In the fifth nest:
Similar to his other campaigns, Grim used 'ghost' to sneak inside while his brethren were causing distractions. However, it was not an easy battle this time.
Just when he was near enough soldier ants, they exploded themselves, and he was knocked away.
It happened time and again, and by the time he got rid of all the soldier ants he had lost another leg and there were small cracks on his body.
"Well, that's 10 days gone from my lifespan."
Time was of the essence, so he quickly got rid of the queen and the eggs and left the nest stealthily.
After his return from the mission, he took a day's worth of rest.
"The nest should be safe for now." He was relaxing in his nest.
However, he had failed to realize that those 5 ant nests were keeping the bigger predators in check, as predators didn't want to deal with those ants.
Somewhere in the distance, an anteater was making his way toward the nest.
There were 2 termite nests, an acorn ant and a moisture ant nest in his way. He disposed of them in a day, and his next target would be the bulldog nest.
While he was taking a rest, he suddenly got a reminder from the system.
Alert! Alert! Alert!
[An anteater has entered your territory!]
[Quest: Survive ]
[Reward: 150 Evo points ]
"150 points." Finally, the gravity of the situation had set in.
The last time his nest was invaded, and it was a brutal battle and the reward was only 50 Evo, but now the reward was 3 times more.
"Triple rewards mean triple risk." He was worried for the first time.
However, being worried would not solve the problem, so he relayed the information to others and gathers all the ants that were left from the last invasion.
There were only 3000 worker ants left and only a few hundred solder ants left.
Theoretically, it was possible to kill an anteater with that number. However, it was just a theory.
He anxiously waited for the danger to arrive.
After an hour, the anteater had finally arrived.
Although he was prepared mentally, he was still shocked at the sight of it.
It was a towering figure, and it was blocking some portion of sunlight.
From his perspective, it looked like Godzilla.
"If he rolls, he can mush us all. This is going to be the hardest battle of my life." Many thoughts were playing in his head.
This battle was going to be an ant's version of 'David vs Goliath'.
They started moving to circle the giant to gain the first attacker's advantage.
However, the anteater had already made its move and swung his tongue. Some unlucky ants were caught in the tongue and swallowed alive.
Every time ants made a move, the anteater did too. After a minute or so and hundreds of casualties later, the ants were closing on the anteater. They started climbing over his body and started biting.
Despite their continuous bite, the anteater was still healthy and swallowing them in a group.
The anteater had the innate ability of low levels of poison resistance, so the poison was having little effect. However, it would still suffer if the bites pilled up.
Understanding what they were trying to do, anteater rolled his body violently several times.
The result was tragic. Half of the ants were massacred. There were ant jaws stuck all over its body, and there was also white goo from dead ants over its body.
Seeing your brethren massacred would be demoralizing for anyone. However, the ants were fearless and they continued their attack fiercely.
Despite its poison-resistant ability, the poison was starting to take effect slowly. Thousands of such attacks would be hard to bear for anyone.
Realizing the situation, it rolled violently again and caused another massacre.
There were only a fraction of the ants left alive after two such moves.
"Poison attack from outside isn't strong enough."
He had a choice of either getting crushed like others or entering inside and attacking from there. So, he decided to enter its body.
He used 'ghost' and made his way to the nose and entered it. He started biting it from the inside.
Outside, the anteater could feel the pain inside his nose and started going berserk. Even more, ants were killed.
Realizing the precarious situation, Grim was left in a dilemma. If he should run away or sacrifice himself.
His chances of survival would be low if the queen was killed, so running away was not an option.
He made up his mind and went deeper into the body and reached the lungs. If he used just his normal attacks right now, it would still take a day for the anteater to die.
So he had decided to perform an area attack, and he had perfect ability in mind.
"System Shop open"
[System Shop]
[Available Evo Points: 100]
[Ability 1: explosion – 5 Evo]
[Ability 2: Trap Jaw – 5 Evo]
[Weekly Ability Refresh Ticket: 1]
"Exchange 'explosion'."
"Ability exchanged! 5 Evo points deducted!"
"Host has learned 'explosion'."
Then he used an 'explosion' and caused a small blast.
His body was shattered into two, and the blast caused poison to be released from his body. The poison started to spread in the anteater's lungs quickly.
Because of the massive injuries, his consciousness started fading.
"I hope at least the anteater is dead." He was hopeful of his effort.
His eyes were getting blurry. However, before his vision went dark, he heard a notification.
Ding! Ding!
[Congratulation to the host for killing an Anteater!]
[Host has obtained 75 Evo (half of the quest) ]
[Host has been granted the rare ability 'minor regeneration' for defeating a super strong enemy! ]
He couldn't make sense of the notification. But, knowing it came right after the poison started spreading, he thought it was positive news and he finally closed his eyes.