Chapter 37: I’d Rather Die!
While being carried by the ants, he fell unconscious because of his injuries and exhaustion—only to wake up now.
Realizing this, his eyes snapped open. First, he looked left. Then right. No matter where his eyes went, all he could see was darkness.
Beneath his body, he could feel several small stones, straining his back.
"So you’re awake?" Jake’s body froze abruptly as Eris’s voice coldly echoed through the hall.
Instinctively, he twisted his neck towards the sound, trying to see its origin. However, the moment he laid his eyes on the darkness, his heart skipped a beat.
Hundreds of jade-green eyes silently stared at him in the darkness, an eerie animosity flashing in their gaze.
Instantly, his heart felt constricted. It was almost as if his body were screaming not to act strangely for once.
’Damn it.’ Realizing the condition of his body, he cursed inwardly.
His injuries hadn’t been treated. In fact, he was still bleeding through his wounds. The ground beneath his body had been stained a deep red.
Jake understood the problem immediately.
’The last lightning strike burned away the serpent’s venom... but my body is too damaged to recover. I’ve probably fallen back to E-Rank...’
The situation wasn’t looking good for him.
*Step*
*Step*
At this moment, faint sounds of footsteps slowly approached him, stealing his attention.
Jake’s eyes had already started adjusting to the darkness, allowing him to see others just slightly more clearly.
First, he noticed the blood ants—hundreds of them. Unlike wild monsters, they kept silent, showing a restrictive discipline that they had never seen before.
The meeting hall, or the ’cave,’ was humongous, but no matter where his gaze drifted, all he could see were deep red exoskeletons.
At the very center, a giant crimson ant was slowly walking towards him. Unlike other monsters, she had the alluring upper body of a human.
As she held her hands together, her arms pressed against her chest, further amplifying the volume of her full breasts.
*Gulp*
The slightest sound of Jake gulping for breath could be heard easily in the silent cave. However, he wasn’t infatuated by the ants’ beauty at all.
No, on the contrary, he had become more alert than ever. Unknowingly, his heart had started beating faster as cold sweat broke out over his forehead.
’This is the worst possible situation... To think I’d be captured in this injured state by a blood ant queen!’ His mind began to panic as he started recalling a few details.
Due to the excessive hunting of the blood ants, most of their kind had perished from the nearby lands. At first, Jake had guessed this would be just a small nest of blood ants, trying to rebuild a colony.
As all the F-rank monsters had their stats capped at ten, it wasn’t unusual for a group of similar monsters to stick around.
But at this moment, the ants instinctively gave way to Eris, unconsciously displaying their reverence and loyalty to her.
This single act engraved a deep impression on Jake’s heart. He had heard about this monster before, although he had never seen one.
’The blood ant queens are ruthless monsters that draw power from others’ blood, strengthening themselves and their colony... but there shouldn’t be a colony this big anywhere near Valeria City! Just how far did I fly off because of the blast?!’
"Are you done thinking useless thoughts?" Eris’s voice came through once again, jolting Jake awake.
By now, Eris was standing only a few feet away from Jake, staring down at him emotionlessly.
Because of her height, it became hard for Jake to see anything other than her insect legs in that position. Frankly speaking, it hurt his pride severely.
As a man who squandered the other six radiant stars with his strength and risked his life to go against the white serpent, he felt humiliated by a mere E-rank monster.
If he could, he would’ve killed her several times over from that distance in an instant; however, with his broken body, all he could do was grit his teeth in anger.
"Why have you captured me?" With his lungs and windpipe damaged, Jake struggled to form words.
"For safety reasons," she replied, her tone uncaring. "You trespassed our territory. Moreover, your body is full of marks of battle. Had we left you alone, there was a chance you or other humans could discover our nest."
As she answered, her words strangely made sense to Jake. If anything, he was only taken aback further.
There weren’t many monsters who could converse in human language to begin with. The biggest factor behind this was the lack of their intelligence.
However, monsters who were higher in rank or possessed a stronger class often displayed such characteristics.
’Even the white serpent, who’s now a boss-class monster, can’t speak so flawlessly! Furthermore, she’s only an E-rank! Then it has to be her class... named Monster? No, she’s too fluent for that... Then, it must be—!!’ His eyes slightly widened in realization, but he quickly relaxed his eyelids.
"I wonder what bad karma I had to fall into the hands of a ’Named Boss’..." He chuckled, shaking his head sideways.
Then suddenly, a bright yellow-golden light emerged in the cave, devouring the darkness.
A ruthless glow flashed in the blood ant’s green eyes, rendering them blind for a few moments.
Eris, on the other hand, stood unscathed. Her eyes were fixated upon the weak lightning crackling around the human’s body.
’As expected, humans are as crafty as ever.’
"Did you think I’d ask for mercy?" Jake bellowed, forcefully using the last bit of his strength to retaliate till the end.
While he was astute, he was even more prideful by nature. By human standards, a ’named boss’ was equal to a ’C-rank class.’
In terms of intelligence, the blood ant queen was just as crafty as any other human.
’And for her to leave me alive, she must’ve some ulterior motives. I’d rather die than contribute to your strength!’ His strong and resolute will thundered through his mind as his lightning slowly started breaking through his bindings.
Before the bindings could fully snap...
*Clank.*
Hundreds of mandibles opened simultaneously as a strange pressure drowned the entire cave in a sense of suppression.