Too Stubborn to Die

Book 3: Chapter 58

Even as his final strikes were hammering into the queen ant and he was painting the chamber in her blood, Aaron Dober’s head was spinning with what to do next.

He had felt the power of the royal guards as they neared the queen’s chamber, and knew they were coming well before they burst into it. And knowing that they were coming for him and his group, he had pulled out a serving of bat curry from his scabbard.

It was difficult to tell where the delicious curry gravy started, and ant queen juices began, but that was a problem for a more squeamish person. Aaron simply bent back his head and poured the contents of his meal down his throat.

It burned like hell, comparable to some gnarly wounds he had received since the whole multiverse thing had happened, and it would no doubt hurt even more when he finally had to relieve himself.

But that was a problem for future Aaron.

Did he have a plan, in truth? Well, that depends on one’s definition. But he knew these two bastards were the real epitome of this fight, and as long as they could survive them, they had won the war against the ants.

He had expected to need the curry against the queen herself, but the fight had been easier than expected. However, there was no need to hold back any longer. The moment he felt the royal guards about to enter the chamber, he knew that this was the final battle to conclude this little epic, and he needed all the boost he could get.

Though he could not be entirely sure, this was the best boost for that moment. In fact, he had considered other buffing feasts in the few seconds he had. But despite being far stronger and more advanced, the royal guards were still ants of the colony, and he hoped that his sonar-disrupting ability might just give him an edge.

“MOTHER!!!” One of the royal guard wailed as it came crashing into the room, with its companion only a second behind it.

And when they saw the absolute carnage caused by Aaron and his companions, they did not wait. In an instant, the closest of them flew into Talia, slamming straight into her shield and sending her hurtling across the chamber.

With a reverberating thud, she crashed into the wall near Aaron and gasped as she spat up blood.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine!”

Zero would likely be torn in two if hit by such a strike, but the wolf didn’t wait around to find out and immediately flashed back behind Aaron for safety.

“What have you done?!” One of the royal guards hissed as it heaved in outrage, slowly marching forward, its silver-haired brethren at its back. Its expression was bent in the most furious scowl Aaron had ever seen.

“You… you killed MOTHER!" Growled the furious ant that looked like an amalgamation of a scorpion, bird, and a snake spat.

“Oh no. You’ve gone and pissed off the little guy now, tsk, tsk, tsk,” said the silver-haired ant as he shook his handsome head and flexed his four, perfectly smooth, gleaming white arms. “You should’ve done that. He has a temper problem when he’s angry.”

Jigsaw Tyrant [ Level 160 ]

Titles: [ Schadenfreude ] [ Royal Guard No.2 ]

Hegemony Blanc [ Level 174 ]

Titles: [ Royal Guard No.1 ] [ Killing in the Name ]

“Um, Talia. I don’t think this is good.”

Aaron got a very bad feeling about this fight. Not just because they were strong, but they had drained a decent amount of energy slaughtering the queen and her guards. That was fine, it was by far the most important objective of the campaign, but it also weakened them for this fight.

“If we had a little time to recover.”

“Yeah, I know,” Talia nodded.

Commanding her avatar’s weapon, she swung down toward the approaching royal guards, but the massive sword struck the ceiling above them with all its power.

For as strong as Aaron was, when it came to raw power and damage output, Talia had the edge, and when the massive sword struck the reinforced ceiling, it cracked straight through it and brought the entire thing crumbling down.

Debris, boulders, and rocks flooded into the chamber, and in a split second, Aaron laced an arm around her waist, and pulled her to safety, moving at a speed that was simply incomprehensible for normal humans.

At his side, Zero had followed, and within seconds, they were at the far end of the collapsed chamber.

But barely a second later, an explosion ripped through the collapsed rubble, blasting it away and turning it into rocky shrapnel that Talia shielded and intercepted.

Unfortunately, Talia wasn’t fast enough to keep up with Zero and Aaron, and he couldn’t carry her to safety, even if he could outrun the two royal guards.

Before he even got done processing that thought, the silver-haired Hegemony Blanc was before him, pointed hands shooting out at him like speartips.

An inch before his head was taken off, Aaron activated [ Spectral Rush ] and passed straight through the deadly royal guard. But before he could even get his bearings, the second one was lunging at him.

Dipping his head, he dodged the first attack, stepped to the side, and danced around the lightning fast follow-up attacks.

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Bubbling over with rage, the anger-fueled attacks sailed harmlessly past Aaron as his technique and agility were on full display. Going full Ali, he weaved through an absolute torrent of attacks coming his way, and then spotted an opening.

With a powerful pulse of C-grade energy poured into his fist, he landed a perfectly horrific, soul-shattering strike, which actually made the royal guard stagger as if the wind had been knocked straight out of its lungs.

However, in that same second, its companion, Hegemony Blanc, had slammed a kick into Talia's shield, throwing her away, and swinging back into Aaron with slicing karate chops that sent blades cutting straight through the wall with every miss.

Unfortunately, the top-ranked royal guard was the far quicker of the two, and Aaron couldn’t outrun his strikes forever. That said, he had more cards up his sleeve and could have countered if he really wanted to. But he had other plans and allowed his enemy to land a killing blow.

With both royal guards throwing everything they had, Aaron, Talia was given the second she needed, and just as Aaron was decapitated, a wave of darkness crashed down upon them. And even the silver beams of energy shooting through at the royal guards were deprived of their usual light, as Talia’s all-consuming darkness filled the room.

And with the light snuffed out, chaos ensued. This wasn’t exactly what he had planned, but it worked perfectly nonetheless, and when Aaron resurrected in the darkness, his enemies were completely unprepared for it.

Closet was Jigsaw Tyrant, and he released a full-powered combination into the unguarded flank of the chimera-like ant, pulsing C-grade energy into his fists as they crashed into its patchwork body.

He could feel the carapace of the ant, and its body crushed beneath his powerful fists, but this was a level 160 royal guard, and it wasn’t so easily killed.

As his combination continued, a tornado of serrated feathers swirled around the ant’s wings, and Aaron was forced to tank the bladed attacks to continue raining down blows on the battered ant with his own powerful attacks.

But just as he thought he was close to breaking it down, the ant’s snake head shot out with such speed that a crack of thunder sounded a second after the attack had already landed, and filled his veins with poison.

The moment Aaron felt the poison pouring into him, he knew it wasn’t something he should fight. His healing was incredible, but against such a powerful poison, it was a waste of energy, and he decided to just let the poison take his life.

But the moment he died, a burst of aether brought him straight back to life, barely slowing him for a second, and he managed to continue his combination, landing one more C-grade empowered haymaker on the startled ant.

It had to have known he had already died, but was taken off guard by how fast he recovered, something Aaron was getting better and better at thanks to his command of aether. And with its guard broken, his punch flew straight into the ant, completely blasting away a section of its shell, and forcing it to retreat several meters.

He was okay with that, though. The reality was that the snake bite attack was so fast that he didn’t think he could dodge it, even if he slowed time. And if he had to continue resurrecting himself because of poison, he would quickly run out of energy.

But there was more going on in the battle than just that. And when he forced Jigsaw Tyrant into retreat, he saw the silver-haired ant crash straight through Talia’s shield and send her flying across the wrecked chamber.

Zero was a good boy, though, and his silver beams intercepted the royal guard, stopping it from landing a killing blow on the wounded Talia.

This wasn’t good. Jigsaw Tyrant was on the run, and if he could just finish it quickly…

Fuck!

Aaron flashed toward Talia. Letting the patchwork ant recover was bad news, but he couldn’t let her just die in front of him. And the moment he intercepted, putting himself between her and the ant, he felt the true nature of its incredibly powerful aura.

That thing…

This ant was on another level; he could already tell, and its attacks were lashing out at him faster than he could blink.

To save himself in the last moment, he raised [ Gorgon’s Soul Vortex ] to its absolute limit, slowing down the battle as much as he could, and even then, dodging the attacks coming at him was incredibly hard.

Worst still, pushing time dilation to this extreme was going to drain his energy fast, but he had no choice.

Think, think quick!

Using a burst of C-grade energy, he sped himself up enough to retreat back several meters and grab hold of Talia.

This better work!

Then, he pulled his cape over both of them. “Do your shadow thing!” He roared.

Talia didn’t take more than a second to act, and darkness poured out from her avatar once more, and aided by his cape, they were completely hidden.

Seeing this, Zero retreated, turning into a beam of light as he fled down the tunnel. The wolf was both fast, and clearly not the main objective of the royal guards, as they barely took notice of it as they blew apart their surroundings in search of Aaron and Talia.

Hidden in the shadows, they retreated down one tunnel after another, taking turns this way and that. Zero followed, able to sense Aaron despite all the defenses he had thrown up, thanks to the bond they had created.

But Aaron knew it was only a matter of time before the ants caught up. They could hide themselves in the shadows, and they could mask their auras, but eventually, the ants would sense them and catch up.

However, as several seconds passed and they moved deeper into winding tunnels, he was surprised that their auras hadn’t caught up.

He could sense them some distance away. Sure, the initial confusion was a boon, but he was honestly shocked that it had worked as well as it had. But then he remembered the curry.

Perhaps his erratic sonar was doing more than he realized.

Kim Soohyun

Soohyun had almost immediately left the settlement after reaching it. An armed group had met her at the outskirts and led her up to one of their leaders.

Julius had seemed decent enough when she met him, although she did get a bit of an odd vibe from him. But none of that mattered too much after she learned who the other two leaders were.

“Talia Rhineheart and Aaron Dober?” Expression lit up. “Where are they?”

“Dealing with a little problem of ours. Well, perhaps I should say, big problem.”

Julius had gone on to explain the situation, and the moment he got done talking, Soohyun was on the move, racing out from the casino and toward the jungle.

That had all happened several hours ago, and raced across the plains at record speed.

This was not what she had planned. She had been looking forward to settling down somewhere ever since leaving the trials, but how could she turn down such an opportunity?

She hadn’t known them too well within the trials, a problem of her own making. She was shy for words, always had been, and she had been kicking herself ever since for not trying to talk to them more.

But now she didn’t just have a second chance, but an opportunity to assist them against a deadly foe, and she could think of no better way to prove her worth.

Her group had been left behind to settle themselves, though. They would have only slowed her down, and they weren’t particularly great warriors anyway.

Pushing more mana into her travel Skill, she increased her speed further. Though there was another reason for her impatience, beyond aiding the two heroes she looked up to. It was a completely greedy reason. An opportunity that was important to her, and she dearly didn’t want to miss it.

Almost there! Just a little further!

Drinking a mana potion, she poured even more energy into her Skill, moving faster and faster as she flew on her massively oversized sword like a surfboard.