Too Stubborn to Die

Aaron was certain that they were on the right path toward the queen. And not just because the strongest energy signals within the entire hive were straight ahead.

But because the stream of armored ants rushing out to meet their attack only grew stronger and more ferocious with every step they took. Still, despite being considerably stronger, the armored guards couldn’t compare to the swarm. There just weren’t enough of them, nor did they possess the overwhelming power of the royal guards.

Still, beating their way through had become a slog. At the end of the day, these guards were between peak E-grade and low D-grade, and that made a difference, even if they were comparably weak against the trio.

Even a weak D-grade had enough power to do considerable damage. What was really holding them back was still. And although they weren’t drones, they weren’t much better.

For the most part, they more or less barreled forward, shooting spikes from their shells and enveloping their pincers in energy as they attempted to carve through Aaron and his companions.

But that wasn’t good enough. Even Talia and Zero had little difficulty dodging their attacks, and so Aaron barely had to think about them as he beat his way through.

There must have been a good stream of experience waiting for him once the battle was brought to an end, but he didn’t want to realize that, just in case.

He desperately wanted the queen to push him over the edge into D-grade, and although these ants probably didn’t provide that much experience individually, if he killed enough D-grades and paused for long enough that the System granted him the experience, it might just push him over the edge.

“How many of you bastards are there!”

Fists crushed through carapaces, and other ants were simply thrown aside, crashing into walls as he pushed forward in a frenzy.

But it wasn’t just his evolution that hung on his thoughts. They were edging closer and closer to the heart of the ant hive, and there were bound to be dangers.

And the longer they were pinned down by these armored guards, the more chances they gave their enemy to surprise them with ambushes.

With a final push of power, Aaron led the charge, barging through a final row of armored ants and stepping into the grandest chamber they had yet to come across.

And it was absolutely teeming with ants.

It was as if every inch of the room was squirming with life. And on both sides of the walls, dividers made of earth separated the birthing culpable. It was quite the sight. Each one of the cubicles housed a giant ant the size of a small truck pulsing with life as its abdomen spat out eggs.

And that was only just the beginning of the spectacle. Lines of drones traced their way around the chamber, entering the cubicle empty-handed, and leaving with eggs before carrying them off down countless adjoining tunnels.

He also noticed a few other smaller rooms, with tiny child-like ants, including a few humanoid ones.

But what truly caught his gaze was the absolutely behemoth ant at the very center of the room. The queen ant at the center was at least five times the size of the other huge ants birthing eggs, and it had rows of drones lining up to collect eggs from it as it worked tirelessly to spit out more and more.

“Mother of fucking…” Aaron’s jaw fell agape, and he almost forgot about the battle taking place around him, his body basically on autopilot as it punched and dodged.

Twisted Fire Queen [ Level 195 ]

Titles: [ Regional Overlord ] [ Beast Progenitor ]

Aaron blinked as he took in the inspection window. This was what they had come before, and it was terrifying.

But he didn’t have a great deal of time to think about the enormous ant queen, as they were still in the thick of battle against the armored ants, and worst of all, most of the guard captains had been holding back within the main chamber.

This wasn’t good. Aaron drew on a pulse of true core energy, sending it out through his fists and beating down several armored ants in a second. It was a little overkill, but he had to get serious now.

He had no idea how he was going to deal with such a powerful ant, and if they didn’t finish off the rest of the guards now, he had a feeling things were going to go very poorly.

However, as the battle dragged on for a few seconds, he was surprised that the queen had yet to act. He didn’t understand it in the slightest. They were winning, and there was no logical reason for the queen not to join the fray and finish them before her guards were all dead.

Hang on… Is she…. Wait, no way. No fucking way. She isn’t a combatant, is she?

The realization that this incredible beast before him wasn’t a fighter struck him like a truck. The queen was without a doubt the heart and or brain of this superorganism. Undoubtedly, the most important target for taking out the deadly threat.

But she wasn’t a bloody warrior, was she?

She had the ability to create all of this and birth incredible warriors like Lord Rhino and Thousand Grand, and yet, without her minions guarding her, she was just a giant target waiting to be smashed into the ground.

This was new and unexpected. But Aaron was aware that paths took both people and creatures in different directions. And the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. The ant queen’s evolution hadn’t led to directly wielded power, but to all of this.

To the creation of a truly impressive superorganism that threatened the entire world. And despite all of that, she was practically helpless.

A manic grin twisted across Aaron’s face as he bashed through several armored ants, pushing through the room.

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This was an opportunity. One that likely wasn’t to repeat itself.

“Oh, this is gonna hurt!”

He rushed forward, either killing or just knocking the guards between him and the queen away.

This wasn’t an opportunity he would risk losing. Especially not when there was the possibility that there were two more royal guards somewhere. There was always the possibility someone else had killed the royal guards, and that was why they hadn’t seen them. But Aaron, quite frankly, doubted it.

There were only a handful of people in this world that had any chance of doing such a thing, and while it wasn’t impossible that someone like Darius or Raksha Tiksus Vakmal was nearby, he doubted it. If such a power were nearby, he likely would have noticed some signs of it by now.

“I’m going for the big one!” He yelled and shot straight through the last couple of guards with [ Spectral Rush ].

Talia and Zero, still some way further back, near the entrance of the room, took up the fight against the guards. They didn’t require his help against the guards, but they were still both more vulnerable than Aaron by a long shot. And used the terrain to their advantage.

The armored ants might not have been particularly smart, but they could still surround Talia and Zero, and their attacks were strong enough to kill, so they needed to be careful.

Aaron, on the other hand, was built differently.

But even though the massive queen wasn’t a fighter, she wasn’t entirely defenseless either. As he closed in on the queen, she activated some kind of telekinesis Skill that raised the nearby drones into the air around her. A second later, she literally started hurling the drones at Aaron.

The unfortunate drones met his fists, exploding as his attacks struck them. But she had done more than just throw them at him. Somehow, they had been turned into the very Skills they had consumed, and the poison ones exploding into clouds of toxins, and lightning ants erupted into blasts of energy.

The attacks managed to wound Aaron as he fought through the flying ants, thanks to their area of effect. But while it was a half-decent attack, the actual power of the explosions was coming from the drones themselves, not a level 195 creature, which made them rather easy for him to heal through.

“Think this will stop me?!”

He roared with irritation as the drones kept being flung at him. The attacks wouldn’t stop him, but there was little doubt they were slowing his approach.

And it was becoming beyond obvious she was just buying for time. On one hand, that meant he was correct about her lacking combat abilities. On the other hand, it likely meant she had a reason for drawing the fight out as long as she could.

A danger sense panged within. He had a bad, bad feeling. In all likelihood, the other royal guards were still alive. And that meant he needed to be done with this as quickly as possible.

After all, she would have known well before they reached the main chamber that her armored guards weren’t going to stop them.

Roaring defiantly, Aaron pulsed C-grade energy through his body again. Nothing about this battle had put him in true danger yet, but his senses told him that he needed to kill the queen now!

As he pushed himself into overdrive, he turned into a whirlwind of destruction. It was all about speed and pushing through her final defenses with reckless abandon.

Now wasn’t the time for perfection. Now was the time for speed and overwhelming power, and he just about ignored the exploding drones as he grunted his way through the final meters on his approach to the queen.

And just as he did, a chill traced his spine.

His danger sense panged again, alerted by [ Gorgon’s Soul Vortex ] as creatures of incredible power stepped into its range. They were some distance away still, but they were moving at incredible speed.

They’re still above the surface, but we don’t have much time!

He knew what needed to be done. He needed to finish this before they arrived.

Drawing down on more of his reserves, he sent a pulse of energy rushing through his body and flew into a flurry of attacks that brought him right to the queen.

“STOP! STOP NOW!”

Aaron ignored the queen’s plea. He had seen enough from these ants to know that there was no compromising. They sought total domination of his world, and even if Yendal hadn’t warned him, his actions would have been the same. There was only one possible way forward, and it was to eliminate this apocalyptic threat.

The moment he reached her, he ignored everything, eyes turning white with determination as he threw haymaker after haymaker straight into her armored body, blasting away giant chunks of flesh with each strike.

However, despite her lack of combat Skills, she was incredibly hardy; after all, she was level 195. And after the first several strikes, her wounds bubble and spit acidic blood that hissed and sizzled as it burned against his skin.

If Aaron were anybody else, the acidic blood likely would have forced her attacker to reconsider such a direct approach, buying her some more time. But Aaron was a madman who didn’t fear even death, and his healing was on a completely different level than most, and he just bit down and healed through the pain of it all.

“Gonna take more than that to stop me!”

“STOP! Madness! Relent! STOOOOPPP!!!”

With every passing second, the ant queen’s pleas became more desperate, but Aaron just laughed as he started hitting harder and harder, his trance dulling the pain as he literally tunneled his way through the gigantic beast with his fists.

Meanwhile, the battle against the armored ants was dying down, and Talia and Zero were beating down the last of the weary guards.

But just as Talia split another armored guard in two, she felt her own senses come alive.

“AARON! Do you feel that?!” She turned and shouted through the carnage.

Zero howled just a second later, silver beams bursting through a couple of ants as the wolf flashed around the chamber.

Of course, he already knew what they were worried about. It was the two figures heading their way. They had entered the hive, and were making incredible pace as they passed through the tunnels far quicker than the trio had.

The speed at which they were moving told no lies. There was nobody else it could be. The two remaining royal guards were on approach, and the deadly auras flooding out from them dripped with a deathly rage.

This was their home, and they were desecrating it. But as terrifying as the two energy signals rushing toward them were, Aaron didn’t feel any relief.

They were moving too quickly, and that meant in all likelihood that they hadn’t stopped to destroy the outpost.

“GET READY!” He roared as he continued throwing fists, one after another. “AND WHEN YOU”RE DONE WITH THEM, GO KILL THE OTHER MOTHER ANTS!”

The other giant ants birthing eggs were actually called Twisted Formic Fire Princesses, but Aaron wasn’t too bothered by the specifics at that very moment.

“STOP! PLEASE HUMAN! WE CAN NEGOTIATE!”

The ant queen had been reduced to a giant, bloody pulp, and yet it didn’t slow Aaron for even a second. And inch by inch, he broke what remained down.

He was close now, mincing the queen down with each punch, and covering the surroundings in a literal pool of acidic blood. The queen’s antennae twitched in a last-ditch attempt to sway the battle anyway she could, and when it failed, she let out a terrifying trill.

“Why doesn’t it work on you, human! Kneel! Bow before your queen!”

Aaron didn’t respond. Instead, he just kept bashing away at what was left of her, and as he grew closer to ending her, he felt the lives of the princess ants being snuffed out all around him. Zero and Talia had finished with the guards, and they were dealing with the princesses with deadly precision.

“It’s all over!”

Even if they were to fail against the royal guards, they had done it. They had protected the world against the threat of the fire ant hive.

And just as he landed his final blow, putting an end to the world-endangering threat before him, a rush of energy and crippling aura filled the chamber as the two royal guards entered.

“MOTHER!!!!”