Chapter Four – Danger Reaches The Queen – The Appearance of the Ant King
Outside the ant nest, the forest was receiving the gentle light of dawn.
The hunters,both Korean and Japanese, were advancing, their eyes constantly flicking upwards in a mixture of awe and horror.
The sheer quantity of dead ants, littering the ground and impaled on tree branches, was starkly visible even in the dim morning light.
The method of killing was brutally clear to the S-Rank hunters:clean, decisive, disintegrating strikes utilizing a terrifying lightning force.
The strange part was that most of them couldn't sense any mana emanating from these attacks.
It was as if the user of the strikes hadn't used mana at all,but only pure physical power.
Yet,the evidence was scorched into the landscape—on the trees and the blackened earth—that lightning of an unimaginable caliber had been used to produce this effect.
[Chae Ha-in] sniffed the air.
That strange scent again,the one from before, had grown stronger.
It was a cool,heavy fragrance, like wild strawberries and ozone, cutting through the coppery stench of ant blood and decay.
She looked ahead,down the path they needed to take to reach the Ant Queen's nest, and murmured under her breath, her voice barely a whisper lost in the rustling leaves.
"This scent…it's similar to that person's. Yet, it's different at the same time. Is it possible there's a hunter I don't know, going to the Ant Queen's nest alone?"
These thoughts swirled in her head while the other hunters also stared in that direction with sharp, analytical eyes, each trying to piece together conclusions from the carnage. None of them possessed a complete idea or definitive proof.
---
In the outside world, across Korea and beyond, all major news units were beginning to move.
The fact that S-Rank hunters from Korea and Japan were launching a massive raid on Jeju Island was a topic of global discussion.
This was the largest operation in years,since the attack of [Kamish], which had also required the subjugation of many S-Ranks.
News channels that couldn't enter the restricted zones were now preparing to launch swarms of drones and enhanced cameras,desperate to capture what would happen inside Jeju Island.
This,of course, blatantly violated numerous agreements with the Hunter Association.
But at this moment,news directors across Korea were less concerned with legalities and more obsessed with capturing the sheer spectacle of S-Rank power.
---
The ground beneath [Sasuke]'s feet grew damper, stickier with each step he took deeper into the nest.
The organic walls pulsed with a faint,sickly luminescence, and the air was thick with the cloying smell of pheromones, rot, and ozone.
Around him lay more fallen hybrid insect-human corpses,all wearing expressions of shocked, fearful agony frozen on their grotesque faces at the moment of death.
The man who had caused this carnage paid them little mind.
His focus was on the strange energy he still couldn't identify.
"It's getting closer now,"he muttered to himself, his voice a flat echo in the tunnel.
"The number of monsters here is ridiculous.But I can guess the reason. It's because they resemble insects."
For someone of [Sasuke]'s high intelligence and analytical mind, the conclusion was simple.
The reason for this overwhelming number was the existence of an extreme reproduction and generation ability within these ants.
That's how they could increase their numbers to such a colossal scale.
Furthermore,they seemed to hatch at an incredible speed.
This meant this place was likely a vast cave system connected deep into the earth,with extensive space before reaching the center where he could finally discern what was exactly happening here.
[Sasuke] wasn't particularly hurried to find out, but after seeing the multitude of human corpses, he was profoundly disgusted by these insects.
Not because he was kind-hearted—far from it—but because he was incapable of accepting thatants could do such things to humans.
To him,human life held a certain weight, even if he never showed it.
In the end,he was carrying out [Itachi]'s wish, which was peace for all humans.
What these monsters had done to humanity,in the most literal sense of the word, made [Sasuke] desire their rapid eradication.
But to do that,he had to ensure first that he eliminated any remaining humans if they were still present, and rescue any that might be imprisoned by these savage, insect-like creatures.
The cave he was in now was filled with eggs that had already hatched, their empty, fleshy sacs littering the floor with wet plop sounds underfoot.
[Sasuke]was systematically destroying any insectile creature that attacked him with a single blow—a dismissive flick of his wrist trailing purple chakra, or a glance that triggered a minor genjutsu, causing an ant to impale itself on its own comrade's spike with a sickening shluck.
It was enough to dispatch most of the monsters.
But as he delved deeper into the heart of the nest, he noticed something.
These creatures were gradually becoming stronger.
It was as if there was something,or some method, that was allowing them to evolve in real-time.
He discovered more peculiarities during combat.
While fighting one ant soldier,it suddenly unleashed an attack resembling thorny spikes that shot from its carapace—a strange, biological projectile.
[Sasuke]evaded it effortlessly with a slight sway of his body, the spikes embedding themselves in the wall behind him with a series of sharp thwock sounds.
However,the speed at which this attack was adopted and replicated by the remaining insects was startlingly fast.
"This excessively rapid evolution… Is it possible the being generating these ants and soldiers is continuously developing them? But how?"
Then, [Sasuke] remembered the consumed humans.
He gritted his teeth,the sound a soft, angry grind in the cavern's silence.
"So that's it.That being eats those humans. That's why these creatures look humanoid while possessing ant instincts. I'll make sure to eradicate every last one of them soon."
His primary target crystallized in his mind.
"First,I need to reach there. That is the first objective."
After finalizing his plan with cold precision, [Sasuke]'s pace accelerated beyond anything before.
He no longer paid attention to the ants still hatching from eggs he passed.
He sensed there were thousands of eggs,even outside.
If he tried to destroy them all,he would be fatally delayed.
To end this matter and find his way back to his world,he first had to ensure the destruction of this vile, generative being as quickly as possible.
As for the ant soldiers? [Sasuke] no longer cared.
They were all weak,unworthy of his time.
He would deal with the stragglersafter he finished off the progenitor first.
---
Outside the nest, it became apparent that a new wave of ant eggs had begun to hatch.
These eggs were different from the ordinary ones;they contained a higher concentration of human blood, which seemed to enhance the development of the ants inside.
The newly hatched creatures looked far more human than the ones[Sasuke] had killed earlier.
Their faces were less insectile,their limbs more proportional, though still covered in chitin.
Hundreds of these new hybrids hatched and immediately took to the air with a collective, leathery whump-whump-whump of wings.
From a distance,the S-Rank hunters, both Japanese and Korean, could feel the immense wave of killing intent and wrongness emanating from these new soldiers.
The energy radiating from them was thick with malice.
The hunters prepared for battle, drawing their weapons with sharp, metallic shings and clicks.
The Korean hunters,led by their flame-wielding S-Rank with red hair and a fierce gaze, were all baffled.
They expected the ants to charge them directly or scatter to gather food.
Instead, every single winged ant that took to the air, their human-insect hybrid forms twisting in the sky, looked directly at the nest.
Then,with a precision that was unnervingly coordinated, they formed a precise, swarming squadron and began diving into the nest's main entrance.
They entered at such a blistering speed that it was a blur.
The Korean hunters, and the global news cameras mounted on drones that were now illegally broadcasting the scene to the outside world, were stunned by this behavior.
It was inexplicable.
What were they rushingtowards inside their own besieged nest?
The next moment provided the shocking, terrifying answer.
A massive purple lightning bolt, thicker than a ancient tree trunk, erupted from within the nest.
KOOOOOOM-BZZZZZZZRT!
It wasn't an attack aimed outward. It was a cataclysm contained and then unleashed inside the hive's heart.
The explosion tore through the upper structure of the nest,sending chunks of organic matter and shattered chitin flying into the air with a deafening CRRRRACK-BOOM!
Before the dust and debris could settle, a creature of terrifying aura emerged, hovering in the air above the ravaged nest.
Its power washed over the landscape,a physical, suffocating pressure.
Every S-Rank hunter on the ground froze in their tracks.
It was the strongest,most dreadful presence they had ever faced in their lives.
Even the people watching from the safety of their screens,thousands of miles away, could see the sheer, unadulterated terror dawning on the faces of the world's top hunters via the high-definition drone feeds.
The creature that emerged after the purple lightning was the Ant King.
It hovered,its form radiating malice, and it looked not at the hunters, but at the center of the ruined nest.
There, standing amidst the smoke and carnage, was the young man with black hair and pale skin.
One of his eyes was a spinning,bloody red Sharingan taking the shape of a complex flower—the Mangekyo.
The other was a serene,rippling purple with concentric circles and tomoe—the Rinnegan.
Both eyes active,glowing with otherworldly power.
He stood with an arrogant, utterly unconcerned posture, looking up at the terrifying creature emitting this dreadful energy.
Purple electrical arcs,the same hue as the devastating bolt, crackled around his body with a constant, threatening zzt-zap-crackle.
All the hunters, and the world watching, also stared at this youth who appeared to be sixteen, whose very body was a conduit for this strange, purple lightning.
The Ant King, hovering in the space above Jeju Island, looked at the scores of its dead soldiers, then at [Uchiha Sasuke].
It spoke,its voice a guttural, multi-layered buzz that vibrated in the bones of everyone who heard it.
"Are you the King? Is that it?"
The question was simple.
What was shocking to[Sasuke] was that for the first time, he could understand what the being in front of him was saying.
The Rinnegan's power of universal comprehension,or perhaps the King's evolved intellect, had bridged the language gap.
A slow, contemptuous smirk spread across [Sasuke]'s face.
He found the words of the first being he'd understood in this world to be utterly,profoundly ridiculous.
But he was compelled to answer.
To declare.
"Yes," [Sasuke] said, his voice cutting through the heavy air, cold and absolute.
"I am the King.And I will kill you and your entire species."
In that moment, the terrifying auras of the Ant King and [Uchiha Sasuke] clashed and exploded, a visible shockwave of pressure and intent that washed over the entire island and, through the cameras, the faces of the watching world.
---
From a much greater distance, observing through his own means, [Sung Jin-Woo]'s eyes narrowed to slits.
A message from the System appeared before him as he stared at the black-haired youth.
[Alert. The System is unable to determine the target's level.]
These words forced [Sung Jin-Woo] to narrow his eyes even further.
A haze of pure shadow energy began to rise around his body,swirling and coalescing as if in preparation for a battle he hadn't anticipated.
The unknown variable had just declared itself a King,and another Monarch was watching.
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End of Chapter.
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Kings clash, and the world watches, stunned. Thank you for reading as this interdimensional catastrophe unfolds! Your anticipation for the coming storm is the true electricity in the air.
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