“Night Worm!”

Ban felt a shiver down his spines as he identified the creature in front of them.

Everyone in the city, including the young, knows of the Night Worm’s existence.

Night Worm’s are nightmares for children’s and adults alike. Even beasts are afraid of its existence.

As their name suggested, Night Worm’s would only go out and hunt at night. According to the rumors, they usually hunt around between the periphery and the inner area of the beast-filled forest, Lagom.

After all, Night Worms are an existence even greater than the Demon Ant’s Queen itself.

Aside from their rank, a beast’s strength could be determined with their grade. There are three grades in total arranged in ascending order depending on their strengths, namely, Normal Grade, Elite Grade and Lord Grade beasts.

Normal Grade beasts are those beasts who were considered as the lackeys or the servant of higher-ranked beasts. They were common beasts and their numbers could reach into thousands in an instant if not taken care of properly. Demon Ants for example are Normal Grade beasts.

However, there lies a stronger existence amongst their race. It was the Royal Ant Guards, who became Elite Grade beasts after evolving. And then there’s the queen who has successfully evolved into a Lord Grade beasts.

Lord Grade beasts are an extremely rare existence, and only one out of thousands could evolve into one.

However, unlike them, every Night Worm that could be seen are all Lord Grade beasts.

The reason for that was simple, the Night Worms would devour their siblings the moment they were hatched from their cocoon and only the strongest could survive. And that strongest will then evolve into a Lord Grade Night Worm in an instant after killing and devouring all of their siblings in the nest.

“What is that thing doing here?” Ban mumbled with a distraught voice.

According to the adventurers, Night Worms are an existence that is always stronger than the Demon Ant Queen. They are already on the peak of the F-Apprentice Rank and only a little push and they would be able to rank up.

It was also the reason why common adventurers wouldn’t hunt during the night.

They are afraid of the Night Worm spotting them, as no one lives to tell the tale when a Night Worm spots a living being.

Before it spots you, run immediately if you see a Night Worm. Or else, you will be hunted no matter where you go!

That’s a common saying and reminder that adventurers often mumble to themselves if ever they decide to hunt during the night.

“We can’t escape, little Eva! We could only fight!”

Ban finally said after recovering from the panic.

“Are you with me?” He asked firmly as he stared at the scared Eva on his shoulders.

When Eva heard Ban’s resolute voice, her fear towards the Night Worm faded like a bubble as the strong feelings of courage and support rose inside her.

Krrr! Krrrr! Krrrr!

Eva opened her tiny mouth and shouted in her own language to get rid of the remaining fear she was feeling. It was also an acknowledgment towards Ban’s question earlier.

“Alright, let’s do this!” Ban exhaled a heavy breath as he forcefully composed himself.

He constantly reminded himself that he was no longer a normal human and instead was already in the X-Mortal Rank.

He recalled the [Skill] that he could use and realized that he only has one that is available to use right now.

It was the [Skill] Possession.

-Obtain a [Skill] temporarily from the summon that possessed your body.

Can only be used for 30 Minutes.

Cooldown 12 Hours.

With the [Title] Almighty Summoner, the usage time increased to 1 hour and the cooldown time was reduced to 6 hours.

Ban reread the description of the [Skill] instantly. However, he didn’t use it yet as he knew of his own limitations.

Currently, Eva only has one [Skill] for now. It was the [Skill] Enrage that could let the user gain strength in an instant. However, the drawback to that was that it will only last 5 minutes and the user would weaken after the duration ended.

If he decided to let Eva possess him now, the [Skill] would be immediately activated as he doesn’t have any other choice.

His plan was to let little Eva use her own [Skill] Enrage first, and after the 5-minute duration ended, he would then let her possess him to use the [Skill] Enrage for himself.

He didn’t know why but he noticed that his thought process was extremely fast. He thought that it might be because he was already at X-Mortal Rank.

Hissed!

The Night Worm released an ear piercing hiss towards them, as if telling them not to escape.

Ban was more alert than usual, and even though this will be his first time fighting a beast, and an extremely strong one at that he did have an experience fighting against normal and ordinary animals when he was still training with his gramps.

At first, he was at a loss on what to do as aside from its name and the rumors that came from the adventurers, he doesn’t know a single thing about the Night Worm existence.

He even guessed that even the adventurers themselves also don’t have a single clue about the Night Worm’s [Skills].

However, the next instant, the System’s interface suddenly materialized in front of his eyes.

[Injecting knowledge about the Night Worm in 3… 2… 1…]

Ban then felt a jot inside his mind as his eyes went hazy all of a sudden before returning to normal at the next second.

“Jeez… I completely forgot about the [Book of Techniques] existence. I need to calm myself down!” Ban laughed as he just remembered that he had this thing called System as his aid and advantage.

And just as he was laughing on his own negligence, the Night Worm also started its attack.

However, unlike before, Ban was no longer in panic as he already knew the insides and out of the Night Worm beast.

“So that’s the [Skill] called Mucus Spit?”

__________

Thank you for reading and voting with your power stones!

Shout out to Rens_Reyes, Chimonny, Cody_Bowen and M_Sword for always dropping their power stones for the novel!

Join our discord server to see the illustration I posted for the Demon Ants and the Night Worm.

https://discord.gg/j2GgEpkPuf