Demeaning Words

Soren resolved himself.

This was his chance to prove he could do out-of-the-ordinary things and maybe, just maybe he'd finally have everything he wanted.

He ran up the mountain, speculating if this would work or not. He could still see, but the sun was going to be hidden soon.

At least, it should have. In this world, the sun stagnated before setting. Soren would have known that if he hadn't gone to sleep early the night before.

His dirtied rose tunic was a simple thing, but it did have the ability to hold his sword on his back. The only convenient thing about his attire.

Up ahead a circular rock was sitting slightly dislodged and not too heavy looking.

'I should annoy them since they're so persistent.'

With a faint smile, strained by the run, he slowed down, picked up the rock with his one hand, and turned around.

With his small idea in place, he rolled it down as fast as he could like a bowling ball.

With the distance he'd gained again, it was able to build up decent speed before slamming into the front of the ant stampede.

The front ant's face was smushed in and forced into its center body creating a disgusting sight. Unfortunately, that was all that happened, nothing like the strike he wanted.

It wouldn't impede the other ants even if the front came to a halt. All the ants behind had climbed over the dead one without a second thought.

'Really? That's all? Stupid ants.'

He carried on his run. Growing higher and higher into the sky. Eventually, the sides began to shorten. To his left was a distance of 30 feet and dropped into nothingness. To his right, the same situation.

The only way he could go now was straight. There was no turning back or finding another solution. This was it.

As he went further up, the sides closed in even more, faster than it had been previously.

At first, it was 30 feet, then 20, and now it was 10 on each side.

'Almost there. This is such a stupid idea. Why the hell am I doing this?'

He regretted choosing this option. There could have been another way to deal with the ants or he could have kept the Sunburned Mosquitoes together and tried to kill the ants.

That would have led him to death too. He knew it and Soren needed to grow stronger in this world. It already sucked that he died so early on in World 1. 

People would only grow stronger as he went through each of the worlds.

'Those lucky pieces of crap probably get carried to their physical limit each world. All because they have a decent permanent ability. When can I use mine?'

As the top approached him, he looked ahead. It was only 3 feet in width creating a very small platform before the large drop into the abyss below.

The ants weren't completely brainless. They stopped themselves from falling off the sides of the mountain and filed into the main body like cars merging onto a busy highway. 

It was a slow merge but that didn't matter because the abundance of ants was too great. 

Soren stopped before he reached the very top, giving him some space to not fall.

Looking around, he was in awe. 

The view was breathtaking. He could see his starting point in World 2 in the far distance just before his sight could see no further. The sun was finally leaving this world, creating a beautiful sunset with purple, red, and pink streaks flying through the sky. Looking away from the heavenly city, he could see an endless forest in all directions. Below the cliff was a dark expanse though, not the usual forestry.

'What an easy way to get lost.'

While the scenery was the most magnificent thing he'd ever seen. The current situation demanded his attention.

He came back to his senses and looked below him. 

Swarms of deadly ants were approaching rapidly. There wasn't much time for him to prepare.

He started by tucking his shirt and tying it to his pants, creating something of a storage in his shirt. The difficulty was much harder than he thought it would be, but that didn't matter.

Would the weird storage last until after this battle? Who knows.

His second piece of preparation didn't require anything special. He just dislodged a couple of rocks nearby and placed them behind him. Only keeping around three, he rolled the others down the mountain to lighten the amount of ants.

He wasn't able to send many down, only four somewhat good rocks. However, they did take out one ant each, sometimes even two.

'Alright, I got this. Yeah, easy. This is lightwork.'

He sighed before mumbling, "This can go wrong in so many ways."

Finally, the ants got close enough to the top. Their massive army slowly converging into a line of just two at a time.

Soren grabbed his sword and lined it up with the ant's heads below. He didn't stand at the very top cliff, but instead a few feet below that. It was only a couple of feet wide anyway.

If anyone could see him, it would have looked like his brother died in front of him.

He was about to do something he was least looking forward to, almost comparable to this whole situation. 

Taking a deep breath, he tried whispering, "Please let me live."

As he said that, a strange feeling took place within his body. A visceral feeling that caught him by surprise even though he was expecting it.

Powerful. This was how Soren felt right now.

Strength coursed through every muscle in his body causing him to squeeze the sword handle tighter making it squirm as if in pain. 

'It's a 5x increase, so my strength should be at what? 25? Or no 26 because my stat was 5.2.'

'I could get used to this, but if I had to say that around someone else. I might just die instead.'

This was his first time using Gods Plea, an actual ability, so he wasn't sure what would happen.

Did he need to warm himself up to the power he was at? Would he get tired more easily? Could he reactivate it after 5 minutes to reset the timer?

There were many questions, but only this next fight could answer them.