Chapter 120: Dual Hunt
Chapter 120: Dual Hunt
For the next few days, Amanda and I implemented a simple system of hunting the ants.
I had my spy centipedes keeping track of the phoenix king. Because of my manipulation, he murdered his wives and the guild members he brought with him.
It looked as if he were losing his mind. He was on a rampage, slaughtering ants and destroying entire sections of the nest.
Because of his behavior, the entire nest was in an uproar. The ants marched like an army and led a series of attacks against him, but nothing worked.
He fought with them day and night without taking a second to rest.
I took advantage of this state and pushed him to his breaking point even further.
My telepathy skill allowed me to communicate with people from several miles away.
Whenever there was a moment where it looked as if he were calming down, I would speak to him telepathically.
The same voice that convinced him to kill his wives now tormented him day and night.
In truth I was the reason why he couldn’t sleep. Why he was condemned to fighting the ants day and night.
With every ant he killed, he hoped one of them was somehow me in disguise.
I knew I was crossing some moral line that was far different than killing someone just for survival.
But I needed him to break. So I could use him.
With every ant he killed, he simply left it and went on to kill more. He didn’t even collect their cores and simply left them to rot.
The monster Aphrodite created wasn’t strong enough to face the more powerful ants, but to scavenge what remained, Amanda and I carried out our hunt.
While fighting beside her, Amanda, I realized a lot had changed about her. She was no longer the lethal assassin I first met.
She had the face of someone going through a midlife crisis.
But even then she was still competent in a fight. She could kill charging ants in the same time it took a mage to fire off a spell.
It just went to show just how incredible someone of her caliber was.
First we lured the ants inside a chamber and trapped them inside and wracked our brains meticulously.
We repeated this process so many times that fighting together as a team had become second nature to us.
We fought without saying a word as if we could read each other’s minds.
The moment we were done killing the ants, we gathered and collected their cores while I devoured what was left of them.
"We have to be careful from here on out. The ants will get tougher from here." Amanda sat as she plucked the core out of a dead ant that looked like a mix between an ant and a beetle.
Since Amanda had already traversed this area of the nest, going closer to the queen’s chambers than I ever did.
They only retreated because of the newborn ant that defeated the phoenix king.
"By the way, have the eggs hatched yet?"
I had sent several of my spy centipedes to the Queen’s chambers to keep watch of the eggs.
We were planning to attack the moment they hatched when they were at their weakest.
"No, they haven’t hatched yet. There is still no sign of the ant that attacked the Phoenix King.
Amanda sighed.
"Are you sure this plan will even work? Even as newborns, they are still powerful beasts. I don’t see a way we could win this."
"Yet, you’re still here."
She paused, not expecting such a response.
"Because I trust you... And there is something different about you."
"Something different about me?" I inquired.
Amanda plucked out another core, and in an instant it disappeared into her storage space.
"Not only have you somehow gotten stronger, but you seem more capable. Like there is a thin veil of aura around you... It reminds me of my father."
Could it be my draconic bloodline? Some races and bloodlines are known to radiate certain auras.
For example, elves radiate an aura of purity around them. This aura makes people more likely to trust them.
In the same way, vampires produce an aura that makes people attracted to them. As if they were being drawn in by their very nature.
Though they were just another race, dragons are often regarded as godly simply because of the aura they produced.
If a god tells you something is fine and that they will take care of things, then chances are you will trust them.
Suddenly Amanda leaned in close. Looking at me intently with her hands behind her back.
"What is it?"
She was looking at me as I had a giant mosquito on my forehead.
"...Those horns. Are they new? I don’t remember you having them before."
"My horns? Yeah, I got them recently."
She didn’t say a word and instead continued to stare at them.
"I’m feeling a strange energy coming from them. It’s not mana, it’s... It’s something else."
A strange energy coming from my horns?
"What kind of energy? And what other energy is there except mana?"
Slowly she reached out and poked the top of my head with her finger.
"I don’t know. What even are you?"
"A lobster"
A small smile appeared on her face.
"You’re supposed to say ’my stead,’" she joked.
For a moment her face returned its color.
"Come on, let’s go." She quickly turned on her heel and rushed off towards the sound of incoming monsters.
Almost immediately we came across another generation of ants. These ants possessed powerful wings that resembled those of a bat.
Their eyes were bulbous and looked as if they were being squeezed out of their heads.
The creature was also covered in large spikes.
"Be careful of those spikes; they could be poisonous," I shouted as Amanda charged towards the monsters like a ball shot from a cannon.
She looked back at me, and for a moment I saw a sliver of her old self.
She grinned and stuck out her tongue.
"Just try to keep up."
At the same time her body looked as if it had teleported. In an instant she was in the air above the flying ants, driving her dagger into its back.
Her blade penetrated through the monster’s back with ease, killing it instantly.
Another ant snapped at her while she was defenseless in the air. She quickly raised her weapon to defend herself from the ant before the monster could even get close.
A firebolt ripped through the air like lightning itself and pierced through the monster’s body.
[Firebolt]
[Firebolt]
[Firebolt]
I fired several firebolts. The attacks bounced from the wall and hit their targets with pinpoint accuracy.
Amanda’s eyes sharpened and her smile widened. She crouched down on the ground with both daggers in hand before pushing herself forward.
The ground below her feet exploded, and the air in the chamber trembled as she pushed herself forward.
Her body whizzed through the air to the point where I could barely keep track of her movements.
She moved faster than the firebolts as she raced against the attacks and killed the bats just before the firebolts could hit their target.
The firebolts moved in a zigzag pattern as they bounced off the walls and moved towards their targets.
This was done to confuse the monsters and make it harder for them to dodge the attacks.
Amanda wasn’t fooled by any of this. She perfectly predicted where each of the attacks would go and got there before them.
I watched in awe as the flying monsters raised rained down from the air.
Amanda stood in the middle of the chaos, watching the dead ants like a sculpture, observing their work.
’That’s one way of letting out your frustrations, I guess.’
She sheathed her daggers and approached me.
"Those attacks of yours were following a preset path towards their target. Does that mean you have the same skill as me? I thought only high-ranking assassins could obtain the Wayfinder skill."
Ah, so she was using a skill. So that’s how she was able to predict the trajectory of each of the firebolts as they bounced off the wall.
I would get an onslaught of questions if I told her; I simply calculated everything in my mind before firing the attack.
Instead, I gave a simple nod, and the two of us proceeded to collect the monster cores.
I devoured what was left of the monsters while Amanda stood to the side and watched.
She never asked why I needed to devour monsters and/or how it would help in our fight.
Even when she saw the monsters Aphrodite created bringing corpses to me.
She simply went along with it.
Though I did briefly explain that Aphrodite, Lily, and Dracule were all monsters I created, I didn’t go into any details about how or why I’m able to create monsters.
We continued hunting until we decided it was time we took a break.