SSS Class Mythic Beast Master

Chapter 410 410: Raging Bull (2)

"Well done." Marie called out as the group approached, now that combat had concluded.

Joseph smiled faintly, his calm demeanor returning as adrenaline faded. He knelt beside the nearest bull corpse, hand extending to claim his prize.

The soul erupted with amber light mixed with crimson. The light rushed into Joseph's palm, flowing up his arm in familiar waves before his body began trembling immediately, while his other hand rose to press against his head.

The Integration started.

Joseph felt the bull's anger, rage, and disdain rushing through his body. But he pushed through it, and then the memories began flooding his mind and making him groan. But after a minute, it all faded, and he returned to normal before then closing his eyes.

...

Darkness surrounded him.

He was in the void where consciousness existed, separate from physical form. Before him floated his Beast Symbol, a figure looking down at a lance, a great sword on the left, another sword on the right, two arms wrapping around the man from behind.

Then the familiar gauge appeared beside it, a vertical bar filled with souls.

Joseph counted them carefully; it had 1,145 souls currently. The number was growing steadily toward the First Class requirements he needed to meet.

Then he focused his attention on the Raging Bull's soul, and he began recalling it. A memory surfaced in his mind of how the creature gathered energy, compressing its attack into a devastating blast. The power multiplication it had achieved through this compression and the terrifying force it wielded.

His Beast Symbol flared in response to his focus.

Within the gauge, a single orb began glowing brighter than the others. Joseph walked toward it through the mind-space, his consciousness moving through the void. The sphere bore the Raging Bull's mark, which was a massive creature with scimitar horns and amber eyes, its muscles carved from stone.

Joseph's hand reached out and touched the glowing sphere.

Light flooded everything around him.

The sphere rushed upward, settling beside his other sigil dots. Golden threads burst forth from the connection points, weaving between the new sigil and his main symbol.

Energy flowed between them in pulses, vibration rippling through his consciousness like waves through water.

The integration of his Beast Sigil was complete.

Joseph opened his eyes and returned to the physical world.

...

Reinhard smiled when he saw Joseph open his eyes and a light shining on the back of his right hand.

Joseph's green eyes reflected satisfaction as he examined his hand closely. The new sigil was there, a third dot orbiting his Beast Symbol. Compression was now part of his arsenal, another ability he could call upon.

"Now, where next?" Reinhard asked, leading Roana to hum.

"We can do the Inner Area 2." Roana says.

"Oh, the Ant Queen is right there," Reinhard said with a grin.

The group reformed their formation and moved deeper into Colin Forest. Behind them, three Raging Bulls lay dead, their bodies already beginning the process of dissolution that claimed all Phantasm Beasts.

The hunt continued.

The forest floor changed dramatically as they ventured further. The packed earth gave way to a complex network of tunnels with entrances ranging from small openings barely large enough for a person to massive archways carved into the hillsides.

Reinhard moved cautiously, his enhanced Fenrir senses tracking multiple life signatures underground. He could feel hundreds of them, or maybe it was thousands.

"The Ant Queen will be deep in the colony." Roana explained, grey hair pulled back as she studied the terrain. "Surrounded by workers and soldiers."

"How many?" Scáth asked with her eyes gleaming with anticipation.

"Over a dozen of them." Brunhilde says.

Scáth's grin widened. "Good."

Reinhard and Scáth approached the largest tunnel entrance together. The opening was easily ten feet tall, designed for the Queen's passage, and darkness stretched beyond, lit only by faint glowing moss clinging to the walls.

They descended.

The tunnel sloped downward at a steady angle, with surprisingly smooth walls. Clearly, this colony had existed for years, possibly decades.

After a minute, they saw movement ahead.

Ants emerged from side passages; each worker ant was the size of a large dog. While the Soldier ants were even larger, armored carapaces gleaming dully in moss-light.

Reinhard saw ten ants moving out, then twenty, and then thirty.

They surrounded the front with Reinhard and Scáth standing before them.

"Finally," Scáth breathed, her spear manifesting, and the crimson-purple coloring seemed to glow in the dim light.

Two crimson-black wings erupted from his back, a manifestation of Angra Mainyu's power shaped for combat. The wings could become weapons, shields, or additional limbs, whatever the situation required.

The ants attacked as one.

Thirty bodies surged forward, mandibles clicking, legs scraping against stone. The sound was deafening in an enclosed space and multiplied by tunnel acoustics into a cacophony of chittering rage.

Reinhard's crimson-black wings lashed out.

The manifestations moved independently from his body, two massive appendages that struck with devastating force. The right wing swept through five ants, the limbs hardening into blade-like edges that slashed through the side of the ants. The left wing became a hammer, crushing three ants against the tunnel wall.

Eight ants down instantly.

Scáth moved like a shadow made flesh as her spear became a blur of crimson-purple. She didn't use her skills and instead just relied on her combat skill honed through countless battles. Her spear pierced through the head of the first hand before she swung it to the side. With the dead ant still pierced through towards the second incoming ant, leading to tumbling to the ground.

Before she then twisted her body and hurled her spear forward. It rushed through the air, piercing through three of the incoming ants. Before Scath clenched her fist as her Cuirass of Consequence appeared and absorbed light in the tunnel. Then she rushed forward, smashing, punching, striking, and blasting holes through the ant's bat.

Any time the ants tried to strike her, they were subtly guided away from vital spots. Strikes that should have closed on her throat instead caught shoulder armor, while legs that should have swept her feet instead scraped against shin guards.

All of which did nothing as she killed ten ants in fifteen seconds.

Only a dozen remaining.

But more were coming as Reinhard could hear them.

Dozens more workers and soldiers responded to pheromone distress signals, and then the tunnel behind them filled with clicking, scraping sounds.

"We need to reach the Queen before we're overwhelmed," Reinhard called out.

Scáth nodded, purple hair whipping as she decapitated another ant. "Then let's move!"

They pushed forward with Reinhard's wings clearing the path ahead, crushing or slicing any ant that tried to block their progress. Scáth covered their rear, her spear work preventing pursuing ants from catching them.

The tunnel soon opened into a chamber.

The space was enormous, a cathedral-like cavern carved from living rock with glowing moss covering every surface, providing ghostly blue-green illumination. And in the chamber's center, on a raised dais of compacted earth, sat the Ant Queen.

She was massive, easily twenty feet long, her segmented body gleaming with chitinous armor. The crown-like growth on her head identified her immediately. Her crimson eyes tracked the intruders before they narrowed in annoyance and irritation.

Around her stood the remaining ants from the initial thirty, plus twenty more that had responded to distress signals.

The Queen's antennae twitched before all fifty ants' eyes began glowing with faint golden light.

Reinhard felt it immediately, the magical connections forming between Queen and every ant in the chamber. Not just communication, but something deeper, which was a shared sense, and it made him quickly realize she used Chain of Command.

The Queen could see through every ant's eyes, coordinating their movements with perfect precision.

And more dangerously, its ability to distribute damage. Any injury dealt to one ant would be partially absorbed by all others. Fifty targets that shared durability meant each individual ant became exponentially harder to kill.

"This will be interesting." Scáth said, her Sight of the Breaking Point already analyzing the situation.