Ch.69Challenger (3)

Crack—!

The demonic beast attacking me managed to scratch my carapace again. An ordinary beast wouldn’t even leave a mark… This one must be the recent arrival to the forest.

But it doesn’t matter. It’s no match for me anyway. With that thought, the giant ant stabbed downward with its hind legs like a fork at the toad lying face-down on the ground, which was only able to groan.

Squelch—

Squeak—

The toad’s body was split in half with a death cry. As the toad breathed its last, the giant ant moved it toward its mouth to eat it.

Whoosh—!

Suddenly, an axe flew through the air toward the toad stuck on the ant’s hind leg.

Squelch—!

The axe embedded itself in the toad’s body, releasing tremendous lightning that turned the toad’s body to scattered ash.

Screech——!!

Enraged, the giant ant looked in the direction the axe had come from. There stood a bovine demonic beast with enough strength to scratch its carapace.

Despite being just a cow, this variant stood upright and was quite large. Furious that this outsider had interrupted its meal, the giant ant charged forward in a frenzy.

The giant ant’s charge altered the terrain, knocking down trees and creating a massive path, with transparent liquid soaking the ground where it passed. While most demonic beasts avoided the charge… some were caught in its aftermath.

Screech——!!!

Kuhehehung—!!

And of course, there’s always some fool who tries to attack after dodging once. Though the ant’s body was huge and charging was its main tactic, it had many ways to protect itself.

A hard carapace, power emanating from its massive body, antennae that detect everything, a tail that emits pheromones, and powerful acidic saliva.

It had barely survived at the forest entrance, but after eating a black shiny stone there, it became strong enough to survive in the middle section of the forest.

Having dominated the middle section, it entered the central area to become the strongest there—except for the sleeping master of the forest.

Its life had always been a struggle and would continue to be so. But it would be a grave mistake to think it only knew how to charge headfirst.

The pheromones shot from its tail paralyzed a tiger, and it backed up to completely crush the tiger beneath it.

Knowing this wouldn’t kill the tiger, it continued backing up until it could see the tiger, which was now twitching with seemingly all its bones broken.

Just as it was about to bring its drooling mouth to the tiger for a long-awaited meal…

Whoosh—

The axe appeared again. It wrapped around the tiger’s tail and, with a green energy, yanked the carcass away from the ant’s sight.

Screech——!!!

Not once but twice! Deciding that the bovine creature standing over there was the most annoying one, the giant ant charged toward the cow.

* * * * *

Thud—!! Thud—!! Thud—!!

The giant ant, apparently furious about having its prey stolen twice, was charging at me. Even if its subordinates tried to bring it food, all the beasts in the middle section were ours, so it must be hungry.

Only it and the master existed in the central part, so there would be no food there, and the entrance area would have been swept clean by its subordinates.

It must be very hungry. As the giant ant charged toward me, moving much faster than before, I threw my axe at a distant tree.

And just as the ant’s jaws were about to reach me…

Whoosh——

I pulled on the axe wrapped around the tree and flew in that direction.

Clang——

The sound of the ant’s jaws colliding where I had been standing echoed. I realized that if I had been hit directly, there would be nothing left of me. Being extremely cautious, I gradually damaged the ant’s carapace.

I had already drawn its aggro, while the reindeer couple, Minky, and the hedgehog attacked from a distance with their abilities. They seemed to have realized they needed to target the same spot to break through the carapace, as they were all focusing their attacks on one area.

Of course, the giant ant’s carapace showed little damage, and it continued to rampage as ferociously as before.

Whoosh

Whooshing

I kept moving with my axe, spreading lightning chains everywhere. My lightning was black, making it difficult to see in the darkness unless one looked carefully.

In an instant, lightning chains were spread all over the place, and when I felt the time was right, I pulled on them hard.

Crackle—!!!

A net larger than the dozens-of-meters-long giant ant formed, penetrating through the ant’s outer carapace and searing into its flesh.

Screech—!!

They say that if the outer shell is hard, the inner flesh becomes more sensitive to pain due to less exposure to damage, and the giant ant was a perfect example of this.

As lightning covered its entire body and penetrated its flesh, it began to scream.

I seized the opportunity and jumped into the air. Storm Wing and the owl, who had been waiting above, each grabbed one of my arms and lowered me onto the giant ant’s body.

I gave them a thumbs-up before charging as much lightning as possible into my horns. With a black glow visible even in the dark night.

As I gathered all the lightning energy from my body and absorbed the lightning net attacking the ant, my pure white horns turned black, forming massive horns as dark as pitch.

Moooo———!!!

I jumped and drove my horns straight into the center of the ant’s back.

Squelch—!!

Crack—!!

Screech——!!!!

This attack was apparently too much for it to withstand, as its carapace shattered… but the shell was so thick that it still hadn’t exposed the flesh inside.

But that was fine.

Crackle—!!

My lightning, compressed into the form of pitch-black horns, was instantly released, revealing its power.

The smell of ant flesh cooking. Its massive body was smoking as if cooked all over. This should be a critical hit.

With that thought, I picked up a fragment of its broken carapace and moved. It wasn’t dead yet, so I needed to finish it off.

An attack made from its own fragments should be effective. With that in mind, I moved to its head and struck down with both hands, using the fragment as a weapon.

Crack—!

The sharp part of the fragment cracked the ant’s head carapace. It would be easier if I could charge it with lightning, but I had used up all the lightning circulating in my body.

With no choice, I deeply empathized with Stone Age humans as I swung the fragment to break the giant ant’s head carapace.

Storm Wing and the owl also picked up broken pieces of the carapace and dropped them from the sky.

Crack!

With the acceleration of the fall and the hardness of the carapace, the giant ant’s head carapace was shattered in many places, cracking and on the verge of breaking.

I swung the broken fragment at the giant ant’s head carapace once more with both hands.

Crack—!!

The fragment stuck in the giant ant’s carapace. Satisfied, I reached out to pick up another fragment.

Screech———!!!

That’s when the ant started moving again.

* * * * *

Screech——!!

In pain from something penetrating its head, the giant ant rose up.

It had no idea what had happened.

It clearly remembered pursuing its prey, and it knew something had climbed onto its chest at the end… but after that, its memory was blank. Even now, it had been forced awake by the sudden pain in its head. When it checked with its antennae, it found the cow on top of its head!

Startled, the giant ant shook its head to drive off the creature causing havoc. But the cow held firmly onto whatever had penetrated its head.

With no choice, the ant trusted in its carapace and charged toward a tree similar to its own size. It saw trees instantly breaking and demonic beasts fleeing from its path. But the most dangerous threat was the cow attacking from atop its head.

The giant ant ran with thundering steps and rammed its head into a massive tree as tall as itself.

Screech——!!

With a booming sound, the tree that might have lived for hundreds of years was destroyed, and the creature striking its head carapace disappeared.

But whatever was stuck in its head had been driven deeper by the impact with the tree.

Screech———!!!

The fear that one more such attack would mean death. The determination that it couldn’t die without seeing the face of the one called “master.”

With all these thoughts combined, the giant ant decided to do everything it could.

It diverted its stored energy toward recovery and began using the pheromones it had spread to summon insects from throughout the forest.

The energy it had stored quickly regenerated the carapace on its chest, but… whatever was stuck in its head prevented the head from healing.

It tried to protect its head while waiting for the insects to arrive, but… these enemies were determined to kill it and focused all their attacks on its head.

It dodged a fireball aimed at its head by turning away, but the fireball exploded at close range, causing the embedded fragment to shake and inflict pain inside its head.

Enduring the pain, it tried to dodge, but… a blue lightning bolt suddenly flew toward the fragment. It avoided a direct hit, but the lightning traveled along its carapace to the fragment, damaging its brain…

Screech—

Though it suffered dizziness from the brain attack, its enemies showed no mercy. Birds aimed at its head with hard objects they had found somewhere, and those capable of ranged attacks used whatever they could to target its head.

Though the pain prevented clear judgment, it spat saliva and thrashed its body, hurling stones and trees to keep them at bay. It kept moving to make it difficult for them to target its head.

But at some point, a green light began to seep into their bodies, healing their wounds… and even those injured by its acidic saliva returned to the battle.

And once again, something fell on its head, perhaps dropped by a bird. It quickly turned its head, but…

Boom——!!

The impact of something massive falling forced the giant ant’s head downward. Its antennae told it that this was the same cow that had been breaking its head earlier.

It struggled to shake the cow off its head, but… the cow threw its weapon to secure the fragment, then leaped to it.

Crack—

Screech——!!

The giant ant, feeling extreme pain from the slight movement of the fragment, stopped moving.

Khan, who had climbed onto the giant ant’s head, raised his axe high. Blue lightning shot toward the axe.

The lightning gathered in the axe, becoming a light that illuminated the night sky, then streaked forward as a single beam cutting through the darkness.

Boom———!!!

The lightning drove the fragment deeper into the giant ant’s head, rendering it brain-dead.