Chapter 48: Problem
The zombie blood ant’s body continued to tremble violently. Its six legs dug into the ground as dark Miasma continuously circulated through its body.
Ethan remained standing before it, silently observing every change.
For some reason, he could feel something changing inside of him. A strange sensation had appeared within his heart.
It was faint, almost insignificant, yet it was undeniably there.
’What is this...?’ Ethan narrowed his eyes.
He could feel a connection between himself and the ant. It wasn’t something physical; rather, it felt as though a tiny thread had been tied around his heart, extending towards the ant before him.
And with every passing second, that connection grew slightly stronger.
’Is this because of the authority?’ He didn’t know.
But the longer he observed it, the clearer the sensation became. Although the ant’s strength was increasing, it wasn’t by a particularly large amount.
Compared to the hundreds of other blood ants within the colony, it wasn’t overwhelmingly powerful.
However, it was definitely stronger than its peers.
The energy circulating within its body was growing denser, while its physical strength was rising.
*Crack!*
A strange sound echoed through the hall as the Miasma surrounding the ant suddenly began cracking.
Ethan narrowed his eyes, closely observing the scene unfold.
*Crack!*
Another crack appeared.
The dark layer covering the ant’s body began to fracture, spreading across its limbs and abdomen like a shattered shell.
BOOM!
The entire layer of Miasma exploded outward as Ethan instinctively raised his arm to block the sudden wave of energy.
As the darkness dispersed, a completely different creature appeared before him. The ant’s body had almost doubled in size.
Its entire body was now covered in shiny crimson crystal armor, reflecting the dim light of the hall. Its mandibles had grown larger as well, although the change wasn’t particularly drastic.
The most noticeable difference, however, was its head. Two sharp crystals had grown from the top of its skull, stretching upward like a pair of crimson horns.
The ant slowly raised its body, its six legs pressed against the ground.
Click...
Ethan stared at it silently. "So this is an evolution..."
The creature before him no longer looked like an ordinary zombie blood ant—it possessed a completely different presence.
*Ding!*
A familiar system notification rang inside Ethan’s mind.
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Target Evolution Complete.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Species Evolution]
Zombie Blood Ant → Zombie Blood Ant Soldier
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Rank Evolution]
F-Rank → E-Rank
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Evolution Successful.]
The target has successfully evolved under the influence of the Authority of Sovereign Inheritance.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Current Status]
■ Species: Zombie Blood Ant Soldier
■ Rank: E-
■ Class: F-Rank
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Maximum Attribute Limit]
Vitality: (+5)
Strength: (+5)
Agility: (+5)
Endurance: (+5)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Current Evolution]
The target has successfully crossed into the E-Rank realm.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Further Evolution]
Insufficient data.
[...]
---
"E-Rank..." Ethan’s expression slowly changed as a smile appeared on his face.
It had worked!
His authority had genuinely allowed an ordinary F-rank zombie blood ant to evolve.
*Ding!*
But before he could even react properly, another notification appeared.
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Warning.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The Overlord System has detected an abnormality within the Authority of Sovereign Inheritance.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Analysis Complete.]
The authority is directly connected to the host’s unique energy:
■ Miasma
Miasma is an energy of death.
Due to its unique properties, it possesses the ability to forcibly stimulate the evolution of deceased beings.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Problem Detected.]
The host’s current mastery over Miasma is insufficient.
As a result, the Authority’s inheritance process has undergone an abnormal mutation.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Effect]
The target’s evolution can be completed.
However, the target’s original class potential is forcibly replaced.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Current Result]
■ Original Class Potential → Overwritten
■ Current Class Potential → F-Rank
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The target’s future growth has been severely restricted.
[...]
---
Ethan’s smile immediately disappeared as he stared at the system window in disbelief. "What?"
His eyes quickly scanned through the information again.
The ant had evolved; that much was true.
But its potential...
Ethan’s gaze shifted towards the crimson-armored ant.
’Its class became F-rank?’
The system had essentially taken an ordinary zombie blood ant and given it an E-rank body while leaving it with the worst possible potential.
The result was obvious.
Even if it continued evolving, its future growth would be severely restricted.
*Ding!*
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Inheritance Efficiency Calculation.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Due to the host’s insufficient Miasma mastery:
The target’s maximum attribute limits have increased by only:
└ ■ +5
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Warning]
The Authority is currently unable to preserve the target’s original evolutionary potential.
Greater Miasma mastery may improve the efficiency of future inheritances.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Further Information]
The Authority’s true potential remains unknown.
---
"So I’m basically ruining their potential because I don’t know how to properly use Miasma?" Ethan’s expression became ugly as he frowned deeply.
This wasn’t what he had expected.
He had thought that using his authority would allow him to strengthen his subordinates.
Instead, his first attempt had created an E-rank monster with F-rank potential.
"Great..." He rubbed his forehead. "Just great."
Then, suddenly, a strange feeling entered his heart.
The connection he had felt earlier became much stronger.
At the same time, the crimson-armored ant slowly raised its head. Its movements had changed, since the obedient expression it had shown earlier was gone.
It slowly opened its mandibles and clanked them several times towards Ethan.
*Click!*
Its six legs suddenly pressed against the ground as it slowly rose from its throne.
’What’s happening?’
*Ding!*
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Abnormal Mental Fluctuation Detected.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The target has successfully entered a realm of strength equivalent to the host’s current realm.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Secondary Effect Detected.]
The target’s consciousness has undergone an awakening.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
■ Independent Will
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The target has developed an instinctive desire to break its current subordination.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Warning]
The target must be suppressed.
Failure to subdue the target will result in an additional penalty.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Penalty]
The host’s strength will be temporarily reduced.
Duration and severity will be determined by the degree of failure.
---
"You’ve got to be kidding me." His voice came out unsuppressed, flustered.
Then, without any warning, the ant suddenly lunged forward.
BOOM!
Its enormous body shot across the hall as Ethan narrowed his eyes.
He understood that the authority had evolved the ant, but since its strength had reached the same realm as his own, something completely else had happened.
’So that’s the price of evolving a subordinate to my realm?’
The ant’s crimson mandibles snapped toward Ethan’s body. Keenly observing its movements, he tilted his head sideways. The mandibles passed beside his face, barely missing his skin.
At the same moment, Ethan clenched his fist. "You’re really causing me trouble..."
His expression darkened as he swung his fist towards its hard body.
BOOM!
His punch struck the ant’s armored head, sending it flying across the hall. Crashing into the ground several meters away, its body slid across the dirt before finally stopping.
He looked at his fist; his expression remained cold.
He had deliberately held his strength back.
If he used his full strength, there was no doubt that the ant would be crushed instantly.
Ethan couldn’t afford to let that happen.
Whatever the case might be, the ant was still his subordinate.
And more importantly, He had to subdue it.
The ant quickly stood again; its crimson crystals glowed faintly as it rushed toward Ethan once more.
*Click! Click!*
"You really don’t know when to stop, do you?" Ethan’s jade-green body disappeared from its vision.
BOOM!
His fist slammed into its abdomen, causing the ant to be thrown backwards again. It rolled several times before struggling back onto its legs.
Clearly, his patience was slowly disappearing.
’I’ve already got a mission.’
’I’ve just discovered that my authority is defective.’
*Ding!*
Then another system notification rang through his ears, annoying him further.
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Inheritance Cost Applied.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The host’s attributes have been partially invested into the target.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Attribute Reduction:
Vitality: -1
Strength: -1
Agility: -1
Endurance: -1
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The inherited attributes have been permanently transferred to the target.
[...]
---
"So my stats got reduced this time..." He slowly clenched his fist.
The ant charged once again. As a monster with minimal intelligence, its attack patterns hardly showed any difference.
Let alone adapting to the enemy’s moves, the zombie blood ant soldier was merely charging at Ethan instinctively.
This time, however, Ethan didn’t move away. Instead, he stepped forward and raised his right arm.
His fist collided directly with the ant’s head, pushing a soft wave of air in all directions.
BOOM!
The impact shook the entire hall as the ant’s body was driven into the ground.
Cracks spiderwebbed beneath its legs, forming a small pit in the leveled ground.
Its six legs trembled violently as it attempted its hardest to remain standing.
Instinctively, the ant raised its eyes, only to see a dark silhouette with bright green eyes looming above its head.
"Submit."
Even now, the ant refused to give up and chose to continue struggling.
Ethan raised his fists once again. "You’re really testing my patience."
BOOM!
With yet another punch, the crimson armor cracked slightly.
Yet it still refused to submit.
Ethan’s expression became even colder. The guard ants, who were witnessing this scene unfold, couldn’t help but stumble backwards in fear.
He wasn’t angry because the ant had attacked him.
He was angry because this entire situation had become far more troublesome than he had expected.
His authority wasn’t functioning properly.
His stats had been reduced.
The subordinate’s potential had been ruined.
And now he had to beat his own subordinate into submission.
’This is supposed to be my reward?’
Ethan grabbed the ant’s body and slammed it against the ground.
BOOM!
The creature struggled, but he ignored it and raised his fist again.
But this time, he stopped. He didn’t want to kill it.
He only needed it to understand the difference between them.
"Enough." He said in a low, authoritative tone; his voice carried an overwhelming pressure.
The zombie blood ant soldier’s body froze.
For the first time since its evolution... Its movements had stopped completely.
Something within its mind began to change. The strange desire to break free had gradually weakened.
The fear that had been buried deep within its instincts suddenly surfaced.
*Ding!*
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Class Skill Activated.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
■ Zombie Sovereignty (SSS)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The host’s sovereign authority has been recognized.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Target Consciousness Affected.]
The target has recognized the difference between itself and its sovereign.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Effect]
The target has been overwhelmed by instinctive fear.
---
The ant’s body began shivering violently. Its mind, which had been clouded by the instinct to resist, suddenly became clear.
It looked towards Ethan and... it finally understood.
The creature standing before it wasn’t simply another zombie.
It was its king—one who stood at a height the likes of it could never even dream of reaching.
The ant slowly lowered its body, its head touching the ground.
Click...
Its mandibles stopped moving as Ethan stared at the creature silently.
*Ding!*
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Subordinate Suppression Successful.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Target:
└ ■ Zombie Blood Ant Soldier
Current Rank:
└ ■ E-
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Subordination Confirmed.]
The target has accepted the host as its sovereign.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Authority of Sovereign Inheritance]
Inheritance connection stabilized.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The target is now recognized as a subordinate of the host.
---
Ethan stared at the system screen blankly; his expression didn’t become happier.
Instead, his brows slowly furrowed.
"Seriously?"
He glanced toward the crimson-armored ant lying obediently before him.
"This authority is far more troublesome than I thought."