Chapter 21 – Mission Start

The weather was terrible and gloomy. It had been raining for hours, and most people and even creatures hid within their dwellings to shelter from the cold curtain of water. And yet, Aenon was in a good mood. He was finally back on the road, leaving behind the intolerable mess of civilization. He was so relieved that he hummed a soft tune as he ran along the unpaved path towards the fire ant dungeon. To keep himself dry, and to practice his air manipulation, he manipulated a thin air membrane all around him as he went. His most recent SP expenditure into mana manipulation made it almost effortless to maintain it.

As he ran, he looked at the rings on his two index fingers, the inactive form of his gauntlets. The master craftsman had explained that equipment forged with soul ore was a unique challenge to work with. Since the metal would refuse to forge into just any shape. It was up to the crafter to figure out what form the metal wanted to be in. And hence, even though Aenon wanted just a ring he ended up getting a pair of sturdy gauntlets, courtesy of the System granted soul ore. At least Borin was able to coax them into having a more discreet form of two plain black rings when not in use.

The gauntlets also helped him in covering one more glaring weakness he had. Armored enemies, like the fire ants, were tough to deal with using slicing weapons. But they were more susceptible to blunt force attacks. Something he would be able to capitalize on using his unarmed combat skill while using his fists as bludgeoning weapons. Moreover, he would no longer be left weaponless when he tossed his daggers to take out enemies at range. The wolves in particular were excited that their alpha finally had proper claws.

As Aenon approached the dungeon, he reduced his speed to a steady jog. He had asked a team to keep a close eye on the anthill. But no one was able to get too close since the fire ants were in a frenzy after their monarch’s death. From the reports he had gathered, they had sealed off all but one entrance. But that entrance was guarded by the former queen’s guard now, and thus it was impossible for any low-level player to get close for a better recon mission. At least they had managed to construct a bridge over the river, making it easier to get to the new dungeon.

As Aenon got within a kilometer (0.6 miles) of the structure, he detected a lot of activity underground using his soul sense. He immediately froze and got down on one knee, placing both his palms to ground. He felt the subtle vibrations of the ants digging in a rush. He made a mental picture of the underground using all the souls he was sensing. From the looks of it, the ants were retreating away from their former home. He wasn’t sure if they had a new queen or not, but from what he knew about hive creatures like ants and bees, they could raise a new queen when the original one dies or gets too old.

From the books he read, and the current situation, he realized why hive creatures were so feared across the multiverse. They were atrociously difficult to eliminate, and if left unchecked they had the potential to overrun entire planets. The situation was both a boon and a curse to Aenon. It would no doubt help him in getting a respectable kill count for his class evolution, provided the ants were high enough in level. But the work would be tedious and repetitive even if one egg survived.

He stood up and drew his daggers, formulating a plan in his head. He had three main goals to accomplish. First, he needed to practice and develop more spells in his repertoire. Second, he needed to kill a large number of higher leveled opponent. And lastly, he needed to eradicate the fire ants on the outside before he tackled the dungeon itself. The overflowing state of the dungeon was a cause of concern for a lot of people.

His original plan was to use the dungeon for farming as many monsters as he could, but after learning how big a threat fire ants were, he had no choice but to destroy the dungeon, something he didn’t know was even possible. Apparently, it was a standard practice for dungeons of this type. Since although dungeons granted a lot of resources and levels, insect dungeons grew exponentially and were more trouble than they were worth. As for the process of destroying one, he simply had to find the hidden dungeon node and break it. A mission the previous raid group were trying to tackle before Aenon stepped in and upended their plans.

Aenon checked his resources and their regen rates. He had close to 20000 HP and 23000 MP. And if he factored in the regen rates of about 400 HP/min and 500 MP/min, he had a truly monstrous resource pool. But the problem was the number of enemies. This would be more of a marathon than a sprint. Since although he had taken a goblin horde earlier, he had managed to use a lot of traps and guerilla tactics to succeed. And even then, he was almost dead on his feet by the end of it.

His earlier methods though would not work on the fire ants since they had impressive defensive and offensive capabilities. Not to mention their ridiculous penchant to blow themselves up. The problem was harder since this time it was not an assassination mission, but an extermination instead. He could just charge in and start tackling them one by one, but if even one of them escaped with a queen egg the problem would repeat over and over. He needed a way to draw them all to him. As a plan coalesced in his mind, he smiled broadly and headed for the guarded entrance to the anthill.

The view was very different from what he had seen last. There were no longer any ants milling about like usual. Instead, all activity was restricted underground while the queen’s guard stood at the new entrance. Aenon observed the place from a distance and only saw one raiding party leaving the anthill. When they got back after an hour or so, the guards inspected them thoroughly before letting them in. He waited another two hours but found no further movement on the outside. So Aenon melded into a nearby shadow and snuck closer with care.

When he was right next to the entrance, he noticed that there were no connecting shadows nearby. There were some small fires that were burning at strategic locations that didn’t allow for a complete shadow to exist. This was a problem on two fronts. One, he would need another way to sneak in. Which wasn’t entirely impossible, since he could use illusion magic and go invisible now. The bigger problem was that the ants seemed to have figured out his ability, which put him on guard. Therefore, he waited in anticipation to see what they would do at night. And exactly as predicted, the moment the sun set, the fire ants created more fire around their entrance before sealing the entrance shut with their bodies. They only left a tiny hole which Aenon assumed was for air to go in.

Aenon backtracked to a spot where he felt safer and sat down to think. He doubted the ants would fall for another diversion like last time. He could try using his illusion to get in, but that would put a strain on his mana regeneration. And if he couldn’t complete his mission using stealth alone, he would be trapped behind enemy lines and would have to fight his way out. Not to mention the ants could decide to just lock him down in a fight while a smaller group escaped with the hypothetical queen egg.

Aenon pulled up his stats to check what spells he had at his disposal. In light of his recent understanding of mana types, he rearranged the interface to better reflect what spells he had, and their associated mana costs. This way he could better plan on his fighting style. He placed Overcharge and his magical barrier in the arcane category since they didn’t really have an associated wisp type, and the compound spells by themselves in a separate row. He also wanted to list his Kingdom of Darkness spell, but it wasn’t really his to begin with. His cloak gave him the ability and he didn’t know what aspect it fell under. Same for his shadow meld ability, which was the set bonus of his abyssal armor.

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Spells

(MP: 22655, MP/min: 499)

Order

Neutral

Chaos

Emergence

Space

Barrier – Physical (Minor) – 400+500/min

Feather Foot (Intermediate) – 400+500/min

Void

Light

Illusion (Intermediate) – 200+120/min

Time

Dark

Life

Gravity

Gravity Well (Basic) – 200+400/min

Death

Water

Manipulation (Intermediate) – 300+200/min

Energy

Fire

Manipulation (Basic) – 300+200/min

Earth

Manipulation (Intermediate) – 300+200/min

Arcane

Overcharge (Minor) – 1000/min

Barrier – Magical (Basic) – 400+500/min

Air

Manipulation (Intermediate) – 300+200/min

Blooming Earth – 500+1200/min

Ice Lance – 300 to 500

Gravity Bomb – 500+1500/min

He still didn’t have any spells in 7 of the categories, and to be honest he wasn’t sure if he ever would based on what he learned about affinities. But he had a hunch he could at least get some basic spells in those categories using his Abyssal Warden class. Still, it was now time to get back to work and he intended to increase the spells in his arsenal. He had seen what Elara was capable of using fire wisps, and he would surely lose to her in terms of raw power. But he wanted to make up for it in terms of pure versatility.

He did a thorough survey of the surrounding areas to see if he could find any side entrances the ants might have missed. But they hadn’t, so he moved on to figuring out other ways to break in. If he could sneak in using stealth, it would make his next move so much easier. Unfortunately, he came up completely empty, thus making him return to the sole entrance. He cast an illusion to make himself invisible, while his cloak did the job of suppressing his mana signature.

Even so, he proceeded with extreme caution as he made his way towards the gigantic fire ants. He stood right next to the biggest of the bunch and waited. There wasn’t enough room for him to squeeze through, but that wasn’t the point of this test run. He wanted to see if they would notice his presence while under this spell, and fortunately they did not. He spent the next hour walking back and forth in front of them but got no reaction whatsoever.

Satisfied, he returned to his earlier hiding spot and settled down for the night. He had a busy day tomorrow, so he wanted to rest as much as possible. He drifted off to sleep but kept his soul sense active. When he awoke the next morning, he didn’t find any change in his environment. He quickly relieved himself and ate some System rations in preparation for his covert assault.

He put on the invisibility illusion and went for the entrance with his daggers on the ready. The anticipation for what came next excited him, making his heartbeat faster for a moment before he forced it to calm down. He tread softly towards the entrance while looking out for any patrols, but found none. The thought that this was a trap came to mind, but he shook his head to dispel the errant feeling. He had contingency plans if things went south, and if nothing else he was confident in his ability to escape.

As he approached his quarry, he cast identify on the biggest ant. It had gained a few levels since he saw it last, and it was now at level 59. He noticed all the guards had severe scarring on their backs, possibly from his earlier spell, but they were imposing, nonetheless. He scanned the surroundings using his mana sense one last time and was glad he did. There was a hidden trap two steps in, and had he triggered it, he would have been trapped while being severely injured. He became more cautious as he finally entered his enemy’s lair.

The inside was the same as before, albeit with fewer soul signatures milling about. The traps too got more frequent the deeper he went, and the way forward was unclear since he noticed a lot of false trails of fire wisps. After backtracking from a dead end for the tenth time, Aenon began to get frustrated. The ingenuity of these things far surpassed his expectations yet again, and he was at a loss on how to navigate this maze in a timely manner. He could still backtrack, but that would defeat the whole purpose of coming this far. Therefore, he pressed on while making a map of the foreign labyrinth.

It took him eight hours to finally create a rudimentary map that showed the overall layout of the place. It was like trying to solve a three-dimensional puzzle, as he navigated the tunnels one by one. But finally, he sensed the fire ants clustered together at two separate locations. Based on the activity he guessed one of them was the tunneling group, while the other must have been guarding the remaining eggs.

He quickly navigated his way towards the smaller gathering, dodging a dozen or so traps in the last fifty feet of his destination and what he found was disconcerting. The tunnel he came through opened into a large artificially dug cavern. And the place was a mess of littered body parts from a wide range of creatures. But the most prevalent corpse type were the ants themselves. And the reason soon became apparent.

There were a few dozen soldiers spread out in a circle around a much smaller group of workers who were busy tending to a juvenile fire ant in the center. The juvenile in question was scarfing down huge quantities of bodies the other ants delivered one by one. The workers were stumbling around in exhaustion but continued to push themselves. And should one of them fall, the other workers tore it apart in seconds and continued the food train without pause. The soldiers on the other hand just kept a close watch for any outside threats.

Aenon finally figured out that no eggs had survived his last raid. The colony was trying to raise one of the juveniles into their new queen. A process that no doubt required very large quantities of food. Aenon observed the scene and thought of his next move. The colony was reduced to just a fraction of its former size, but if the process the ants were desperately attempting was to finish he would have a new headache to deal with. This also explained why the group had split into two. Should an enemy manage to take down this paltry group, the other one could escape and start their colony anew. This was in essence a decoy.

Aenon had to reevaluate his plan yet again. He originally wanted to hold the egg hostage, forcing the ants to converge on him. But if they could raise a queen by this method, he was sure the other tunneling group would hasten their escape, rather than facing him. By all accounts, it was a good plan designed to counter most raiding parties. Any raid group would need two essential components to successfully accomplish this mission. High damage dealers to quickly cull one group of ants, and effective scouts to locate the escaping group. But the moment one of the groups was eliminated, the queen’s guard would lock them in combat. Thus, allowing the other splintered group to escape.

But unfortunately for the fire ants, Aenon wasn’t in a party. He was a solo player with exceptional tracking and stealth. He could potentially eliminate one group and stealth his way to the other without the queen’s guard catching up to him. But he needed to be fast and precise to succeed. By the look of things, Aenon had less than two days before the other group got outside his sensing range. The same time frame the juvenile needed to transform into a queen.

Aenon backed up a few tunnels over and started preparing for his assault. He prepared traps of his own and even hijacked many of the enemy’s traps using his knowledge of spell forms. It took him hours, but he converted the tunnels around the chamber into a deadly minefield of earth spike traps and other more unstable versions of his gravity bomb spell. Once satisfied, he made a beeline for the tunneling group and caught up to them in about thirty minutes. He further placed a dozen or so traps for any guard ants who would try to follow in his footsteps.

With preparations complete, he stood a few dozen feet behind the oblivious worker ants who were desperately digging ahead, unaware of the predator stalking them.

“Well, let’s begin phase one, shall we?” Aenon said loudly as he dropped his stealth and fully unleashed his presence with a predatory smile.