ant at the back and tossing it sideways. The other five, though, converged on the normal man far faster than anybody who wasn’t a ReSouled could deal with.

  This would be a great time for General Vans or Captain Simmons to show up!

  Since that wasn’t likely to happen, though, Det was the only chance the man had, and he twisted to stab the nearest ant between them with a reaching thrust. Punching through its back segment—Did I just stab it in the butt?—the piercing sword stalled the ant’s forward momentum, giving the other man another second to back up.

  Crunch, the sound and pain from the leg Det had left exposed to buy the old man another second had him whipping back around. Pure vengeance powered his arms as he cut the ant in half, though the damage had been done. By the way that part of his shin was numbing, his ReSouled body told him just how bad it was. It had to be broken.

  The point was proven true as he tried to take a step toward the four ants moving on the man and small girl. His leg practically gave out under him, new lances of pain shooting up to radiate from his hip in waves powerful enough he almost vomited. Something he very much didn’t have time for, with the familiar sound of the larger ant coming for him from behind.

  He couldn’t defend himself from the ant and protect the older man from the four in front of him. Det had to choose.

  It wasn’t a difficult choice—Sorry—and Det spun to flash his sword in front of the huge, white ant’s face. Mandibles closed like a high-speed vice to try and catch the blade, but the katana’s tip slipped past, scarring a line of black flames down the nose of the thing. Not deep enough.

  Unperturbed by the small wound, the ant continued forward, its jaws and sheer weight an advantage Det would have trouble overcoming. Det’s first step on his good leg kept him out of harm’s way—a quick sword-slash taking care of an ant trying to sneak in during his distraction—but the second step almost ended the fight right there.

  As soon as his foot came down, the spiking pain returned, despite his ReSouled body’s best attempts at numbing it. Time seemed to slow around him, his ankle, knee, and hip, all begging him to just give out, so the pressure on his broken shin would lessen. If he went limp, he’d drop to the floor like a fish out of water. The perfect place for a certain white ant to mandible him in the face.

  Then, that would be it. The end. He’d die here in this stupid emergence-thing. The hostages would die. Worst of all, he’d probably never get back to Nat and Yumi. Something there, in that moment—be it an instinct or just his will to live—told him dying wouldn’t return him home. He had to live. He had to fight. He had to win.

  Captain Simmons had said something about the body of a ReSouled. Something like it was only similar to his old body, because he believed it was. He hurt now, because he thought he should hurt. That was how he’d lived before. He knew a broken bone would be painful.

  But, what if it didn’t have to be? What if it didn’t have to hurt? Or, hell, what if it didn’t matter if it was broken? His new body had already done some amazing things; he’d make it do one more.

  In that frozen pause, Det threw aside everything he thought he knew about how his body worked. Or was supposed to work. All that mattered was what he needed it to do. Muscles in his legs flexed, bracing his step, joints held strong, supporting his weight, while the pain got pushed down so deep, he’d need a mining pick to find it.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  There was still a heaviness to his leg beneath his knee from the damage of the ant’s crushing mandibles, but he could work with that. All that mattered was that it kept him on his feet. And it did just that, Det shuffle-stepping back to evade another snapping lunge from the white ant.

  Back up and across, Det’s sword cut an angled, horizonal slash, faster than any strike he’d thrown at the ant in the fight. Red glass—or whatever the eye was made of—shattered as the large head jerked to the side. Black flames immediately spread from the wound, but the ant still stepped forward, mandibles coming.

  Continuing to ignore the damage to his own leg, Det darted around the blind side of the ant, another pair of lightning-fast slashes scything through smaller ants. Like that, he got a look at how the rest of the fight was going. His alpha and two wolves had grouped up to cut a swathe through the smaller ants. A fourth wolf stood cornered and snarling at the horde that came for it, while the final ink-wolf—the one who’d gone for the hostages—fell at the same time the man did. Buried beneath more than just the four remaining ants that’d gone to bring the man to the mulcher, it was clear reinforcements had arrived.

  Clack-clack-clack, the small, white ant on top of the mulcher snapped in the direction of those ants as they bore down on the man. The wolf, it vanished in a splash of black ink that disappeared before it even hit the floor, leaving all the attention on the poor, screaming man. Behind him, the little girl had pressed her body up against the wall of the chamber, arms spread like she was trying to push herself into the black material.

  Clack-clack-cla… the white ant cut off as a flying—thrown—katana with the last embers of black fire speared it in the face and carried it over the back of the mulcher.

  “Yeah, clack that, asshole,” Det said, though he didn’t get to dwell on the small victory—and larger chaos of all the ants suddenly pausing—before the side of a huge, white head crashed into his chest like a runaway bull. Taking out the small ant with the risky gambit of throwing his weapon had worked well enough to cut the head from the snake for all the black ants. Too bad it hadn’t done the same for the huge one.

  Still, having his body pressed up against the side of the head—and, yeah, probably breaking his ribs at the same time—meant Det wasn’t dealing with the mandibles of the thing. ReSouled speed and reflexes snapped his hand down on the face of the ant, fingers scrambling until they found the tear in the eye where his sword had passed.

  Sharp metal cut at his flesh, but as the ant reached the end of its pendulum-like movement—and the momentum carried Det’s body further—he held on tight. New pain, he promptly ignored, burned distantly in his fingers until gravity brought him swinging back down to collide with the ant’s head. Blind on that side, it had nothing to go on but its touch, and how accurate could that even be with a thick, armor-like carapace?

  Something Det was counting on as he rolled his chest against the side of the ant’s head, then reached up with his other hand. This one, grabbing on to the base of one of the antennae sprouting from the carapace, gave him a much better grip, and he hauled himself up to throw his leg over the thorax, black flames burning like a sea behind him across its back.

  If you’re going to be as big as a horse, I’m going to ride you like one.

  Holding on tight to the antenna, Det repositioned the blood-slicked fingers of his other hand to make sure he had a good grip. And, most importantly, to make sure his palm was flat against the ant’s skull. As soon as he had that in place, the ant starting to sprint and buck beneath him—crushing the paused black ants like chaff—Det let go of the antenna to slam his other hand palm down.

  With the magic already flowing to the images he’d painted on his palms earlier, he pressed as hard as he could. He was pretty strong now, though probably not strong enough to outright crush a giant ant-head between his hands. Not that he was trying to.

  Another second—his body bouncing up and down to give him a dozen new bruises to worry about later—and the magic in his palms came to life. A whoosh of ink-flames exploded out from his hands, completely engulfing the white head from both sides.

  The one good eye was consumed in an instant, while everything else got coated in the surreal flames. Everything except for Det, of course, who continued to squeeze, more flames billowing out of his palms to wash across the ant. The bucking, wild sprint grew even more frantic as the flames stole its vision and threatened its life.

  Bouncing up and down on its back, Det took a nasty smack to the groin in exchange for looping his legs around the ant’s body, holding him better in place. With the new leverage, and the weakening effect of the flames, the white metal under Det’s hands began to crumple. Just a little at first, another wave of flames had Det’s hands pushing through the outer material like he was crushing tinfoil.

  Then, as soon as his hands got inside the thing’s head—along with his flames—it was over. A violent twitch straightened out the entire body, pausing there like a seizure, before the legs finally gave out, splaying to the sides as the heavy body crashed straight down. That final fall sent another kick of pain between Det’s legs, and a grunt between his lips.

  Why is it always the nuts?

  And it wasn’t like his ReSouled body was allowing him to completely ignore the pain, because, of course not.

  Still, even with the agony that would’ve had him on the floor rolling around and regretting every life choice he’d ever made in his past life, he found the will to stand in this one. This fight wasn’t done, and he had to…

  … to…

  … to…

  … do nothing?

  Like toys with dead batteries, each of the black ants had also collapsed to the floor, and lay unmoving like nothing more than black rocks across the room. Of his Pack, the alpha and two other wolves remained, and they gently spread out before padding in his direction. Their powerful jaws crushed ant-heads as they passed—just for good measure—until the reached his side again, ready to protect their charge.

  Whether that meant the threat was gone, Det had no way of knowing. At least, for now, the fight was over. Somehow, he’d done it. Saved the little girl and lived to tell the tale.

  Assuming he could get back out the way he’d come without another swarm of ants descending upon him.

  nearly as many dungeons in ABSA as that series. It's far more an occasional thing in this series than the major component it was over there. I really enjoyed working on those, but maaaaaaybe we went a bit overboard.