Too Stubborn to Die

Book 3: Chapter 46

With the jungle insight, Aaron felt himself invigorated, swinging his fists into the ant swarm faster and more mercilessly than before.

“Just a little further!”

His body had already been a blur of destruction, and yet, it seemed to quicken even further as a furious drive to reach the jungle came over him, but there was still a measure of control to his action. He made sure not to lose himself, entirely—to remain centered and grounded.

However, even as he increased the tempo and his fists turned the ant horde into featureless gore, the endless rows of ants didn’t give an inch. No matter what he tried, their resolve remained unchanged, and the slaughter and carnage only grew thicker and more chaotic with each step toward the jungle.

And as he neared, it seemed the horde was intent on throwing everything at him, and new ants began to appear frequently. Though not all kinds of ants were as devastating as one another. Flying ants that shot barbs down from the sky joined the fray, though they weren’t too hard to dodge. Another kind blew flames, which was equally easy to dodge, and neither were comparable to the lightning or poison ants. But their presence was a testament to their adaptability and an undeniable evidence of Julius’ warning about power stealing.

Still, the biggest problem was the sheer number of them. And when the trees on the horizon grew bigger, and they could finally make out some details on them, what had been sporadic patches of flying ants shooting barbs down on him, thickened into an ever-growing cloud over the battlefield. And it was truly starting to feel like he’d kicked their nest, as this battle was growing into increasingly more epic proportions.

The sky was becoming so thick with the flying beasts that they were actually starting to block out the sun, and it looked like late afternoon.

When there had only been a few of them, the barbs had been relatively easy to dodge, but as their numbers grew larger and larger, it had turned into an endless rain of attacks, and they did not care in the slightest about killing their own.

And while nothing was stopping him from flying up and dealing with the flying pests, he was busy trying to push the main army back so the others could keep moving forward.

However, it was becoming clear that he couldn’t avoid everything, and occasionally the barbs struck him, inflicting painful wounds as they injected some kind of toxin.

That alone wasn’t enough to stop Aaron. But the sheer overwhelmingness of the battle was starting to weigh heavily on him. And it became obvious that if he wasn’t able to weaken the horde significantly, he wouldn’t be able to move on toward the queen. After all, how could he trust the squads to deal with such a powerful force without either him, Talia, or Zero? That seemed like a tall ask, if not completely impossible, even if there were a few among them decently powerful. The size of the swarm was simply too much.

There were some silver linings. Using the ants as a training opportunity was great, but they still had a very important task to accomplish, and that couldn’t be forgotten.

“You bloody bastards. How fucking many of you are there?!”

As frustration began to build, Aaron began spraying the ant horde with spectral fists. They had actually started to push him back, and he could tell that he was walking on land he’d already trodden on. And that wasn’t good enough.

The Skill wasn’t overly effective against stronger foes, but much of the ant horde was made up of weak ants, a good portion of which were lower level than Aaron at this point, and the flying fists made short work of them.

As he mowed them down, row after row, the ants died in the hundreds, if not thousands, and yet, they still poured out and into his attacks. And worse, the more he focused on them, the more barbs flying down from above struck him, and the toxins were growing in his body, forcing him to cycle aether to cleanse himself.

Between Skills and healing himself, even [ Reap ]

couldn’t keep up, despite how many ants he was slaughtering. This was likely also because of how weak they were.Nonetheless, something needed to change. He was fairly certain he wanted to be in his best shape when he faced down the queen, and that meant he couldn’t allow her minions to whittle him down before he faced her.

Pushing the horde back a couple of hundred meters with his relentless spectral fists firing off like a machine gun, he quickly bounced into the sky. And with a gust of spectral energy, he was among the flying ants.

“Fuck off, will ya!” Aaron roared as his fists flew into the flying ants, and the rain of barbs was replaced by a rain of ant bits.

But Aaron quickly realized that the flying ants were actually far superior in the sky. In great enough numbers, the barbs were dangerous, and that was undeniable. But individually, they had been a rather mediocre attack. However, the little demons zoomed around the sky exceptionally fast.

Back and forth they came, looking for opportunities as they dived into battle, trying to cut and poison, and shooting off barbs in the process.

Still, Aaron was faster, even with his ring on, but their numbers were great. Not only that, but they clearly had some kind of mastery over team tactics, as some flying ants would shoot at him from the sidelines as the others engaged him in melee, making great use of space.

And on top of that, the flying ants were noticeably sturdier than the others he’d been taking out on the ground, and they actually survived regular punches often enough that it was getting annoying.

Still, Aaron tried not to activate Skills too often. Not just because he wanted to impress Yendal, but the sheer number of enemies forced even him to be conservative with his energy reserves. And while [ Reap ] was working on overdrive and keeping him stocked on energy, if he went all out on every ant, his energy usage would quickly outpace his recovery. Especially if he was forced to heal throughout it all.

After less than a minute flying around taking out the ants, the ground forces had pushed past where he had stood, and were moving on to his allies, forcing Aaron to slam back into the ground and face them.

It truly was a juggling act, flying between the ground where the surface force relentlessly marched forward, and bouncing back into the sky to deal with the ant air force. And as he struggled with this, carelessness slipped in, and he started to gather more and more wounds.

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It was simply endless. Everywhere he looked, there were more ants, and if he slacked for even a second, either the flying ants or those on the ground would continue their march.

And if the main force was this difficult for him to handle, he could only imagine what they would do to his rear guard.

He glanced back with that thought and spotted them cutting apart ants, a couple of hundred meters back. They were doing fine, but they were also faced against far fewer of the insectoid pests.

I can’t let that happen!

His brow bent as he turned it up another notch. He didn’t know how he’d beat them back, but he knew he couldn’t let them pass. And now, he wasn’t sure they could even retreat back to Dober, if they wanted to.

They had well and truly stirred up the nest now, and he had a feeling that these ants weren’t going to let them off the hook.

But even Aaron had limits, and soon he was panting and sweating all over as he shot back and forth relentlessly, killing more ants than he could count.

And then, as he began to slow a little, they sprung their trap. More of the digging ants shot out from the ground the moment he stepped back down, and clasped hold of his ankles once more. He knew how to get out of this, of course, but his reserves dropped, and he had slowed a little. And that was all it took for the ants to unleash an array of attacks from all directions that cascaded down upon him simultaneously.

It was actually quite an incredible example of teamwork, as electrified ants, poison, barbs, ice shards, and even flames all erupted around him at once. And the moment they struck him, melee ants flooded in with their clicking mandibles.

And for the first time during the battle, Aaron was killed, ripped apart by a seemingly endless horde.

It had taken a lot of them to pull off the attack, but he had to admit he was rather impressed. The ants themselves weren’t particularly strong individually, and beating someone with such absurd recovery abilities as Aaron when they were underleveled was no easy task.

The only reason they’d been able to was their ability to work together. However, he wondered how they were able to coordinate so well. After all, there was no speech or noticeable communication taking place. Then again, they were ants.

With a burst of aether, Aaron was once more alive and facing down the horde. But something needed to change. That much was obvious.

He felt bad for doing it so soon and against regular minions, but it was time to take this fight a little more seriously, and he removed his ring.

Immediately, he felt power rippling out from his core, which pulsed with renewed vigor. He had almost forgotten how the ring helped him keep it under control, and his attention was split as he kept the wildly fluctuating core from erupting.

However, despite having to focus on not blowing himself up, the power difference without the ring was undeniable. Hell, he could shrug off many of the ants’ weaker attacks now, and his punches blasted through them with ease, killing both those on the ground and the flying ants in single, devastating strikes that often punched straight through one and into the next.

And with this renewed vigor, Aaron went wild on his enemies, turning into a tornado of destruction as he ripped his way through them. But after a few minutes of fighting, and no end in sight, he started to worry slightly.

They just kept coming, and even he could feel himself straining under the pressure of the waves after wave of ants.

His body too suffered. It wasn’t about to collapse, but the strain of fighting with his overpowered core was evident, and his body ached after even a few minutes of it.

But putting the ring back on would make him vulnerable, and if he wanted to slay the queen, he couldn’t go wasting aether getting himself killed. The last thing he wanted was to face whatever was behind this horde in a weakened state.

And yet, no matter how hard he went, they didn’t seem to get any closer to pushing the horde back. And when he paused to look up toward the trees, he noticed that they hadn’t gotten any closer to the jungle.

The ants, through sheer numbers and determination, had actually managed to turn this fight into a stalemate of sorts.

They were the ones taking apocalyptic losses, so perhaps a statemate wasn’t the right word. But Aaron had no idea how many losses they could afford to suffer.

For all he knew, the queen was watching and waiting. And if that were so, they were in a bad situation.

And as he considered that, one thought kept passing through his mind. How did the ants communicate? There was simply too much coordination for the ants not to be communicating on some higher level, but he saw no evidence of this with his eyes.

This thought puzzled him, and he felt like deciphering it was the answer to beating them.

He remembered something about vibrations and frequencies from a show he’d once watched about ants, and that reminded him of the food he had cooked. What if Erratic Sonar—the temporary Trait provided by cooking up the bat—did something?

It seemed like a long shot, but he got a very bad feeling about his current situation. It was obvious the ants knew that they were here; they were in battle, after all. But it also wasn’t just the ants that had poured out into the plains. To be able to continuously throw bodies at them, the ants must have been swarming out from the jungle. And if they knew they were here, the queen likely did too.

Dammit! I got no choice, do I? Bloody hell, let’s give this a crack!

Aaron took out one of five servings of his spicy bat curry and devoured it. His eyes watered, and his mouth was set ablaze, and even Aaron realized that perhaps he had overdone it on the heat. And this was something else entirely.

But he had no choice but to grit his teeth and ignore his body’s protests against the fiery pain he had intentionally ingested.

Breaking for less than a second to eat, he had already thrown himself back into the thick of it.

He had no idea how Erratic Sonar was supposed to work; he just kind of hoped it would do something. And his prayers were answered only a few seconds later, as the ant horde seemed to be confused.

The ants that were facing him did so with the same ruthless efficiency as they had previously. But the ones behind them seemed almost oblivious to what was going on. Some even started walking away in the wrong direction.

The power provided by the curry wasn’t some light switch that won the battle for them, but the effect it had on the ant logistics was undeniable, and with a few minutes of slaughter, the ant lines were finally starting to thin.

Aaron understood that they weren’t actually killing any more of the ants than they had been before, and when the effect wore off, they’d return. But for now, he’d take the win, and within a couple more minutes, they were reaching the edge of the jungle.

“We’re almost there!” Aaron shouted back, and his rampage grew even more furious as he massacred his way through the last lines of ants and reached the treeline.

A glance over his shoulder told him the others weren’t far behind, and were dealing with the ants they were faced against with confidence, so he took a few steps into the jungle.

There were still plenty of ants about, and they seemed to be everywhere he looked. And even though their forces had been utterly confused by the sonar, the bumbling ants could still pose an obvious threat.

Yet he still sighed with relief. Reaching the jungle was only the first of their goals, but at least they had achieved it. Even if he had pushed himself harder than he had wanted to.

“We did it. Finally.”

But when he took a couple more steps, he noticed a familiar mark. Claws carved into the trees.

“Wait… I know this. The simian reaver!”

A shiver traced Aaron spine a the thought. He had gotten a lot stronger since the last time he faced it, but the last thing he needed was a D-grade threat while dealing with the ants. But then something else struck him like a truck.

The ants were sucttling all around, with seemingly not a single care for the reaver’s territory. And he had a bad feeling that meant something.

But just as he had that thought, a rush of energy struck him as he was no longer in combat.

Calculating Experience…