It happened slowly.
The pressure eased.
The front ranks slowed.
The giants stopped throwing themselves at the bonktatoes.
The swarm's tight blocks loosened into flowing lines.
A ripple passed through the ants.
A choice.
Retreat.
Not a rout.
Not panic.
An ordered withdrawal.
The living carried pieces of the dead.
Then the bamboo forest swallowed them again.
The leaves went still.
Silence returned.
No cheer.
No grand collapse.
Just the end of that endless skittering.
Phong did not celebrate.
He sat down.
Right where he stood.
His legs gave out with no warning.
The soil was warm.
Sticky.
He did not care.
Around him, Dominic bent over with his hands on his knees, breathing like he had run a marathon.
Twice.
Janet leaned against him and laughed weakly.
Jake dropped flat on his back and stared at the sky.
Joanne wiped ant ichor off her cheek with the last clean part of her sleeve.
Camille sank onto a broken shiitake stump.
Élise let out one long breath.
"Putain."
Alex walked over to Phong.
The rush was gone now.
Only exhaustion remained.
She dropped beside him without grace.
They did not speak.
They just leaned shoulder to shoulder.
Then the menus started pinging.
One by one.
Now there was time to check.
Dominic opened his interface.
Judgenaut had evolved into Roaring Judgenaut.
His armor affinity improved.
His impact absorb got stronger.
His judgment aura now slapped debuffs on anyone who hit him.
He also unlocked some barbarian skills.
He let out a low whistle.
Janet checked hers next.
Valkyrie had evolved into War Valkyrie.
Flight.
Area buffs.
Morale support.
Air command.
She flexed her fingers, and faint light ran along her blade.
Alex looked at hers in silence.
Mindblade had evolved into Arbiter Mindblade.
Her psychic constructs now ignored physical defense.
Worse, she could cause so much pain in one hit that a low-level diver's brain could just shut down.
She said nothing.
But her eyes sharpened for a moment.
Jake grinned like an idiot at his screen.
Rift Striker had evolved into Rift Striker II.
Joanne's interface flickered, and she gave a quiet smile.
She had become a Spell Sniper.
Every spell she fired now compressed itself into a mana round the size of a nine-millimeter bullet.
Better pen.
Far more explosive.
Séline and Camille sat close together, checking their own evolutions with equal parts awe and disbelief.
Level 30.
Crossed.
In blood.
No one cared about exposure now.
They were alive.
That was enough.
Phong and Selena moved on to the damage count.
Shiitake losses: catastrophic.
Oyster blades: more than half destroyed.
Enoki clusters: overheated, but regrowing.
Garlic mines: empty.
Chili rows: badly hit.
Ginger: stable.
Carrots: several spent as missiles.
Sunflower seeds: mostly burned out.
Moletato network: strained, but intact.
Phong shut his eyes for a moment.
"We'll need two full days just to replant the outer layers," he muttered.
Selena nodded. Pale, but steady.
"We adapt. They adapt. Then we adapt again."
He looked toward the bamboo.
No movement.
But he knew better than to trust that.
Behind them, the trolls were quieter than usual.
There were losses.
The front line trolls had suffered the most.
Not just from the ants.
From themselves.
When some got badly hurt, their cannibal instinct kicked in.
The troll king had personally killed two who lost control during the fight.
Now he stood over his smaller tribe with a hard face.
The lizardmen carried their dead too.
Fewer.
Their ranks had held.
They took chitin plates from the harvested ants as shared spoils, calm as ever.
The treants had taken the worst of it.
They had stood closest to the bamboo edge and caught the main push.
Several now stood cracked and split, sap leaking down their bark.
But they were still upright.
Silent guards.
The Bamboo Black Ants had been stopped.
For now.
Then the harvest began.
Ant bodies were dragged into neat piles.
Chitin got stripped off and handed to the lizardmen.
They studied it with clear interest.
Good armor material.
The trolls sniffed at the carcasses.
Some asked for more "ground-walkers."
Moletatoes were handed out with care.
A few hungry trolls just tore into the ant meat instead.
Then curiosity spread.
"Appraisal," Selena said.
A system window shimmered into view.
Bamboo Black Ant Meat
Toxicity: None
Safe for consumption
Minor stamina restoration
Texture: Tough
Dominic grinned.
"Hot pot?"
Phong looked at the mountain of ant bodies.
"…Hot pot."
If they survived a siege, they ate.
That was the rule.
The stock came to a boil fast.
Ginger went in, the non-necromancer kind.
Then onion.
Garlic.
Snow lime zest.
Thin slices of ant thorax were cut and dropped into the broth.
They changed color slowly.
More like crab than beef.
Phong tasted first.
Chewed.
Thought.
"…Tolerable."
Dominic tried it next.
"Tastes like crab."
Janet nodded.
"But less sweet."
Selena took a bite.
"Tougher fibers."
Phong stirred the pot.
"Needs richer stock and more simmer time next round."
Because of course there would be a next round.
They ate.
Not like a feast.
More like taking control back.
Then the sugar came out.
Mexican Coke bottles lined one side of the table.
Pepsi cans lined the other.
Selena cracked open her bottle with drama.
Dominic popped his can with equal pride.
The troll king sat cross-legged in front of them.
Neutral judge.
"Sweet water contest," Selena declared.
Dominic scoffed.
"Pepsi supremacy."
The troll king tasted both.
Then paused.
Everyone leaned in.
He smacked his lips.
Thought hard.
Then pointed at the Mexican Coke.
Selena threw both arms into the air.
Dominic clutched his chest.
"Blasphemy!"
The trolls roared with laughter.
The lizardmen shook their heads.
Even Alex laughed.
It was stupid.
It was needed.
Only after the sun dipped again behind the repaired and newly reinforced defenses did the exhaustion truly settle in.
New shiitake planted.
Oyster spores set.
Garlic bulbs buried.
Carrots replanted.
Chili rows widened.
Moletato tunnels reinforced.
The bamboo forest stood in the distance.
Quiet.
Watching.
Phong stood alone near the perimeter as dusk deepened.
He looked at the patched lines.
At the treants still on guard.
At the trolls falling into watch shifts.
At the lizardmen heading back to the pond.
At his friends laughing weakly over soda.
He let out a long, deep breath.
Not relief.
Not ease.
Just acceptance.
Camp Stymphalian had survived its new chitin-covered neighbors.
For now.
And in the dungeon, for now was victory enough.
The battlefield went quiet.
The plants regrew.
The trolls rotated watch.
The lizardmen returned to the lake.
And then everyone's phones started screaming.
Ping.
Ping.
Ping ping ping.
Notifications stacked over each other like falling dominoes.
Dominic looked at his screen.
"Jesus."
Janet's phone buzzed nonstop in her hand.
Jake laughed in disbelief.
"Is this what A-class feels like?"
Congrats poured in.
[You survived?]
[Level 30??]
[Welcome to the club.]
[Heard you were near the bamboo event.]
[Call me. Contract talk.]
[Brand partnership opportunity.]
[We'd love to discuss sponsorship.]
[Are you open for an interview?]
Mixed in were real messages too.
Old teammates.
Other indie divers.
Even European contacts from Élise and Camille's side.
No one knew what had happened.
They had only seen the system updates.
Level 30.
That meant they had survived something huge.
It meant they had crossed the line.
It meant people would notice them now.
Dominic tossed his phone onto the table.
"I haven't even showered."
Janet sighed.
"They don't care."
Alex scrolled in silence.
Dozens of unread messages.
Then she locked her screen without answering any of them.
Phong's phone lay face down and quiet.
Level 1.
No ping.
No congrats.
No sponsor offers.
No contracts.
He liked it that way.
But this still meant the world had noticed.
Not the ants.
Just the result.
He stood.
"We need context."
Selena nodded at once.
"Projector."
The big screen flickered on.
The signal booster hummed.
News feeds loaded.
The first interview started.
Yue Ting.
Chinese Taoist Master.
Level 35.
Calm.
Sharp-eyed.
The interviewer asked carefully, "What did you witness during the Phoenix event?"
Yue Ting did not play it up.
"While we were trapped for a time on Floor Three, we witnessed a Shifting event."
She paused.
"The ant species now being reported on Floor One were not native to Floor Three."
Selena straightened.
Yue Ting went on.
"They were pushed upward from a lower floor."
The room fell quiet.
"Based on mana density and behavior patterns, they are likely Floor Four fauna."
Selena let out a slow breath.
"At minimum," Yue Ting finished.
Floor Four.
Not third.
Not to begin with.
Fourth.
Dominic whistled softly.
"Fantastic."
Alex folded her arms.
"That explains why they're so nasty."
The feed switched.
Next segment.
The joint dive between Josh and Olen.
Footage showed armored elites.
Corporate logos everywhere.
Good lighting.
Clean angles.
The headline rolled across the bottom:
[Heavy Losses During Unified Dive Operation]
The word losses had been chosen with care.
No body count.
No corpses on screen.
Josh appeared first.
Somber face.
Measured voice.
"Today, we honor the brave divers who advanced humanity's frontier…"
Olen stood beside him.
Nodding at the right moments.
Perfect timing.
Then came the usual lines.
Resilience.
Sacrifice.
Innovation.
Continuing the mission.
The elites behind them looked whole.
Untouched.
The hardest thing they had done was perform grief.
Alex's jaw tightened.
Hypocrisy was nothing new.
But it was always there.
The next clip showed Emma Tannenbaum.
No armor.
No glamour.
No staged light.
She stood at the gate, wind tugging at her hair.
She barked orders and turned scattered divers into organized retreat lines.
No speech.
Just action.
[Left flank regroup!]
[Fall back in pairs!]
[Healers to the center!]
Divers listened.
They moved.
They did not argue.
Even through screen static, her pull was obvious.
The ants, wild as they were, had not crossed the gate and spilled into the real world.
Dominic grunted.
"Damn."
Janet nodded, though she looked reluctant.
"Effective."
Alex watched in silence.
Love her or hate her, Emma took control.
And in chaos, control saved lives.
"She stayed at the gate," Selena murmured.
"Smart."
Phong said nothing.
He just watched.
Info was money.
Emotion could wait.
The broadcast cut back to Josh and Olen.
This time they were talking about production-class expansion.
The Farmer Guild.
Exp bar optimization.
Unlocking dormant potential.
Olen smiled modestly.
"Our research shows that production classes do not need to stay behind the front line."
He chose his words with care.
No mention of hired escorts.
No details about kill quotas.
But the meaning was clear.
Farmers leveling through monster farming.
Structured.
Paid.
Organized.
The screen flashed images of level 8, level 10, and Olen's level: 12.
Smiling.
Thankful.
Giving neat little lines about empowerment.
Dominic scoffed.
"Blood farming."
Selena frowned.
"They're normalizing it."
Phong watched closely.
He ignored the polish.
Ignored the framing.
Focused on the facts.
Twelve species.
Twelve hundred kills.
Level 12 farmers.
Escorted.
Funded.
Exp bars "fixed."
And none of them were farming inside the dungeon ecosystem.
They were not building.
They were harvesting lives.
He leaned back.
And maybe he would have done the same if that one quest had not dropped into his lap in the ER.
That thought bothered him more than he liked.
"They'll push into Floor Two species next," he said.
Janet nodded.
"Better skills."
Alex looked at him.
"You thinking about it?"
"No."
But he was thinking.
About scale.
About attention.
About how long until real dungeon farmers became a joke in the public story.
About how long until Camp Stymphalian became an outlier.
A debate panel came on next.
Analysts talking about the Bamboo Ant incident.
Guessing.
Speculating.
No one mentioned a hidden farm fortress holding off a siege.
No one mentioned troll allies.
No one mentioned lizardman reinforcements.
Good.
Let it stay that way.
Dominic's phone buzzed again.
He muted it.
Janet muted hers too.
Élise and Camille traded a glance.
Floor Four ants.
It was a miracle that camp Stymphalian had survived their onslaught.
Selena slowly closed her tablet.
"Floor bosses are reshaping mana layers."
"Displacement events are increasing."
"Production class monetization is expanding."
She looked at Phong.
"You're thinking something?"
He nodded once.
"Yes."
"Spill the bean, farm boy."
"I think the ants coming up here was not a coincidence. Maybe, just maybe, this was retaliation. Not from the dungeon itself. From the thing that speaks for its order."
Silence.
No one had to say the name.
They all knew.
The Sky Emperor.
Projector light flickered over their tired faces.
Camp Stymphalian had survived.
Level 30 had been reached.
Global attention was rising.
Floor Four life now walked on Floor One.
Elite alliances were tightening.
Production classes were being turned into industry.
And somewhere beyond the bamboo, the Sky Emperor might have sent the ants here.
Phong turned off the projector.
Darkness settled over camp.
The phones kept pinging in the background.
He did not pick up his.
Not yet.
For now, they had the facts.
The victory was real.
And the dungeon had just reminded the world that it was playing a longer game than any billionaire ever could.