'I am back?' Anton thought confused with a mix of hope.
'What a familiar yet distant feeling' He looked at his body with a sense of nostalgia, he hadn't felt this feeling since the apocalypse just began.
Where everyone fell asleep due the virus and woke up to see only endless hell. Zombies were everywhere, mutated creatures were roaming around and fantasy like creatures popped up out of nowhere dominating the humans.
Yet, for him it was different, when he woke up he saw exactly a black room like the situation where he now is. Everything was pitch black with nothing, just void of nothingness.
Except the three glowing orbs floating around in front of him.
The three orbs had three different colors, red, green and blue respectively from left to right. Each orb also had a different mark.
The red orb had an ant mark on it with thick armor, the green one also had an ant as mark but this ant was thin with a weird smoke like form above it.
The blue one as expected also had an ant, but this one wasn't normal, it had a humanoid form and it was decent sized.
As in his previous life he didn't know what everything was thus he just chose the red orb, it was just random.
As the mark represented he transformed into a big ant with thick armor that most creatures couldn't even scratch in the beginning of the apocalpse, he felt powerful, more than anyone else.
Yet that ignorance led to his final doom, from his view in the present, he was purely lucky to survive. It was a miracle that he could advance in this endless hell.
Well, most part of his luck was due his armor, he didn't came across any strong creatures thus he was relatively safe in his armor.
At first he went out for adventure, leaving his colony behind just like that. As the emperor of the ant colony he just left them to fend of for themselves to only come back with complaints and anxiety.
Even though the ants were unintelligent, they at least had some intelligence to some degree. They were disstatisfied but they couldn't do anything, he was the emperor the highest rank of the colony, someone they couldn't betray and even they did that, they couldn't just make a new emperor.
At last, after decades he was hunted down by humans for his body parts. The colony couldn't stop them, their strength was too weak. The humans easily brokethrough the barrage of ants and killed the queens and himself.
But this time he won't make the same mistake. Before he was hunted down, he did everything he can to strengthnen himself and the colony, especially the colony, but it was way too late.
Anton walked to the blue orb. Having a humanoid body makes many things much easier. Especially crafting armor or anything else.
Humanoid bodies are also versatile and agile, perfect for combat.
It was also pretty ironic that his name had the word 'ant' in it. He sometimes joked to himself to keep him from despair. Although most of them are just bad jokes.
Touching the blue orb it lit up and brighten the black room with the color blue. his body began to change.
In the past he passed out due the pain, but this time he endured it. The change felt like he was locked in a small room with fire engulfing everything including him, some places of his body was worse, like a branding iron was placed on his body for a very long time.
Getting his skin scraped by something invisible then using ice cubes that were covered with lemon juice and salt to scrub his body as if you were polishing a stone to make it smooth.
Anton endured everything, he had worse, even though he was an useless piece of shit that deserved nothing in the beginning, but that doesn't mean he didn't have his own difficulties.
After some time it was finally over. He couldn't recognise any of his body anymore, no skin but an exoskeleton. Claws that were shining a bit and his antennaes.
' This certainly feels different from the ant body I first chose ' Anton then looked around the blue room. The orbs he first saw already disappeared and something else replaced them.
Three statues with different forms.
From left to right was three swords, two swords were crossing each other with the blade side pointing downwards and the third sword in the middle.
A crown with two tiaras beside it.
At last it was a staff with some shining effects.
These three statues represent the hierachy of his colony.
The swords was basically the strongest would be the empress or emperor.
The crown and tiaras would mean there was only one emperor that continues with an heir as successor.
The shining staff as last means that only the smartest would be the emperor or empress.
Of course Anton chose the middle one, the crown with two tiaras.
With that the statues disappeared and three portals appeared.
This time it was pretty obvious what it means. Choose your location.
Within the portals were images of places.
A beautiful green plain with hills here and there. A giant island with huge trees and a sinister looking field, full of eerie mud and trees.
Of course this isn't a novel where the obvious choice would be the sinister looking field that is going to be chosen, in fact, that option was the worst of the three.
A field with no resources and full of danger.
The plains had a bit of everything. Mediocre danger and resources.
While the giant island had richful resources but also many dangers.
In this lifetime he wants to be ambitious, this is why he chose the giant island with huge trees. If he were his past self with all the knowledge then surely he would have chosen the plains where the least danger existed.
' Here I come! ' Anton immediately walked into the portal where a bright light blinded him.