Liam shook his head.
"We can swim under," Jane suggested.
"Orisa can create an Isolation Barrier to keep it under wraps. The color is pretty much the sa, so I doubt people'll know the difference."
Orisa nodded silently. She wasn't the talkative type, preferring to follow orders gracefully.
A pause.
"Good enough," Liam said. "We'll settle for that."
As a group, everyone rged with the shadows.
Then, they swam forward beneath the colony, gliding under like a pack of crocodiles.
Thankfully, there wasn't anything living beneath the barrier.
The environnt Liam no longer housed Abominations that swam beneath the ground. They could safely swim forward with no hindrance.
Eventually, though, they'd entered through.
Shifting his focus above, Liam could sense the shadowy silhouettes of each building, along with the crowds of people that passed through them.
So full of life.
The buildings themselves were shaped after various insects.
Ticks, cockroaches, bedbugs, silverfish.
A nightmare for anyone who squird at the sight of them.
At the sa ti, the colony was much bigger than normal.
Roughly 6 tis the size of the first colony Liam took down, and 9 tis bigger than the Flea Demon colony.
The paths between them were much more spacious, hence giving the group better ways to spread apart and take them out piece by piece.
The number of Zeniths was also much higher.
Much, much higher.
32, exactly.
And they were all well connected to each other with the usage of a particular insect.
The horsefly.
Horseflies were incredibly fast.
On earth, they could average speeds of 144 kiloters per hour!
Except, this was an Abomination.
They were barely the size of a fist, but they were literally covered with wings. All kinds of them, small and big.
They resembled little bullets shooting from across the sky, leaving no trail of their flight except a gust of fast wind.
In the center of this place, Liam noticed a giant, stone-made building.
It was the statue of a... well, a tick, antennae to the sky, arms spread wide. It was massive, nearly 12 stories tall.
The back of the tick — its shield — was crawling with all sorts of insects and critters.
'Not as charming as it looks. What's with these people and their architecture?' Liam thought with a bit of disgust.
"We'll spread," Liam said to the group. "Since I can see the fear ticks, I'll go to Nooran's building. Ryu, Orisa, Verium and Jax, co with ."
"Don't do anything until the barrier is up."
They firmly exchanged nods.
At once, the three dozen-so Zeniths scattered like marbles in all directions, each heading to a different sector of the colony.
Liam giving orders was no longer strange.
His authority was not questioned.
Not even as he commanded more than thirty Zeniths at once.
As Liam's group approached the tick building, they couldn't help but feel a sense of unease and dread.
As though all kinds of bugs and critters crawled up and down their spines, through their bodies, out their ears, up their nose.
Out of everyone, Orisa had a disgusted, nauseous look. Everyone else looked relatively unbothered, though.
Quietly, they glided across the tick's large, circular shield.
Liam heard the chirps, crickets and clicks of all the insects mixing together in a morbid cacophony.
Liam could sense where Nooran was. The massive tick's eyes were actually hollow, circular rooms of so kind.
'The right one is empty,' Liam thought. 'She's on the left.'
Ryu, Verium and Jax followed Liam as he swam over the circular orb.
On the other hand, Orisa climbed the antennae at the top of the tick's head, preparing her Isolation Barrier.
They waited patiently as Orisa made a series of gestures in the air.
Silence.
Two minutes passed.
With shadows in her palms, Orisa clasped her hands together.
Then, she separated them.
WHOOM!
The more she spread her hands, the more it revealed a circular bubble.
An Isolation Barrier.
Usan had given tips and important lessons to all the Elders of the Temple, and Orisa's specialization was Formations.
And now, calling her an expert wasn't too far off.
As soon as the bubble left her hands, it spread outward like a silent, harmless shockwave, up until it covered the colony barrier like a second layer.
Smiles spread across the group's faces, while confusion and a ramping vigilance spread across the Imperialists.
It wasn't Liam's job to deal with those.
Instead, as soon as the Isolation Barrier was put up, he and all the others with him phased through Nooran's room.
Ti slowed as they erged.
Liam saw Nooran standing over by the curved wall — which was see-through – a glass filled with red liquid in her hands.
She had long, braided white hair.
A lanky, thin fra that looked way too skinny to be considered normal.
As soon as they burst from her ceiling, she snapped around and assessed her intruders.
Then, sothing unexpected happened.
She started screaming from the top of her lungs.
In fear!
Ryu and Jax easily pinned her down with physical strength alone, cracking her knees, while Liam prepared a slash of Honed ntal energy in case she had any ideas.
Verium had covered the place in a water sphere, blocking out any noises.
She still continued screaming!
But no one on the outside could hear them.
Liam felt sothing cold rise in his stomach.
Sothing felt off.
Why was she the one screaming?
Wasn't she risa's superior?
risa was pretty strong herself.
Liam furrowed his brows deeply.
He leaned forward towards the terrified woman, piercing her with his stare.
Her screams ca to a stop, but her shivering and whimpering didn't.
"I thought you said this Nooran woman was strong or sothing," Ryu said, still denying her movent. "I feel a bit… bad."
The woman gasped, then spoke frantically:
"Wait! Wait! I'm not Nooran! I'm not Nooran! I'm just a cleaner!"
Silence.
A Zenith cleaner?
Lies!
The group grimaced.
"Then who—"
The water sphere burst apart, and a tick the combined height of two humans exploded through the point of impact.
It had beady black eyes and long antennae twitching left and right on its head. A massive shield covered its back. It was huge.
An Abomination.
An intelligent Abomination, judging by how it shrieked out a comprehensive sentence:
"You chose the wrong tick to ss with, suckers!"
Ticks gushed from its body like swarms of filthy mist, which sward the group.
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