Chapter 16: First Battle (1)
Arriving before the colony’s entrance, Ethan stared at the hole’s size.
"The hole is barely enough to fit through; it’d be bad if someone attacked me in that vulnerable state." Mumbling so, he silently waved three of his subordinate ants to enter first.
The ants followed his orders immediately, and three ants entered the tunnel without hesitation. Due to the effect of their state—supreme fear—the ants had become extremely obedient, abiding by his commands without needing his skill.
Behind the three ants, Ethan carefully fitted himself inside the tunnel. His current physique was slightly bulkier than his original.
’It’s a good thing the blood ants made the tunnels slightly larger to take more food inside; otherwise I wouldn’t even be able to enter.’ As Ethan struggled to move forward, he couldn’t help but notice.
Behind him, three zombie blood ants entered, completely securing his body from any attacks.
But two ants stayed behind in the ravine and did not follow Ethan. Before entering the colony, Ethan had ordered them to secure the loot beforehand.
Using their crystal-coated mandibles, the ants easily picked the bloodstones off the ground. Once they could not carry any more, they followed Ethan’s wishes and carried the stones deep inside the sparse forest.
There, they threw them into a deep, newly dug hole before tracing back into the ravine. This way, even if something were to go wrong and Ethan had no choice but to retreat, he’d have already secured some little loot to smoothen his path.
It took a few minutes for Ethan to make it through the tunnel successfully. The moment he dragged himself out, his gaze shot up front.
Before catching his breath, Ethan carefully observed the cave.
"Unlike the tunnel, the cave looks considerably bigger. I can move freely here." Muttering under his breath, he stretched his shoulders.
The cave was naturally dark with no speck of light around. Normally, Ethan wouldn’t have been able to see anything at all.
But strangely, he could see just fine. Although everything in his vision had turned slightly a darker shade, he could partially see through the dark.
’What’s this?’ Unable to believe his eyes, Ethan rubbed his eyes several times.
But his confusion didn’t last long as a familiar sound rang in his ears.
*Ding!*
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Racial Trait Passive Effect Detected.]
└ ■ Undead Physiology (D)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Environmental Adaptation Activated.]
└ ■ Darkness Affinity
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Description:]
As an undead lifeform, the designated user’s body is naturally adapted to darkness.
In dark environments, the user’s vision, senses, and judgment become significantly more effective.
Darkness no longer hinders perception to the same extent as it does for ordinary living creatures.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Current Environment:]
└ ■ Passive effect active.
---
Immediately, Ethan’s expressions tensed. His eyes became unusually vigilant, his body reacting to even the slightest of wind.
"If what you said is true, then I believe I’ll now be able to test that out myself." Instinctively, he glared intensely into the dark.
His fingers tightened, curling into fists. Ever since he entered this cave, Ethan had been feeling the presence of countless beings before him.
He had been dismissing those thoughts, thinking they were nothing more than illusions.
But now that the system had clarified it, he knew exactly what he was up against.
"Blood ants... Hundreds of them..." A hesitant smile crawled on his lips.
His subordinate ants hissed angrily, sensing hundreds of enemies closing in.
’The ants that I turned into zombies are nowhere to be seen. But they’re definitely not dead. As for these ants, I’ll have to try to subdue as many as I can.’ Making up his mind, Ethan wasted no time and launched himself towards the ants instead.
Although Ethan’s strength and endurance had increased significantly, his agility had not grown at all. Even at his best, Ethan fell short while competing against the blood ants.
Before he could reach the blood ants, the latter reached him. Instantly, the ants tried to surround Ethan. However, six of his subordinate ants provided support efficiently.
They pushed the excess ants back, creating a funnel that led directly towards Ethan. Once the ants were within his reach, Ethan swiped a pair of ants, holding them by their heads.
As they hung in the air, the ants desperately tried to break free. Wriggling their legs, they continuously tried to bite Ethan’s arms. However, he remained unmoved.
*Crack!*
As soon as Ethan used his strength, the ants’ exoskeleton cracked! But he didn’t stop just there. Continuously increasing his strength, it didn’t take long for the blood ants’ heads to burst open within his hands.
Jerking the blood and mashed flesh off his hands, he let their headless bodies fall to the ground with a deathly thud.
’So I barely need half my strength to breach their armors? This is going to be quite easy.’ Smiling at his discovery, Ethan could barely control himself from simply killing the ants.
"Krieek!!!"
Enraged by the death of more family members, the blood ants entered a berserk state. Not caring about their well-being, they pushed one another just to kill the zombie themselves.
"This is it!" Deeming the timing right, he quickly held the fingers of his left hand and swiftly ripped them apart all at once.
Enduring the pain, Ethan frowned slightly before throwing the fingers towards different sections of ants.
As soon as they reached the ants, the fingers were ripped apart into tiny pieces and eaten by several ants.
Then, he swung his left arm towards the blood ants, splashing his freshly flowing green blood across their bodies.
Before the ants could realize something was wrong, their consciousness began to blur. A green hue emerged within their eyes, gradually brightening.
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Dormant Infection Successful.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[New Undead Registered.]
└ ■ Zombie Blood Ant (F) ×47
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[All infected targets have successfully submitted to Zombie Sovereignty.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Current Registered Undead:]
└ ■ Zombie Blood Ant (F) ×158
---
"Attack the blood ants all at once; do not simply take their hits! Aim for their vital parts!" Ethan ordered before jumping right between the horde of blood ants.
His left arm landed right on top of an ant, squashing it to death. Rubbing his newly regenerated fingers together, he grinned while looking forward to his battle with the queen.
[Regeneration Progress Updated.]
└ ■ The fingers of the user’s left hand have been successfully regenerated.