The worm, I was happy about the worm entering the fray. And it had chosen the right place at that. I needed immediate help against the zombie after all.

I calculated whether its appearance was a Bain or a boon for me, and seeing the closely standing zombies, I reached the conclusion that in the next one minute, at least half of the zombies would die by getting crushed underneath it.

The worm stood in the middle like a sore thumb and I called it.

“Excuse me…!” but the thing was probably too agitated, and instead of starting conversation, it made a nose dive directly toward me with its mouth wide open and its acid like saliva dripping onto the floor, leaving black stains behind.

“Fuck… Don’t come near me!”

I panicked a little seeing a mega size opponent coming toward me and in my haphazardness released the half created Wind cannonball, which also staying true to the core, didn’t miss and directly entered its mouth.

{Surprise attack has risen to lv 9}

{Wind cannonball has risen to lv 12}

The worm stopped right in its path as that happened. It reflexively closed its mouth and stood there with half of its body paused hanging in the air. While I, and the queen waited with our eyes open wide for the worm to move.

“It didn’t explode?” I mumbled and right then a muffled explosion happened inside the worm’s body, as its stomach swell to the limits from the explosion and it vomited out a mixture of acid, food and guts.

I quickly avoided the vomit as the worm roared in pain, but a zombie failed to avoid it and melted under the acids effect.

{Dodge has risen to level 17}

The acid was so strong that forget about the zombie even the floor underneath it gave away, and there formed a black shallow pit.

I was in the motion of understanding how dangerous the worm’s acid was, when it suddenly dived toward me baring its sharp teeth.

“Yes, Go and eat him…!” The queen motivated the worm as it closed the distance between us.

“Go eat the zombies instead!” I retorted.

But unlike the fat queen who couldn’t move, I perfectly dodged the dive and rolled toward a group of zombies.

“No,no, no… go away… shu, shu…”

“Hahaha… what the fuck are you doing?”

I laughed at the queens antics and the worm wiped its tail at me, which I easily dodged by sliding under it, but the zombies failed to and…

*Bang*

The whip was so strong that three zombie flew toward the roof like rockets and got struck there.

{Reflex has risen to lv 17}

I was hoping to see a shower of blood from the zombie, but they instead got embedded into the ceiling and didn’t die.

“Shit, the roofs too soft!”

The worm once again entered the ground and on the other side, I used the moment to [Heal] another zombie out of his misery. Or put him in misery. It’s just the matter of perspectives.

{Heal has risen to lv 9}

I killed the burned zombie with an [Air bullet] and dodged the worm that had once again found where I was standing, and came out of the ground to engulf me alive.

“It’s more of a headache than help.” I commented seeing the worm coming out of the hole and into the room.

Foresight brought me a view of its future movement, and I saw a yellow shadow of the worm coming down parallel to the ground and then coiling on the edges like a snake. It didn’t stop at that and started spinning like a grinder.

{Foresight has risen to lv 11}

From the foresight I came to understand that it was going to do its big move. So I did what any sensible ant would have done in my particular situation and ran with my stinger between my legs.

“Don’t come now, let me get there…”

But the worm didn’t listen to me and dived down at breath taking speed. It was fast, too fast. I didn’t get much time to make a run for the center of the room, which was the only safe place. I had to activate all of my agility related skills and then make a suicidal now or never kind of full body jump just to get away from it.

{Haste has risen to lv 20}

And it really came down like my foresight predicted. It coiled at the outer edges of the chamber and stopped.

“What is it doing?” The queen mumbled. While I who knew the future, dug into the ground and hid there.

And the moment it started spinning, a typhoon of raging winds appeared in the room, with the only safe place being the eye of the typhoon.

“Hey…! You didn’t tell me about raging winds!”

I complained, but my voice got distorted midst the sound of wind raging in the chamber.

I looked up and saw the zombies flying in the air, walls breaking down and the ground being dug up.

Everything in its way turned into paste the moment it touched them. I marveled at the scene of zombies turning into paste with the queen who was gritting her teeth, while looking at her pawns getting killed.

Thankfully she was sitting exactly in the middle of the room and coincidently that was where the eye of the typhoon was.

One, two, five… seven zombie got crushed underneath it, while the rest of them got sucked into the typhoon.

I would have killed to keep the worm as a pet, but it was too big and stole quite a lot of precious experience from me, so I refused to keep it.

The queen saw that the worm was a greater threat to her life than me and ordered her goons to kill it the moment it stopped rotating.

And that was her last order too, because in all of that hustle and bustle I was able to get near her.

“Hey!”I called her out, as I jumped onto her back and climbed to her head.

See, I had been thinking very hard about how to knock out the queen without hurting her too much.

I didn’t want to go from the front because there was the chance of her cutting me in half with her giant mandibles. Then there were those zombies of course.

So I came to the decision of climbing her back, which I had already accomplished.

“What? How did you…?”

“Stop. No need to act so dramatic. Just go to sleep.”

And the idea I had come up with was to activate Rhythmic Quake on her head…

That is, if head butt failed to knock her out.

*Bang*

I covered my forehead into a layer of mana and slammed my forehead on her head as hard as I could. I put so much strength into the head butt that I gained three levels in it and a gruesome headache.

There was no need to see what became of her head.

And when I saw her head finally hanging downwards without any power, I knew the deal was done. I had completed my work and the rest was on the commander and the others.

The zombies shivered slightly as the threads connected to their heads trembled, clearly demonstrating that it was a big blow to the king.

The queen was the supporting pillar of his plan. It was thanks to her that he was able to control the civilians and now that she out of the equation, his plan had half failed and was quickly rolling down the cliff.

Though I felt sad about the queen and how she had been living a life full of delusions, confined in this very small room, the thought that at least she had a chance now relieved me.

I would have loved to think a little more about her, but the zombies had gotten active once again, and their full concentration was on me now.

While they had tried to bind the big worm on their kings order, but that was when the queen was still under kings control, but now that she was knocked out and not helpful to him, what did it meant to him whether she lived or not.

And the zombies let the worm free.

“Oh no!” I mumbled as I saw with my very own eyes the worm standing straight on his tail and looking toward me.

I gulped a mouthful of saliva as the worm dived down, I prepared a wind cannonball in case of needed to push its body away, but that didn’t happen and I slotted the cannon ball for future use.

Instead of coming for us, it dived to its right and dug into the ground, taking the zombie that was standing there on its way out.

I didn’t release my vigilance, but my perception only saw it going deeper and deeper into the ground, before it completely disappeared from the range up to which I could perceive things.

It was gone. It was as if someone had sent it to help me. It came, killed the zombies and then went out.

Leaving me alone with a handful of zombie, ripe to kill and gain that sweet experience.

“Well, thanks anyways. Now…” I looked at the zombies walking toward me and the queen from everywhere and completed my sentence. “Now, let’s rock and roll.”

My existence would have become a joke if I had to personally save the queen from the onslaught of those crazy rabid ants.

Their master had clearly told them to take out everyone present in the room and they were ready to fulfill their daddies wish.

But thankfully I only had to [Heal] one zombie while Its Echo healed another to get the last level I needed in Heal for it to release its special skill.

[Heal has risen to lv 10]

[Heals special skill: Group Heal unlocked.]

Group heal: It’s the multiple target version of heal. Everyone in five centimeter radius of you will be healed.

Amount of mana used is similar to Heal, but it’s only half as efficient.

How I felt at that time? There was no response from me. I just silently watched the zombies coming near me from the head of the queen, like a king watching its people.

I waited for them to get in the one meter radius of me and the moment they did, I stole their souls. Like a conductor, I lifted my front leg, took a deep breath and started the scream concert.

“Hope you enjoy my new poison. [Group Heal]”

And all fifteen of the zombie lit up like torches.

“GRRRR!”

“RAAAA!”

*ROAR*

Screams befitting the burning of a living being echoed in the chamber. Their exoskeleton blistered, their eyes popped out, their legs swell to the limits, and their antennae became ash.

Fountain of grey dead powder exploded out from the spikes on the backs and covered the ground. Awful black blood leaked out of their wounds and just as the golden glow started dimming; its [Echo] arrived.

The dimming glow brightened once again. The screams became even more deafening than before. The whole floor got completely covered in a mixture of white and black, blood and pus, which also evaporated soon under the effect of the godly spell [Heal].

{Heal has risen to lv 13}

{Echo has risen to lv 6}

Skills leveled up, the zombies rolled on the ground in pain and I snapped my antennae to cast [Spike manifestation.]

A forest of spikes grew from underneath the zombies and covered the queen in a circle.

No one was spared. Legs, backs, heads, throats, jaws, abdomens, everything was pierced by the spikes perfectly, killing the lot of them in a second. Spike gained two levels, while I huffed and puffed because of my mana getting drained rapidly.

[Killed Mutated Zombie Ant/ (Lv 24)/ (Rk 1) / 110EXP gained.]

[Killed Zombie Ant/ (Rk 1) / (LV 15) / 55Exp gained.]

.

.

.

[Level up]

[Every skill gains one level.]

.

.

.

[Killed Zombie Ant / (RK 1) / (LV 10) / 35EXP gained.]

I looked at the zombies turning into ash and becoming a part of the colony while the experience gained notifications rang in my mind.

And when the ringing finally stopped and I tried thinking about what I would be doing now, a skill evolution notification challenged me.

[Skill Clean and Hygiene are combining. Would you like to proceed? Yes/no.]

I nodded my head while keeping g my eyes n the zombies and the result came in front of me.

Hygiene and clean have reached their maximum levels.

And are presenting you with the option to:

Nullify or purify.

Though I would have loved for things to settle down before getting into evolution skilled, but seeing the options in front of me and my surroundings silent like the calm before the storm, I thought there wasn’t any harm in powering up a little before the last boss fight.

“Hum, Purify or nullify. Is purify related to the zombies?” My forehead creased, but the thought didn’t last long. I had seen how drastic the changes were with my very own eyes and knew there was no way the old ants were alive underneath all that evilness.

“Maybe it’s related to the purification of toxins and such. Because I am sure there is no way to purify the zombies back to their original self. Well, I already have resistances for that, so nullify it is.”

And hat eternal sound rang in my head once again.

*Ting*

[Skill: Cancel gained.]

Cancel: You can tinker with your opponents spells and return them back to their basic form, mana.

A skill takes same amount of mana it used to cancel, while a spell can be nullified cost free and the mana used to create it will become yours.

[Hawk eye has reached lv 10]

{Now you can use hawk eye.}

{Resetting level to 1}

[Projection has reached its maximum level]

[Now you can project your thoughts in the outside world.]

{Resetting level to 1}

[Spike has reached its maximum level.]

{You have already found a path to walk on the road full of spikes.}

*Ting*

[Skill: Spike manifestation gained.]

But right when I thought everything was going smoothly, the ground started shaking.

My sensitive hearing caught muffled sounds of explosion happening somewhere far, and the sound was getting louder and louder.

*Boom**Boom**Boom**Boom**Boom**Boom*

*BANG*

And something came entered the chamber tearing the wall apart, like its presence didn't matter to him.

The thing had no respect for the walls.

Furious, I checked who it was that was asking for a smacking and turned around to run out of the chamber. I ran so fast that time, and I didn’t even look behind. I didn’t care what he was up to, I didnt care.

The queen's life was important, but so was mine. After all it was not a small time first or second ranker whom i could handle with fire or stakes!

The legend of legends, the champion of pit himself had blessed me with his appearance! And from his yellow skin and heaven piercing spikes, I knew he was not a friend.