My sense flared, and something covered the bright sun over our heads.

I looked up to see the reason for that untimely shadow, and saw my first swarm. A bug swarm so huge, it turned our day into a dark night.

“Now, that’s not good.”

“Everyone hide!!”

But we had already started getting under, and out of sight of the bugs before the Red team leader had even shouted.

*Bzzzzzzzz**

I literally turned into a statue to hide myself, but unlike what we thought, no bug came down to hunt or gather food. They all flew away at their fastest speed possible, leaving behind us and the other insect in distress.

{Statue as risen to level 5}

“That’s strange.” My team leader mumbled, and I agreed with her.

“This is definitely strange. And from their behavior, I don’t think they are migrating…” one of the scouts checked them out, and our scout answered back saying,

“Yeah, it’s as if they are running away from something.”

The discussion between us spies continued until the sky cleared once again, and the bugs went out of our sight.

“The hell was that about.”

“This is a bad omen! This is a bad omen!”

I didn’t know anything about omens and such, but my skill foreboding acting and making it difficult for me to breathe, did give me a bad feeling about it.

Anyways, our squad leader clapped his hands and got our attention towards him, before saying, “Ants, that surely was a surprise. It was a phenomenon, I have never seen before, but that was just bugs migrating. Now, I would love to talk about them and everything, but we have a time limit and the success of our mission depends upon the work we do. So teams, let’s move. We don’t have time to waste.”

And he started walking at the front. The green, red and yellow team leaders followed behind him without a question, while our team leader looked at us and nodded her head, “Let’s go.” She said.

Our journey continued through the flower bed without any obstruction. Just a stink bug panicked and fired its poisonous gas towards us, when he saw us coming.

And obviously the poison had no effect on me.

We successfully crossed the garden, and the grass forest came once again.

{Map2.0 has risen to lv 8}

We entered and had walked only a few meters upon the slightly wet terrain, when the team at the tail of the group started yelling the group to stop.

“Everyone stop for a second. We are missing a member.”

The whole group stopped and turned to look behind, and saw the only other common soldier as a team leader haphazardly telling its team members to look around for their missing member.

His team members nodded their heads, but before they could move out, our squad leader hurriedly ran to them and shouted.

“Stop. Don’t move. No one move. And you…”

He looked angrily at the team leader. “I understand that you are worried for your missing team member, but what the fuck do you think you are doing by sending your other members to find him. You are not helping your missing person but sending these all these ants to their death beds. Where the fuck, do you think we are? We are not here on a picnic!”

“But…”

{Intermediate knowledge has risen to lv 11}

The team leader tried to explain, but was slapped on his face, and was asked to calm down.

“Nothing good will come with you behaving like that. Now calm down and tell me exactly how it happened.”

And the team leader apologized for his behavior before explaining the situation.

“We were just following the group, when the kid stopped for a second. We didn’t give him any attention but when I saw that he hadn’t followed us, I looked back and he wasn’t there. He just disappeared.”

And our faces crumpled hearing that.

“So you mean to say in the small time window, when he stopped behind you, something came and took him away without letting you notice it.”

The team leader nodded his head, which for some reason only made the squad leader angrier.

“And you still wanted your team to spread out and find him? Are you fucking insane!”

The team leader stepped back as a harsh pressure excluded from the squad leader and made him tremble.

“You…”

The squad leader was going to denounce him when a big shadow suddenly appeared in front of us, clenched one of the ants from the same team in its legs, and disappeared once again.

Everyone was left dumbfounded when it happened. They looked here and there to see what it was and where it had gone, but my perception and some scouts quickly found out where the culprit had come from.

{Perception has risen to lv 12}

“Up!!” I shouted and we saw a huge brown colored, and grey streaked thing, with eight legs and six eyes flying back to the top of the grass blade.

It was if someone had played a video in reverse. At first I thought that it could really fly! But then my vision worked, and I saw an almost invisible string extending from its back and joined at the top of the blade of grass.

“Fuck, it’s a shadow jumper!”

“Everyone jump backwards, and don’t let it get out of your vision. Fuck this fate!”

And the only healer in our group once again started mumbling how she knew it was a bad omen and whatnot.

While everyone looked at the thing getting back to its base, digging its jaws deep into our brother’s body, poisoning it and then sipping the life out of it. I appraised it.

And the result shocked me, because it was way stronger than us, the bees and even the hornet!

{Appraisal2.0 has rise to lv 3}

Appraised: Antania ‘The widow maker’

Name

Antania ‘The widow maker’

Level

19/25

Species

Spider

Rank

2

Job

Assassin

Health

316/316

Stamina

81

Mana

110/110

Gender

Male

Tier: E

And it was a fucking second ranker. A second ranker who had most of his useful stats in the J tier.

I shuddered when our eyes met and panicked, but then a cool feeling suddenly calmed my mind.

{Overwhelm resistance has risen to lv 16}

“That’s a very big problem folks.” Our squad leader spoke, seemingly enchanted by the spider.

“What should we do?”

“Sir, should we run?” One of the three big leaders asked, and following him the green team leader reminded our squad leader his own words.

“Sir, it was you who said we’ll pass all the dangers on the way. So should we be on our way?”

But squad leader shook his head in defeat and spoke, “That’s option is viable for everything else, except this shadow jumper?”

“Why?” my team leader asked, and he replied.

“Because now that he has found us, if we ran away he will become confident and follow us to the end. Now, do you all want this menace to trail our tail, and keep on biting until there is no more tail left?

And seeing the frozen faces of the team leader he smirked.

“Just as I thought. Now, everyone who has an ability which can hinder its movement, please step forward?”

And no one stepped forward.

His brows furrowed he asked one again, “Anyone with jumping ability, acid… you all can sting right.”

And three groups formed, which consisted of four ants with the ability to spray acid, three ants including me with the ability to jump, and five ants with the ability to manipulate small root hairs.

“Okay. Good enough.” He looked at the yellow ants and ordered, “You five will try to hold it down for at least a few seconds.”

Then he looked at us jumpers and acid sprayers and said, “You three will pounce on it, and just as it comes down, no matter whether the others are able to bind it or not, and you four will try to melt its string.”

Then he looked at the common soldiers and spoke, “Then the soldiers will hold it down once it gets down, and the rest will attack. Okay?”

We nodded our head, and the spider seeing us not running away became impatient, and jumped down once again.

“Now, jump!”

And following the order we jumped on it, but as if the spider knew what we were going to do, it curled into a ball, and cut off its string.

The others seeing that hurriedly moved away, but some couldn’t move and…

*Smash*

We missed him with our jump, and it directly smashed two ants under its body.

And our only healer died before she could heal anyone.

Coming down, it didn’t just stop there, and created some distance between us by rolling away, while killing one red ant on the way.

Having created the distance it once again stood back up on its feet and looked our way. I promise, I could see it smirking, but I was wrong.

“Team red attack with fireballs, team earth now is your turn, hold him, rest charge. Don’t let it spray its poison!”

The way it had taken a full breath, it was recharging to spray a poisonous breath on us and we would have been taken out by it too if he had succeeded, but the Yellow stripped ants did their jobs and roots coming from the ground bound its legs, and forcefully closed its mouth.

Its concentration broke and its breath got cancelled, but that didn’t stop it. The roots or rather treads were too soft to hold him, and its raw strength tore through all the binds, but before it could do anything fireballs streaked through the air, and struck on its face.

*Sheahhh!*

It cried out, and the grin on its mug vanished.

It pumped its legs and got into the motion of jumping, when I who was using feather fall to fall down cancelled my skill and fell down. I concentrated and used weakness tracking to find a weak spot, maneuvered to get on top of it and

*Bamm*

{Feather fall has risen to lv 9}, {Planner has risen to lv 5}, {Deter has risen to lv 5}, {Slam has risen to lv 7}

{Concentration has risen to lv 6}, {Reflex has risen to lv 5}

I fell like an artillery shell, and struck its back. And not only did my fall stopped it from using its strengths, but also pushed it onto the ground.

“Soldiers hold him!!”

The squad leader cried out, and twenty ants ran toward the spider with full conviction.

But it didn’t simply submit to us because it had failed once.

Using its legs it started spinning on the ground like a rotor, and I had to hold its hair extremely tight to save myself from getting blown away.

{Iron grip has risen to lv 10}

{Iron grip has risen to lv 10}

And is presenting you with the option to:

Stick or Tear

“Don’t let it run away, and fire spray acid on it!”

“But there is an ant on its bac…”

“Do as I say!!”

Though I heard the leader and understood that he was sacrificing me for the greater good, but it still felt bad.

But like hell I was going to let them melt me.

The ants sprayed acid on the spider, which proved to be a bad decision because it simply bounced back from its rotation. Though it did damage some of its hairs, the acid otherwise did no harm to it.

At this moment my grip started loosening, and I decided to do something extreme.

Checking the options on my skill evolution I asked it to help me not fall down.

*Ting*

[Skill: Root gained]

Root: Stay tall like a tree. Stay strong like a tree. No matter it’s a cyclone or a tornado, you won’t move. Allows you to resist the external force acting upon your body. The limit extends up to blunt force, and the effect increases and covers more forces with each level up.

I activated Root and I swear I felt as if I could have stood up and be perfectly fine, but instead of finding out the skills limits I decided to attack it instead.

I bit on its back. Though its hairs hurt me too, but I didn’t let pain dominate my mind, and bit again.

{Willpower has risen to lv 5}

My struggles activated dissolve, and acid started dripping from my mouth.

{Acid manipulation, Acid creation has risen to lv 2..3…4…}

*Sheahah*

It screamed, and when I took another bite at its back with my acid coated mandibles, it stopped rotating.

Continuous activation of the skill and multiple skill levels made the skill strong enough to melt its defenses.

Another bite and cut helped me tore through its softened back, and let me dig a huge hole on it.

{Mandible cut has risen to lv 4}, {Mandible mastery has risen to lv 3}, {Dissolve has risen to lv 2}

“Now is our chance. Hold him.” And our squad leader seeing the spider shivering with pain didn’t let the change go, and hurriedly order the units to kill it.

It didn’t take long before the ants had grabbed it from its legs and body.

Their pincers dug deep into its hide and their legs strongly gripped the ground, the spider shook its body to get out of its bind but it couldn’t actually do it.

The soldiers then started stretching its body in all directions and it tore its legs with their raw strength.

“Hah, how do you feel…”

But it took a bite at the squad leader who had ventured too far into his range. Squad leader panicked, but otherwise successfully ducked out of its attack and came back unscathed, but stunned.

Gritting his mandibles in anger he ordered everyone to attack at it.

Fireballs, acid sprays, blood sucking, root spears, bites, poisonous stings and whatnots attacked the spider from all sides while I stayed on top of it, and dissolved half of its back with my acid covered bites.

{Mandible cut has risen to lv 6}, {Mandible mastery has risen to lv 6}, {Dissolve has risen to lv 4},

{Acid manipulation, creation has risen to lv 7}, {Haste has risen to lv 7}, {Fast processing has risen to lv 5}

{Perseverance has risen to level 10}

{Perseverance has reached its paths end.}

*Ting*

[Title: Tenacious gained.]

Title: Tenacious

What do problems and obstacles mean to you or the path you walk. Everything is just a stepping stone for you to step upon in your life.

Reward:

Skill: High Health regeneration.

High health regeneration: Uses mana to regenerate health, but can’t regenerate lost limbs.

Rate: 1Mp/1Hp.

And even though we attacked it with all our might, it still took us a good hour to fully mull its health out and kill it.

*Level gained*

I gained a level, and gained a plethora of skills to evolve while the five carries we had sucked the nutrients out of it.

“Hah… Good job everyone. Good job. Let’s rest for half an hour.”

We welcomed the rest and sat on the ground. I noticed the squad leader glancing toward me from time to time. I understood that he was probably feeling guilty for attacking the spider while I was still on it.

I was angry, but didn’t hold no grudge against him, he was just doing his duty after all.

I was sure that he would come to apologize too, when we’ll get alone, probably.

All in all, we lost six ants. Three were from the team of the black soldier ant, two from the yellow leader’s team and one from the red team.

We buried their bodies, prayed for their next life and started walking again.

We didn’t meet any other problem on the way, and safely reached our destination.

The squad leader sighed and gave his final orders.

“Okay, you know your positions, now move out.”