Chapter 54: Terror Ant Mountain (1)
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[Dream Realm - Terror Ant Mountain.]

Countless ants with glowing red eyes traveled through tunnels nearly a hundred meters in radius. Each with an exoskeleton far tougher than steel. A single string contained venom far deadlier and more terrifying than any ordinary poison.

However, the most terrifying ability of these terror ants wasn’t their venom or exoskeleton. It was their reproductive ability.

From gestation to maturity, the entire process would only take around two hours. Provided they had an appropriate amount of food... and their food was anything organic.

They would feast on anything… including dead terror ants.

An endless army that constantly increased in size. They didn’t even have the ability to fear death.

Whenever a nest appeared, a repeating cycle of new ants was created and they began their spree of killing, eating, and dying. As time went on the more powerful ants would survive and weaker ones would die.

The traits of the powerful Terror Ants would be passed down. Evolution on speed-dial.

This is what makes their reproductive ability their most terrifying ability and has allowed them to complete desolate countless regions teeming with life.

While terror ants are individually weak compared to the vast species of monsters in the world, the sheer number of them constantly fighting and evolving makes them one of the most terrifying creatures in the realm.

A truly terrifying race.

Thus, if Terror Ants were discovered before they matured properly, they would be frantically attacked by anything living nearby.  

If one thing is certain, it’s that nobody would want to live near to a ticking time bomb.

Thus, when Tobias had informed the nearby tribe about the Terror Ant’s nest, the tribe immediately summoned its most powerful warriors. The warriors needed to learn how powerful the Terror Ants had gotten and wipe them out, if possible.

Wiping out a Terror Ant’s nest is actually simple. All that is needed is to kill the queen Terror Ant.

Although the warriors could easily deal with Terror Ants early on, with their evolution speed, if they weren’t careful they might all die horrible deaths before they even realized it.

In the surroundings of the mountain, around fifty tribal warriors stared toward the line of terror ants traveling without end.

Tobias stood nearby the warriors, expressionlessly staring at the ants. Tobias, at the moment, had gotten lost in the Dream Realm and had completely forgotten about the real world.

Although, maybe it is incorrect to say that Tobias had completely forgotten about the real world. Tobias just couldn’t recall his real memories as he was too focused on the dream and the other set of memories that came from within the dream.

That’s the truly terrifying part of dreams… while you’re experiencing them, they feel real.

POV – Tobias

The various tribes in this region had already been wiped out by these Terror Ants. That means they already gained a mediocre amount of strength.

In a way, these Terror Ants are a blessing.

With my warning, as long as I survive this fight, I should be able to join this tribe. I’ve been wandering about too long on my own.

Under normal circumstances, tribes would never let a wanderer join them. However, if I assist them in this life and death battle, a good portion of the warriors should support me joining.

After joining, I would be able to access their training manuals. Even if they’re only willing to grant access to a second-class manual, my strength would skyrocket.

Still, the prerequisite to that is surviving. I’m not dumb enough to actually sacrifice my life for this tribe.

Warriors are all brainwashed since birth to die for their tribe. That would be utterly impossible for me.

Worst comes to worst, I’ll abandon them and leave the region as soon as possible.

Unlike these warriors, who have had good training manuals and a good environment to train since birth, I was born a wanderer.

No training manual.

No support from tribe members.

Constant dangerous situations.

That means, despite lacking a training manual, I’ve grown quite adept at surviving and hiding my trail.

While these warriors are proficient at fighting, they aren’t proficient at surviving and, trust me, there’s a big difference between the two.

Unlike, me who was busy plotting, the tribal warriors were taking their time to analyze the Terror Ant’s mountain up ahead.

“They’ve already grown to a medium sized nest.” Senior warrior, Liam, noted.

“If we waited another two weeks, they’d have grown into a calamity for the entire region!” A random tribal warrior exclaimed.

Liam frowned, “There’s not enough time to request reinforcements from other tribes, we’ll have to solve this on our own.”

Liam approached me.

As quite a burly man, Liam was far taller and larger than me. In fact, most of the warriors were taller and larger than I was.

Although that isn’t surprising, they had far better growing conditions than I have. Additionally, wanderers need different traits to survive than warriors do.

Warriors need to be strong and tall to fight head on with their enemies to protect their tribesmen.

Wanderers only have one requirement. They needed to be able to survive. That results in wanderers being far more varied in abilities and body-type than warriors.

Anyone who has lived at least a year as a wanderer is going to be well-versed in various survival tricks. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be alive at all.

I had lived my entire life as a wanderer, I knew countless ways to avoid various monsters and dangers.

Liam placed his hand on my shoulder, which made me twitch and want to escape as far away as possible.

Suppressing the survival instincts that I’d learned over the course of my life, I stayed still and waited for him to speak.

Liam warmly gazed toward me, “You’ve done well in warning us. We won’t forget your kindness. This place is too dangerous, but when we return, you’re welcome to stay at our tribe anytime.“

He’s trying to send me away?

Welcome to stay anytime? That doesn’t work for me. I don’t plan to be a guest, I need to be an insider with access to their training manuals and techniques.

Otherwise, this was pointless.

I’ll need to fight with them in order to convince them to grant a warrior's status and a training manual.

Polishing up my acting skills, I exclaimed, “I cannot leave you to fight on your own. The Terror Ants are a disaster for the entire region.”

Both true facts.

I cannot leave them to fight on their own. I need to fight along side them so they will grant me a training manual.

Additionally, the Terror Ants truly are a disaster for the entire region. Not that I would care about that.

However, although the two facts have nothing to do with one another, I cannot be blamed if you misunderstood them to be connected.

Liam warm gaze turned perplexed and he glance around toward the other warriors before speaking. “Are you sure? It’s will be incredibly dangerous. We won’t be able to protect you.”

Banging my hand against my chest, I exclaimed, “Of course. Don’t worry about protecting me, I might not be great at fighting but my survival ability is something I’m confident in.”

Aka, don’t keep a close eye on me. I cannot openly divert all the danger toward you guys if you are too focused on keeping an eye on me.

Liam sighed, “If only all wanderers were as brave as you are… Alright, keep yourself safe.”

It has nothing to do with being brave. In weighting the dangers verses the benefits, the benefits of going with you far outweigh the danger. Especially because I have found a Terrorious herb that will make me seem to be another Terror Ant to the ants inside.

Due to it’s rarity, even great tribes like this one wouldn’t know about that peculiar side-effect of carrying the poisonous Terrorious herb. Only wanderer such as myself who have traveled for his entire life would potentially have this tidbit of knowledge.

So long as I don’t get any of the Terror Ant’s blood on me, the Terror Ant’s won’t even bother me.

The warriors began preparing their weapons and themselves for battle.

Too bad my old dagger was destroyed not long ago. For now, I’ll have to make due with the simple wood spear that I made a few days ago.

Liam stared at the nest, looked back toward their village and began moving forward. The warriors bowed toward their home, potentially saying goodbye to it forever, before continuing forward toward mountain.

Soon, Terror ants noticed the group of warriors and began swarming.

The hundreds of ants that were previously peacefully heading out or into their nest began charging forth toward us.

It’s actually extremely terrifying.

Normally, I would’ve run far away at this point.

…Or I never would’ve gotten into a situation where I was noticed.

The warriors arranged into a spearhead formation. Mobilizing to spearhead through the incoming Terror Ants.

A war of attrition would only be in the Terror Ant’s favor.

Giving them any more time to prepare would result in being flooded by even more ants.

Thus, to deal with them, we had to travel deep into the nest and kill the queen as soon as possible.

Rather than attempt to deal with the ants, I studied the stances and formation of the warriors.

They had profound fighting experience. Watching them wouldn’t cause any loss.

As I expected, when the ant crashed into the warriors, they were easily slaughtered.

Spear warriors were at the front of the formation and continuously charged forward piercing through Terror Ant after Terror Ant. The warriors using swords sliced through any ants that remained and made it through the spear users charge.

At times, when the spear users slowed down, the sword warriors released Sword Ki, slicing through tens of ants at a time.

Despite that, for every ant that died, three took their place and countless more were pouring out of the nest.

We’d only reached the base of the mountain, yet were already surrounded by countless Terror Ants.

If the warriors slowed even briefly in their charge, we would lose all momentum and potentially our lives shortly afterward.

Fortunately, these warriors weren’t from an ordinary tribe. They were from a great tribe. They had fought countless times before and clearly understood that they couldn’t slow down even slightly or it would lead to a colossal loss of momentum.

Thus, despite the countless ant surrounding us, we continue moving forward at a breakneck pace.

Although the Terror Ant’s wouldn’t directly target me, they don’t hold their own or their comrades lives with any regard. Their ferocious attacks could easily land on me by mistake.

I could quite easily die if I wasn’t careful and a stray ant got through the formation.

It would take several hours to reach the top of the mountain, even at normal speed without ants attacking us.

Overall, it’ll probably take anywhere from several days to a week to even reach the queen and that’s assuming we don’t get lost in the tunnels.

It’ll only get more difficult as time goes on. Once we’re in the tunnels they will climb the walls and utilize knowledge of the terrain to ambush us.

None of the warriors dared to relax.

Even in the middle of the formation, I still couldn’t relax as countless ants attacked from all sides.

Although I couldn’t do much, if one of the ants manages to get through, I could still kill it to prevent it from disrupting the formation.

Additionally, if I notice any potential ambush, I can warn them. They have to spend all their energy on fighting and charging forward, they had no time to be checking for ambushes in the surroundings.

If I was entirely useless, they never would have let me come with them.

However, I had proven I could at least kill one Terror Ant by bringing the mandible to them.

As an experienced wanderer, although I only have ordinary strength and they don’t entirely trust me, they understand I must have gone through countless near death experiences.

Anyone who has gone through that many near death experiences couldn’t be entirely useless.

Thus, I was able to convince them to take me with them.

If I want to be able to join their tribe afterward, I have to prove my value here.

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