"They're coming! Hold your positions at all costs!"
Viscount Lupern drew his sword and hurriedly directed his troops.
They hadn't yet built proper defensive structures, so the soldiers formed a living wall with their bodies, weapons trained on the ants swarming toward them.
Enormous ants, each one capable of tearing apart a sturdy adult man if just a couple latched onto him, were bursting from the forest in dense waves.
It was only natural for instinctual fear to grip them, but the soldiers gritted their teeth and held firm.
They had something to believe in, after all.
"Behold—His power will protect you."
Radiant light burst from the priests of the Golden Mandate Society, enveloping the soldiers' bodies.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙This divine power purified the venom from the Venom Ants, boosted endurance, and restored depleted stamina.
"Charge!"
The melee erupted in that state.
The ants could shrug off arrows from the few archers or spells from mages, so the decisive battle came down to who would yield first in close quarters.
"K-Kill them quick! Aaaagh!"
Variant Bullet Ants with stingers poised thrust over their comrades' bodies, piercing the soldiers' armor at the solar plexus and injecting venom.
They could block the venom spray, but not the paralyzing toxin that pierced straight through flesh.
Several soldiers collapsed screaming as their bodies melted alive from the agony, and the ants charged unflinchingly at the paling survivors without so much as a twitch.
Some ants flattened themselves to target legs, others climbed over allies to bite spear shafts or shove shields aside.
Some even leaped from those heights to breach the formation—anyone facing them for the first time had no choice but to break.
"Fighting with beastly agility and cunning. But how dare you!"
That was when Viscount Lupern and his paladins stepped in personally.
Their blades wreathed in holy power exploited their elemental advantage against the variant ants born of demonic power, instantly reversing the momentum.
The ants, with their brute strength, relentless motion, and precise collective tactics unlike any human force, began yielding bit by bit to the humans clustered around the paladins.
"As expected, it's different."
Jin-hyuk's eyes sparkled as he watched.
He'd noticed it back during the larval stage: their swords took different forms against variants fueled by demonic power versus regular ants.
Against variants, the holy power flared brighter in reaction to the demonic essence.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[Your subordinates sense victory]
It was confirmation of what he'd already verified.
Convinced their holy power—born not of demonic power but mana—wouldn't affect the variants, the ants immediately unleashed their true strength from the reserves.
"Look there! New monsters I've never seen!"
"Ugh, there must be over a hundred."
Viscount Lupern spotted them too.
Ants unlike any before were racing toward them at high speed.
"But we can win now. Don't chase recklessly—hold position. Make them come to us."
The viscount wasn't a fool.
Confident in victory with his forces, he still aimed to fight as safely as possible against unknowns.
If the ants fled, he had no intention of pursuing.
They'd retreated without hesitation before when things turned sour, and he expected the same now.
"Huh...?"
But the shift began as the fresh ants slammed into their formation.
The holy light no longer held power over them.
"Impossible. Holy power isn't working!"
One paladin paled at the blade-like jaws of a variant ant charging over fallen comrades and shouted.
Even clashing head-on with a holy-imbued blade, the ant's jaw neither shattered nor yielded.
"Guh?! Aaaagh!"
The jaw whipped around, flinging the blade aside and severing the stunned paladin's arm in one stroke.
Bathed in holy light, armored arm spraying blood, it flew through the air.
"W-Wai..."
Before aid could arrive, the ant crushed the paladin's body with its forelegs and slashed its blade-jaws across his neck, beheading him.
'No way.'
Viscount Lupern froze at the sight.
For the first time, a paladin blessed by the goddess had fallen to the ants.
"U-Uwaaagh!"
"No! Hold the line—the formation's breaking!"
"My leg—my leg!!!"
Screams and shouts erupted from all sides.
Paladins leading the variant purge fell one by one to the new blade ants armed with mana-jaws; blessings pierced, the lines collapsed instantly.
Morale soared with cheers before, but terror and panic crushed it just as fast.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[Your subordinates have already seized the enemy's rear. They anticipate total annihilation of the enemy forces]
"Our retreat's cut off somehow... We have to break through!"
Unlike his initial confidence, Viscount Lupern felt true crisis, his voice trembling as he yelled.
These first ants weren't there to block or repel—they were bait.
Bait to pin down the prey.
And the ones tasked with "harvesting" that prey were Jin-hyuk's blade ants, newly evolved to counter the Golden Mandate Society's holy power.
'Their stance in battle was different.'
Jin-hyuk hardened his expression watching the tide turn and humans get massacred.
To him, the ants' approach was an all-out gambit staking the colony's fate.
Those five hundred vanguard attackers? The ants deemed them expendable.
As long as they pinned the enemy—"prey"—long enough, they'd annihilate and devour them for evolution and growth.
"You must retreat! We can't hold any longe—Guhk..."
"Sir Maron!"
As the formation fully shattered into the chaotic melee ants craved.
Viscount Lupern, now swinging desperately for survival, blanched seeing a knight pierced through the back by a variant Bullet Ant's stinger right before him.
"Ha..."
Blade ants had already surrounded him, blade-jaws gleaming.
Almost no one fought on defensively now; screams and shouts even began to fade.
The ants showed no emotion in killing or dying.
Their faces held no expressions, unlike humans. No cries either.
Even endless evolution probably wouldn't grant such inefficiency.
"You devilish bastards."
Viscount Lupern let out a final sigh amid ants tearing and slicing his body.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[Your subordinates are hurriedly transporting the spoils]
"Well, they need to produce new troops from the prey we secured this time..."
Watching the ants shred and mince the corpses into uniform chunks was never easy, no matter how many times.
"They could celebrate a bit more. It was a total victory in the opening clash."
I chuckled wryly, murmuring at their seamless shift to work without a second's pause for triumph.
Of course, I knew they didn't fully grasp joy yet.
So I decided to be happy for them.
I dumped a massive batch of mealworms I'd bulk-bought into the breeding pen.
Lately, I'd been deliberately rationing feed instead of the free-for-all.
I wanted them to recognize my intent and value its preciousness.
The mushroom farms—built from splintered logs, not leaves—were expanding steadily as the colony's staple.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[Your subordinates worship you]
Surprisingly, it was working to some degree.
After hunts, victories, birthing new castes—rewards synced to those moments.
They'd panicked at first when I cut feed, but now grasped it as "reward" only.
One step, but hope glimmered.
Hope that this unruly horde might one day obey my word.
I hadn't pondered what to do with them yet. Could I reshape my reality with beings from another world?
Such grand worries were premature.
'It's not fully over yet.'
Far from relaxing completely.
After meticulous prep, we'd just landed one hit on a slightly off-guard foe.
*Restricted function* *Restricted function* *Restricted function* *Restricted function* *Restricted function* *Restricted function*
But for a mere skirmish, someone seemed seriously pissed at me.
'Definite. Someone's calling me. Probably that Goddess Henes backing the humans, high chance.'
It happened after beating the goblins too.
I'd done nothing, yet spam alerts of "restricted function."
Easy to guess now: deities behind forces clashing with me—precisely, my ants.
"Answer me. Do deities have to brawl? Can't we just get along?"
"Divine Net is merely a management system and does not interfere in personal deity affairs."
Like the status windows hunters used, this deity system was just a tool.
How it was wielded depended on the user.
"Diplomatic talks with them too...? Me?"
I let out an absurd chuckle.
Waking as a deity doing nothing in my room was funny enough; now negotiating with ruling gods?
No need to dwell now, though.
Core issue: ants barely comprehend me in slaughter-tank mode. Plus, restricted functions hid their messages anyway for irregular awakenings like mine.
'Guess I can only hope they cut me slack. I'm innocent too.'
Bitter smile at the pipe dream, I shut the breeding pen lid as ants devoured dozens of mealworms in seconds.
Only one path now.
Fight, win, become victor—then options open.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[Prime Queen consumes prey infused with new power, amplifying growth using its properties]
The ants were already at it.
The queen, finally hunting paladins and priests laden with holy power, evolved once more from devouring it. Just as suspected.
Undoubtedly... Goddess Henes and her subordinates would eternally regret rashly sending troops against the ants.
< Chapter 21 - Absolute Evil (3) > End