Chapter 71: Ant Hill Dungeon Part 8

After tricking Robert and his group Derrick was in the clear for leading the rest of his guild members towards the boss room. He waived them over and they all rushed towards the now unguarded door. Derrick was still smiling at the look on Roberts face when he left them all to deal with the literal swarm of ants. It was a memory he would cherish in the future. He always wanted to one up the annoying prick, but they had both been two cautious around each other for that to ever happen in normal circumstances.

So this was the best case situation in Derricks mind. He had one upped the person who had basically been his rival in the area for the past few months and now he was going to go kill him a boss. He wasn't sure how challenging the fight up ahead would be, but with their numbers they shouldn't have too much of a problem. It was just a level thirty-five dungeon after all and if that annoying asshole that became the right hand of their boss could clear a level thirty dungeon with his own group then there was no way Derrick was backing down. This was his chance to get ahead in life and he was taking it.

His group rushed to the door and forced it open without alerting any of the ants. The view he saw on the other side caused him to smile. There before him was an enormous ant that towered over everything in the surroundings. It was at least six stories tall and it was currently occupied with attacking someone. When Derrick took a closer look he immediately knew that the person that was currently facing off against the giant ant and its two sidekicks was the large man he had seen enter ahead of them in the ant hill. The man was easily dodging around the creature and avoiding its devastating attacks, but the entire time he didn't attack the ant back a single time. It confused Derrick a bit, but he was still cautious about how to deal with someone that could so easily go toe to toe with such a beast.

There were a few things Derrick took notice of and the main one was the fact that the man seemed to be covered in some sort of blue aura that spread all around his body. His head even had what looked like a wolf head surrounding it which gave off quite the intimidating feeling. After watching the man for a moment to try to figure out what he was up to Derrick took notice of the rest of his group on the other side of the room. They were creating these odd looking bubbles for some reason and it explained why the man wasn't actually trying to hurt the giant ant. He was stalling for time for their plan, and Derrick wasn't going to give them the time to finish their plan. He was going to take control of the fight with his group and go for the kill when given the opportunity.

Of course he knew he would have to figure out a way to avoid letting the other group get in the last strike, but for now he needed to grab the attention of that beast. "Alright listen up guys, all mages lay on heavy fire on that giant ant, we need to bring it towards us so we can get control of the fight. Tanks get up front and use any skill you have to keep it in position while we kill it. LET'S GO!" Derrick shouted as he pulled out his daggers preparing to go for any weak spot he could find. His guild members nodded and cheered along with him grabbing the attention of the people that were currently fighting for a split second. The large man looked over in their direction, but seemed unperturbed as he went back to dunking and leaping over all of the ant's attacks.

The mages lined up for a moment before sending any spells they had directly towards the massive ant. They ranged from fireballs to large pressurized streams of water. Anything and everything was sent towards the ant. When the attacks landed they exploded all across its body, but instead of a pained shriek like Derrick was expecting the ant simply turned to look at them for a moment. When the dust settled from the explosions they noticed that the attacks barely effected the ant at all, in fact outside of a few spots where its armor seemed a little heated the ant seemed perfectly fine. Derrick observed it and noticed its title of Ant Queen along with its ridiculous amount of stars. In that moment he realized things were going to be a lot tougher than he had originally thought.

The Ant Queen glared at her new opponents for a split moment before screaming in rage. Unfortunately the scream did more than just intimidate the members of the Raider's Guild, it also brought in more ants that crawled down from the ceiling out of large holes. There were several smaller ant generals, over a dozen of them and they were all headed directly for the Raider's Guild members. Derrick grinded his teeth in anger at the turn of events before having his members turn their attention towards the incoming ants. The Ant Queen didn't even deem them worthy of dealing with herself, but instead sent over grunts to do the work for her.

The large beast turned its attention back towards the man that had been fighting it and slammed its pincers into the ground where he was standing. The blow caused the entire room to shake on impact and caused several mages in his group to stumble from the shaking. If that attack had landed anywhere near his group just about everyone outside of the tanks would be paste on the floor at the moment. Surprisingly the man fighting the Ant Queen dodged it easily and continued to dance around the three ants biding his time.

Sadly at the moment Derrick didn't have the time to worry about that, he had to deal with these ants quickly before the other group took down his score. He held his dagger in one had while holding a couple of grenades in the other before rushing towards the closest ant. He charged at full speed towards the ants face as it shrieked at him in anger for daring to attack its queen. The ant tried to grab him in a vice grip with its pincer's, but Derrick leaped off the ground at the last moment before landing on one of its pincers that was now stuck in the ground after it had missed its attack. Derrick lunged forward and stabbed its eye with his dagger before plunging two grenades deep into the wound he had created.

He blinked away before the ant could try to smash him into the ground and watched as the grenades exploded blowing off its head in the process. That was one ant down and he could see the bombardment from the rest of his group was having a good effect on these ants. They were armored, but not nearly as heavily as the ant queen and its pair of stronger ant generals. Soon a couple more ants went down from the constant attacks and Derrick was well on his way to taking down another one now that he had waited long enough for his blink skill to come back up just in case he needed to use it to get away.

It was in that moment that he noticed the rest of the other group start to take action. The large spider and turtle both grew to towering sizes as the spider grew to around the same size as the large ant generals guarding the queen while the turtle grew even bigger than that and was only smaller than the Ant Queen itself. The area they had been in was covered in several large bubbles that floated in the air and were slowly making their way in the direction of the Ant Queen. That's when he noticed the large turtle start to send a torrent of water in the direction of the ants while the spider opened its mouth and started pouring out a stream of fire in a similar manner. The two attacks collided and started creating a large amount of steam that covered the entire area of where the boss and its two underlings were standing.

Derrick Listened as he could hear the shrieks of pain and anger from the ants that were being covered in the steam and he knew whatever the group had been planning would be effective against the boss class monster. If things continued as they were then the other group would get the kill and they still would be held up by these damn ants. Just when Derrick didn't think matters could get any worse he could hear footsteps coming from behind signaling the other groups were on their way.

Derrick grit his teeth at the current situation as he killed another ant before blinking away and glaring towards the two giant beast direction and their tamer. They seemed to be filling the entire area up with steam for a while until it got to the point where Derrick could no longer see the massive Ant Queen anymore. He was wondering if their tactic had actually harmed the other member of their group, but by their positive attitude he was fairly sure that wasn't the case. After the giant turtle and spider stopped their attacks they both rushed into the steam preparing to help their friend while all of the bubbles they had been creating beforehand slowly followed in after them.

It was frustrating to watch and Derrick still had six large ants standing in his way before he could charge over. He could go on his own, but then he'd really be leaving his guild members in a hot spot. He wasn't even sure if he could kill the thing himself, but time was starting to run out on him. That's when he turned around to see Robert and the rest of his group glaring at him. They had lost a few people, but for the most part it seemed like they had gotten through the predicament Derrick had left them in without too much trouble. "You bastard, you tried to kill us all!" Robert shouted as his group ran into the room and observed the situation.

"Hey we agreed to be in separate groups the moment we stepped through those doors. Don't be surprised we didn't help you guys out when the opportunity to go ahead was right in front of us." Derrick growled back not even willing to put up his fake bravado at the moment. He was too worried about losing out on killing the ant queen to worry about Robert.

"You're a scum bag like always, but in the end you won't get what you want now will you?" Robert said with a smug smile as he watched Derrick's group struggle with the ant. "I'm assuming the boss is over in all that steam and the other group is probably busy fighting it while you guys are stuck dealing with these ants huh? Could have gone a lot faster if we had worked together."

"Very funny, but if we keep wasting our time that other guy is going to easily take the kill and you won't be laughing either at that point." Derrick said as he used couple of flame canisters on an ant to get it to back off from where one of his tanks was struggling to hold it off.

"True, well come on guys, lets charge in and kill us a boss." Robert shouted to his large group as they cheered back in reply. "Let's leave this scum here to deal with this problem shall we." Just as Robert group was about to head over into the steam several shrieks filled the room as more ants came down from the ceiling and started charging toward his group's direction. It was clear that the boss would get more and more minions depending on how many people had entered the room. Roberts' group had pushed things over a limit and now another even larger group of ants was crawling in their direction at high speeds. Robert frowned at the occurrence, but his group had to prepare to hold these new ants off, or they would be stuck in the middle of a boss and a bunch of its minions.

Derrick saw the situation and immediately made a decision. He grabbed a shroud in his inventory that was supposed to enchant him with heat resistance before blinking across from the ants and rushing into the steam. He was going to get that kill no matter what.