Chapter 360
“What? A magical beast attack?”
“Fuck!”
“Everyone, get up!”
The moment Kim Jinsu’s voice rang out, the people who had been fast asleep instantly sprang to their feet.
They hurriedly climbed onto the roofs of the transport vehicles.
“What is it, boss? What do you mean magical beasts all of a sudden?”
“You don’t hear that sound? It’s Armored Ants.”
At Kim Jinsu’s words, the Awakened focused their hearing.
Soon, they too heard the sound of Armored Ants clacking their teeth together.
“It’s real! The Armored Ants followed us all the way out here?”
“Fuck! Are those crazy monster bastards really here to avenge their own kind?”
The Awakened could not hide their shock.
The campsite was sixty to seventy kilometers away from the fissure where the Armored Ants lived.
At the pace Armored Ants moved, it would take them over ten hours to travel that far.
The Awakened simply could not understand why they would come such a great distance just for revenge.
It was hard to believe that F-rank magical beasts possessed such fierce loyalty toward their own kind.
A moment later, silhouettes emerged from the darkness.
“Holy shit!”
“My god… Just how many are there?”
The Awakened’s faces turned deathly pale.
An overwhelming army of Armored Ants, impossible to count, was advancing through the darkness toward them.
Like a tidal wave, the Armored Ants marched toward the campsite while clacking their jaws.
“Fuck! What about our escape route?”
“Too late. We’re already surrounded.”
“Goddammit!”
“Everyone, prepare for battle!”
From all directions—east, west, south, and north—the Armored Ants had completely encircled them.
It was already too late to flee.
Not only the Awakened but even the porters prepared for combat.
Though they were not as strong as the Awakened, the porters still possessed respectable fighting skills.
They pulled out anti-monster firearms specially manufactured in Neo Seoul.
The weapons were useless against high-ranking magical beasts, but against F-rank monsters like Armored Ants, they were more than effective enough.
Levin and Brielle stood beside Zeon.
Scratching his head, Levin muttered,
“Armored Ants leaving their territory this easily? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“Someone’s playing games with us.”
“Games?”
“Otherwise, this situation makes no sense.”
No one understood magical beasts better than Zeon.
He knew the biology of Armored Ants like the back of his hand.
No matter how deep their hatred for those who killed their kin, Armored Ants almost never left their territory.
Their territory usually extended only twenty to thirty kilometers from their nest.
If they went farther than that, they could not return to the nest within a day at their walking speed.
The fact that they had pursued them this far was completely abnormal.
Something had definitely driven the Armored Ants here.
“But who would do this, and why?”
“We’ll find out from now on. Until then, you’ll have to work hard.”
“Don’t worry. As long as I’m here, these Armored Ants won’t be able to touch anyone.”
Levin answered confidently.
He was a B-rank Awakened.
If he fought seriously, wiping out the entire army of Armored Ants would not be a problem.
Though it would take some time.
Zeon nodded and looked toward Brielle.
“You be careful too. If things get truly dangerous, ask Gaia for help.”
“That won’t happen. I can protect myself just fine.”
“Good. Then I’m counting on you.”
Boom!
At that moment, the Armored Ants launched their assault.
The massive transport vehicles shook violently, as if they might collapse under the force of the attack.
Swinging his sword, Kim Jinsu shouted,
“Remember this! Not a single one of them is allowed over the vehicle wall!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Don’t worry, boss! We all know that much.”
The Awakened answered while attacking the Armored Ants trying to climb over the barricade made from vehicles.
The porters were also busy firing their anti-monster sniper rifles.
Levin transformed into his ghostly form and unleashed Purple Lightning.
Crackle!
The violet current charred the Armored Ants black.
Even as their kin died right beside them, the Armored Ants paid no attention and continued charging at the humans.
“Tch!”
Watching the situation, Brielle fired attack magic.
It was a simple spell like Wind Cutter, but its effectiveness was undeniable.
Thus, the humans worked together to repel the assault of the Armored Ant army.
Meanwhile, Zeon moved quietly.
Riding a stream of sand into the sky, Zeon suddenly noticed something strange within his field of vision.
Scattered throughout the middle of the Armored Ant horde were large objects placed here and there.
Zeon immediately descended and inspected them.
“Flame Armadillos…”
The corpses of Flame Armadillos had been chopped into pieces and scattered all the way from the Armored Ant nest to the campsite.
This confirmed that someone had deliberately used the Flame Armadillo corpses to lure the Armored Ants to the camp.
Drawn by the scent of the corpses, the Armored Ants had followed the trail here as if bewitched.
“Whoever did this is quite cunning.”
Clicking his tongue, Zeon scanned the surroundings.
Kieee!
Clack! Clack!
Nearby Armored Ants attacked Zeon.
He casually fired Sand Blasters and dealt with them before soaring back into the air.
Standing atop a swirling pillar of sand, Zeon surveyed the area.
But all he could see were Armored Ants.
The ones truly orchestrating this situation remained hidden.
“Why lure the Armored Ants here specifically? Do they have a grudge against us?”
Zeon soon dismissed his own theory.
They had encountered no humans during their journey here.
Naturally, there should have been no one harboring resentment toward them.
He also ruled out the possibility of scavengers being behind it.
The Armored Ant corpses simply were not valuable enough for scavengers to go to such lengths.
Armored Ant corpses were only useful as material for making sand hardener; otherwise, they had little value.
Even hundreds of Armored Ant corpses would not fetch as much money as a single D-rank magical beast.
There was no reason for anyone to use such a complicated method merely to obtain Armored Ant corpses.
“Then why?”
Zeon’s mind spun furiously.
Suddenly, his gaze turned toward the fissure that housed the Armored Ant nest.
“With this many Armored Ants outside, the fissure must be empty. Then is this a burglary?”
Without another thought, Zeon activated Sand Walk and rushed toward the fissure.
The Armored Ants along his path attacked him, but Zeon lightly evaded them.
Even spending time using skills against Armored Ants felt wasteful, so he simply dodged and sprinted past them.
In an instant, Zeon broke through the massive swarm and accelerated.
The sand beneath his feet pushed him gently forward, allowing him to run as fast as the wind.
After running for about an hour, the fissure finally came into view.
Not a single Armored Ant remained around the enormous crack.
The giant fissure had literally become an empty house.
Without hesitation, Zeon threw himself into the fissure.
He plunged downward at terrifying speed.
But just before he hit the ground, the sand softly lifted and cushioned his body, allowing him to land without the slightest impact.
Tap!
After landing, Zeon surveyed the inside of the fissure.
The interior walls were made of sandstone.
Countless tunnels had been carved into the sandstone walls.
Those tunnels were the Armored Ants’ nests.
Normally, the tunnels should have been crawling with Armored Ants, but now they were completely empty.
If someone intended to rob the Armored Ant nest, this was the perfect opportunity.
Zeon stood still for a moment and concentrated.
Then he sensed a faint ripple in the air coming from a tunnel on the left.
“Here.”
Zeon immediately entered the tunnel where he felt the disturbance.
The ant tunnels were extremely narrow and pitch black, making it difficult to move quickly.
Furthermore, the tunnels constantly split into three or four different paths, making them even more complicated than an ordinary maze.
If he could not sense the subtle disturbances in the airflow, even Zeon would have struggled to find the way.
Following the faint ripples of air, Zeon continued moving.
He walked for quite a long time.
By his estimation, he had descended several hundred meters underground.
Kwoooong!
Just as Zeon looked around for the path again, another ripple struck him.
Unlike the faint disturbances from before, this one was especially powerful.
After walking only a little farther, the source of the disturbance appeared before him.
It was an enormous underground chamber.
The vast cavern was large enough to fit dozens of Armored Ants comfortably, and within it stood one especially gigantic Armored Ant.
The moment Zeon saw the ant’s head, which looked as though it wore a crown, along with its long antennae, he instinctively knew it was the queen.
As if proving his guess, countless eggs were attached to the walls of the cavern.
They were all eggs laid by the Queen Armored Ant.
Around the queen lay the corpses of what appeared to be soldier ants.
The ones who had killed the soldier ants were now attacking the Queen Armored Ant itself.
Zeon frowned.
The composition of the attackers was extremely unusual.
Slender figures wearing black turbans and deshadas.
At a glance, they clearly looked far removed from ordinary humans.
They were not humans.
They were Elves.
And not ordinary Elves, either, but pitch-black Elves whose skin resembled black crystal.
They were Dark Elves.
The Dark Elves moved chaotically around the Queen Armored Ant while attacking it.
“There’s plenty of time. Don’t rush.”
“Focus on the antennae. Once the antennae are gone, this bitch is nothing.”
Some of the Dark Elves fired bows, while others wielded shamshirs or rapiers.
There were even spellcasters among them.
That much Zeon could understand.
Elves had always excelled at archery, swordsmanship, and magic.
The problem was that among the Dark Elves stood a race that should never have been able to coexist with them.
“Chwiit! Don’t let it escape!”
“Leave it to me, chwiit!”
Orcs swung axes as large as their own bodies.
Kang! Kaang!
The Orcs’ axes merely bounced off the Queen Armored Ant’s hardened shell without inflicting significant damage.
But they were more than enough to pressure the queen.
Elves and Orcs were mortal enemies.
The compatibility between the two races was utterly terrible.
The proud Elves and the battle-driven Orcs regarded each other as filth beneath their feet.
In mixed-race cities like Elharun, they were forced to cooperate out of necessity, but the Elves and Orcs scattered across the desert practically burned with the desire to kill one another.
Dark Elves were even worse.
They viewed Orcs as beasts, not allies.
Because of that, it was unimaginable for Dark Elves and Orcs to cooperate in hunting together.
Yet here they were, fighting side by side to kill the Queen Armored Ant.
Their coordinated assault flowed so smoothly that it was obvious they had fought together many times before.
At the center of it all stood the old Orc.
It was the same old Orc Zeon had seen earlier that day.
Every time the old Orc gestured, the formations of the Dark Elves and Orcs shifted accordingly.
Slash!
At last, one of the Queen Armored Ant’s antennae was severed by an Orc’s axe.
Kieeeee!
The Queen Armored Ant let out a scream of agony.
The Dark Elves and Orcs immediately intensified their assault.
When the remaining antenna was cut off as well, the Queen Armored Ant lost all sense of direction and began flailing helplessly.
The Dark Elves and Orcs seized the opportunity and attacked relentlessly, finally ending the Queen Armored Ant’s life.
Boom!
With a heavy crash, the Queen Armored Ant collapsed.
Without even pausing to catch his breath, the old Orc shouted,
“Chwiit! Gather every last Queen Armored Ant egg!”