Ackster leaped up as soon as he decided it wasn’t viable to try and fight it out. He saw both that it had been a wise choice and a potential escape route. The army of ants had completely overtaken their previously grassy surroundings. The rippling waves of brown chitin carapace were enough to send shivers down Ackster’s spine, especially when he thought of how he hadn’t noticed anything until it was too late.

But the ants weren’t only in the way of their retreat from the Cloven Grasslands. They were the way.

They were more than hard and strong enough to carry Ackster’s and Karandiel’s combined weight, so Ackster jumped from ant to ant as he tried to look for an end to the army. But no matter where he looked, he only saw ants, ants, and more ants.

It was close to making him despair. But he didn’t stop running or think about giving up. With all that he had gone through already and with everything he had left to do to secure his future, a couple of overgrown ants wouldn’t be enough to stop him. He wouldn’t let them stop him.

It was just that it felt like he would starve to death before they could reach the end. That was unless he could start munching on the ants. However, there were at least two problems with that.

Their armor made it difficult to access the edible and nutritious parts of the ants. And Ackster was still carrying Karandiel.

Ackster ran across the backs of the ants, avoiding their snapping mandibles, as he thought about what he could do.

“Any ideas?”

At least the situation was under enough control to ask Karandiel what she thought. Since she was a former angel, she might know something, even if she had lost her angelic powers.

“Change how you’re carrying me first.”

Karandiel grumbled out her displeasure in one quick sentence between bounces so she didn’t accidentally bite her tongue.

Ackster grunted his assent before spinning her around and putting Karandiel on his back. She latched her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist so that his hands were free.

Although the situation was under relative control, it was still too dire for Ackster to think about how Karandiel was holding on to him or how soft it was.

“Damn!”

Karandiel swore as soon as she got a proper look at what they were dealing with.

She leaned her head in close to Ackster. The ants were noisy, but they weren’t too loud to hear what the other was saying. She just did it while adjusting her grip so Ackster would be a little more comfortable.

“You got a plan for this?”

“Well, they aren’t that strong individually.”

“I guess.”

Karandiel couldn’t agree or disagree. She couldn’t properly assess the ants’ individual strength. But even if she could, it wouldn’t matter, would it? After all, there were several million of them, at least.

“No time for details, but I could do it.”

“Do what?”

“Defeat them.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I guess I am. But I’m dead serious. I fight and recover by eating what I fight. With this many ants, it would take a while, but it wouldn’t be impossible.”

“But…?”

“But I’m not alone.”

Ackster gave Karandiel a sideways glance.

“Right….”

Karandiel’s mood sank. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been this powerless. Well, as long as she excluded when her god cast her down from heaven. She had been selected as an angel for her outstanding power and faith. Even before that, she had always been the one others relied on.

She didn’t know how long it had been, but her time in the divine realm had also never been an issue for her. She had been at ease most of the time except for the period leading up to her fall. She had never worried about whether she would survive or not ever since her youth, which felt like it had been an eternity ago.

Yet, here she was, clinging onto a random man’s back, hoping it was all a bad dream. She knew it wasn’t. And she knew that it was her fault that Ackster couldn’t defeat the ants.

She had realized that the ants were moving below Ackster’s feet. Even if he ran for an eternity, the ants’ movements would keep him trapped until he died from exhaustion or starvation. And if she had realized it, so had Ackster, hopefully.

Karandiel’s powerlessness forced her to accept that she was a burden. Without her, Ackster wouldn’t be struggling trying to find a solution or way out of this ocean of ants.

She clutched Ackster tighter, wondering if she should do the opposite and let go. She didn’t want to die, and her dispute with her god stemmed from the unnecessary deaths of humans in the first place.

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Yet here she was, about to bring an ordinary man, who selflessly offered to help and guide her during her stay in the mortal world, with her to the embrace of death. She really was a failure. She hadn’t done anything as an angel, and on her first day back in Millmeria, she was about to die and get an innocent man killed.

In that case, wouldn’t it be better if she died first and let that innocent man do his best to continue living?

‘No.’

Karandiel shook her head.

‘That’s not why I fought with My—...with Yillister.’

“Book of Convictions. Third Volume. Chapter One. Selfish selflessness.”

Karandiel’s voice rang out—further than it should have with how weak she was. Her words thrummed with power as a book appeared in front of her.

It was bound with white leather and had golden linings. ‘Book of Convictions III’ was written on the front with golden ink that gleamed in the late night’s moon and starlight.

It flipped open on its own and revealed a blank first page. Golden ink gradually seeped into the page and filled it with, first, a header. ‘Selfish selflessness.’

Then came a quick recounting of the chain of events that led up to her current situation.

Karandiel finished off the chapter with, ‘There is nothing wrong with being weak, with being helped, with being protected. But, if in doing so, one is bringing down the ones with strength, the ones helping, the ones protecting, one ought to stop wallowing in self-loathing, pity, and apathy. Even if only to ease the burdens on others, do naught but protect oneself.’

Karandiel let go of the white, golden-tipped quill that had somehow appeared in her hand. As she let go, it and the book, now closed after she finished the first chapter, disappeared into thin air.

With the Book of Conviction’s disappearance, a golden light spread around Karandiel and enveloped her in a dome of translucent light.

“Now, Brian, go wild.”

Karandiel spoke and got her words to Ackster right before the dome closed in front of her and pushed her off Ackster’s back, and sealed itself around her, isolating her from the outside world.

Ants flooded over Karandiel and the translucent golden egg that was forcing her into a fetal position in less than a second after she fell off Ackster’s back like a dead scarab.

“No!”

Ackster barely had time to shout after he heard and noticed Karandiel letting go. He had no choice in the matter.

However, things might not be as desperate or dire as they seemed. Ackster had not yet lost Karandiel, one of the cards he was hoping would help him stop the end of the world. He had heard what she said before she let go.

She had mentioned her Book of Convictions, which meant she had regained some of her power. He wasn’t privy to the details. But there was hope.

Ackster stopped dead in his tracks and jumped off the ant he was on in the direction of where he had last seen Karandiel before the waves of crawling ants swallowed her. Although she had managed to put up some kind of defense, and considering what he knew about the fallen angel, Ackster was sure it would last, it wouldn’t last forever. And if he could, he would rather ease as much of her burden as possible to ensure she didn’t fall to the ants.

So, he dove into the battle head first, a little worried about Mio. But while Mio was useful, the slime wasn’t as important for the endgame as Karandiel was, and he would have to prioritize Karandiel. But he could feel a soft and wet sensation climb out of the bag and up his neck onto his head. Mio wasn’t willing to give up and chose to seek refuge in Ackster’s hair. As long as Ackster kept his head safe, he would keep Mio safe.

‘Good thinking, Mio.’

Ackster wasn’t in a position to compliment Mio aloud, so he did it in his thoughts as he pried apart the first pair of mandibles that had locked themselves around his leg. He could already feel the sharp pegs in them dig into his skin.

Resilience and Leather Skin were doing their best to keep him intact, but the ants’ bites were also limiting his movement and making it that much more difficult to counterattack and defend himself.

Ackster used the momentum from prying apart the ant’s mandibles to tearing the entire ant apart. They weren’t as fleshy, bloody, and gory on the inside as he had hoped. The more meat there was, the more strength he would gain and regain from eating them. But he would just have to supplement the lacking quality of each ant with quantity.

Fortunately, there was seemingly no limit to the amount of ants he could smash and tear apart. He gulped down as much as he could of the ant he tore apart’s insides before moving on to the next.

Ackster’s fist crashed into a nearby ant head and retrieved a fistful of soft flesh from its brain that he shoved in his mouth before continuing to the next. He used both hands to feed himself while he danced around and kicked the encroaching ants with his legs.

Battlesight activated several times as the ants stacked on top of each other to reach every last part of Ackster’s body. But the images of the ants Battlesight gave Ackster overlapped with the reality, and it became a muddled, jumbled mess of swarming ants. It was too much for Ackster to make out any differences.

Ackster ignored Battlesight as much as he could and relied on his natural instincts, reflexes, and bodily toughness to dodge, parry, block, and counterattack all the ants that came at him. All the while, he did his best to shove whatever felt edible in his mouth to let Strong Body and Monster Muncher get to work.

Fortunately, the individual ant strength wasn’t that great, and he didn’t have to activate Limit Breaker yet. It seemed like the ants’ only advantage was their numbers. What Ackster couldn’t understand, however, was why or how they lived unnoticed in the Cloven Grasslands, which were supposed to be appropriate for D to B-ranks at the most.

What he was dealing with now wasn’t even something A-ranks could deal with if they were alone.

He also wondered how the ants had gone unnoticed if they swarmed in the millions just to kill him and Karandiel. Or maybe that was exactly why. They didn’t hold back and made sure there were no witnesses. But there had to be someone who had noticed what was going on, that people weren’t returning from this part of the Cloven Grasslands.

Ackster decided he was going to ask Wilma about it if he got the opportunity. He had no plans on returning to Ilto, but he felt that wouldn’t interfere with his business with Wilma.

The fact that Ackster had enough leeway to indulge in leisurely thoughts was proof enough that the ants weren’t that strong. The only threat was the numbers. Even if one could easily kill one or ten or hundred of them, that was nowhere near enough. Sooner or later, one would run out of energy, mana, stamina, or whatever else one used to power themselves and their skills.

However, Ackster didn’t only have pretty decent stamina. He also had two skills that increased his recovery and metabolism. Well, three if he counted Iron Stomach’s ability to digest anything. Strong Body and Monster Muncher both broke down whatever Ackster ate and turned it into fuel and strength.

Ackster felt his arms and legs grow heavy, and his mind was getting blurry from the overactivation of Keen Senses and Battlesight.

But compared to the training equipment, the heaviness of his limbs wasn’t much, and most of it was due to the ants clinging to him, trying to bury him. And the fogginess of his mind was mostly repelled by Iron Will and Clear Mind. But even without them, it wouldn’t have been anything in comparison to what he suffered during his poison consumption streak.

Ackster was completely assured that as long as nothing extreme happened, this was doable. He had a neverending supply of food that could keep the perpetual motion machine that was his body, running.