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"Drask!" roared Brask, his obsidian mandibles flaring with green aura as he saw his twin brother fall. Not in strategy. Not in training. Just rage, the kind that rewrites instinct.
It happened so fast, they barely had ti to register it.
"DRAAAAAASK!" His voice cracked as his feet tore across the stone. The ground beneath him split with every step, his mandibles thrashing wildly, his arms spinning in grief-born frenzy.
"You bastard! That was my BLOOD!"
Kai didn’t speak. His body shifted subtly, eyes twitching. His Predator’s Instinct had already mapped Brask’s montum. It was sloppy. Unanchored.
The four star ant was strong, yes. But grieving. And grief made you predictable.
Grev snarled from the rear flank. "Idiot! Wait for Sil’s illusion—!"
But it was too late.
Brask reached Kai with a scream and leapt with both rotary mandibles spinning to slice him down the middle.
Kai dropped low, letting his Adaptive Armor reconfigure around his neck and shoulder. He deflected the blow with a rising elbow, then snapped his spear in a rising arc, opening a deep diagonal slash from Brask’s hip to chest.
Brask staggered. "K-Kai... you..."
"Go see your blood," Kai whispered.
Then drove his knee into Brask’s stomach, activated Worker’s Resilience for a buff, and slamd the butt of his spear under the mandibles and up into the skull.
Brask dropped, his obsidian armor shattering like pottery.
[Ding! System Notification: Killed Brask of Shadow Talon Twin, Four star rank. 4,00 EXP]
Across the field, Sil’s body twitched. Her jaw tightened, illusions faltering for a second as she saw the broken twins.
"Two... in under thirty seconds..."
Grev’s scythes burned now. "Sil. No more gas." He spun his dual weapons in rising arcs. "We end him now."
Sil didn’t respond. But her wings began glowing, dust was rising. Twin trails of grief echoed behind her. The air was colder now, not because of power. But because the Shadow Talon squad had just lost its spine.
And Kai the ’lowly worker ant’ who they were mocking again and again, hadn’t even broken a sweat. (What a joke!)
Flint and Needle from the Dawn-Blade team flinched. Behind them, Vexor bared his teeth but didn’t step forward. They were watching the fight in shock.
Sil darted in now, illusion blades sweeping from her forearms in a deceptive arc, distorting the air itself.
"Try hitting what you can’t see, ant!" Sil snarled, her voice laced with venom and loss. Her illusion dust flared wide, discharging a spiral of distortion dust that warped the light around her. A second later, she vanished.
To ordinary eyes, Sil was gone. But Kai’s weren’t any ordinary ant.
The Predator’s Instinct flared. His sense twitched with heightened sensory pulses, reading the faintest trace of vibrations in the stone, the lingering residue of shifting aura threads in the air. Sil was fast, yes. A ghost in motion. But even ghosts had weight. And Kai had beco a hunter of faster things, deadlier, and sothing far more than a regular ant. He is the Ant lord monarch, a devourer.
She struck from behind.
Twin blades of silver light erupted from above his shoulder, angling to pierce both collarbone and thigh. A kill formation ant for paralytic pain.
Kai’s Reflex Mode was still activated. His body blurred. He ducked, pivoted, and twisted mid roll. The illusion blades scraped over hardened carapace as his Adaptive Armor shifted the density along his back into obsidian hardened ridges.
The sound of blades clanging against reinforced exoskeleton rang like war chis.
Sil hissed and vanished again, a silver ripple folding her into invisibility.
"You’re still too slow," Kai muttered, eyes narrowing. "Even the wind leaves footprints."
He dragged his spear through the dirt in a circular arc, a faint shimr catching its edge. It was a line of illusion. A trap string. He flicked it with his finger, and it snapped.
Sil was revealed a mont too soon, arms crossed to shield her face from a flicker of dust.
Kai surged forward.
His spear drove low and wide, baiting her dodge left—exactly where his hand was already waiting. He didn’t need power. He needed precision.
Kai caught her hands, tearing it halfway off.
"Ahhh!" she scread, tumbling back, illusions blinking erratically.
She tried to vanish again, but Kai didn’t give her the ti.
He used his Tiny Tank skills. (Aura-200)
His body compacted, exoskeleton flexing as he closed the gap and leapt. One foot found her ankle, the other slamd into her knee.
Snap.
Sil fell backward, limping, crippled, trying desperately to cast one more mirage.
"Try harder," Kai said coldly.
His spear slamd down from above like a guillotine.
[Ding! System Notification: Killed Sil of the Shadow Talon, Four star rank. 4,00 EXP.]
[Ding! Current Level: 37 → 38. Aura capacity increased.]
He stood over her corpse for a breath, then turned to face Grev. Behind him, Mia’s Dawn Blade team and his old team mbers had gone utterly silent.
Flint whispered, "He took down all three of them. Alone. That was Sil... I don’t know if I can beat her in a one on one fight."
Needle swallowed, voice hollow. "I couldn’t even follow half his movents."
Vexor clenched his jaw, eyes locked. "He’s not just stronger. He’s sothing else entirely. He said he is a lord of so mountain. I am wondering if he would let join him?"
They all flinched as Kai stepped forward, his aura crackling like it had forgotten what rcy was.
Grev, the executioner of Thea’s squad, stood alone now. His twin obsidian scythes humd at his sides. He was a bit taller than Kai (6.5 feet), broader too, a full head larger than him. But his expression had changed. The taunts were gone.
"Three... gone," Grev murmured. "I trained those bastards. I led them into blood. And now..."
Kai pointed his spear. "Don’t be sad, You’ll follow them next. Unless you kneel."
Grev’s scythes twitched. "Kneel to an insect? Never!"
Kai’s voice was full of sarcasm. "I’m the insect that killed your whole swarm."
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