Chapter 289 Hunting in the Ant Hill

The six of them continued to hunt the ants, heading deeper and deeper underground. As they descended, the heat continued to rise, making all of them break out into a sweat until they found themselves in a completely different area altogether. The walls were red with heat and steam was rising in the air, all the divine ores in the wall took on a light red hue. The ants roaming around the area had red carapace and they had long spear like legs similar to a spiders. They spotted a group of four ants like that. Roxy was the first to attack, creating a dense arrow made of ice and shot it towards one of the ants and the creature quickly jumped out of the way, sticking to the ceiling. The ants screeched at them before red metals in the form of spears were sent flying towards them. Mr. Ziek quickly stepped up and swung his hammer, using its active ability [Magnetism] to send them flying back. The ants were instantly enraged and spat red hotacid from their mouth and everyone quickly moved out of the way, but the next second, the acid hardened and small needle like spikes was sent flying everywhere. Everyone quickly created a barrier as the needles flew towards them.

[Since when can they do that with their acid?] Tim asked in surprise as the spikes fell to the ground

[That wasn't acid, it was liquid metal. These bastards are really smart.] Mr. Ziek said with a wide smile and silver liquid metal started to escape from his body. Some of it hardened into metal spikes and swung his hammer, sending them flying towards the ants. The silver spikes sunk halfway into three of them, causing golden ichor to leak out and the last one deflected it with their carapace.

'Even without the aid of the queen, these ants are smart enough due to the effects of the [Intelligence] skill. And the queen's [Memory Retention] skill only makes it even worse. Maybe we should order her to stop sharing the memories of things start getting too tough.' Mr. Ziek thought as the ants sent a wave of molten metals their way. Synthia sent a wave of water to meet the metals, covering the entire area in steam as the metals cooled and hardened. An arc of golden flames, beams of light, a volley of ice arrows and spikes made of silver metal rained towards them, impaling them all over their bodies.

[Your party has slain a level 5 Mutated Infernal Ants. Your party has gained 45,120 exp. You have gained 7,520 exp.]

[Congratulations, you have gained a level. You are now level 20/20.]

[You have exceeded the power threshold for a Mature Angel.]

[Evolution will now begin.]

These messages flashed in front of Mr.Ziek's eyes and soon, golden mist began to wrap around his body, slowly creating a cocoon. Before he was fully enveloped, he quickly took out the soul crystals from his ring and threw them towards Synthia, who quickly caught them.

"Maybe I should have assigned myself to these mountains." Sera said as she looked at the golden cocoon.

"That would have been selfish and an abuse of power. Besides, aren't you pretty close yourself." Kate said and as she carved out ants soul crystals

"Yes, I'm at level 19. Just a few more to go and I'll be a tier 5." She said, looking at the blue screen with golden letters floating infront of her face.

"Good for you, I'm still at level 17." Synthia said and Sera smirked. They soon headed off again, continuing to wonder inside the tunnel looking for more ants. As they walked, the place continued to get hotter and soon they found a pool of lava, not very large, but it was still surprising to find a pool of literal lava this close to the surface.

"Would we die if we fell in that?" Tim asked nervously and Synthia stooped down. Her hands glowed with golden energy before she placed her hand inside the lava lake. The others, except Sera and Synthia, flinched, but soon calmed down when they saw Synthia lift up her hand, with a clump of lava in it.

"This is more like a pit of liquid metal, which isn't that weird since the ants this far has used liquid metal to attack us." She said and took out a monocle from her storage ring. Looking through it, she could see information on the metals inside the lava.

"This is a mix of gold, iron, copper and other human metals. The ants didn't do this, I can still see traces of demonic energy inside it. I think the lava from below ground is rising." Synthia said before dropping the clump of lava back into the pool.

"...Are you saying that this mountain might become a volcano soon?" Tim asked with a concerned look on his face. They were around a hundred meters below the surface, and if lava continued to rise the this entire tunnel might be filled with lava and the lava will only continue to rise and the entire ant hill is flooded. If that happened, they would lose everything, the ants, the divine ores, all of it.

"Not if we stop it. I always had a feeling something like this would happen, and I was actually surprised it haven't happened already, but we just need to head deeper down and stop it." Sera said