Ben hit the wall hard.
His ribs screamed.
His right hand went numb.
He could barely feel his fingers.
The giant ant landed again.
It used its thick back legs to push off the floor, and its body shot toward him.
For something that big, it moved very fast.
"Is this it?
The end of my life?" he thought.
His body moved before his mind.
He raised his hand to block.
BAM.
The impact sent him flying.
He slammed into the stone wall, slid down, and gasped for air.
Sharp pain ran through his chest whenever he tried to breathe.
He was sure a few ribs were broken.
His hand felt useless, just a lump attached to his arm.
The ant rushed at him again.
Ben's eyes turned bloodshot. "No.
I will not die here."
He forced his thumb to move and opened his inventory.
Stone blocks filled his vision.
He started dropping them in front of the charging ant, forming a crude wall.
The ant crashed against the new obstacle.
The wall slowed it, but not by much.
It started climbing and tearing at the blocks.
Behind it, the other three royal guard ants also moved in.
Ben spammed more stone blocks, building walls around himself instead of just in front.
He stacked them in layers, leaving one-block gaps so he could still see the ants and aim.
Then a rough pattern started.
The ants destroyed a block, and he dropped another on top.
Again and again.
His stamina and focus burned away as he kept clicking and confirming.
"There must be a way," he muttered. "Come on, brain.
Their shells are too hard.
Even stone is not enough to crush them.
Should I try the bronze ore?
That should be heavier and harder than normal stone."
He checked his inventory.
He only had 18 blocks of bronze ore.
He could not waste them like normal rocks.
Ben watched the closest ant.
He did not aim for the shell this time.
He targeted the legs.
Even unrefined, the greenish ore blocks were heavier and denser than stone.
He selected one ore block and dropped it.
The green ore slammed down on the ant's leg.
"GRAARH!" The ant screeched and staggered.
"Yes!
It's working!"
Each ant had six legs.
He was surrounded by four of them, all trying to break through his walls.
Ben grit his teeth, then committed.
He took out 15 more ore blocks and dropped them in quick succession, aiming for their front and back legs.
Each time, he placed the falling ore so it landed directly on the limb joints.
The ore pinned their legs to the ground.
He did not stop there.
On top of the bronze ore blocks, he added more stone blocks, stacking them into heavy piles.
"AHAHAHA!
Take that, you damned insect!
Who told you to try to kill me?" Ben shouted.
His laugh came out sharp and a bit hysterical.
The only reason this worked at all was because the ants were focused on him.
They kept rushing straight at his position, which let him drop blocks right on top of them.
If they had moved sideways even a little, it would have been much harder to hit.
One by one, the four ants were pressed flat, their legs trapped under the heavy stacks.
With only two functional legs left, they could not lift their bodies.
Ben dropped to his knees.
His heart hammered in his chest like a drum.
Sweat ran down his face.
He wanted to collapse and rest, but he knew it was not over.
He remembered the female ant he had seen earlier.
She was bigger, stronger, and carried herself like a leader.
She was probably the queen.
"After beating her royal guard, she should send her army after me," he thought. "This is not the time to relax."
He looked at the pinned ants with cold eyes.
He still had one last metal ore block.
He aimed it at three of the trapped ants' heads.
He dropped it.
BAM.
SPLURT.
The ground shook.
The three heads burst open.
Greenish flesh and fluid spilled out.
[You have killed the ants' Royal Guard]
[You have killed the ants' Royal Guard]
[You have killed the ants' Royal Guard]
[...]
System notifications flooded his vision.
Ben wanted to read them, but he did not get the chance.
The stone wall around him exploded into fragments.
Something tore through his defenses like paper.
An invisible force wrapped around his body and pulled him forward.
The world blurred.
A moment later, a huge clawed hand closed around his neck.
He hung in the air, strangled.
The ant queen held him with one hand.
"$%#@*#@," she said.
Her voice was low and furious.
The clicks and screeches meant nothing to him, but the anger was clear.
"Wh-what are you saying?" Ben gasped. "If you want to eat me, I'll tell you, I smoke a lot!
My meat is toxic and poisonous to your body.
Not only that, my meat is hard for you to chew."
The queen's compound eyes stared at him with open contempt.
She tried to speak again, a few more lines of insect chatter, but he still did not understand.
"ARGH!" The fingers around his neck tightened.
Air stopped.
His throat felt like it was being crushed.
His head spun.
His vision blurred black at the edges.
He hit her arm with his remaining hand, but his strikes did nothing.
Her chitin was like iron.
He opened his inventory again and pulled out the Blockify pickaxe.
The queen's eyes went wide.
For the first time, there was something like greed in them.
She reached for the tool and tried to rip it from his grip.
Nothing happened.
Ben blinked.
He had not even tried to hold it.
In fact, he tried to let go so she would calm down, but his fingers did not obey.
It felt like his hand was glued to the handle.
Only now did he realize that, since he arrived, he had never actually let go of the pickaxe physically.
Every time, he just willed it back into his inventory.
"What should I do now?" he thought. "Drop more stone blocks?"
"#@%^@^!" The queen's clicks rose, sharper and more violent.
Her anger spiked when he still did not release the pickaxe.
Then she acted.
With a brutal twist and pull, she tore his arm off.
"ARRRRGGHHHH!"
His scream echoed through the chamber.
A hot, burning wave of pain shot from his shoulder and ran through his whole body.
His nerves felt like they were on fire.
"FUCK!
SHIT!
YOU BITCH ANTS!" he roared.
The queen flung his body away like trash.
He hit the ground and rolled.
His world spun as he bounced and tumbled across the stone floor.
He did not even notice which direction he was going.
His entire mind was drowned by pain and curses.
He did not know that he was rolling toward the only royal guard ant still alive.
The queen no longer looked at him.
Her full attention was locked on the pickaxe still clutched in his severed hand.
Her eyes were fixed on it like a dying traveler who saw an oasis.
Ben's body kept rolling until it stopped right in front of the surviving ant.
He lay on his side, still cursing, still lost in shock.
He did not understand how he was even conscious.
The last royal guard moved.
Its jaws opened and clamped down on his neck.
Ben did not feel it.
He only saw the world tilt and roll as if it had been flipped.
Then, suddenly, everything slowed down.
The pain vanished.
His mind cleared at once.
A system window appeared.
[Danger! The Host will die! One-time intervention from Plot Armor will be used!]
[Looking for the best Method to help Host in a way that makes sense...]
[Method found, utilizing biomass in Host's inventory.]
[Doing this will alter the Host's species. Will Host agree?]
[Yes/No]
Two buttons floated in front of him.
"The hell?
You still ask?" Ben snapped. "Do you think I have a choice?
If I don't do this, I'll die!"
He did not care what he might become.
Human, insect, monster, it did not matter.
He just wanted to live.
In the past, he had often thought that dying might be easier.
Life felt pointless and empty sometimes.
When things went badly, he would imagine just lying down and never getting up again.
But those thoughts had always been half-hearted.
They were complaints, not true wishes.
He had only wanted to scream at the unfairness of the world.
Deep in his heart, he wanted to survive.
He remembered his parents' words.
"Remember, Ben, being alive is the greatest strength you can have in this world.
As long as you're breathing, the possibilities are endless.
Drowning in debt?
Who's to say tomorrow won't bring a life-changing windfall?
Battling illness?
It's only a matter of time before new treatments emerge.
So don't give up, Ben!
You already hold the greatest power there is, and with great power comes the responsibility to keep fighting.
No matter how tough life gets, hold on, you never know what tomorrow might bring!"
'Yes, Father, I will never give up,' Ben thought.
He chose [Yes].
[Acknowledged, consuming the biomass.]