Tysm! yeah I kind of wanted to make the repetitiveness a thematic point, but I obviously sacrificed the gameplay for that.
You are right about the ending, in my mind the energy that was being gathered had super powerful side effects, causing the destruction of the Thexrian empire but, it ended up prolonging the life of the ant gathering it, where the ant toils on the planet for eternity in a delusion. I should have seeded this into the story though, thats my bad