I took a deep breath. Cleared my mind of all the useless thoughts that were pestering me about the boss, the queen, the zombies and relaxed. Mediation had long time ago leveled up enough to let me have it effects on the move and with me trying to achieve the clarity, I soon became focused and ready to rock the colony.

Upon opening my eyes, the world seemed a little wide and vibrant than before. And it turned out that the hours of living under the thumb called overload were finally over.

I had been through quite many things where I needed my locked skills, but thankfully I had been lucky and was able to cope with every circumstance as they came.

Yelling, I sprinted out of the room, with excitement and energy levels exceeding my previous records by far.

{Stable mind has risen to lv 2}

Saw the dead zombie lying on the ground with his mouth open and his eyes… completely white, I jumped over it and flashed by the greenly lit tunnel like a lightning bolt.

On the way, I checked my map to see if I could reduce my time somewhat, and turns out there was a little shortcut going through the nursery.

{Map2.0 has risen to lv 14}

First was the commercial sector which I knew would be a very difficult area to move through. I hardened my heart to become able to handle what I would be seeing, but maybe I wasn’t ready to see that yet.

I activated my stealth related skills, haste, sliding steps and hurriedly toward the commercial sector, but I didn’t knew that every step I was taking, was a step nearer to a destroyed out scene of apocalypse closing its jaw on healthy and innocent ants of my colony.

{Haste has risen to lv 17}

{Stealth has risen to lv 8}

{Slipping steps of the ghosts has risen to lv 4}

I came out of the tunnel Looked ahead and saw some zombies running behind two beautiful ladies.

“Okay~” I said and looked to my right and there were hundreds of zombies. Some feasted on the bodies of their prey, while some chased others.

“Alright, not that away then.”

And I looked to my right where stood no one. No civilians, no zombies, no nothing.

Being in stealth, I quickly moved, slide past two zombies, moved between the legs of others, slide across a body and reached the tunnel.

{Reflex has risen to lv 15}

But the state of mind I had started with, the voice which was saying, ‘It’s okay. Keep on moving. Don’t worry about some ants getting eaten. Remember, you are trying to save the whole colony. So don’t worry and keep on moving. No one will blame you.’ That calm and collected voice wasn’t there anymore.

Maybe it was a revelation or maybe I never was the right ant for the job. Maybe I should have said something to the commander when he had sent on this mission alone. I knew it wasn’t the kind of pressure I alone could handle.

‘I should have shouted and told him that he should find someone else because I am too timid and soft hearted.’

No, I wasn’t talking about fighting the zombies. All of them bastards deserved death, and I was going to give it to them too.

What I was talking about was leaving my brothers and sisters behind me to die and in the end say that they died serving a cause, a greater purpose. Say that I left them behind because I had something bigger to do. They were too small in numbers and weren’t worth the effort.

But was I the kind of ant who could look into someone’s pleading eyes, crying and sobbing face and tell them looking into their eyes that they weren’t worth my time to save them? That there sacrifice was a necessary evil in terms of the bigger picture?

If I was the commander with his kind of ideals and beliefs then surely I would have done just that and left behind every single one of them miserable ants to their fate or the fate I, we, some couple of good for nothing power holders had given them, but unfortunately I want that kind of ant.

I wasn’t the commander.

I was me.

And I was too stupid and kind hearted to use my own brothers to serve the greater purpose. I was an ant who didn’t knew much about how to move forward using others as a stepping stone, all I wanted was to move forward by taking everyone with me.

So I did what my heart yelled at me when I saw the ants looking miserable running for their lives. Trying to stay afloat on the river called life, holding onto the tiniest bit of hope that they had.

There were some soldier trying to fight with the zombie, but their adversaries were simply too powerful and cunning. No matter how the soldiers tried to hurt the zombies, but they couldn’t do much against them.

So I helped them. The route to the tunnel was empty because there were a load of zombies coming from the tunnel and they were headed straight toward me.

Just me lone struggling wouldn’t help anyone either, so it was better for me to stick to the plan and get to the queen.

While the civilians, those scared and numb ants needed a leader to help them move in this difficult time.

It wasn’t like everyone was crying out loud, there were some courageous workers, who had some zombies pinned under them, but considering the whole picture, their effort wasn’t even worth a speck of dirt.

*Sigh*

I closed my eyes, thought about the zombie who I could already be facing, thought about the five thousand or so ants fighting in the cavern and thought about the mission that I was the only hope to accomplish.

And in the end I let go thinking there was no future for the colony if everyone became food of those yellow beasts.

“Everyone…!” I yelled at the top of my voice and used war cry.

{War cry has risen to lv 5}

My voice travelled to all the corners of the commercial sector and there was no one who didn’t hear me.

Unfortunately war cry’s ability to put fear in the hearts of my enemies didn’t appear otherwise it would have been the skill of the day.

But I didn’t waste time lamenting about something that never happened because the whole colony was on stake here. Being controlled or not didn’t matter. What mattered was everyone’s safety.

“Don’t falter and fight back. Don’t fear and fight back. Don’t run and fight back. Don’t yield and fight back. Don’t be controlled… AND FIGHT BACK!!!”

And a wave of positive energy blasted everyone with its effect as the notification appeared in front of me.

War cry has successfully ignited the fires of hope in everyone’s heart near you.

All status effects nullified. +15 strength, +20agility, +10Intelligence, +5mana.

Everyone will now listen to your commands.

But I didn’t have to see the notification to see its effect. I could already see the effect showing on the brightened glances of the workers and soldier running around in the commercial sector.

The balance that was utterly towards the zombies started tilted and the civilians started gaining weight.

They looked toward me as if asking for my order and there was only one order I needed to give to them.

“FIGHT!!” I yelled and everyone who was running away from the zombies, crying under the fear, trembling seeing their loved ones getting eaten, hoped that their god would save them, thoughts that this was all just a dream, stood up. Stood up against their common enemy; the zombies.

“HOOO! Kill them beast.”

“Burn them.”

“Cut them apart!!!”

I gave one look to the changing situation before I turned to face the tunnel and got ready to face my own problem that was already running toward me at full speed baring their mandibles at me, with their eyes shining red in the pitch black tunnel.

*Crack*Crack*

I cracked my knuckles, rotated my neck, loosened my hips by jumping up a little bit and used Provoke on the undead advancing toward me through the tunnel.

I jumped up high and just as my feet touched the ground, I ran.

I ran so fast that time and my fear at last ran out, I didn’t stop to think, what the plan was all about, and every worry that I could recall, it slipped past my mind like a shallow smile on a fake face.

The zombie at the very front looked at me with hate, unprecedented hate, hate which I don’t think I deserved from it, but it came toward me with mandible wide open, its eyes wide open, its throat shrieking in other worldly diabolic sounds.

A few more steps I took and I was in front of it. Another step and I was within his mandibles reach, when it closed mandibles.

*SNAP*

A brisk and solid sound reverberated in the cave, but the blood and gore that the zombies wanted to splash didn’t happen. It looked to its left and right in confusion, but I didn’t give it much time to figure out when I had jumped, and slammed my foot on his back with my full strength.

Its legs crumbled from my drop kick and it flattened on the ground, but it didn’t die. The other zombies moved for my neck, but I hadn’t stopped yet.

The moment I felt a solid ground beneath my feet, I started slamming my legs on the zombie’s back, which activated [Rhythmic Quake].

{Rhythmic quake has risen to lv 3}

{Echo has risen to lv 4}

The zombie under me turned into paste the moment the Quake started, while all the other zombies moving to get me got pushed back. They tumbled on the raging ground and helplessly kissed the ground.

Some of them got stunned, some didn’t. I saw some of them crawling toward me, even under the effect of Rhythmic quake and haphazardly used my skill [Acid mist] and hoped that the zombies would fell the burn and run away, but even when the acid burned their exoskeleton they didn’t back down.

It was as if the zombies didn’t feel any pain at all.

I had to hurriedly use a mend wave with my diminishing mana to throw them back, but the result surprised me.

The mend wave not only pushed them back, but the acid mist which was only hovering around me got pushed with it too. And from god’s grace the acid mist turned into fog from Mend waves effect, and covered the whole tunnel in its area.

The echo from the two skills helped keep the density of the fog made of acid to not drop below certain levels and become harmless.

{Acid mist has risen to lv 5}

{Mend wave has risen to lv 8}

The acid covered all the zombies in its area of effect and the rest is history. The zombies who were stunned had their skin melted under the effect of my level 4 acid mist, the rest of them also showed adverse signs of third degree burns, but what astonished me was that none of them died.

Heck, even those which had then exoskeleton melted still looked at me with the same amount of hate and desire.

‘Surely they have no health, but that doesn’t mean that they are invincible?’ I asked myself, but the scene which was right out of a horror movie was clearly telling me that my conjecture was probably right.

I checked my mana and seeing that I only had two points of mana left, I despaired. There was about a hundred of them acid covered, half melted, on flames zombies and I was alone with my most useful tool of mass destruction having no effects on the zombies.

Thankfully my perception was working again, but unfortunately I could feel the lot of them at the back gathering mana into those blooming spikes on their backs.

Though none of them were as powerful as the first zombie I had fought with, but taking that black evil miasma thing from more than thirty zombies wasn’t what my body and mind was designer or trained to defend against.

“That’s it?” No I wasn’t asking them, I was asking myself. Whether that was it? Whether that was all that I could do for my colony? Whether that was all I wanted from my life. Hurting some zombies then dying by their hands.

But before the zombies at the back could spread their black powder, the ones at the front charged at me together like suckers who had no code and conduct.

I wanted to activate fury and burn them with my anger, but as if I was a sugar cube, those zombies turned ants gunned toward me like a bullet.

It was an awesomely strange scene, straight out of a horror movie.

Though it was scary, but I didn’t back down and decided to duke it out with them. I had decided to go out fighting.

“FUCK YOU MOTHER FUCKERS!” I yelled while moving toward them and my punch connected with the first zombie’s face.

*Bang*

Sound fitting the amount of strength I had punched with came from its jaw which was now broken. But while I let out my perception at full power to sense every single one of them dead ants attacking me from cunning and unsuspecting angles, no one actually even touched me.

Even the one who just had its jaw broken, and should have angrily jumped at me at the slight lag in my concentration, only stood up to run away following its others members and out of the tunnels.

Looking at the front, I saw that those zombies who just some seconds ago were getting ready to fire that jet of miasma toward me had also cancelled their attack and were rushing toward me or rather trying to get past me to meet their lovers.

The thought that maybe they were trying to get the civilians did cross my mind, but when even the civilians started running toward the west, I couldn’t understand the reason at all.

The zombies were running, the civilians were running, the soldiers were running. Actually it seemed to me, as if the whole colony was running toward the west for some reason.

The reason confused me so I thought what was so important in the west and remembered that the commander and the others were heading to the west. That was where the shortcut to the queen’s quarters lied.

*Gulp*

I felt tension, fear over the whole colony plus the zombies going over the commander’s side to duke it out with them, but I also felt a bit of sadness because the precious experience was running away from me.

Well it was a difficult time letting those eager to die and not fighting back adversaries run away, but work was work. You do what you are assigned for.

‘They took their sweet time getting everyone riled up.’ I thought and after giving the cavern which was getting empty at a very quick pace one last look, before I too I started running toward my destination, while thinking thoughts like, ‘Why did the zombies followed the civilians too?’ or ‘Why didn’t the zombies kill anyone?’

But I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind, not because they weren’t important. Hell no, but because I already knew the answer they led to and I was hoping that what I was thinking wouldn’t come true.

Anyways, I followed through with the plan of action and directly rushed toward the nursery.