I ran at my top speed and in two seconds reached the official entrance, or in my case, the exit to the chamber.

But just as I was about to place a foot outside, a sharp and long needle like thing appeared a single centimeter from my back. Travelling at hyper speed, it tore my back and came out from the front

“Gwack!”

{Equilibrium has risen to lv 13}

{Auto defense has risen to lv 3}

{Deter failed to activate.}

{Stable mind has risen to lv 4}

The world turned grey and my feet stopped automatically.

I touched my chest with trembling hands to see how big the wound was, but it turns out, the wound was just my imagination.

I looked back and Mr. Juggernaut was standing with his fang stretched toward me.

I looked to the side and shivered in dread seeing a long spike embedded in the wall.

I gulped thinking the spike was probably what I had felt tearing my chest apart, but my skills had worked out to dodge it.

I didn’t actually understand how the Equilibrium skill worked, but knowing that it was working was enough to satisfy me.

Mr. Juggernaut returned his body to rest position and our eyes met. I knew it was not the right time to act as a fan boy and hurriedly turned to run out of the chamber.

“Three…”

I heard a loud, echoing voice coming from behind me and picked up my speed.

“Two…”

{Haste has risen to lv 22}

My heart beat increased and so did my fluid pressure. [Speed demon] activated and increased my speed by another 170% and the world zoomed past my sight.

“One…”

I had already covered more than one hundred centimeter through twisting and puzzling tunnels, but I still heard his voice as if he was speaking from right behind me.

Hearing his voice meant that I was still in his reach. Even though I thought I had ran enough, but in reality, I hadn’t progressed at all.

“Here I come…!”

And I activated all of my active skills out of fright.

Would you fight someone who could break walls with his strength alone? Who was at least three times your size? Could throw spikes like they were spears with enough strength to even pierce through the fucking wall, had skill that could obliterate anyone in a single second, was an ant who was not an ant, but was acting like one?

I thought so.

“Perception, Focus, Clarity, Foresight, Fast processing, Mana sense, Mana Vision, Haste, activate.”

And everything became clear. My brain stormed through all the various calculation of distance and path to take like a supercomputer. Cereboost and data gathering worked in conjecture to help me find a way out of the grim reapers claws. Foresight allowed me to see my future and… actually it showed me my death.

{Foresight, Fast processing, Clarity, Mana vision have risen by 1 lv.}

I didn’t see any yellow shadows forming informing me from where and how he’ll attack, instead I saw my legs and body being blasting and staining the walls.

That was my end, as a reminder for the future inhabitant to not act out of your league. But before I could even feel sadness for my untimely Doom, he appeared right behind me.

“Hey…”

Even when I had so many skills activated, he was still faster than me.

It was a simple difference of our stats which my skills were only able to track behind, but not catch up with. No matter how many passive and active skills I had, in the end, all of them worked based on my base stats. The difference could be easily imagined, after all I was a novice and he was a third ranker.

“Goodbye!”

And I felt wind pressure so huge, as if a wide pole was being swung toward my back at the speed of sound.

I didn’t have much time, the pole was actually his fang which he had positioned like an ants antennae to fool others. I remembered what my foresight had shown and understood that dodging was impossible.

It was time for taking extreme measures. Just as his leg reached my back, I released the Wind cannonball I had stored beforehand.

{Memorize has risen to lv 7}

{You can now save seven skills for future use.}

*Bang*

“FUCK………!!!” he shouted in a mix of pain and anger.

Thanks to my skill [Memorize], I was able to release the stored cannonball from my back which struck his fang. And explosion happened at the point of contact between the two entities and his fang busted apart right at the impact.

On the other hand, the force from the explosion pushed me away from him and the raging winds released from the cannonball made me fly into the tunnel which saved me from the torture he would have put me under from hurting him.

Thankfully Deter handled the repercussion from my reckless move. Otherwise I would have been looking at an exploded back.

I didn’t see what happened with the [Echo], but his second shout in pain gave me my answer.

The winds were more powerful than I expected and they took me quite far and by the time they dropped me, I was already near the exit.

I started running just as my feet touched the ground and in three seconds, I was in front of the exit, just a few centimeters away.

Inside I could hear the angry, hateful shouts of thousands of soldiers and zombies who were roaring at the top of their voice. The closer I got to the exit the louder the sounds became. Hearing the raging voices I knew that I had already arrived at the central stage of the war.

I gave a look back to see whether Mr. Juggernaut was still following me or not, and seeing that I was safe, I exhaled my worries out and stepped out of the tunnel.

And just as I did, an explosion of sound, smell of blood, and sight of dead bodies overwhelmed me.

“HOOOOo!”

“KILL THE BEASTS!”

“DON’T SPARE ANYONE!”

“HOOOOOOO!”

“GWAAAA!”

*ROAR*

There were dead bodies were everywhere. The whole ground was drenched in blood of fallen and bleeding ants and worms. Spells were flowing around like fireworks and everyone was screaming at the top of their voice to suppress their pains.

There were undead zombies who were moving without a lower body, there were veteran ants who had most of their legs cut or exploded, but they were still crawling forward to help their friends.

Some ants had zombie heads hanging from their abdomens. Refusing to let go even in their deaths, while the same was true for the zombie, who had legs, mandibles antennae’s, stuck in their bodies and restricting their movements.

“Shit!” I became lightheaded just from looking at the war zone.

I thought I had already grown resistant to the overwhelming atmosphere and sight of a war, but I was still a novice through and through.

And while I was still trying to settle my mind, a zombie popped up in front of me,

“GWAAA!”

Its stinking breath and loud scratching voice brought me back. I would have jumped in fright if I was still the old me, but I had enough resistance against fear to survive the jump scare.

“Shut up you stinking piece of shit!”

It spoke something, but I had no time to take care of his needs and giving it a sudden, but soft dose of [Heal] I walked past it.

Covered in golden glow, it started burning and shrieking like crazy, but little did I care about how it felt.

The war zone was a mess.

The workers and soldiers around me looked in astonishment, as the zombie they hadn’t seen uttering a single word in pain, even when their legs and antennae’s were cut, suddenly started shrieking at the top of his voice like a chicken about to get his neck chopped off.

I nodded my head to them and used [Hawk eye] to find the commander.

Suddenly my view point shifted and I saw an interesting top down view of the whole war. I found the commander mowing down zombies like a lawn mower, while the captains handled their own share of pests.

I calculated the distance between us and found that he was at least three meters away from me, which was too far for [whisper] to work.

Three meters, which were full of citizens, civilians, soldiers, flesh eating zombies and then there were kids.

None of the kids made it. There were only dead bodies. And seeing their bodies being crushed under the feet of the struggling soldiers and their opponents, only rage burned inside my chest.

“Weren’t they evacuated?”

I thought with my eyes burning in hate and fury. The big ‘what if’ about Tiny and Bills safety did knock at my conscious, but I knew trying to find them now would be stupidity.

The thought didn’t make me fear, and fueled my anger instead.

{Fury has risen to 20}

{Willpower has risen to lv 23}

I gritted my teeth and looked at the nearest group of warriors fighting against the zombies.

“This war needs to end soon or who knows how many more will die!”

My breathing had accelerated and I started feeling that rush.

Making my mind, I jumped into the middle of the group fighting in front of me.

Someone tried to stop me seeing how I was angry and a novice.

“Kid, don’t go. Don’t court death!” The voice said, but I didn’t listen to him.

Entering the group, I didn’t try to take the matter into my hands and instead casted a [Group Heal] before jumping ship.

Everyone who was in the ten centimeter radius of me started glowing with a vibrant golden glow. While the zombies caught fire and stared shrieking in pain, all the ants started recovering slowly.

Their wounds started feeling and their tired faces started getting invigorated once again.

I hopped from one group to another and used [Group Heal] whenever the need arose.

[Provoke] proved to be very effective in grouping the scattered zombie together. Then I burned them with [Group Heal]. This combo was golden.

The soldiers looked at me with envious eyes and some outright kneeled down to me. I did feel a little hot from the sudden attention, but I didn’t forget my mission and hurried forward toward the commander.

By the time I got near the commander, I had used group heal a total of thirteen times, [Provoke] and [Heal] both were used five times.

Because I didn’t actually kill the zombies, I didn’t receive full experience from them, but I still got 45% into the tenth level.

But experience wasn’t all that I got. [Heal] leveled up by three levels and even [Provoke] leveled by once.

I [Whispered] to the commander when I got in range for whisper to work and he came dashing toward me, sending the zombie flying out of his way.

Three seconds and the death of twenty zombies later he reached me, but instead of congratulating or asking me about the queen, he outright cursed staring at the lifeless and empty road formed from the ashes of burnt zombies behind me.

“What the hell is that? Did you do it?” He asked me and I happily nodded in consent, but I stopped him before he asked me how that happened and told him that the mission was a success.

“That we understood the moment our brothers and sisters stopped fighting us and started attacking the zombies. Anyways, what about him, did he come out?”

He was asking about whether the king had slipped and came out of his hiding out of anger or not.

I told him that he didn’t, and he slammed his leg on the ground in anger.

“Fuck… we need to kill that cancerous son of a bi…”

But he stopped in the middle because they were both the sons of the same mother. I saw his complicated expression and giggled.

He stared at me and reprimanded me for acting like the mound was not my business.

But I told him that it was okay.

“I already know where he is hiding.”

“Really!”

And his expression changed from complex to disbelief. His eyes opened wide and his body movement alone told me how eager he was to know where our king was hiding.

“Actually he isn’t that far. He is hiding right under the queen.” I said and he titled his head in confusion.

“Under the queen? Where is that?”

I told him there was a hidden tunnel right underneath queens… bed, which was probably dug by her loyal workers to use in case of emergency.

“There is such a thing? Okay, I won’t ask how you know it, after all if it wasn’t for you then we would have never known. Okay, let me get some captains and then we’ll go.”

But I stopped him before he could move.

“Actually there is a complication.”

“Now what?”

“He is not alone.” I told him and the background music from the wall I had arrived through exploding, zombies cheering (at least it looked like that) and a very angry voice asking for my head put flavor and magic into it.

I sighed without looking back. I knew the voice personally, so I didn’t have to.

“He is the complication.” I told the commander and he squinted.

“Him? Wait was even he turned into?”

I told him that I didn’t know, and stopped him from going to face him all alone.

“No, don’t go alone. He is stronger than you.”

But the commander didn’t believe me. Being the commander with half million soldiers under you makes you overconfident I guess.

“What are you saying? Don’t you remember I am the only fourth ranked ant in this mound! So, how can he be stronger than me?”

“Because he is not an ant.”

And I shared the result of my appraisal with him.

Spoiler: Hasish “The Liar”

Hasish “The Liar”

Level

22/50

Species

Mimicking Spider –

Rogersi (Uncommon)

Rank

4

Job

Assassin

Health

160/160

Stamina

110/110

Mana

96/96

Gender

Male

Health Reg. (26/hour)

Stamina Reg. (31/hour)

Mana reg. (37/hour)

Conserves

(100)

Stat Tier: E

Strength

13

Intelligence

15

Agility

51

Wisdom

21

Dexterity

25

Endurance

20

Charm

20

Vitality

15

Luck

10

Constitution

10

Titles

Assassin, Skillful Hunter, Friends with his food, Champion, Juggernaut,

Skills

[(*) Tier 2]

[(**) Tier 3]

Spider silk(10), spider string*(10), string manipulation(10), string reinforcement(14), Acid creation(7), Acid manipulation(10), Grab(10), perception(14), reflex(15), spider sense(10), Spider tracking*(16), movement enhancement(10), dissolve*(15), Acid attunement(47), shadow crawl(10), shadow spike(10), string grab(7), String mastery*(7), sensitive hearing(27), body slam(10), Acid ball(5), intermediate shadow mastery(10), String Bind(4), High Charm*(14), Speedster*(22),

“What the fuck? You mean to say…”

“Yes. The one we loved as a guardian was actually a predator.