Chapter 25: The Serpent Stirs
Before long, Ethan and his zombie subordinates reached the ravine. While stepping out of the entrance, Ethan paid his utmost attention to the surroundings.
The bloodstones that had once covered the majority of the floor and the walls near the corners had long since been harvested.
Naturally, Ethan felt at ease. Eris, on the other hand, fell into a state of panic. Originally, after being subdued by Ethan, she had planned to offer the blood stones to him as a gift of loyalty.
But contrary to her expectations, the stones seemed to have been ’stolen.’
"M-My king," she stammered, nervously seeking him.
"Hmm?" Responding to her call, Ethan slightly looked back.
"Th-The bloodstones have been stolen... I’m afraid the serpent has already figured out the situation and is waiting to ambush us..." Her voice wavered, feeling regretful of not being powerful enough to guarantee her only king’s safety.
"Pfft..." Covering his mouth, Ethan barely held onto his laughter. For a moment, he felt as if the one talking to him wasn’t the ferocious blood ant queen at all.
’D-Did I perhaps say something wrong?’
Breathing out at last, Ethan maintained his cool and said. "Ah, that. I ordered some zombies to harvest them beforehand."
"Oh..." Eris felt her face getting warmer out of embarrassment as she lowered her head.
Silently, the group left the nest and quickly climbed the ravine. Heading deep into the sparse forest, the ants and Ethan disappeared within a few minutes.
Soon, they reached the tree where he had infected the very first blood ant. There, two blood ants were standing on guard, facing each other’s backs.
Apart from harvesting the bloodstones safely, it was also their duty to make sure they remained safe until the very end.
Even before Ethan’s figure came into their vision, the pair noticed the energy of their ruler getting closer. Their heads moved in unison.
At a distance, his figure appeared in their sight. Even though the blood ants had transformed into zombies—devoid of personal feelings and all emotions—they could instinctively feel that a great change had occurred within their sovereign.
For behind him, nearly a thousand pairs of jade-green eyes silently followed the figure before them.
As Ethan and the group neared, the pair bowed.
"Well done, you two." Ethan praised expressionlessly.
However, even that simple praise filled the zombie ants with indescribable satisfaction.
*Ding!*
A system window appeared.
---
[The sovereign’s words have deeply resonated with the hearts of his subjects.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Loyalty Increased.]
└ ■ Zombie Blood Ant ×2
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Loyalty Threshold Reached.]
└ ■ 100 / 100
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Hidden Function Discovered.]
A previously unknown effect of the class trait has been revealed.
└ ■ Zombie Sovereignty (SSS)
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[New Authority Unlocked.]
■ Sovereign’s Blessing
When a subordinate willingly chooses to devote its life to the designated user without coercion or external influence...
...its dormant talent will awaken in its highest attainable quality.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Talent Awakening Detected.]
└ ■ Zombie Blood Ant ×2
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Notice.]
The awakened talents remain dormant until their owners naturally discover and comprehend them.
The system will not disclose their details in advance.
---
’Would you look at that?’ He smiled, his eyes scanning the emotionless faces of the ants before him.
He had gained an unexpected reward, one that would flourish in the future.
’What kind of flowers would you come to be?’ He thought, pulling his thoughts together.
"Bring me one of the bigger blood stones." He commanded, his voice resolute and authoritative.
At once, an ant volunteered and fetched one of the biggest blood stones.
Ethan slowly extended his arm and held onto it, its size comparable to that of an adult’s hand.
Almost instantly, a system window materialized before his eyes, displaying the item’s information.
---
———————————————————
[#/Information/#]
———————————————————
[Target Identified.]
■ Blood Stone
[Classification:]
└ Natural Evolution Material
[Rank] - A
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[Description:]
A naturally condensed crystal formed after an enormous quantity of blood remains stagnant for many years while continuously absorbing dense ambient mana.
Due to the immense blood essence required for its formation, A-Rank Blood Stones are vastly superior to their lower-ranked counterparts and possess extraordinary biological energy.
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[Common Uses:]
└ ■ Significantly strengthens blood-related skills.
└ ■ Forging high-grade blood-attributed weapons.
└ ■ Enhancing high-grade blood-attributed armor and equipment.
└ ■ Precious cultivation resource sought after by powerful blood-type monsters.
└ ■ Can greatly accelerate evolution and breakthrough attempts.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Evaluation:]
└ ■ Extremely compatible with the user’s class.
└ ■ May be directly assimilated through flesh assimilation.
└ ■ Successful assimilation will yield an enormous amount of biological energy and greatly increase evolution progress.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Rarity:]
└ ■ Extremely Rare.
└ ■ Only formed within regions that have accumulated massive quantities of blood and mana over many years.
└ ■ Frequently guarded by powerful blood-attributed monsters or found within ancient battlefields and massacre zones.
---
"A-rank!" Reading through its description, Ethan couldn’t help but feel rejoiced.
Using this material, Ethan could definitely evolve much quicker. If possible, he might even be able to strengthen his forces.
"What matters the most is that there are multiple stones of this size in that pile!" He muttered as he looked towards the pit in the ground.
Originally, it was several feet deep. But now? It was filled to the brim with blood stones of different sizes.
"Everyone, carry the bloodstones and handle them with care. We will now move deeper into the forest and look for a home."
***
At the same time, deep into an abandoned city, a serpent—tens of meters tall—coiled its body around a giant tree.
Its body was covered in pale white scales, its cerulean eyes glaring at the sky through a layer of dusty glass.
Around the tree, the remains of the tall tower still stood intact, making it a perfect hideout for the snake.
"At last..." The serpent rustled its body against the old bark.
"The ravine should have produced enough bloodstones by now."
His voice flowed like silk dragged across stone—soft and strangely soothing. A subtle hiss lingered beneath every sentence, making it sound as though he were perpetually exhaling through sharpened teeth.
"I should visit and prepare to break through a new realm of strength..."