The group fell through the air, and time seemed to slow down.

  It was strange, until Adon realized that the reason the fall felt slow was that every one of the knights was superhuman. Their retreat before the fall had been made at mana-enhanced speeds, so gravity was significantly slower than their natural rate of motion.

  Adon reached out and effortlessly connected with mental magic, then began considering his own plans to deal with the ants, his mind racing at super-speed. As he had watched the cliff, the dog-sized insects had begun hurling themselves down after the party, so it was clear the fight was far from over.

  Gravity being what it was, of course, the ants could not catch up while moving through the air. That meant they were sitting ducks for any projectile attacks the groups could launch.

  Adon charged a mana ball—not expecting it to work, just wanting to eliminate the possibility that it might and gather another data point for consideration—and he saw a dagger whiz past him and bury itself up to the hilt in an ant’s forehead. The golden creature’s mind faded almost instantly, Adon sensed with Telepathy.

  Then the butterfly’s attack was ready, and he fired it at another nearby ant.

  The mana ball struck and, as expected, it ricocheted off like it was nothing and buried itself in the cliff face behind the ant.

  Darn, he thought. Well, I had to at least try…

  The golden-colored armor was apparently resistant to raw mana attacks as well—unsurprising since it had also effectively deflected fireballs.

  What’s that armor made of? Adon questioned. Is it actually literal gold? Gold is a soft metal, but it’s still a metal. Armor made from it might really work the way we’ve seen this working—deflect or redirect these magical attacks—and that would also explain why it was weak against simple physical damage. Gold is soft. It can’t hold up to mana-enhanced punches and kicks, or even stabs from a harder metal like a steel dagger. His mind abruptly switched tracks as more of the ants hurled themselves over the cliff’s edge, while others began the slower process of walking down the cliff face, trying to join their comrades in the valley more safely.

  That raised a separate issue for Adon.

  Do we even need to kill these ants that threw themselves off the cliff after us? That seems suicidally dangerous to them. Even though I know insects don’t usually take fall damage, that mostly applies because bugs are so small. These guys are about thirty or forty pounds, Rosslyn said. So, shouldn’t they just smash themselves against the ground and die horribly assuming we don’t kill them in midair?

  As he considered this question, a visibly war hammer flew from behind Adon and formed a massive crater in the face of a falling nearby golden ant—and continued moving forward, smashing through the creature’s head and continuing until it smushed through the center of mass of an ant that was crawling down the cliff face. The ant’s corpse clung to the cliffside, pasted there by the stickiness of its internal fluids, for a second, and then it fell in two pieces. Two more very dead ants.

  Well, at least it killed one of the wall-crawlers, he thought. It had been a very clearly mana-enhanced throw. But the hammer had embedded itself in the cliff face, now, and the group was continuing to drop. There would be no retrieving that weapon anytime soon.

  Guys, stop trying to kill the falling ants! Adon shouted telepathically, choosing not to worry for a moment about seeming impertinent or acting above his station. The fall will kill all these stupid creatures. Only worry about the ones coming down the wall. And remember that if you throw your weapon away, you won’t have it later—so better make it count!

  Rosslyn took a moment to turn and smile at Adon.

  Good work, she thought.

  Thanks, Adon instantly replied.

  But there was no time to be pleased with himself. They were more than halfway through the fall, now, and Adon had still not devised a good plan to deal with these creatures, even as mental magic accelerated his brain and slowly taxed his mana pool.

  Rosslyn’s plan from earlier would work, Adon thought—as he read her mind, she had come up with a method that was obviously appropriate for dealing with the ants crawling along the stone surface, and he could feel her charging her power up to use her attack—but that would place a massive burden on her specifically. Draining just about all her mana, if I have any kind of gauge on how powerful she is. And if she ran out, it’s not something anyone else could help with, since she’s the only one—well, along with me—who can use fire affinity mana properly right now. Definitely not something I’m strong enough to help with. And even if Goldie and Samson can sort of do it, their mana pools definitely aren’t as large as the humans’ yet. My reserves are barely comparable, and I’m way ahead of them for the moment. So… not workable as a strategy?

  As he thought harder and harder to come up with some new counter strategy, the mana around Rosslyn’s body intensified, and Adon knew she was going to try the plan she had devised on the run.

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  He wished he could say something to dissuade her from very probably burning through her mana pool, but he still didn’t have any better options.

  The Princess’s body suddenly flared up with reddish energy, and then it traveled from all over her frame to concentrate around her arms. Before Adon could come up with anything, she was already implementing her strategy.

  She had to, though. The ants running down the walls were catching up to the falling humans.

  With Telekinesis, the fire-aligned mana from around Rosslyn’s arms suddenly flew from beside her frame to smack into the cliffside. Rather than hitting at the level where the golden ants already were and lighting them on fire, it struck below them and just sank into the stone.

  Rosslyn was not using her fire mana to burn anything this time. Rather, she was superheating the rock that the ants would have to walk along. It was simple biology and physics.

  The ants’ armor had repelled the fireball that Rosslyn threw at them earlier, and it had redirected the lightning from the brothers into the dirt. But that did not mean these ants were capable of enduring the intense heat of fire and lightning. It meant they had essentially avoided exposure. They were still just ants. Really large ants, but ants. The same creatures that particularly cruel children could burn to death using glass to concentrate sunlight. Which meant that their internal organs, if not their external bodies, should be vulnerable to extreme heat.

  So, rather than hurling projectiles, Rosslyn now simply forced the ants to move through an area that was as hot as an oven. Adon could sense more and more mana leaving her body as she maintained the temperature she had suddenly imposed on the cliffside along a certain band of rock—and even marginally grew the area covered. Beads of sweat quickly formed on the Princess's forehead from the sheer strain.

  The first of the ants stepped foot onto the line that separated the superheated area from the rest of the cliff face. There were no visual indicators to clue the monsters in as to which areas were hot, but the difference that it made showed in the first ant’s reaction. It tried to sprint down the cliff, then suddenly lost purchase on the rock surface and dropped like a stone.

  Another falling death, Adon thought. It also looked almost like the creature’s legs were melting. No, they are melting—or at least getting a little liquid. They’re really coated in gold somehow. Or some sort of gold mixture. The dungeon decided since there were armored humans here, it would make armored monsters.

  If he had possessed vocal chords, he might have laughed at the strange strategy. But it was no laughing matter right now.

  More and more ants set foot on the burning hot stone and, after a quick, frenzied dance, plunged to their deaths. Other ants, seeing what was happening to the other members of their cohort, tried to find their way around.

  But Rosslyn had cast her magic across a wide area of rock—she was really going all out to make this retreat possible—so the ants that thought they were clever wound up falling just from the cliff as surely as the rest.

  She can’t keep this going, Adon thought with conviction. He only had to look at her to know that. Her brow looked like it was melting. Every vein on her face stood out, just like when she had strained her mind using Telekinesis to catch a fallen knight earlier. There were tears in the corners of her eyes, her hands repeatedly clenched, unclenched, and shook, and every breath came ragged to her lips.

  I—I can do this, she told herself, her thoughts unconcealed. I was born for this—born to struggle alongside those who defend the Kingdom. The plan is working. Just a little bit longer, and we can make it. If my father were here, he would burn them all. I have to cover the retreat…

  He felt something within her faltering, despite her self-reassuring words. Her mind was jumping around, her focus feeble. Physically and magically, she was growing rapidly weaker, even as dozens and dozens of ants plunged to their deaths. And the flow of enemies was not stopping. If anything, more ants than Adon had sensed earlier now streamed over the clifftop, in pursuit of those who had managed to kill and evade so many of their fellows.

  Adon knew this pattern. He knew the behavior of ant colonies far better than he would like.

  It meant they were going to hunt their prey to the ends of the world if they could. They were too determined to give up easily, even if hundreds of lives might be lost in the attempt. The butterfly could only imagine that dungeon-programmed ants would be even more aggressive than the usual varieties, if anything.

  Rosslyn, you have to stop this, Adon sent urgently. There are too many, and you can’t keep this going. If you don’t stop, I can feel that you’re going to collapse. The others will have to carry you. I know you don’t want to slow them down.

  Are you losing your mind? she thought testily. I am keeping them from following us. Buying us time. Do you have a better plan?

  His mind had been running along other tracks as he observed the Princess, still trying to come up with another option for them to defeat the ants or avoid the creatures even while he noted everything that happened with her hot surface strategy.

  Adon had even been going through old memories of science lessons, convinced there was something about gold or ant biology or their pheromones that was going to help him figure out how to repel these enemies. It seemed useless, but he might as well use Impeccable Memory for something, as he had not naturally come up with any better ideas for defeating the ants just from his limited resourcefulness.

  He had thought about him and Rosslyn telekinetically pulling ants from the cliffside—it would be much less energy intensive than what she was currently doing—but the sheer volume of enemies made that method infeasible.

  He was about to admit that he had no better idea when it struck him.

  Their feet are covered in gold, he thought. That was what was melting—or at least getting a little loose and almost molten. That’s it. We don’t need intense heat. We need…

  Yes, I have a better plan, Adon sent immediately to Rosslyn. I just need the brothers. Stop burning through your mana. We might need it later. No, we’ll definitely need it. Really soon. There was no emotion in his tone. He was in full, rational control of his cognitive faculties right now. There was a little part of his brain that wondered if he could use this same magical ability to not fail at social interactions in the future. But he told that part of his mind to sit in a corner and shut up for now.

  William, Frederick! Adon sent quick telepathic bursts to the brothers. I need you two to trust me and do something without questioning it too much. First, start charging your lighting mana…