“What the hell was that?!” Alexx shouted, his face pale.

“I’ll check,” Zed called out, “you guys keep fighting.”

Zed leapt to the back of the elder Mountain Goat. No longer needing to worry about the ants and lowering himself to remain stable, he began searching the sky. It took only a few seconds for him to see it, a black splotch nearly two hundred feet in the air.

The ant was shaped very differently from the ones on the ground. Its body was longer and lacked the brown lines of rust, while its spindly legs were almost twice as long as a normal ant. Its head and eyes were larger and seemed to notice Zed looking at it despite the tremendous distance between them. Its antennae were smaller and were folded back over its head. Thrumming away behind it was a large pair of wings, although Zed couldn’t say how long since they were moving too fast to see.

Most frightening of all though were its front limbs. Though the creature’s two pairs of back legs were somewhat normal compared to its kin, the front two were even longer and misshapen, growing from thick joints and thinning to an imperceptible point. As the ant turned in the air, Zed realized that the claws were wide and flat, with black carapace on one side and a dark grey that glinted with a metallic luster on the other.

‘No, not claws,’ he thought, taking a quick breath, ‘they’re blades. Solid iron blades.’

Seeing the ant’s shape, Zed now understood perfectly what had happened. Unlike the drones on the ground that overwhelmed their prey with numbers and durability, the flying Iron Ant was built for speed and offense. The lack of rust lines on the carapace suggested that it wasn’t reinforced with iron, making it light enough to fly. The iron was instead concentrated into its front limbs to form heavy blades, and when it dove down from high above, it would swing its blade with enough momentum to slice through nearly anything.

“Zed, can you see anything?” Loran asked.

“Yeah, it’s a flying ant. It’s trying to snipe the goats.”

Loran scowled. This was the first time they’d had to deal with a flying enemy, and it was faster than anything they’d seen too. Once again, New Eden Online didn’t give a smooth transition, just a huge jump in difficulty.

“Zed, stay on the goat’s back!” Loran shouted. “You have the best chance against that thing, so knock it out of the sky!”

‘Heh, he makes it sound so easy.’ Zed tightened his grip on his spear as he stared at the flying ant. Zed barely even noticed the ant’s attack before, but he was hoping that was primarily from not focusing on it.

Suddenly, the flying ant began to fall from the sky, it’s wings now still on its back. Zed tensely watched it, waiting for an indication of its trajectory. But the ant gave nothing away as it fell for thirty feet.

Then fourty feet.

Fifty feet.

Seventy feet.

One hundred feet.

Then, after falling around one hundred and fifty feet, the wings on its back began buzzing violently, slowing its descent and turning its downward momentum forward.

Zed readied himself as the giant insect barreled toward him, its deadly blades at the ready.

Then the ant raised the wrong arm.

‘No,’ Zed realized, ‘it’s not aiming at me!’

Zed leapt for one of the other goats as the flying ant swerved towards it, but he already knew he was too late. He didn’t have the timing right for a jump and was still in the air as yet another of the Mountain Goats had its spine severed in an instant. As the beast fell to the ants below, Zed landed on the body as the flying ant began climbing into the sky for its next attack.

“Damn it!” Zed was frustrated. This was his least favorite type of enemy, one that wouldn’t give proper battle. This ant was being every bit as annoying as Loran had been during their first sparring match.

‘Well, at least that exchange wasn’t completely useless,’ he thought, looking at his menu.

In the instant between when he realized he was too late and when the ant killed the Mountain Goat, Zed had just enough awareness to use [ANALYSE] while the insect was still in his range. With the ants around him seeming to ignore him atop the dead goat, he checked out the stats of the flying ant to see if there was some weakness he could take advantage of.

[NAME]: N/A

[SPECIES]: Iron Ant Soldier

[LEVEL]: 20

[STATUS]

{HP}: 150/150

{SP}: 150/150

[END]: 10

[STR]: 21

[AGI]: 101(+50.5)

[DEX]: 18

[PER]: 37

[SKILLS]

[AGILE] Lv.10

(Passive) Increase the AGI by 50%.

[ANTENNAE] Lv.5

(Passive) Increase sense of smell by 100%.

[IRON ANT PHEROMONES] Lv.10

(Passive) Allows for communication with members of the Iron Ant species.

[DESCRIPTION]

A rarer breed of the Iron Ant species, specialized for offense to defend the colony’s territory. The iron in its carapace is focused into blades that are used to gore its enemies at high speeds. They typically operate alone or only with Drones unless the nest itself becomes threatened. [EXPAND]

‘Th-that’s too fast!’ Zed’s face paled as he saw the insect's AGI, apparently an Iron Ant Soldier, was capable of. Even its base AGI was more than double his own, and the [AGILE] Skill more than tripled it! Add to that the momentum it was gaining from the fall and it was no wonder that it could enter the fight and leave in less than a second. ‘Would it even be detectable by an ordinary human?’

Fortunately, he was right about the ant having a weakness. All that speed came at the cost of durability. The Iron Ant Soldier was even more of a glass cannon than Alexx was, at least in terms of END. Its HP was still decent thanks to its strangely boosted conversion rate, but it was also missing the armor stat that the Drones all had.

‘That’s kind of surprising.’ Zed had expected the stat to be lower but not to be missing entirely. He supposed the carapace wasn’t just devoid of iron, but had been made so thin that it wasn’t even protective against anything more than intense winds. ‘At least that makes my job easier.’

This fight with the Iron Ant Soldier couldn’t last long. Either the ant would slice him in half, or he would land one solid hit and ground it.

‘Alright, time to focus.’ Zed closed his menu and turned his full attention towards the sky.

The ant was maintaining its altitude while looking down at the battlefield, waiting for something.

‘It’s probably trying to catch the rhythm of the goats’ attacks,’ Zed guessed. He brandished his spear as he waited, but he didn’t have to wait too long as the Iron Ant Soldier once again began its descent.

Zed lowered himself into a crouch as the flying insect sped towards the ground. He wasn’t sure how long he had, but as the insect began to raise one of its blades Zed leapt into action.

Using [LEAP] Zed propelled himself towards the most likely target. Having learned the Skill a few days ago and raising it to level 10, his movement was much faster than an ordinary jump. Quickly shifting his body in the air, Zed’s feet collided with the now parallel back of the Mountain Goat that had reared back to attack. With the Iron Ant Soldier seconds away, he jumped towards it and swung his spear. His weapon hit nothing but air as the insect turned away at the last second. Zed heard a roar of pain from behind him, and for a moment he thought the failed again, but after landing and turning around he was relieved.

The Mountain Goat had a deep gash in its neck, but it was alive, and for a beast of this size it was barely a flesh wound.

Zed hadn’t won the exchange, but neither did the ant.

His jump had caused him to land outside the battle and the ants on the ground barely seemed to acknowledge him, possibly deciding that if he wasn’t defending the Mountian Goats they could leave him be.

The same could not be said for the Iron Ant Soldier.

As the flying insect climbed higher into the sky it stared directly at him, no longer sizing up the goats as it focused its attention on the hunter below.

Zed grinned. “Sorry,” he muttered, “are you not used to having an opponent?”

The two stared at each other, Zed unmoving as the flying insect readied itself. The ant also changed its position in the air, making sure that the rest of the battle wasn’t between them. The Iron Ant Soldier had officially decided that Zed needed to be dealt with first.

A few seconds later the ant began to descend again, only this time it didn’t simply fall but propelled itself with its wings, gaining even more speed than before.

Zed braced himself, knowing that he would have an even smaller window to attack than before.

‘Five.’

The ant continued its descent.

‘Four.’

The ant began to pull upwards.

‘Three.’

The ant was now flying parallel with the ground.

‘Two.’

The ant began to raise its blade.

‘One!’

Zed launched himself forward with [LEAP], while also activating [CRITICAL STRIKE] and [POWER ATTACK].

The ant began to swerve in the air, not turning away but weaving and spinning in an attempt to evade Zed’s attack. However, at this speed, its movements were still minimal, and would only be effective once the two were within melee range.

Zed grinned maniacally as he threw his spear forward, the combined momentum of the [LEAP] Skill and his own strength sent the weapon flying at a speed nearing that of the ant.

The Iron Ant Soldier hadn’t been expecting an attack at this distance, and at this speed, evasion was effectively impossible. That didn’t stop the giant insect from trying, still reacting instinctively, but the results were immediate and predictable as one of the ant’s wings was torn away from its body from the wind pressure. A millisecond later, the blunt end of the spear connected with the abdomen of the flailing ant.

With the combined speed of the two objects colliding, the spear pierced through the Iron Ant Soldier, leaving a clean hole in the center of its body.