Doomsday Lord

Cheng Yang’s heart was racing. How far ahead had the ants planned? Should he break through the high-level ants and return to the clearing? Or should he escape down the path and try to outrun them? Either way, if he kept running at full speed, he’d run out of stamina soon, and the gods’ rules would force the Fatigued effect onto him, quartering his Movement Speed. If that happened, he was dead.

At the same time, hundreds of ants started to pour out of the trees and sprout from the ground. Some of them joined the ants blocking the path to the clearing, but most of them created a massive swarm blocking Cheng Yang’s other escape route.

Cheng Yang anxiously batted away the ants near him away as his heart pounded in his chest. Was he going to die here?

No! He’d come too far to die like this! They’re just a bunch of ants!

Cheng Yang tried to boost his morale, but even if he was optimistic, these Bone-Eating Ants weren’t an easy opponent.

Cheng Yang couldn’t tell but, he was able to estimate that there were at least five thousand ants in his immediate vicinity. This meant that if he ran, at the very least, he’d avoid the majority of the hoard.

Cheng Yang grit his teeth, then dug his heels into the ground. As long as he had two working legs, he wouldn’t give up, and he wouldn’t stop running. As long as there was a chance he would survive, Cheng Yang would take hold of it!

With a superhuman leap, Cheng Yang broke through the swarm blocking his trail. Although he used Petal Blizzard to help clear a path, Cheng Yang couldn’t avoid having nearly two dozen ants attach themselves to his clothing.

Cheng Yang grimaced in pain as several painful bites assaulted his senses. In response, Cheng Yang could only grimace. He couldn’t counter-attack, and if he ripped them off one at a time, he would die. The only thing he could do was to drink a Health Recovery potion carefully.

Although Cheng Yang hadn’t taken much damage, he needed to be mindful of the potions cooldown. If he waited to maximize his benefits, it might end up being too late once he was low-health again.

Cheng Yang rushed forwards, but he couldn’t escape the trap he had landed in. Although most of the ants were in a swarm behind him, they didn’t need more than a handful to kill him. Worse still was that the ants in the trees were using bent branches to launch themselves at him. They might be slow on their own, but with the help of physics, they were almost faster than Cheng Yang.

As he ran, ants endlessly rushed towards Cheng Yang, and any that reached him immediately tore a chunk of flesh off his body.

As soon as the cooldown was finished, Cheng Yang drank another potion. He couldn’t help it, with so many Bone-Eating Ants covering his body, it was a miracle he hadn’t died already.

Cheng Yang felt like he was drowning in a sea of ants. If he stopped for even a moment, the sea would envelop him, and his bones would be ground to dust by its waves. He could feel tiny legs scampering across his body and an ant biting through his cheek.

Their thin bodies were flexible, and their feet clung to his clothes like velcro. In the blink of an eye, they would rush up his legs and into his robes. By then, Cheng Yang couldn’t remove them by hand.

Right as Cheng Yang felt like the sea was about to swallow him whole, Petal Blizzard finished casting and depleted his Mana. In an instant, every ant around him died. They were torn to shreds by the deceptively beautiful petals that skillfully danced around their master.

Once he was able to take a breath, Cheng Yang noticed that he only had twenty-two Health left. That is to say, if only another twenty-two ants reached him, he would die.

Cheng Yang felt like puking. He had experienced several dangerous situations, but none of them had the phycological stress this one did. It felt like he was carefully balancing on a razor-sharp thread; one wrong step, and he’d fall into the abyss.

Pushing back bile, Cheng Yang forcibly chugged another Health Recovery Potion.

There were still countless ants around him, but Cheng Yang could feel his stamina bottoming out. If he could make it another fifty meters, he might have a chance to live.

The ants never gave him a chance. With every step he took, dozens crawled up his legs. His calves were nearly torn to the bone, and his feet would be utterly skeletal if not for his sturdy boots.

Cheng Yang was traveling at inhuman speeds, but the seven or eight steps he would need to break out of the encirclement were too much for him. Every step he took only increased the amount of damage he took, and now, he didn’t have any skills to save him.

After three steps, Cheng Yang was down to ninety Health. At this rate, he would die. Even if he jumped and avoided touching the ground as much as possible, there wasn’t a way he could survive.

As Cheng Yang took his fourth step, thousands of thoughts rushed through his mind. He was out of Mana, so none of his spells were useful now. He couldn’t drink a potion since they were on cooldown. Was there nothing he could do using the gods’ rules?

Wait! The rules! Why did he have to rely on them!

Cheng Yang had an epiphany as he remembered the actions the ants took earlier. They didn’t have a skill to catch him, so they used the environment around them!

Right before Cheng Yang’s next step hit the ground, his Alchemy furnace appeared on the ground. Softly landing on it, Cheng Yang used it as a springboard and leaped into the air.

As he began to fall once more, an epee appeared beneath his right foot. With a kick, Cheng Yang drove the sword into the ground and launched himself forwards.

One after another, items fell out of Cheng Yang’s Spacial Ring as he flew across the ant’s blockade.

Cheng Yang ripped the remaining ants off his body as he ran across his makeshift bridge and one he escaped the ants trap. He drank a Mana potion and finished them off with a Petal Blizzard.

Cheng Yang didn’t want to check his Health. If he knew how close to death he was, he wouldn’t be able to focus on what came next. He continued to run at a leisurely pace, and once he’d had another Health Recovery potion, he turned around to face his enemy.

Since they had failed to kill him, Cheng Yang would bury every last one of these ants! His eyes gleamed with measured madness.

The Bone-Eating Ants were crafty, but a trick like that only worked once. Now that he was aware of their capabilities, Cheng Yang treated every one of their moves like a potential trap. As such, Cheng Yang slowly whittled down their number over the course of half an hour. Cheng Yang was so focused on utterly annihilating his prey, that he completely missed the notification telling him he had completed a God Quest.

Finally, less than a hundred ants remained. It was only then that Cheng Yang could feel himself relax.

However, as Cheng Yang prepared for victory, he noticed one of the ants trying to escape into the foliage.

Did ants fear death? If so, it was the first Cheng Yang had heard of it. Regardless, Cheng Yang wouldn’t let it escape.

“Freeze!” Cheng Yang used Hibernation Chill to stop the ant from escaping while he finished off the others. This spell had leveled up as well, so Cheng Yang quickly killed the other ants during the three-second stun.