Immediately defining the foreign creature in the tunnels as a threat, the ants sprung into action. All at once, they jumped forward and tried to bite several parts of Mitch's body.
He still felt his muscles being snapped, but some of them had become rejoined with their other end. Not only that, they had become stronger, more durable, and more densely packed together.
Flexing his abdomen, Mitch lifted his legs off the ground, dodging a bite aimed at his feet. He then torqued his lower body, using the momentum to go into a handstand, evading the second bite.
Finally, he pushed off the ground and flipped into the air briefly, making the last attack narrowly miss his head.
The pain he felt from this maneuver was grating, but he could deal with it. Rather being in pain than being injured. He had to admit, though, he never expected to dodge all three attacks.
He soared through the air and landed a bit further away from the ants, leading to the situation reaching a deadlock.
'Three ants, with more probably on the way. I can feel my body healing, but it will still take a while before I'm in good shape. Why did everything suddenly break, Katherine?'
Mitch spared what little attention he could to Katherine, hoping that she had some explanation as to why this had happened.
However, even Katherine was confused. "I don't know. My only guess is that the mutation needed to rebuild your muscles completely, which caused them to break down. However, because your body will stay unhurt for the most part, there was no need to go into hibernation."
Them communicating through thoughts showed its value at times like these. Barely a second had passed since Mitch got back up on his feet, but they had already assessed the situation thoroughly.
'Is that why my bones cracked too? Because they would break if I used the new muscle strength that I gained, so the mutation rebuilt them in advance?' The situation was laughable, really.
He got stuck in such a messy situation as a result of his own power being too elaborate in its execution.
"Does it matter right now? Unless you can find a way to turn the situation around, your bones being broken will be the least of your concerns."
It was not all bad news. The wounds on Mitch's hands and thigh were also healing as a result of his muscles reforming, at least partially.
'Got it. For now, the plan is to hold on!'
Not wanting to let the ants get a moment to coordinate another attack, Mitch rushed forward. Though he had no intention of confronting them in combat, he had to disrupt the flow of battle in any way he could.
On the other hand, the ants were very eager to confront Mitch in combat. They rushed forward with a united stride, not letting Mitch intimidate them.
Just as the two parties were about to collide, Mitch jumped. He made sure to control his new strength, no matter how inept he was, so as not to hit the ceiling.
He soared over the heads of the ants and landed by their rears. The ants tried to turn around in order to defend against any attack to their behinds, but with three of them being side by side, all they could do was bump into each other.
Mitch pierced his trusty dagger towards the backside of the middle ant. Though he did have the intention of wounding it, Mitch mostly wanted to see if his strength was enough to pierce an ant's exoskeleton.
Crack
Khiii
Although he was met with some resistance, the ant mandible pierced into the ant's trunk pretty cleanly.
"I thought the plan was to endure?" Although she wouldn't complain about the results, Katherine was still confused as to what prompted Mitch to do that instead of sticking to what he himself said he would do.
'I told you that I would hold on, not that I wouldn't try to thin out their numbers. More ants are probably coming very soon, and building a barrier with corpses will play into my favor.' The pain brought by him exerting his barely existing muscles and his fractured bones made his mind clearer than ever.
The lucidity was addictive.
In the end, he had completed his objective. One of the ants was now heavily injured and would serve as an obstacle for its companions to move around.
The other two ants had finally succeeded in turning around and were now horrified to find their buddy lethally wounded. Rage flickered in their black, beady eyes as they charged towards Mitch.
'Hold on…'
He sidestepped one of the ants, blocking the other's mandibles with his daggers while simultaneously readying a punch towards its head.
The ant realized that Mitch's strength was enough to destroy its exoskeleton, so it aborted the attack and jumped backward. His fist landed, cracking the solid stone ground.
The recoil rippled through his arm, further amplifying the pain that Mitch suffered from, causing him to flinch. That moment of carelessness allowed the first ant to sneak up on him.
It was just about to sink its teeth into his side when he swiftly turned around and delivered a roundhouse kick. His shin hit the ant's neck, breaking it and paralyzing the ant in the process.
Right as he was about to turn his attention back to the last ant, he heard the sound of a few dozen feet approaching.
'Hold on.'
Finishing the last ant off would make little to no difference in the grand scheme of things, so he swiftly interlocked his daggers with the ant's jaw and threw it towards the horde of ants nearing him.
He then quickly crushed the heads of the injured ants by stomping on them, before grabbing two loose mandibles, equipping each of his hands with a weapon, including the one lacking two fingers.
Barely able to keep standing while the pain made his body rattle, Mitch prepared himself to receive the onslaught of attacks that would come his way from the newcomers.
"Hold ON!"