Emily Harris
Stories
6
Chapters
1,488
Words
2.2 M
Comments
0
Reading
7 d, 19 h
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Jack yanked at the staff. Hard. The chamber erupted into chaos instantly. The queen screeched—a harsh, grating sound, the likes of which he’d never heard before. Chittering came from all around, feet stomping on dirt as the ants frantically darted for the entrance of the chamber, assuming there was an enemy coming. The stale air suddenly smelled of ash. However, the staff in Jack’s hands only budged a little before remaining still. He couldn’t see the queen well in the darkness, but he felt it…-
126 •
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Jack and Brock peeked from behind a boulder. The anthill lay right before their eyes, a hundred-foot-tall mound of dirt smelling vaguely of metal. There were black ants running on the sides of the anthill, but far fewer than before. Jack’s hunting had seriously lowered their numbers. Besides the ants carrying food to the colony, leaving to go search, or adding more dirt to the mound, there were also guards. These were shaped exactly like the other ants—argentine ants had no soldier caste—but waited…
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126 •
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The hours ticked by. Jack and Brock remained in their little cave between the tree roots, waiting out the consequences of their battle. They had blocked the entrance with a big rock, casting them in near-total darkness. This time, Brock was the one on guard duty. He sat on the soil with his ears perked up, ready to act at the first hint of danger. They had to be ready for anything. There could be colossal worms digging under them, or the tree roots could come alive, or another giant could smell them and…
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126 •
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“You have got to be kidding me,” Jack said in disbelief. A hundred feet below him, the giant grinned, revealing a set of sharp, yellow teeth. Its eyes stared into Jack’s, and there was no emotion there, only malice. “Great. And it’s even stronger than the last one!” Jack cursed out loud, still unable to believe what was happening. Brock, on the other hand, was very much up-to-speed. He shot to his feet and looked at Jack for instructions. He seemed ready to go down fighting. Jack bit his…
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126 •
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“Holy shit!” Jack whispered. “Brock!” A second face emerged from the leaves, right next to his. Nobody would notice them in such a heated battle, anyway. The giant roared again, shaking the entire forest. It raised its club high, then brought it down on the minotaur, who raised a tower shield. The clash was cataclysmic. The earth moaned. The wind stirred. Even the titanic trunks around groaned a bit as the force of the giant crashed down. Jack was horrified; even at this distance, over a hundred…
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126 •
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Jack stood over a field of broken corpses. Ant corpses. He raised his gaze, going from their drying yellow blood to the dirt mound that dominated the distance. He tightened his fist. After the pent-up frustrations of getting cheated and chased by the Animal Kingdom, letting loose was nice. This wasn’t even his first ant swarm. Or the second. For most people, leveling through the E-Grade took years. Decades. They had to find monsters at the right level and large quantities, which was made more difficult…
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126 •
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It had been a while since Jack stalked prey from a branch. Some things remained the same. The thrill of the hunt, the adrenaline rush of watching without being watched, the tension that came from the possibility of battle erupting at any moment. But, of course, most things were completely different than last time. Jack’s wasn’t stalking goblins or earth bears, but giant conqueror ants the size of large dogs. He wasn’t hiding on an actual branch, but on the stem of some gigantic plant. A torso-sized…
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126 •
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The massive ant hill dominated the scenery. It rose between the titanic trees, shorter but thicker than all of them. It was built on a bed of dirt, and its slanted sides were teeming with conqueror ants. There were hundreds of them, possibly thousands. Jack had no illusions of being able to rush the place. So what if the ants were only level 30 or so? There were so many of them that they could simply body-pile him and bury him under their corpses. Moreover, he understood by now that the world didn’t…
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126 •
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The dragonfly shot at Jack like an arrow the size of an adult human. He turned around as fast as he could, but not fast enough. A set of sharp mandibles snapped at his arm, ripping off a good chunk of skin on the way. “Holy shit!” Jack shouted, both in pain and surprise. He tried to grab its tail, but it was long gone. It flew behind a tree and disappeared. His ears were still buzzing, and he didn’t know if it was due to actual buzzing or because its wings had passed right next to his head. Brock…
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126 •
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“Oof,” Jack said, panting. He and Brock had just climbed down a staircase that felt like it reached from the heavens to the earth. He didn’t even know how many miles down they’d traveled. Maybe a hundred. Even for an E-Grade cultivator with almost two hundred Physical, it had not been easy. To save time, they had been jumping from one side of the massive, stair-ridden hole to the other. As if that wasn’t enough, his anesthetic had run out half-way, and his self-healing still wasn’t done…
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126 •
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