"Third Wave: Consumption."
There was no solid ground. No time to brace. No time to prepare.
He dropped from the sky into a writhing, pulsing ocean of red.
At first, he thought it was blood. But then they moved.
Ants.
A sea of them… Billions!
They swarmed over him in a chaotic tide of varying sizes. Some were as small as grains of rice, others as large as golf balls, and some even grew to the size of a small infant.
Their exoskeletons gleamed with a lacquered crimson sheen, polished by mana and malice. Their eyes pulsed with faint light, storing threads of raw energy, and their pincers, jagged, segmented, serrated like bone saws, clicked in perfect, merciless unison.
Damien hit the swarm like a stone dropped into a pit of razors.
They engulfed him instantly.
Before he could raise his arms, they were biting into his shoulders, chewing through his cloak, tearing through the outer layers of his silver-grade skin.
