__________ POV Narration__________
Months rolled by after Ashton's reawakening. Humans slowly started building up more and more strength, Ashton was amazed at their rate of improvement.
Young men that had no prior knowledge of nen, nor the constitution to practice it were now capable fighters. Many even reached levels similar to that of the old Zodiacs.
In that time, everyone got much stronger. The actual Zodiacs were now a threat to be reckoned with. All of them managed to surpass the level of the Ant King(before Netero).
Ashton himself grew to monstrous proportions. His current strength was simply unreasonable. To the point where he was more than confident in facing his teacher.
During this time, Ashton was not idle at all. He got to be part of many projects. Thanks to him, the tunnels were all finished in less than a week, which allowed the building of the city to start much quicker.
Most were now already moved into the larger city. Ashton also built the walls around it, natural walls made entirely out of hardened rock and trees tougher than steel.
After the entire population was moved into a large enough area, Ashton decided to turn the entire continent into an untamed and highly dangerous forest. At least for anything non-human.
The forest was laden with traps and simply untraversable for any beast that approached the shores of the continent. The trees formed endless labyrinths. After all, a man like Ashton wasn't about to just grow the trees randomly. He needed to spend at least a week to make sure that the patterns were as confusing as possible.
There was also simply no path leading to the city. One needed to fly over trees a kilometre high just to catch a glimpse of it... How exactly were the plants on the continent that strong?
Well, they weren't. Ashton had taken multiple samples from the Dark Continent. And, he had planted them and spread them within the New Continent now.
It was also how he had managed to shred apart the last horde that had appeared when he helped the Zoldycks. Regular trees wouldn't have been able to do much after all...
Ashton had already talked with Kurapika too. The young Kurta clan survivor wasn't exactly great at expressing his emotions, but he still conveyed his words properly.
"I'm sorry that I avoided you for so long... I forgive you for what you have done. I hope that you will forgive my selfishness too..." Ashton appreciated the young man's honesty. And, he didn't even think that Kurapika had done anything wrong.
He obviously patted the blonde man on the back and forgave him.
Unfortunately, not all meetings were going to go as smoothly. Specifically, his meeting with Kite wasn't quite as friendly.
Especially after Ashton found out that Kite had tried to kill Pitou. He wasn't shocked by it, he expected it. But that didn't mean he had to be pleased with it.
The conversation went somewhat like this:
"So, it seems you have tried to attack my little student Pitou~" Ashton's tone seemed playful at the time, it was brought up in casual conversation. But the two of them were meeting up in the middle of the forest at night, sharing the secrets of the Chimaera Ants.
"You call that abomination a student? Perhaps you have forgotten what killed Netero?" Kite was trying to justify his actions by associating Pitou's actions with those of her former liege.
"Netero killed himself. Don't even mouth his name in my presence." In the second part of the sentence, something odd happened to Ashton's eyes. They seemed to crack, almost as if they were made out of glass, Kite also felt a horrifying amount of killing intent.
Ashton didn't even need to release any Nen to unnerve Kite to no end. After all, Ashton was now the Ant King. Kite was naturally hesitant to even stand straight in his presence.
Pitou was an exception since she was really close to Ashton. But for the rest of the Chimaera Ants? Well, they basically saw him as the new king.
"Killed himself?! I'm pretty sure that isn't what those reports told u-" Kite wasn't willing to back down, unfortunately. He didn't technically speak of Netero again. But he still brought him up in conversation.
And it made Ashton somewhat mad. His tail snapped, it opened up in a snarl and revealed rows of jagged teeth. Its mouth hovered right above Kite before he could even react properly, it threatened to bite his head off.
Kite knew when to stop, fortunately. But he didn't stop complaining about Pitou.
"You know, this wouldn't have been an issue if you weren't keeping my killer as a pet..." Ashton just retracted his tail with a nonchalant gaze.
The only reason he was being so 'kind' was that, ultimately, Kite was an ally. One that the human race would need in the future. Cheadle even begged him not to kill Kite. So, he decided to listen.
Not that he was going to let Kite off so easily. No, he was going to give Kite a small ultimatum.
"I don't care that she killed you before, she's someone else now."
"Well, don't expect me to try and protect this 'someone else' that she's become," Kite responded spitefully. He was well aware that he wasn't going to be able to touch Pitou. But he sure as hell wasn't going to help her with anything, or work alongside her.
"Kite... Let me put it this way then... If a single hair on her head is hurt, you will be the very first person I kill. Brutally, despite my recent changes and my somewhat laxer stance on killing, I am a very violent man with an extremely high thirst for blood."
His calm voice and cracked eyes, as well as his unveiled intent, were all overwhelming Kite. He just sweated a bit as he looked away from the eyes of the old hunter in front of him. He couldn't even mutter a response out of fear.
"I'm glad we have come to an understanding... Here's the notebook on all I know about ants. Have a nice day..." Ashton simply patted Kite's shoulder, his intent disappearing completely.
Kite simply looked at his hand for a second, then noticed that he was alone in that forest.
Their meeting was somewhat disastrous, it only went well because Ashton wasn't willing to make Cheadle sad by killing Kite. Kite was, after all, just behind Maha in terms of strength.
Losing him would be a blow to the overall strength of humanity. So, Ashton stopped worrying about him.
He had bigger fish to fry, as some would say. Why? Well, he decided to embark on a small journey to the Sunken Temple. A place that he theorized to be the resting place of these Gods that they were facing right now.
How had he reached that conclusion? Well, it was all thanks to the notes and the scriptures. The scriptures were all clearly meant to mislead him, and his proof of that was the note inside that doll.
It was a lot more believable than the ancient writings on slabs made by the people that worshipped those gods.
So, Ashton realized that the supposed ritual to release something to fight the gods was simply a ritual to release the gods from the Abyss.
It was a stretch, a mere theory. But that's why he needed to go and look for clues inside that temple.
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