—

What can they say? As expected?

While they literally had to work together to fight one, this freak of a nature soloed it.

It took him two punches. Two punches! To deal with the menace. Honestly, they felt a bit bad for ant. Out of all the people to interrupt, it chose Raven. Now it’s fate was sealed.

“Common sense isn’t really a thing for you huh?” Mark said while smiling wryly.

“What are you saying? You guys can do that too! I think you can do even better.” Raven shrugged while he regrouped with his crew.

He wasn’t lying when he said this. In the end of the day, it all comes with experience. There will be a time when any of them could solo one of these without any problems.

“Anyway, we have more incoming. Let’s kick it up a notch shall we? Mark and Paul, you guys handle one. Girls, team up and take one down for yourselves. How’s that?”

“Let’s do it!” The team was a bit inspired and decided to take his challenge.

***

It’s been at least an hour since the mess started, the battlefield was full of damages, from caved in grounds down to some unfortunate soldiers who were injured during the clash.

It started with fifteen ants showing up basically at the same time but as time goes on, more and more showed up that the rate of killing the beasts can’t keep up with the constant emergence of the ants.

Raven and his crew were busy too. They went with the original plan, the guys would handle one and so does the girls, except Raven who would only move once the situation becomes really dire. Altogether, they brought down at least ten ants and they don’t plan on stopping.

At the start of the separation, they truly felt the weight of real battle. It was very challenging for them to take on one ant with less people. Some people who saw their battles could only shake their heads since they knew that they were too inexperienced to take on these beasts. But these people underestimated the conviction of these kids.

The constant drive and pressure brought out the hidden ferociousness inside their bodies. After a few battles, their teamwork was being polished at a very quick pace and they were finding out quicker ways to bring down these beasts without taking any serious damage of whatsoever. Apart from a few scratches on their bodies, they weren’t truly in danger, and if they ever were, Raven would instantly crush it with a few punches.

Slowly, their battle instincts were honed and Raven can safely hunt down one for himself without needing to pay close attention to them. He left majority of the observation to Anne, since she was truly coming out of shell this time around.

Ever since the start of the battles, she had never fired any arrows that missed or doesn’t have any purpose. Raven knew that her kinetic vision was good but it seems that he too underestimated it. Anne could anticipate correctly where the attacks would land and could act instantly too intercept it once she found out that her teammates will get hurt.

It had to be known that she isn’t using any regular arrows. She is using arrows made out of compressed energy which, one: requires a great control of energy, two: could change trajectory depending on her control and distance, three: very consuming, four: allows her to decide the length of the arrows she needed.

All of those on top of observing the battle of not only her side but with the boys as well. Anne also made sure that she didn’t stay on one place which would make her a glaring target for these ants. In terms of progress, she is very close to overshadowing the boys.

But of course, the intensity of this battle is too high not only for her but for the rest of them. To be able to keep up with this pacing even though they were beginners was actually commendable on it’s own but it’s quite taxing for them.

It was around this time, that the wooden gates swung wide open, capturing the attention of pretty much everyone in the battlefield. From there, an army of fifty strong men charged forward with Larry leading them. Almost every one heaved a sigh of relief when the reinforcements arrived. With them here, the extermination quickened and it didn’t take long before the ants were wiped out.

The crew regrouped and had the chance to catch their breaths. Of course, Raven didn’t miss the chance to harvest their preys and strip everything that has value. He smiled and thought: ‘With this, we won’t be hungry for a couple of months.’

After the chaos died down, Raven and his crew went back to their tents to rest. Along the way they came across some people who were nursing their comrades. Some of them are suffering from broken bones, deep wounds, missing limbs and so on. The atmosphere was quite heavy, and it didn’t help that up until now, there are still some ants that’s attacking.

“This is rather…depressing.” Mark frowned as soon as they entered the tent. The shared his sentiments as well.

“It’s terrible, there are too many injured people here.” Anne sighed as she wiped the dirt on her body.

“No one was expecting this blew up either. The attack was too sudden.” Paul commented.

“Not really.” Raven said, “They should’ve known that this is going to happen.”

Everyone was silent, no one could refute his words after all. It wouldn’t take a genius to know that something like this was going to happen. The battlefield was always active and the ants always surfaced to attack, it’s given that something was up when an active battlefield suddenly became silent.

Kids they might be, but they too knew that something was up.

“Among those who were injured are Captains of this camp, who are probably in service for years. What’s funny is that these people should’ve known too, but what did they do when the battlefield became inactive? They either slept, ate, gotten drunk and etc. Completely unprofessional. Now they paid the price of being over confident.”

Just like Raven stated, these people brought this to themselves. Some would think that their experience should help but what did they do?

“Would it help if we let them know from the start?” Ellen asked as she bandaged some of the wounds on her arm.

“Yes it would.” Raven replied without any hesitation, “But do you think they would listen to us Volunteers and clearly much weaker that they are? I don’t think so.”

“You guys saw him right? The recruit that brought us here, Jonas I think was his name. You saw how many times he was about to faint because of the chaos in the battlefield? He was clearly unfit for duty yet he was here. And he wasn’t the only one who’s like that in here.”

“This is the price of being too confident. The beasts that we fight didn’t help too. They probably thought ‘Oh well, they are just some oversized ants, nothing too serious here.’ But look what happened? If it weren’t for me asking Jonas for reinforcements, then the casualties would’ve been high.”

“There also that person, Larry I think was his name? All that dumbass knew to do was too act all high and mighty, you remember when he tried to suppress us using his cultivation base and his killing intent? As if that’s gonna work. While he was there in his comfy tent, people were getting injured and dying. He didn’t bother to check how things were going in here. I guess he couldn’t less since he’s being paid for it anyway.”

“I guess you’re pretty upset with their management here huh?” Paul raised his brow and asked.

“Hell yeah I am!” Raven rant were far from over. “The situation here is more serious than what you guys think. The Ant Queen would soon evolve from from being a Lord Ant to an Empyrean Ant. If that happens, then they could kiss this whole place goodbye.”

“What!?” The people inside the camp were shocked.

“Lord Ants are aggressive, yes. But not to this extent, and regular Lord Ants won’t make their hive in placed that have too much activity, so it is not possible for this colony to exist inside this kingdom. But here they are, and the only event that they are willing to be this aggressive, is when they encounter an opportunity to evolve in a much stronger species. Which is the case right now.”

“So, more people are gonna die huh?” Mark asked.

“Yes, I estimate that a week from now, the queen would finish her preparations. And be it a success or not, this place will cease to exist if no one interferes. This place would be railed down by lightning and to some extent, the damages would involve the market, a place where tons of people are, and the casualties would skyrocket.. This is the price of their laziness.”