The Art Of Death (VI): Trap

Rezar noticed that the tunnel was a lot larger than the last time they were here, but one major difference was the sheet amount of dead ants that littered the entire place. While the soldier and worker ants were more like drones and working connected to a hive mind, it obvious that they having souls meant they had distinct personalities of their own. Which means it was quite possible for them to feel fear and be not too willing to experience a surge of their undead comrades attacking them with extreme prejudice, and that was just what had happened.

They had cleared the tunnel, but there was still a whole lot more to be done, Rezar turned to Neema and Screet, they were sitting opposite each other with Neema's Axe on her lap. She seemed to be teaching Screet how to speak, by pointing at the axe and asking him to say Axe. However all the mole man could do or say in reply was Screet. Rezar shook his head as he went around the corpses, he had work to do before they went ahead.

(Raise Undead)

(Skill Successful)

{Raise Undead has leveled up to Intermediate Level 1! You have gained 2 skill points and +2 to magic. You can now raise three dead at the same time.}

Rezar blinked his eye at that, many of his skills had reached basic level 9 and it was only a matter of time before they all start advancing. One thing he noticed was that apart from having a higher success rate, when (Raise Undead) was still a basic skill, it could only raise a single undead. Now it could raise three, had a higher success rate, and the cost remained the same. But the cost of the skill was also something he noticed was prone to change, if the monster being thought to life was a lot stronger than the norm, it would take more magic from him.

(Raise Undead)

(Skill Successful)

(Three Zombie Giant Fire Ant (Soldiers) raised.)

From then one it was just about moving around raising the ants back from the dead, with the skills evolution, it didn't take him more than 15 minute to be done. All in all he had 15 soldier ants and 26 worker ants arranged in front of him. Rezar felt like a general in an army as he looked at them, never the less it was about time they moved forward into the dark gloom of this tunnels.

"March!"

He didn't have say it out loud like that, but honestly it felt good to do so. He moved along with them, as they went through the tunnel that slowly sloped downwards in a spiral. They were marching downwards, the hands of the ants scraping across the ground, but with enough force that the ground itself vibrated. It really was as if they were an army moving forward.

Rezar on the other hand was busy looking at the tunnels, the walls were smooth like glass, and sturdy. Whatever it was that the fire ants secrets, to smooth the rocks over, it was akin to cement. As if that wasn't enough, the walls of the tunnel seemed to be closings within the darkness, tiny pinpricks of sliver, blue and red light seemed to escape from the Obsidian walls. Obviously the ores had been, smoother over during the excavation and now they gave this place a sort of aesthetic beauty.

Eventually the tunnel came to an end and opened up into a massive cave, just looking at it gave Alex a sense of awe. He felt as if he was looking at an Arena of sorts. He shifted his gaze to the left and to the right, there were two extra tunnels going left and right, but what was mostly eye catching was the twenty foot tall and thirty five feet long ant queen standing in front of him. There were a bunch of soldier ants surrounding her, each of them significantly bigger than the ones Rezar had on his side.

There were tiny chittering as scores upon scores of worker ants walked out of the side of both tunnels, Rezar opened his mouth wide one surprise. If he had to be honest, this was totally unexpected as if he had to take into consideration all of the ants that have been killed by himself and Lenore's and her militia. Then it would only amount to just about 10% of what he could see if not less.

"Human! You are intruding into my domain! For that, you must die and become sustenance for me and my children."

"....."

"....."

"you can talk? Wow! I so did not see that coming." Rezar replied as he slowly backtracked, pulling Screet and Neema back.

"The fact that you believe a creature of my Caliber to be nothing more than a common animal shows how much disdain you humans have for your creatures other than yourself. It is your superiority that annoys me the most, how you feel the need to stomp on an ant because your large and have a boot. Well now I'm the one who is going to step on you." Rezar raised an eyebrow as he shrugged his shoulders before giving her an answer.

"We really just came to pay our respects you know, and we didn't step on any ants with our boots, scouts honor!"

"You dare lie! In my presence! Everything my children see, I see, even till the moment of their death. Everything they feel I feel, and I know you did more than use their boots you Infernal creature of death!"

Seriously this was annoying, it had gotten so bad that even an ant was judging him for having a death class, it absolutely did not feel good. Also, Rezar knew he could beat her army much less her, so the only other option was to run away, except of course he could hear the sounds of other ants coming up from the tunnels hey just used to get in, they were flanked.

Rezar quickly moved into the center of his undead with Screet and Neema, he looked at all the ants he had raised, the soldiers with their two meter tall frames, and the workers with their meter tall bodies. The workers could actually hide in between the legs of the workers, and in doing so the vestiges of an idea began to grow in Rezar's mind. Priest had told him that as he's advanced his Necromancer class, it would not be too hard for him to control basic monsters like this, even if they were dumb and slow, they would respond to his orders as long as they weren't too complex, like asking them to run off a wall, do a backflip, slide and then do the jig.

Single definite orders, one after the other and you'll have a cohesive unit to work with, rather than a rabble of undead. Of course more training is needed to be able to fully master that, but Rezar knew he needed to have his undead fight like an army, as that's the only way they could break out of this place or maybe, even out up a resistance against the queen and her own endless story of very alive, very angry three meter tall soldier ants, workers and the like.

"All soldier ants group up in a circle! Make no space between yourself."

*Bang!*

It was instant, there was no wasted movements and it really shocked Rezar, but he had a suspicion. Maybe the kind of creature it was when it was alive, or the kind of characteristics it's species embodied, carried over as an undead, so orders relating to that would be easier to carry out. They were soldiers why the sampler ones were workers, soldiers were fighters, a part of an army. In the same manner Rezar could not Screet was more suited to be a worker rather than a fighter, most of his skills were totally meant for mining, even the dark tremor skill was like a miniature earthquake of sorts to smooth out tunnels for the mole man.

Rezar was annoyed that he didn't discover this earlier, but like they said, better late than never. At the very least his commands would be carried out easier, and they would have a chance. Though he really wished he didn't have to talk to get them to act, the Queen was intelligent, she would be able to come up with counters for any orders he gives. But in the end, there was nothing he could do about it.

"All worker ants stay low, in between the legs of the soldier ants. At my command all units, both soldier and worker ants, use fire acid! Prepare yourself!"

• Giant Fire Ant(Soldier) [lvl 20] Undead(Zombie)+

• Magic: 7/7

• Exp: 0/220

• Skills: [Big Chomp lvl 7] [Leg Pierce lvl 9] [Night Vision lvl 8] [Fire Acid lvl 7][Sharp Rend lvl1][Infection carrier lvl1][Pincer mastery lvl 8]

• Time left until de-animation: 13 days 20 hours 16 minutes 37 seconds.