Vincel Sees Opportunity

Yvette had gotten close to Alessia and together, they were now clearing a path toward Vincel and Delphyne but the duo was already on their way to the Ant Queen.

The moment Vincel got within three feet of the Ant Queen's visible, large head, the antennas on her head began to shake and her pincers clacked violently.

The effect was clear almost immediately as all the Ants that had been moving away from Vincel began clacking their pincers while their Antennas moved in unison with that of their Queen.

'She's pushing them' Vincel realized.

He was right.

With encouragement from their Queen, the horde of Ants was emboldened and they shook off the effects of Vincel's 'Externimant Aura'. At least they tried.

They attacked again but there was visible hesitation.

They were struggling between fear of Vincel's 'Exterminant Aura' and the command they had received from their Queen.

Anyway, Delphyne spotted them start to move over and she also noticed their hesitation so she kicked her running into full gear.

With quick flashes of her sword, she cleared the path of any Ants that resisted Vincel's aura enough to attack and then took a massive leap to come down at the Ant Queen's head from above.

The labyrinth path was large. Large enough to accommodate had leap without her head hitting the ceiling but it was also large enough to allow the Ant Queen to raise its head and snap at Delphyne with its massive triple pair of Pincers.

*Clang!*

With commendable awareness of her environment and impressive control of her body, Delphyne parried the Pincers away.

"Ahh"

*Bam*

The strength of the Ant Queen was greater than Delphyne's and the clash resulted in the purple-eyed lady getting smacked into a wall.

As she slid toward the ground, Ants were already crowding below to welcome her.

Delphyne gritted her teeth, pushed off the wall, and came down swinging her sword, killing many Ants and trying to clear space so she could jump and go at the Ant Queen again.

Vincel did not wish to know which would win between his Aura and the Ant Queen's command and so he did not stick around to find out.

He saw Delphyne get smacked into the wall but right then, he also saw an opening;

The Ant Queen had raised her head to snap at Delphyne and in doing so, she had revealed an underside of her head which Vincel felt an instant urge to stab.

He dashed towards the head, reaping five Arcane shards along the way from wayward Ants, and then leaped to stab his dagger into his target.

He was inches away from his dagger making contact when the Ant Queen brought down her head and slammed into him,

*Bam*

... smacking him into the ground beneath her.

*Whum!*

[HP: 62/100]

"Ngh"

With a groan, Vincel rolled to his knees.

The smack to the ground by the massive head caused his bones to ache but he ignored the pain just as he ignored his stab and cut wounds all while reevaluating.

He couldn't stand to his feet because there was not enough space under the Ant Queen's head to do so but that also made it very apparent that he was right where he wanted to be.

'Ah ha'

With a jubilant thought, Vincel raised his dagger and stabbed it into the underside of the Queen's head.

Vincel would not have guessed what happened next...

With his dagger still lodged inside her, the Ant Queen raised her head and let out a terrible screech that had Vincel's ear drums hurting.

Every Ant she had produced so far, froze, and shivered as their Antennas shook in unison, and then they rushed over.

Vincel's dagger eventually got loose and he fell to the ground right into a massive clump of Ants all with raised pincers.

A nasty pair of pincers stabbed into Vincel's back and before he could groan in pain, many other Ants covered him and he was carried away.

Vincent's vision was blocked by the Ants crowding him so he did not see the Ant Queen drop her head down toward the ground. His ears were also blocked but he could still hear her clanking and continued screech in a muffled form.

As the Ants left them, Alessia and Yvette shared a look before they looked over at where Vincel had been completely overwhelmed.

"The hell-" Alessia said with a frown while holding her Axe that was dripping with Ant goo.

Yvette opened her mouth to speak but was promptly interrupted by a massive shuffle which was a result of the Ant Queen moving even more of her body into the light.

Her body was large to match her head. She was just over 16 feet long.

The single-digit claws that tipped her big, hairy legs, scratched aggressively into the ground as she moved forward- Sometimes mashing the bodies of her dead minions into the ground and spreading goo all over.

The look in her monstrous compound eyes was aggressive. She had hated getting stabbed and while she had her Ant minions gang up on Vincel, she decided to take on the test of the group by herself.

*Flash*

Neither Alessia nor Yvette had seen Delphyne dash over but suddenly she was there, slashing her sword at one of the Ant Queen's legs. Precisely, one of the two at the front.

The Ant Queen caught the sword strike with her claw and in what looked like an effortless move, she pushed the Delphyne away.

Delphyne slid away but recovered almost immediately, going for the leg again.

This time, when the Ant Queen tried to catch her with her claw, the purple-eyed lady turned her run into a slide. She went under the Ant Queen's head, slicing the underside with her sword all the way.

*SCREEECCHHHHH!*

The Ant Queen's ear-piercing sound of pain gained a new pitch and Alessia met it with a grin.

"Alright. That's what I'm talking about." Alessia said and hefted her Axe in readiness for heavy-duty action.

"Yvette, you should help the boy" she added with a gesture to the Ant Pile over Vincel.

"Right!" Yvette said and she was off.

She was only a foot away from the pile when a fist burst out of the Ant pile. The entire arm was punched through a detached Ant head and a second after that, Vincel's head surfaced.

He was covered with Ant goo and had multiple wounds over his body but his grey eyes were practically glowing with excitement.

Being under so many Ants had been suffocating and painful with all the pincers that had stabbed into him or cut him as well as the goo touching his wounds and causing them to sting, but not once had Vincel felt helpless.

Even as his newly received 'Exterminant Aura' failed him, he still punched, kicked, and stabbed his way out of the Ant pile.

Speaking of 'stabbed', his right hand pulled out of the Ant pile with a detached thorax.

Vincel wrenched himself out of the pile completely and immediately put distance between himself and it but the Ants just started breaking off the pile to come for him.

Vincel ignored the alert he received from the System about his depleted HP and he readied to meet the horde.

*Puh*

He spat out the goo that was starting to sip into his mouth.

"I'll cut you down to the last one!" he said with an excited look in his Grey eyes.

To anyone, the many Ants might have looked like a problem but to Vincel, they were an opportunity. An opportunity for yet another level-up.

He wouldn't even mind if he did not get the killing blow on the Ant Queen.

It was a D-rank beast but would only get him Ten Arcane shards unlike the hundreds of E-rank Burrowing Ants just begging to be killed and have their Arcane shards taken.

"Level Four, here I come!"