I didn’t have much time to play with the workers, so I let them be.

Even if someone reached me, a simple kick to the temple was enough to send them to the la la land.

One two, three, four, five, I dodged the furiously attacks of five workers and reached my limit. I got aggressive for a second and showing my progress with martial arts, I kicked, punched, dodged a tackle, lifted the ant from his head using its own moment, and threw it on the worker coming from the side.

*Smack*

The collision broke one skull while the other lost conscious.

“How, can this be?”

Queen or the king working from the shadows blurted out, while I kept on dodging and making sure that every one of those worker who were acting hungrier than their stomachs could hold would be dealt with without any mercy.

I made sure that no one of them would die, but it still felt more like I was playing with the kids, rather than fighting against dangerous predators.

Queen’s dreary voice clearly showed the kings state of mind. He was slowly losing confidence in his workers and by the time I was done with them he lost his mind completely.

I didn’t get much out of the hassle. Because I didn’t kill anyone, I didn’t gain any experience, and because I didn’t use any fatal moves only my martial arts and dodging related skills leveled by three each.

Kick, punch and tackle all increased by three, while dodge increased to level fifteen from nine.

[Intermediate hand mastery has reached level 10]

[Kick has evolved into Explosion Kick.]

[Punch has evolved into Explosion punch.]

Explosion Kick/Explosion Punch:

Your kicks or punches gain explosion damage. Every explosion uses your opponent’s mana.

Explosion damage increases by 10% per level.

Will knockback the opponent and stun him.

But then Queen’s voice hardened and the situation turned.

“This won’t do? Tough I didn’t want to let this be known, but it doesn’t matter. You are going to die anyways.” She mumbled and then clapped with her antennas, which got the attention of all the workers in the room.

“Go berserk.” and as if she had pushed a button that shouldn’t have been pushed, the workers came to a stop at their positions.

Even the ones I had already dealt with stood up as if they had been acting all along.

The room turned completely silent and I noticed that other than the sound of me, the queen and a third persons breathing, there was no other sound at all.

And then a vile gust of wind blew in the closed silent room, bringing the scent of rot and death with it.

I had seen this scene before, and knew what this scenario would lead to and proving me right, the ants started turning one by one.

Turning into zombies that is.

“Haaha… how do you feel now? Do you feel dread and fear? Is the light of hope finally fading and darkness returning to reign? Let’s see how you deal with them now!”

And one by one all the workers started shedding their past skins and converting into rotting, flesh eating yellow beasts.

Their legs bulged showing the increase in their agility. Their bodies became bigger and their exoskeleton became tougher.

Spike emerged from their backs and their eyes turned pale white with a disgusting looking worm looking out from them.

I gritted my teeth and got ready to face the horde, as a thought that I had been suppressing from quite some days appeared once again in my mind.

At first I had doubts as to why the all seeing queen wasn’t helping us find the killer. And afterwards the doubt deepened when the queen notified no one was about the presence of the parasitic zombie turning worms.

But now knowing that the queen wasn’t mentally present in the colony it was understandable why she didn’t inform anyone, but the doubt about why the king didn’t tell anyone had remained. It wasn’t like he was blind or being controlled too.

But seeing even the workers working for the queen turning into zombies, I had nothing left to argue with him. The king had fallen. Maybe he wasn’t even himself anymore.

Anyways, I had found, what the zombies called mother.

While I wanted to continue talking to myself and assemble all the evidences, the first wave of zombie attacked me.

“Hey… don’t gang up on me. I am alone and you are…” Well there were five of them who had come to suck my stinger.

Even though there were fifty not so great looking gals ready to rock and roll with me, but unfortunately for them, I wasn’t into loose skin and disgusting looking faces. So I kept my distance from them and didn’t let me their acidic hands touch me.

I needed time to thing, therefore when the first five of them reached me I used [Mend wave]. Both it and its echo pushed them back and even stunned one.

{Echo has risen to lv 5}

Looking around I saw the other zombie starting coming out of their stupor. So I decided to deal with the zombies I had just pushed back first.

I found the most venerable one and seeing how its head was glowing red thanks to my skill [Weakness tracking], I didn’t let go of the chance and jumped on it.

The idea to not kill them was long gone. The ants that I knew once were long gone. The only thing left behind was their shells, which the demons were using to harm the rest of us.

I cared about the ants from my colony, but them… I had no pity for them.

While airborne I converted my legs into spike and directly dug into the eyes of the stumbling zombie and killed it without giving it any chance to stand up.

*Critical Hit*

[Killed zombie ant lv 3/ RK 1/ 16 Exp gained.]

“Gwack…!”

But while I was busy retrieving my spikes from its eyes, one of them tried to attack me from the back, but auto defense helped me dodge it. Though the zombie missed to give me a fatal blow, its sword like stinger did manage to leave behind a hefty wound on my back.

Saying it did nothing more than that was an oversight, because its stinger was laced with poison.

Though poison resistance took care of the poison, I had to use [Heal] to recover from the wound.

[Heal has risen to lv 7]

And after the golden glow from the skill subsided, I was ready to act once again.

My wound recovered, but my anger flared, and activating [Haste] I turned at the speed of lightning toward the coward who had tried to back stab me.

It lifted its head and once again tried to make a move, but I bound it with [Roots] and made a flying kick on its head, with three of my legs turned into spikes.

*Puck*

“BUuuu..!”

*Thud*

The spikes entered its head like a hot knife passing through butter and killed it on the site.

I waited for the explosion to happen, but other than the sound of a body falling on the ground, no other big booms happened.

I remembered that the zombies didn’t have mana to begin with and sighed. The explosions used my opponent’s mana after all.

My break midst fifty, now forty eight crazy zombies didn’t last for long. And soon the second wave arrived.

Some rushed toward me with their mandibles wide open. Some jumped at the slightest opening, and some tried to cut me apart with their sword like stingers, but things didn’t go the way they wanted it to go.

Some of them probably felt odd seeing me smirking, but the loud “WHAT!” by the queen, when all of the zombies simply passed through my body was a moment to record and remember.

{Slipping steps of the ghosts has risen to lv 5}

I timed and used [Slipping steps of the ghosts] at the exact moment when the zombies reached me. It allowed my body to turn into a specter and let the zombies pass through me, as if I wasn’t even present there.

I step out of the ball of zombie and marveled at the sight of them having been done in by friendly fire.

Some had stingers piercing their chests, some had mandible half way into their necks, while some of them had already died with their heads rolling on the ground. All in all, it was a job well done.

Making decision about whether to use spike attack or a Wind cannonball was difficult, but the low cost spike won in the end by slight margin.

“Spike manifestation.” I spoke slowly and tens of earthen spike, which were more like spears emerged from underneath the piled up zombies and took care of them.

[Spike has risen to lv 16…]

The spike weren’t shark enough to devastate their exoskeleton which could even handle a wind cannonball, but the bottom of all the ants which was a diversely acclaimed weak spot couldn’t handle a single push and tore apart under the terror of those spikes.

The spears punctured their bottom like it was paper, and entered their bodies. In the end spike rose to level 19

Some died, while some made “Gaaa, gwaa” sounds as black rancid blood dripped down from their open wounds onto the ground. Notifications confirming the deaths of eight zombies appeared and disappeared in a matter of seconds.

[Eight Zombie ants killed lv multiple/ RK multiple/ 350 EXP gained.]

“Thank god they aren’t too strong. If every single one of was strong like that squad leader…”

*Gulp*

I shuddered simply thinking about it.

Thankfully these zombies weren’t too strong and only had strength similar to a strong first ranker.

But right then the rest of the thirty six ants completed their zombification and stared at me with their puss leaking, nauseating eyes. I also stared back with eyes of terror at full throttle. While my stare showed no effect against them, their stare made me anxious.

Our stare battle would have probably lasted for a while, and given me enough time to recover my stamina somewhat, if it wasn’t for the king… queen, yelling at them.

“What the fuck are you lot staring at. Go. And. Kill him!!!”

I took a deep breath looking at the zombies running toward me with their feverish eyes and open mouths, and got ready for round two.