On Earth, the group have managed to settle business in Jackson, Mississippi. It wasn't that difficult; the people were rather accepting on their business as it created a cycle that needed workers. People hunting beasts, skinning and dissecting beast, and cooking the beasts.

Finally, once satisfied with their work the group left the city to move on to the next. Montgomery, the capital city of Alabama. However, Marie informed them beforehand to expect there to be nothing in Alabama, as they haven't gotten into contact with anyone in the state in months. And the last time contacted, the people were mentioning large groups of beasts, tearing down entire cities like it was nothing.

The group was expecting a fight once they reached Montgomery, however, what they received wasn't that at all. Currently, they were floating above Montgomery, just above the outskirts and away from the central part of the city. Granted, there wasn't a central part of the city anymore.

In front of them, a large ant mound had been constructed, reaching roughly 70 stories high it towered over everything else and swallowed all buildings close to it. Larges, 3 – 4 metres ants were crawling all throughout it, creating entrances and caves. Their bodies a dark red, as their fangs radiated heat. The ants' eyes darted towards the island and it roared loudly with full might.

The group, standing on the edge of the island were surprised by such a mound but it also wasn't entirely out of their predictions. When thinking about it, hive-like beasts are likely the scariest currently due to their ability to tear through human cities like it's nothing. Certain ants are at the top, alongside bees and wasps.

The group noticed the ants which were originally minding their own business peacefully sprout wings. Their wings thrashed violently towards the ground, causing a great deal of dust to rise up from the sudden commotion.

The group was surprised at the sight of several dozen ants taking to the skies, the ants' speed was fortunately not so fast, however, it brought upon immense intimidation at such a sight. After all, they weren't the military, they didn't have cannons at the ready to blast those ants down.

Or do they..

Anne, who usually doesn't come out of her laboratory, brought them a new weapon which acts in a similar manner to a cannon. It uses the gravity stones to propel solid rock balls forward, these rocks can be found just about anywhere on the island. But the most compact and dense rocks are found in the centre, alongside the other gravity stones.

"Suppose this is a great time to test out the new weapon huh?" Anne said in a questioning voice when she noticed the horde of ants flying towards them. Although they could just as easily leave or use their beasts' special abilities to get rid of the ant horde. What fun would that be?

"Well, at least this way we can test its effectiveness. If it truly is a great weapon then we'll station them around the border of the island as the first line of defence, alongside the intensive gravity across the island of course," Flynn said with his arms crossed. In front of him was the first prototype. They wouldn't mass produce it until all imperfections are gone.

The prototype was a think cylinder tube, on it was a computer attached to the bottom. This computer acts as the control panel since they wouldn't be able to manually target these weapons once they're mass-produced, they decided to immediately have the control panel put it.

Along with the computer at the bottom was a stand, it had long 2-metre pikes that stuck far into the ground. Attached to the end of those pikes were gravity stones, to allow for easy manoeuvrability and to act as weights for the weapon.

Anne was currently squatted down in front of the computer, furiously typing away at the keyboard as targets appeared on the screen. Slowly locking on to every ant in the sky. Anne stood up proudly and placed her hands on her hips. "And this, is the power of science."

"Yeah, yeah, controlling gravity with a stone is really the power of science," Flynn said as he waved his hand through the air, brushing Anne off. Anne pouted angrily because Flynn wasn't wrong; however, the weapon was created through science and the uses of gravity were also discovered through scientific experiments conducted by Anne, so it wasn't entirely an incorrect statement either.

The rest of the group were surrounding the cannon, staring at it as they waited for it to fire. Anne walked over with a stone floating above her head, it was roughly 8 inches in diameter which was the perfect size for the barrel of the cannon.

"Alright, let me show you all my great creation." Anne placed the ball inside the barrel and took a couple of steps back. The rest of the group did the same. Anne pulled out a trigger from her pockets and grinned widely, pressing the trigger she shouted loudly. "Piss off you fuckin bugs!"

Anne secretly hated the thought of those bugs making it to the island. Even if they had an impenetrable system called a gravity wall, she hated the thought of them being on the same island as them. Especially since they weren't tamed as well. So, she'll blast them to bits with the excuse of this being a weapon test.

Anne gave the gravity stone some rather specific commands. When hit with a sudden and great force from behind it'll activate its 200 times Earth's gravity in the radius which perfectly fits inside the cylinder. Once activated, it'll move 1 metre, aka, the length of the cylinder before halting and returning to its originally position. It was a complex process that Anne spent weeks on, testing if those commands are able to be done, especially the first one.

Fortunately, his effort wasn't in vain. Two loud thump-like sounds came from the barrel of the cannon, a rock shot forth from it at a speed close to the speed of a bullet. Its force tore through the air, targeting the ant which flew at the front centre of the ant horde.

Anne stared proudly at the projectile fly through the air, she had her arms crossed and a wide grin. But that grin soon disappeared when she noticed the speed of the rock slow down, its momentum was disappearing as it lost height. Slowly but surely eventually falling towards the ground.

Anne's legs collapsed as she felt her soul leave her body, her invention failed on the first trial, it really failed. "But how? I swear I checked for everything that could affect the projectile's trajectory, wind, shape, and weight. Why didn't it work?"

"Probably because the normal wind doesn't count towards the wind those beasts are giving off," Simon said as he squatted down to Anne's height. "Not to mention there's a possibility those ants are able to control the wind as well, creating a possible wall that slowed the ball down."

"Wind, that's right!" Anne shouted as she stood up abruptly. She was currently under the effects of low gravity so doing sudden movements wasn't so painful anymore. She felt rather youthful again despite her heavily degraded body. "Boy, hand me one of those unused high-grade wind stones and some string or rope."

The group's eyebrows raised when they heard the passion in Anne's voice. She turned her head and stared at Flynn, opening and closing her hand. "Hurry up now, we don't have a lot of time and I still want to continue testing now that I have a new idea."

Chloe sighed loudly before complaining grumpily. "Alright, I'll go get them Anne. Remember, we don't carry unused stuff on us, everything we have has been taken control of by us otherwise it'll serve no purpose but to weight us down."

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Chloe took the skies at a rapid speed, the rest of the group decided to get a better view, taking a few steps closer to the edge before sitting down. Allowing their feet to dangle off the edge as they looked directly at the incoming horde of ants.

They weren't fearful; if they wanted a few of them could easily take control over the skies in seconds and dominate the ants. After all, it was only a small horde created out of several dozen ants, if there were several hundred or even thousands that would be another story.

"So, when do you think Lachlan is going to get back?" Phoebe asked nervously. Ever since Lachlan left to journey in the other world, she's had trouble bringing Sarah to sleep, she was constantly sad and mopping around the hut whenever she wasn't playing with the other children. It was rather difficult taking care of Sarah singlehandedly, so she got the support of Maddie.

"I reckon he should be back in a few days, maybe even a week if we were delayed. However, since it's Lachlan I'm going to assume he would have dealt with all the issues rather quickly," Simon said grumpily as he laid back and placed his hands on the back of his head. Talking about Lachlan made him grumpy, not because he's never won against him, but because he decided to go alone and not bring any of them with him. If it weren't for Maddie, he would have followed right behind Lachlan.

"Who knows, maybe he'll be back tomorrow. It's already been close to a week, and if he's spent roughly 1 day on the continent getting himself a tame then he might even be back today. Just calm down Phoebe, it's not like he's going to die in there," Georgia said nonchalantly. The group had undeniable trust in Lachlan's abilities, not to mention he wouldn't take a fight he couldn't win. And with the help of his eyes, he will know if he can't take the fight.

The group continued their small chatter as the ants started to get closer and closer. Now, the group was constantly keeping their eyes on the horde, even summoning their own beasts just in case Anne's bright and brilliant idea doesn't end up working.

Finally, Chloe returned with a long piece of string acquired from the orphanage and an unused high-grade wind stone. "Here you go Anne, show us that bright idea of yours, I really hope this works out alright."

Anne smiled widely as she took the stone and rope, swiftly tying it around the end of the cannon she dropped a bit of her blood of the stone and gave it very specific commands similar to the gravity stone where it was a process.

Taking a few steps back she hit the trigger and the cannon fired off the shot she just placed it before Chloe arrived. The ball hurtled through the air, however, the group managed to notice that there was a faint but still noticeable shape around the ball created out of air.

"Haha, surprise?" Anne asked proudly. "I commanded the wind stone to wrap wind around the ball once it passes in front of it and to take the shape of a spearhead. The direction that wind will go is along with the ball, that way, the wind can not affect to ball and it gets a pretty good power boost."

The group watched as the ball sailed through the air, this time it was still rather high. Unfortunately, it was too high, the ball easily went over the horde of ants. Anne stood there motionless for a couple of seconds with her mouth agape. "Shit, I forgot to adjust the targeting system to work with the wind stone!"

Anne dashed to her invention and started typing away furiously on the keyboard. The group watched silently, some attempting to hold back their laughs. Finally, the ants were roughly a hundred metres away and the group was ready to pounce on them.

Anne stood back up, placed a ball into the barrel before shouting proudly, pointing towards the ant horde. "Now taste the weapon created by the hands of a genius!"

The cannon fired as a ball flew out of it, the wind formed into the shape of a sharp bullet, allowing the ball to easily traverse the distance and land its first hit on an ant. With the current momentum, the ball continued forth, blasting through the bodies of ants before making it to the other side of the horde.

Over a dozen ants were easily slain just then. The group nodded in approval, rather surprised by the effectiveness of the weapon. That was until they noticed the ball kept flying, going perfect through one of the mound entrances and being consumed by the cave's darkness.

A loud roar was heard before a hundred thousand ants rushed out of the caves, sprouting their wings they took to the skies and thrashed violently. Making their way towards the island at a much faster pace. And similar to those ants, the ones that were making their way to them first sped up.

Anne stood their motionless holding onto the trigger. "Well, damn."