Chapter 17: First Battle (2)
Oblivious to what was happening at the surface of her nest, the blood ant queen was resting in her chambers.
The recent commotion had raised many questions about the colony’s security. After exhausting her mind completely, she decided to rest, given that a fight may break out anytime.
Suddenly, her eyes snapped open, her crimson irises trembling with growing anger.
’The life senses of more than 60 soldiers were destroyed instantly? How can that be?!! Unless—!!!’ A thought struck her mind like a thunderous strike of lightning.
Raising her head, she glared at the ceiling with a burning rage before opening her mouth wide.
*Screech!*
With all her might, the queen let out a ravenous screech. Echoing through the small maze-like tunnels, her voice intensified the further it went.
Instantly, all the ants present in the colony were alerted to the intruder as they ran towards the entrance together.
At the same time, the ants present near the entrance felt their bodies physically shaking from the impact.
The sound hit their bodies like a turbulent flow of river, almost pushing them away. Ethan, on the other hand, stood completely unmoved.
However, he wasn’t completely unscathed either.
[Racial Trait Activated.]
└ ■ Regeneration (C)
A thin stream of blood trickled down his jade green skin. Due to the wild screech, Ethan’s ears had been damaged.
Although it was minimal, he was only further excited for their battle.
"So you finally notice me!" Exhilarated by the constant flow of system notifications towering before his eyes, he yelled loudly in response.
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[You have successfully killed an F-Rank Blood Ant.]
[Experience Gained.]
└ ■ +50 EXP
[You have successfully killed an F-Rank Blood Ant.]
[Experience Gained.]
└ ■ +50 EXP
[You have successfully killed an F-Rank Blood Ant.]
[Experience Gained.]
└ ■ +50 EXP
[...]
[You have successfully killed an F-Rank Blood Ant.]
[Experience Gained.]
└ ■ +50 EXP
[You have successfully killed an F-Rank Blood Ant.]
[Experience Gained.]
└ ■ +50 EXP
[You have successfully killed an F-Rank Blood Ant.]
[Experience Gained.]
└ ■ +50 EXP
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
---
Amidst the ever-pouring wave of enemy blood ants, Ethan stood idly. His body was continuously being hacked by the crystal-coated mandible; however, he was not worried in the slightest.
Using his overpowered skills in sequence, he had unexpectedly created a self-serving farm. Standing at the center, he let countless ants bite him and get infected.
Then, the subordinated ants funneled around him, killing any blood ant attempting to attack him from the back.
As Ethan’s body was continuously being harmed, he used his skill—flesh assimilation—on the lying ant corpses, essentially healing himself completely.
All while gaining a continuous flow of experience and subordinates.
"I’m glad I chose to implement this way. Thanks to this decision, I discovered that even monsters killed by my zombie subordinates are registered as my kills." Lately, his body had begun to grow slightly numb to the constant pain.
Although he could still feel the pain stinging through his flesh, it was minimal.
Gradually, the flow of ants coming out began to waver.
"Seems like their number has been reduced a lot." His eyes wandered towards the floor before him.
Countless corpses lay one upon another, shockingly encompassing a height of several feet!
Naturally, Ethan had killed several hundred blood ants to tame an even larger amount.
---
[Updating Undead Registry...]
[...]
[New Undead Registered.]
└ ■ Zombie Blood Ant (F) ×747
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Current Registered Undead:]
└ ■ Zombie Blood Ant (F) ×905
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Total Undead Under Authority:]
└ ■ 905
---
"I was really not expecting to gain any more than 300 blood ants. But even I didn’t expect the numbers to snowball this quickly." He confidently gazed at the system window before him, proudly rubbing his nose.
Initially, Ethan’s gains were extremely low. At the cost of killing several hundred, he was only able to infect a handful of ants.
As the number of enemies only continued to grow, Ethan’s plan seemed to be failing at a staggering rate.
But in times of desperation, a system window emerged before his eyes like an angelic warmth.
---
[Skill Familiarity Increased.]
└ ■ Dormant Infection (F)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[The designated user has continuously used the target skill.]
[Familiarity has reached the required threshold.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Class Trait Activated.]
└ ■ Infinite Evolution (SSS)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[A compatible evolution path has been discovered.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Evolution Candidate:]
└ ■ Dormant Infection (F) → Dormant Infection (E)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Evolution Cost:]
└ ■ 20% Evolution Progress
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Proceed with skill evolution?]
└ ■ Yes
└ ■ No
---
Without hesitating, Ethan decided to take the chance and upgrade his current trump card.
Instantly, a system window appeared before Ethan’s eyes as a faint glow began to envelop Ethan as well as all of his subordinate ants.
The glow subsided quickly, but the content of the screen made Ethan’s crumbling confidence stand twice as tall.
---
[Skill Evolution Complete.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Dormant Infection (F) → Dormant Infection (E)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Previous effects have been strengthened.]
[New Effect Unlocked.]
└ ■ Viral Transmission
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Description:]
Targets directly infected by the host permanently carry the host’s zombie virus within their bodies.
These infected subjects are now capable of transmitting the virus to other compatible targets through bites.
However, the transmitted virus is considerably weaker than the original strain.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Transmission Success Rate:]
└ ■ 10%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Note:]
Only direct infections performed by the designated user create viral transmission carriers.
Secondary infections cannot produce additional carriers unless directly infected by the user.
---
***
"Thankfully, due to the effects of the skill, I was able to barely maintain the number of zombies while directly infecting more. Using this cycle, I’ve cleared almost all of the ants in the nest." Muttering to himself, Ethan’s eyes caught a blood ant pouncing towards him with its mandibles wide open.
This time, he didn’t let the ant bite him. Instead, he caught the ant with his right hand.
"I already have enough subordinates. Rather than wasting any more time on these ants, I’d rather go after the blood ant queen and quickly get out of this place." Closing his hand casually, Ethan easily crushed the ant’s body—instantly killing it.
Then, his gaze coldly swept across his subordinates as he ordered:
"No need to infect the ants anymore. Kill all of them and clear the path for me."