Just to test a response, he continued through the ant tunnel a slight distance but saw none rushing at him. As an additional precaution, he fired off a Flame bolt as far as his eyes saw, striking the end of the tunnel yet receiving no agitated ants in response.

It was now he realised that they actually emptied their nest completely! It might be months until a better chance to kill the queen appeared!

Moving forward in a slow manner, he was always prepared to turn around and run back… But nothing ever came forward. Once closer to the nest his mana sense revealed not a single living ant in the nest nearby, and moving further in confirmed the extent of that.

“I have to… Don’t I?” Questioning himself, there didn’t even seem to be a real choice in the matter. The constant regret of not taking this risk was so overbearing that he felt it in the present, and with that consideration he used the more than ample tunnels to step into the frighteningly empty ant nest.

Now to find the queen.

His mana sense noted a few moving sources down below, and several stationary sources resided in the snow outside. Obviously just some plants, he focused on seeing what the few remaining ants in this nest were doing.

Moving through the myriad pathways, even with his mana sense, took an emotionally draining length of time. But eventually he caught a glimpse of a remaining ant, this being a large blue ant only somewhat smaller than himself. This was nothing like the soldier ants which reached his ankles.

“An evolved Ice ant? My luck can’t be that good,” With his own assumption about the creature’s identity, he saw it moving back and forth along tunnels with pieces of flesh in its mouth. Why it did so was beyond him, but killing it in a single interaction was practically required.

Having brought the knife in his mouth, the plan for killing this one was simplistic. Blast it with a Cone of fire, and stab it with the blade if it survived by some miracle.

The spell formed easily enough, mana automatically drawn from him to form the incantation and creating a familiar ball of flame. The ant walked towards it curiously moments before it burst, engulfing it in flames for several seconds.

Once revealed, he saw that parts of its shell melted, but most of its body appeared completely intact! Even those melted portions quickly fell off with new carapace taking its place. There was no waiting as Telekinesis jammed the knife deep within the ant’s openings, the damaged thing rushing towards him without any care for the injuries!

Several stabs later the ant finally collapsed though, only a short distance from him…

[Killed level 10 Royal soldier Ice ant! Received 25% EXP]

For the first time in a while he received an impressive reward for killing, but more importantly was the level. “How are these things level 10? How did I even kill it?”

As a quick test before disabling Telekinesis, he tried slashing at the relatively intact rear shell with both the sharp edge of the knife and using the handle as a club. When either side swung town repeatedly, using his full power everytime, not even a faint mark appeared on the dead ant’s shell… He asked for an answer and received it in full.

Fire spells won this battle. Perhaps the thing’s only usable weakness to the current him.

Taking a bite of the ant’s innards, he saw the lump of meat remain in his stomach for several seconds. As no Nexus messages arrived, he knew his Ice ant bloodline to be too similar, and ignored the body. Pulling back by a distance, he hid in an alcove to restore MP. It did not take long to recover and soon after he continued towards the other ants below, similar ones which may be the few remaining ants of the colony.

No doubt the queen only reserved these royal soldiers for self protection, although sending a whole hive on a suicide mission was already rather idiotic. Even for a bug that is.

Killing off royal soldiers proved to be a pain, but still manageable with adequate MP usage and rapid use of Telekinesis. Having dispatched seven total, he levelled up once more and already found a few more ants further down. Including a small group of significantly weaker ones.

Name

Title

Nexus Aid Bonus

Species

Dragon

Bloodline

Slightly magical Ice-cream

HP

100%

MP

100%

Level

9

EXP

33%

Unallocated Stat Points: 9

Strength

0

Luck

0

Agility

3

Growth

0

Magic

10

Mutation Rate

5

Killing royal soldiers at level 9 massively reduced the comparative experience each gave, but it was still something digestible over the miniscule quantities from soldier ants.

Already, he was curious why these remaining ants resided so deep within instead of gathering more food for the queen to birth more ants. It didn’t take long for him to realise they actually were moving food, but more specifically mixing it with saliva and mucus to create a gelatinous substance before storing such foods.

These ants were all in charge of preparing food stockpiles, an impressive function of the nest overall. Too bad they’d soon realise no food remained for processing.

At least they would have if several Flame bolts didn’t incinerate bundles of them with ease, as well as the knife blade cutting down those who survived.

[Killed 10 Ice ants! Received <1% EXP]

Being so weak he just ignored them while moving deeper, finding more of such stockpile groups over time. But soon he located the target, a large unmoving mass of mana with a few large ants stuck to its sides.

“It’s about time to end this,” he waited weeks for this moment now, and finally his first enemy on these mountains would fall. By his hand no less.

When closer he received an accurate sight into the final chamber in this massive nest. The queen’s chamber was in even worse shape than most of the nest, the walls coated in mucus and other fluids from constant birthing and mating. She herself had the body of a normal soldier except for the absolutely massive egg sack behind her. Easily ten times the size of the royal soldiers!

The entire space was three times larger than his own cave abode, and besides the three royal soldiers protecting her, a swarm of other ants surrounded her at all times. Whether to mate, move larvae for growth, or just feed her regularly.

This would not be easy without bringing in his biggest weapons. And with the dried layer of mucus providing some structural support, he felt comfortable using ‘that’.

From the entrance of the chamber, he hid outside the sight of any ants and whispered the words to a spell, unfortunately both the queen and royal soldiers heard it instantly and provoked an investigation. And being ants, they completed every task in the most direct form without diversion.

Just a second into casting, a soldier ant alerted the others and everyone within moved in, ready for battle.

Meanwhile, his Explosive bolt had already finished forming and was ready to fire off, for which he only had one target in mind. The source of all his worries. And with Light spells to mark the way out, he had no fear of being stuck in this nest with ants following him.

Without time to confirm it striking, he turned tail and ran up through the meandering tunnels without hesitation. He knew that actually outrunning anything was a joke, and from the moment Explosive bolt formed had begun progress on a Cone of fire.

At the final word he looked backwards for less than a second to pick a location. His mana quickly disappeared and formed the condensed ball of flames a short distance behind him. The ants charged forward with no aversion to the heat emitted, the results rather obvious.

Compressed flames filled the tunnel, instantly roasting any soldier or regular ant with ease. But it was those royal soldiers which proved a problem. One of them took the brunt of his spell, carapace all over its face charred black and peeling, but the rest received minor spots of black which faded soon after.

It seemed he needed his backup a lot faster than planned, but he simply accepted it all.

With his lead quickly reducing, a spell he hadn’t used in quite a while poured out. Moving to an important intersection, he waited and finished the spell. Still a short distance ahead, only a few of the fastest ants slipped close to him, but ones of this scale simply died when bitten down on.

Snow around him whipped up, forming a wall in front, but quickly compressed into a sheet. Mana continued to flow out though, rapidly compressing the snow further until it formed a clean blockade of ice, one which he saw the royal soldiers through. They bashed into the thick Frost shell, trying to break it and he immediately calmed seeing it hold.

His mana dropped below 50% by using just those three spells, and the result was that not even a minute later he recovered to 75% MP. But just then, a royal soldier opened its mandibles and snapped down on the Frost shell with its full bite strength. He heard the crash and vibration of his barrier. At first thinking that an ant couldn’t possibly break it anytime soon, his cool demeanour evaporated just like that.

It chipped the ice. Where its curved hooks slammed into the barrier, a small piece was now missing.

At first he looked for any way out, thinking about just casting another Explosive bolt to shatter the ice and blow up these ants. But he couldn’t guarantee the death of these royal soldiers through that.

Moments later another chip flaked off, and all the ants began copying their larger leader’s example. Yet only the three royal soldiers did any damage, with every second his MP refilled just a bit more and they broke away more of the barrier.

He had to leave before they broke through. Looking at the junction at this point, he had to take a turn to follow the trail of lights, but first that meant getting through the Frost shell himself.

A Living flame spell formed and stuck close to the ice blocking his escape, water dripped down slowly. They’re little chips of ice soon evolved to chunks as the cracks and damage grew evermore worrisome, and by now they’d more than broken halfway through. The shell would shatter soon. He did not doubt it for a moment.

With Living flame remaining active, he quickly cast an Earth bolt spell at the melting ice, its sharp tip stabbing the wall but bouncing back after leaving a small crack. It very nearly rebounded into him.

He recast it, more ice melting as he spoke the simple four word incantation. The shard of rock formed and fired at the thinning wall. Piercing through and stopping halfway! He kept the flame focused beside the Earth bolt and chose to cast another straight away. The third bolt formed and fired as soon as possible.

It fired right through the Frost shell!

Massive cracks spread out through the shell the moment it impacted, combined with the second Earth bolt a small hole appeared in that side. He dispelled the Living flame and picked up the rebounded Earth bolt in his teeth to break apart a bit more ice, creating a hole large enough to crawl through.

With the Windburst seal activating as well, he quickly began running through the tunnels, hearing the sound of cracking from behind and some ants tailing once more. All of that just to recover a third of his mana and gain no more than 10 seconds of a lead.

But it was enough to reach the nest’s exit, having fired off two more Cones of fire to the ants following. Only a couple soldier ants survived such attacks, while two of the royal soldiers displayed gruesome injuries on their front and sides. Only one at the back remained unharmed.

In the tunnel he had a straight shot at them though, firing off Earth and Glacier bolts to stab into the fleshy internals of anything following. Even if they were called ice ants, they displayed no immunity to blocks of the stuff crushing their hearts.

The moment one glacier bolt destroyed the brain of a royal soldier, it blocked off part of the tunnel and slowed down the two still alive. With the newfound distance, he easily escaped to the cave where a bundle of weapons awaited his use. Picking up a dagger with Telekinesis, he simply waited for one to leave the tunnel before jamming the blade right through its open wound.

And so, only one remained. In the open air of the cave it met the same fate of its queen.

A Jump seal easily escaped its sudden charge forward and an Explosive bolt crashed into its carapace, denting the tough shell before detonation.

The combination of heat and high-velocity fragments tore away the royal soldier’s shell, and pulverised its internals. It was over.

He claimed victory over the hive!