Episode 17
With an Aura-engulfed fist, Yoo-seong crushed the head of the soldier-ant leading the stampede.
The recoil from the singular punch stunned him.
He had been training with all his strength so far. As his body grew stronger, the Auto-Hunt function also performed better.
The ants behind the soldier-ant reacted immediately. Using its human arms, an ant tried to grab Yoo-seong’s body.
The force pushed Yoo-seong to the ground, and the ant tried to step on him to crush him.
The instant the forefoot was above his torso, Yoo-seong suddenly bounced upon the ant, as though his fall had only been a joke.
He was like a skillful martial artist. Before the ant knew it, he was on its back.
One moment, the ant was about to crush an enemy; the next moment, the enemy was gone.
All it felt was heaviness on its back.
The other ants that saw what happened were bewildered.
The last thing the ant felt was Yoo-seong’s hand smashing into its neck, disabling its central nervous system.
The ant then remained standing even after death.
Yoo-seong used its body as a platform to leap, and he landed amid a row of ants.
The ants were excited. It was like playing with a toy.
Their opponent was a tiny primate. He wouldn’t be able to do any damage to them.
However, whenever they tried to destroy him, it was as if they were unable to touch him.
He dodged their attacks with ease.
Yoo-seong decided it was payback time.
He began to jump on their backs, destroying their spines one after the other.
He executed a perfect kill every time, without even a single error.
Seeing the pattern of the destruction befalling its subordinates, the Centurion Ant shot an instruction pheromone.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})‘Scatter.’
The effect of the pheromones was instantaneous.
In less than a few seconds, the ants began to scatter into the streets and alleys to prevent Yoo-seong from jumping on their backs.
Their strategy was effective. Yoo-seong was unable to target any one of them.
But he didn’t need to. He fixed his eyes on a higher prize.
He got down from a dead ant’s back and ran in a straight line- headed for the centurion ant.
Because the soldiers were scattered, the Centurion Ant was left isolated.
‘Time to die!’
Yoo-seong suddenly understood that the brains of insects were more designed for combat than strategy.
The Centurion Ant didn’t understand that it had exposed itself- until it saw Yoo-seong coming towards it.
It was too late for it to summon the ants back with its pheromones.
It raised its fore and limbs so that it could fight with four arms. It then stretched to its full height of 5.5 meters.
Its Combat power was a whopping three stars, higher than the other castes of Gray Ant, whose risk rating
The Centurion’s jaw was wide open; It fired a lump of acidic green saliva, capable of melting even steel.
It flew towards Yoo-seong like a bullet; however, even that wasn’t fast enough.
From the time the jaw opened, Yoo-seong predicted that it would release the acid.
Yoo-seong didn’t know how he had been so accurate. This could only mean that the Auto-Hunt function had improved.
He dodged, and the acid poured on the ground.
However, dodging the Centurion’s attack would not be enough to defeat it. The Centurion’s height was three times that of the normal ants. Its vital spot, which Yoo-seong had been targeting, was at least four meters above the ground – higher than a basketball’s ring.
On top of that, Yoo-seong would have to go against the Centurion’s intimidating arms to get there.
Suddenly, as if in answer to his dilemma, Yoo-seong’s Aura released a great burst of energy from his legs – even greater than when he had just been running.
When he leaped, this time, the ground beneath him cracked.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"}) The Centurion shot its saliva again, but it was too late.
Yoo-seong’s body hovered in the air.
For hunters with a limited amount of CE, a leap like that would be problematic. Concentrating Aura in a specific part left the other parts relatively unequipped, limiting the actions they could take.
However, for Yoo-seong, it was a different story,
While in the air, the Aura on his leg transferred smoothly and quickly towards his arms.
It was a kind of control that was hard to believe.
Floating above the Centurion Ant’s head, beyond the reach of its forelimbs, Yoo-seong stretched his hands forward.
With Aura concentrated on his arms, he caught the Centurion’s head in the next second.
Then, he twisted his body, the Centurion’s head twisting 180-degrees twisting with him.
‘CRUNCH!’
The head of the Centurion snapped.
Yoo-seong let the head go, allowing his body to fly freely through the air.
The Aura moved to his waist to limit the impact of his landing.
When his feet touched the ground, slipping a couple of steps backward before regaining balance.
It wasn’t much different from killing the other ants.
One leap- though much higher than others- was all it took.
…
“What… the…”
The youngest of a team muttered.
Surprisingly, no one reacted to him using a swear word.
It was the same word in everyone’s thoughts.
“What in the world… Isn’t that a Centurion? Was that monster supposed to be killed so easily?”
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"}) “He made it look so easy…” another person muttered.
Those who lacked skills but had rich experience knew.
Yoo-seong’s moves weren’t impossible, theoretically. But then, real life was different from theory. The moves were very difficult to replicate.
“Boss, what do we do?” The youngest member of the Black Bull team asked Choi Jae-sung.
The Black Bull team leader was greatly embarrassed by a novice.
However, embarrassment wasn’t a big deal.
“I… move out,” Jae-sung said.
“Yes?” the rookie said.
“Move out! Get even one of those ants!” Jae-sung shouted to his teammates as he ran off.
The youngest did not understand yet.
However, even before Choi Jae-sung said that command, some of the hunters inside the barricade started to run out.
The Centurion was dead.
Without a control tower, these ants were just ordinary two-star beasts.
In other words, they had become an easy catch.
“Go out, dumbass! Catch an ant!” Jae-sung shouted over his shoulder with clenched teeth.
“Ah, yes! Yeah!” the youngest said before running off too.
Funny enough, the hunter’s most-valued equipment wasn’t their high-impact armor or expensive potions.
It was the 360-degree rotation camera that they wore, called action cameras, that enabled them to record their kills and gave them evidence to claim the rights to sale.
Everyone’s action camera proved that Yoo-seong had single-handedly killed the Centurion.
On top of that, there were also a number of ants which rights already belong to him.
The hunters would not be able to compete with him.
However, to meet up with the cost of operating the team, it was necessary to catch at least one more ant than the other teams.
The conquest began.
The hunters who ran into the scene began to find and catch the ants that invaded the buildings and alleys.
Fortunately, the price difference between living and dead ants wasn’t much as long as their shells were preserved.
Every hunter was in a hurry to grab just one more ant before it was all over.
Most of the hunters, even those who weren’t so confident in Aura control, were fighting with their Auras raised.
The ants were easy opponents, so there was no need for that technique.
However, Yoo-seong’s tremendous performance had raised their morale. They wanted to look good just like he had.
It was the same with Choi Jae-sung.
“Die!” he cried while avoiding the ant’s attack.
He slapped its face with Aura-engulfed palms, and the ant died instantly.
However, with that single attack, the Aura that surrounded Choi Jae-Sung’s fist spread out sharply.
Suppressing his Aura on the bus was enough to make him sweat.
In the field, he barely managed to control his Aura as he tried to get one more ant.
However, he soon ran out of luck after fighting his third ant.
His Aura exploded and threw his body backward. Like a novice, he fell to the ground, too exhausted to move.
If he had stuck to skill alone, he would have been able to catch ten. The same was true of other hunters.
One by one, they suffered Coronas and fell in exhaustion.
Of course, no one had ever died from releasing a Corona, and a lot of the ants had been killed anyway.
It was simply a rather unsightly happening caused by watching Yoo-seong.
…
The hunters were eager to clean up the ugly ants.
Meanwhile, leaning on the Centurion’s body, Yoo-seong was breathing heavily.
Cold sweat poured down his body. It wasn’t a physical fitness problem; it was more of a mental one.
In terms of pure physical strength, Yoo-seong would still be able to run a marathon.
It wasn’t hard to deal with the Aura. However, his chest throbbed.
The extreme aura control shown by the auto-hunt kept his nerves up and required extreme concentration throughout.
The exhaustion from just five minutes of fighting was so terrible that his tongue hung out as he panted.
However, he had won a three-star monster.
Yoo-seong smiled while sweating like rain. Then, a strange feeling filled him.
After exhaling a few more times loudly to calm himself, Yoo-seong realized the cause.
At the top-right of the button, one more square had appeared.
It was similar to the slot, but it already had something inside.
‘An arrow without a tail?’
It was shaped like an umbrella without a handle…
It could have been in the shape of an awl or… a blade.
-Make eye contact and change your posture by blinking your eyes. –
‘Posture?’
He understood what the word meant, but a question was raised in his mind.
Automatic hunting usually took total control of his body.
If so, wasn’t it strange to give him a choice about his posture?
Yoo-seong straightened his trembling body.
He wanted to try it out to practice. However, the ants were almost all cleaned up. He sighed in regret.
Suddenly, his mobile phone beeped, announcing the arrival of a new briefing.
-Urgent. Operation Division-04. Requesting support. Four-star monsters appeared.-
-Requires participation of hunters of silversmith level or higher.-
Operation Division-04.
It was the area situated right next to them.
