Chapter 698: Ant Nest
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Fortunately, the ant king was not particularly fast when compared to other super creatures. If the ant king had a speed akin to the raven Han Sen once encountered, he feared the little angel would have been unable to defeat it.
Han Sen watched for a while and when the chance arose, the trumpeting of elephants fueled a power inside his body. The power surged into the Flaming Rex Spike, which swung down onto the ant king.
The devil ant king knew Han Sen was attacking, but it was unable to dodge. It was not because it was not fast enough, it was because it was recovering from blocking another attack that was delivered by the little angel. During its recovery, it didn't have the energy to deflect Han Sen's hit.
Han Sen's power was far inferior to the devil ant king's. Normally, he wouldn't dare something like this, but he excelled in the realm of tactics; deduction and prediction, particularly. He had foreseen how the ant king would react, so he committed to this deadly strike the exact moment he knew the ant king would not be able to dodge, block, or even retaliate.
Pang!
The Flaming Rex Spike brutally struck the ant king's waist. Han Sen thought this must have been its weak point.
But all that sounded from the strike was the call of beaten metal, and that was exactly what it felt like when he hit the ant.
The Flaming Rex Spike left his hand and spun through the air about ten meters away. It hit the cliffside. With such force, Han Sen's hands were left numb and his arms almost felt as if they were going to break.
When the hit was delivered, though, the ant king squealed in agony. There was only a shallow indent made in its shell, despite the pain it seemed to feel. But Han Sen knew he'd have to crack the shell somehow.
The little angel, however, used this opportunity to make a move of her own. She used her greatsword, battering the point Han Sen had dented. On the fourth slash, the shell crack a few inches, enough to expose the ant's white flesh.
The ant king panicked and quickly returned to the tunnel it had emerged from, suffering brutally. Han Sen was very weak right now, though. He felt as if he could barely stand, let alone chase after it.
After he unlocked his gene lock with the Dongxuan Sutra and re-simulated the bone elephant's energy, the Elephant-Rex Strike had become even more powerful than it was before. If it hadn't been boosted to the level it was currently at, he would have been unable to deal the damage he did to the ant.
But the more powerful the attack was, the more energy it cost. After all, his fitness was limited and he couldn't dream of being like the bone elephant itself, repeatedly unleashing such foul, wretched amounts of power on a whim.
Han Sen estimated he had reached a fitness level of about two hundred by now, but the energy costs of that skill were still too draining.
Under Han Sen's command, the little angel chased the ant king down into the pit it had come from. But he also ordered her to return if the ant king still proved to be too formidable. He didn't want her taking any unnecessary risks, and he wanted her to prioritize her own safety above all else.
The ant king had only been dealt a small amount of damage, and it still contained most of its power. It was still stronger than the little angel, without question. This was the great boon of being an ant. Few could fight one, even if they were on par with it.
The little angel was not a pet that was based on strength. It was not unusual for her to be weaker than the ant, and since she was down in its lair, she'd be at a disadvantage without being outside. In the tiny cave she chased it down, she would have limited room to dodge. If it came down to a fight of strength versus strength, odds were far in favor of the ant winning.
The little angel was a balanced pet. Although she had no special elements, her strength, speed, vitality, and attack were all above average.
Plus, she had the ability to fly. She was a pet that covered almost everything. Although she wasn't too special, she had no weakness, either.
A super creature like that was the scariest for a human. With every ability being able to crush a human, humans would not have a chance of fighting back.
Han Sen summoned Princess Yin and Princess Yang. He brought them out so they could collect the devil ants' corpses, while he dragged his own tired body down after the ant king.
He still did not feel safe, and he worried that the little angel would fight the ant king until she died. It did not matter if she could kill the ant king or not; her loss would a grievous one for him. Han Sen couldn't fathom losing her.
He descended a long way into the mountain from the tunnel's entrance. By the time he got where he needed to be, he had descended four hundred meters. From that point, the tunnel widened up into a giant cavern. It seemed like a nexus or hub of some sort, for there were many other tunnels and passages leading off from this central cavern. As for the little angel, she was inside hovering about.
Although the ant king was wounded, it was still incredibly powerful. It guarded the cavern well, in battle with the little angel, and there was no sign of it losing.
Han Sen, while he was down there, was busy inspecting this cavern he had discovered, deep beneath the earth. With great observation, he surmised that the entirety of the mountain above had been hollowed out by the ants. It was like a massive subterranean kingdom for the ants.
But what Han Sen did not understand was that, inside this ant nest, aside from this king and the twenty sacred-blood ants he had laid waste to earlier, there weren't any other ants.
That was strange. For a nest this big, there should have been many more ants in there. The fact that there was only one ant king was strange, as well.
"Did that pangolin eat all the other ants?" Han Sen suddenly recalled the sight of that pangolin, which escaped the pursuit of the sacred-blood ants.
Perhaps the reason why the devil ants had chased it with as much fervor as they did, was because it had killed the rest of the kingdom's ants. If this was true, that suggested it was really powerful. It might have been a super creature, even.
But Han Sen wasn't too sure of that. Other people could not sense it, but after learning the first tier of the Dongxuan Sutra, he was extra sensitive to the life forces of creatures he came across.
The pangolin's life force was a little bit stronger than a sacred-blood creature, but not as strong as a super creature.
The little angel was still battling the ant king, but the ant king had retreated into a little cave. Its shell was hard enough as it was, and with its power, it made it incredibly hard for the little angel to deal it damage.
But now, the wound around its waist had already healed. It looked like new, as if it hadn't been dealt a single hit.
"This ant king is sick. I'm not even sure if I'll be able to kill it." Han Sen was getting a little depressed, but just as he thought of giving up, something else lurked in the dark. The pangolin had returned, and it peeped at the battlers from a tunnel, like a little thief.
The pangolin watched how the little angel and ant king fought as it shimmied along the walls of the cavern. Its scales were colored exactly like the rock, in a dark green color. Unless he paid close attention, he'd have had a difficult time spotting it, creeping its way up.
Quickly, the pangolin entered a cave near the ant king and then drilled out another cave beside it. After that, it disappeared.
Han Sen watched what it was doing with curiosity, and then decided to follow it into the tunnel it had just created.