"Enjoy!" Nathan exclaimed with delight as he served his dish.

On the other hand, Nora was doing her best, but she could already see her dish was inferior. "Uf, you still have the upper hand in cooking, Nathan. Congratulations."

She admitted defeat before tasting the dish. Nathan salted the fat and meat before sprinkling it with spices. It was his own secret recipe, the fruit of countless nights spent eating in the wild.

This was their moment of rest; they were going to need the power and stamina to fight against the ants. While biting the fat-rich meat, Silas told them the plan.

"First, we need to go to one of the other villages and help them if they are still alive. Do you remember where they are, Silvano?"

"There should be at least two more villages nearby. But maybe there are more on the other side of the Rock."

"We can’t help people who may not exist. For now, let’s focus on those two villages. If you can, I want you to open a portal and take us to the closest one. Depending on the situation, we change our plan."

"Number one, we teleport there, and they’re all dead. If the place is safe, we can look for supplies or survivors. If the ants are still lurking, we try to eliminate them quickly to avoid alerting them. Number two, if they are fighting or the ants haven’t attacked, we try to join forces and tell them about our intentions to cooperate. Since they knew you, I’m going to have to let you handle the introduction, Silvano."

"Are we going to fight them the same way we deal with the one ant in the tunnel? I checked that my shield can block their attacks."

"Correct, Nathan; we just do the same as always. We need to be careful with the poison and funnel their numbers into a choke point. Franco can take several of them with a single punch."

He didn’t have to say anything else. Their communication and teamwork had grown so much in the last year that everyone knew what position to take. The only times Silas had to explain were when the enemies had some special skill or ability. If that were the case, he would say it to everyone or use Nora’s power to keep it a secret from the opponent.

They finished eating the worm flesh and drank some fresh water they brought with their supplies.

"Excuse me, I have one last question. What are we going to do after looking at the destroyed village?"

"Then we have to move to the other one. You still remember the way, right?"

"Yes!" With that, Silvano’s heart was on board. He was ready to open the portal. Nora's words about civilization and the others' about the chance to return home filled him with hope and the desire to be useful.

He focused his power on the wall and opened the portal to the middle of the village. They entered in a couple of seconds, and they were greeted by the sound of insects.

The village had been destroyed; houses had collapsed, and there were dozens of bodies scattered throughout. The carnage was still going on as the ants were looking around for more food and breaking the pix bodies apart with their jaws. They turned and looked at the new prey.

Dozens of pairs of eyes were preparing to kill them. Silas stole power from one and began to look around the village, trying to determine the number of ants. Twenty, maybe thirty.

"Two exits, retreat to the south, and make them form a line!" he yelled and ran to the back. Everyone else followed.

The ants didn’t waste time and charged at them with ferocity. Their mouths drooling deadly venom. The sounds of their legs skittering on the ground echoed in the cave. They surround the prey in a moment, leaving them no way out.

"Stop the insects." Silas spoke with confidence as Nathan summoned his shield and Franco his boxing gloves.

The ants crashed against the wall and tried to pierce it in vain; on the other side, Franco dodged the claws from the legs with no problem. The ants weren’t slow, but they were outclassed by these two. They tried to bite Franco, but he punched five of them with a single blow.

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"Too weak!" His fists carried a shockwave. The ants' bodies were hard, but the force of the shockwave sent them back. The dismembered parts of the ants crashed against their own kind.

The first wave of ants was killed by Franco's hands in only a few attacks. One of the ants tried to squish its body against the shield, and it made it inside before Silas slashed its face in half. Nora was increasing his power, and he dodged the poison that splashed on the side.

"More are coming!" Nathan yelled and gestured with his head at the other side of the cave. the second wave and the third. They were all starving and enraged enough to kill them.

"Nora, help me a bit to spread the smell across the cave."

"As you wish."

Silas used all of his pheromones to send a signal not to attack. Thanks to Nora's power, it reached the whole cave in a few seconds, and the ants stopped for a moment.

Their small brains couldn’t comprehend the signal. They were fighting just a moment ago, but now the air was full of a different smell. They couldn’t fight. During that moment, they were stunned. A single attack would break the trap and anger them again.

Franco took a stance and started jumping with his feet, small jumps just high enough to get back into proper posture. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, he dashed across the cave, killing all the ants in his way.

He punched every single ant with his fist and jumped all over the place. He couldn’t afford to give them time to react. Every attack had the amount of strength necessary to kill them. In his mind, the ants were giant punching bags that he had to break with a single punch.

I could never break a punching bag while practicing regular boxing, but with these powers, I would be trash if I couldn’t do this much!

A road of blood and poison splashed all over the village as he ran. He couldn’t run back, or the poison would touch his body. He didn't use too much armor because it made him slow.

It didn’t matter; he had the skill and power to pull it off. He stopped after killing the last ant on his path. He counted the hits as he attacked. "62 attacks, but I kill them all."

He didn’t look back, not for some dumb reason like looking cool, but because he was watching the real problem. An ant, unlike the others, stood in the back of the tunnel, leading the other soldiers. It had a couple of horns on its head. It was bigger than the others, and the air around it was red.

"Is that a pheromone?" He got the answer immediately.

The smell of the ant leader made the others around it turn mad. Their eyes went red, and their mouths started to drool even more than before.

"Franco, come back! They aren’t going to attack you; they are going to die!" Silas was transformed into one of the ants; he could read the intention of this pheromone. It was a disgusting smell that made one thing prevail in his thoughts. KILL IT, DIE TO KILL IT.

The leader of this group had determined them to be a significant threat. Taking them as food was out of the question. The only thing you can do to handle a threat is destroy it, no matter the cost.

The last wave of ants charged with madness, and Franco jumped back carefully, making sure to avoid the poison that was melting the stone. "Thanks, Nora."

He made it back with Silas and the others, hiding behind Nathan’s shield. The leader of the ants also advanced toward them. Silas used his power on him at the moment he discovered the trap.

[Furious heat] was the single skill this special ant soldier had. "This is bad; that ant can make his body heat up until it explodes. He intends to blow up all of his minions alongside himself and kill us with a poisonous explosion."

"What? But my shield can take the poison! Look, it is barely scratching it."

"No, think about it. Why he’s ordering his soldiers to come for us. He’s planning to die to open a hole. Or maybe to let the poison inside! We need to retreat!"

"Where? We’re backed against the wall."

There was no much time to think of a plan. He could see the ant leader's body turning red as it charged. It was going to explode as soon as it touched the shield barrier. Nathan was trapped by his own power; if the shield went down, they would be attacked by the ants.

"The bastard turned our defense to his advantage. I guess no all of the ants are mindless idiots."

"Then I’ll punch them away. Nathan, let me handle them on one side."

"No, look at their bodies; they are turning red too. It must be the pheromone that the leader released. Their bodies are going to explode too." His prediction was correct, as the ants started to explode.

They were small explosions, but they hurt the other ants, and the shield took damage.

"He knows he can't do it alone. Exploding with his minions is the best chance he has to kill us."

"Then what can we do?"

"To fight that suicidal determination, we need to at least do something similar. I’ll turn invisible and go outside with Silvano’s portal. I smell similar to him, so he won’t notice my presence. I’ll cut him in two before he gets close."

"Wait, if you do that, won’t he explode on top of you?" Nora asked.

"It's a possibility. That's why I say it's also suicidal."

"Are you planning to put all the responsibility on me if you die?" Rebecca said it with a mix of worry and annoyance.

"We don’t have time to discuss, and since I’m half ant, I can resist the poison better than anyone else. Silvano, please summon a portal in front of the ant leader."

The ant soldiers were still exploding against the shield. Cracks began to appear, and the possibility of the shield failing became very real.

"I can do that, but I won’t let you sacrifice yourself." He didn’t have enough power to take them away from the explosion; he was still tired from making the journey to this desert world, but he could do one last portal. "Do you trust me to save you?"

"No, but I can’t force you to use our power." As always, Silas was being honest.

The others look at him with expectation. Their lives depended on his choice.

The ant leader came close and jumped on top of the shield. His body was bright red and explode like a handful of dynamite.