Soldier ants are combat-specialized ants, responsible for defending the colony's territory. They don't do any labor alongside the worker ants—they're strictly acting as overseers right now.
Zhang Yang also thinks he's super special, so naturally, he's not going to do any labor either.
They say inertial thinking is a terrifying thing.
Zhang Yang was used to the worker ants' complete lack of resistance, so he assumed soldier ants would have the same personality.
The moment Zhang Yang burst out of the ant tunnel, he charged straight at the guarding soldier ants without a second thought.
Acting all tough, all reckless.
In Zhang Yang's mind, with his current strength, taking down a slightly larger soldier ant should be easy and enjoyable, right?
And the facts… were pretty much like that.
A soldier ant's strength really was no match for Zhang Yang.
One-on-one, it could only be pinned to the ground and rubbed by him.
"Life is just this simple and happy."
Zhang Yang was thrilled. His first bite didn't completely crush it—he bit a bit off-center—but the second bite directly snapped the soldier ant's head off.
"Ding! Killed soldier ant. Evolution points +2, Immense Strength fragment (Beginner) +2."
"Who the hell just bit me?!"
Before Zhang Yang could finish basking in his glory, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his butt.
He got bitten.
Zhang Yang whipped around—holy crap, not just one bite, but many.
A whole swarm of soldier ants were glaring at him, mouths already open and ready.
"F*ck your uncle!"
Zhang Yang turned tail and ran. With his ridiculous strength, he directly smashed one soldier ant flying.
If he got surrounded, the outcome would be absolutely miserable.
His actions had basically lit the fuse on a powder keg. Soldier ants exist purely to fight—how dare a mere worker ant act so rebellious? They had to crush him.
A huge group of soldier ants surged toward Zhang Yang like they were about to tear him into five pieces.
Zhang Yang panicked.
He didn't even care about the pain in his rear half anymore—he just ran for his life, six legs pumping furiously.
His speed was actually pretty decent, roughly equivalent to a normal human walking pace.
Don't think this means Zhang Yang is some kind of genius; ants can genuinely run this fast.
"Why the hell did I poke the hornet's nest?"
Zhang Yang felt regretful and cursed inwardly—these soldier ants weren't playing by the rules at all.
Weren't they supposed to not resist?
What the hell, ganging up now?
And then, from behind the soldier ants, a group of winged male ants suddenly appeared.
They could fly.
"Oh my Armani…"
Zhang Yang completely lost his cool.
What was supposed to be easy mode had been turned into hard mode by none other than himself.
He couldn't outrun flyers—what now?
"So uncomfortable."
Seeing the flying male ants about to catch up, Zhang Yang decided—screw running.
Even though the task was already completable (enough evolution points, soldier ant killed), he absolutely refused to slink away like this. He still hadn't upgraded his talent to top-tier yet.
The next second, Zhang Yang dove straight into the soil and started digging frantically.
You guys can fly and have the advantage? Fine.
Let's see how much advantage you have underground.
The male ants didn't overthink it—they only knew one thing: some intruder had come to their territory and must be eliminated.
Once underground, Zhang Yang immediately felt cocky again.
Digging downward while turning back to bite.
Male ants? So what?
Bigger body, can fly—what else?
In terms of pure strength, Zhang Yang completely crushed them.
He originally had 0.1 strength; with the mid-tier talent multiplier, it shot up to 0.3. That bite force meant even a male ant's head would pop in one clean hit. Even if the angle was bad, two bites would finish the job.
"Ding! Killed male ant. Evolution points +2, Immense Strength fragment (Beginner) +5."
"Whoa? Five fragments?"
One kill giving 5 fragments—this was way more efficient than killing workers.
One bite, one kill. Why are you big guys so generous?
Zhang Yang was ecstatic—he wished there were more of these big ones.
And reality delivered: there really were quite a few, and they were desperately squeezing in after him.
Zhang Yang enjoyed the satisfying one-bite-one-kill rhythm.
But soon he noticed something wrong.
"These guys dig pretty damn fast too…"
The other ants were all tunneling toward him.
To give the little ants more room to show off their digging skills, Zhang Yang sped up his downward digging even more—mainly because he was afraid his body couldn't withstand being swarmed.
Keeping a safe distance was absolutely necessary.
He had to kill the small ants—not because he enjoyed slaughter, but because he needed to upgrade his talent.
Mid-tier to high-tier required 1,000 fragments; high-tier to top-tier needed tens of thousands.
Whether this one colony had enough was still unknown.
So… kill.
The killing went on until heaven and earth grew dark, seemingly endless.
"Ding! Evolution points have reached the maximum of 1,000. Please evolve into a stronger species."
When Zhang Yang's evolution points hit 1,000, the system chimed in.
Maxed out?
After another frantic bout of downward digging, Zhang Yang once again pulled away from the pursuing ants.
"Evolve."
No point hoarding evolution points anymore—time to become a soldier ant.
"Ding! Evolution started. This evolution consumes 100 evolution points."
Black light appeared.
The black light quickly merged into Zhang Yang's body.
His body suddenly swelled up, and in the blink of an eye, he transformed into the form of a soldier ant.
"Ding! Evolution successful."
"Ding! Task completed: Evolve. Task reward: Lifespan +3 days, Immense Strength fragment (Intermediate) +10."
"Three days of life."
The lifespan increase was expected, but getting ten intermediate Immense Strength fragments caught Zhang Yang off guard—that was equivalent to a hundred beginner fragments in one go. Awesome!
"Reinforce."
Zhang Yang didn't dwell too much on completing the task. Three days of life? Nothing to get emotional about.
As for reinforcing—evolution points to burn, why not go wild?
He wanted to see what the attribute limit was for a soldier ant.
"Ding! Reinforcement successful. Consumed 30 evolution points. Strength +0.1, Agility +0.1, Constitution +0.1."
A refreshing sensation spread through him, as if something was filling his body.
"That's the limit? Wait, that can't be right. System, are you sure a soldier ant can reach my level?"
If regular soldier ants had this kind of stat, Zhang Yang figured he'd already be dead by now.
"Ding! Host is destined to become the strongest being in eternity, destined to step on gods and demons. Even members of the same species can never reach the heights you will achieve."
"Beautiful."
"That line was beautiful."
Zhang Yang was over the moon—he loved systems that knew how to talk.
Look at that—he was getting cocky again.
"Evolve."
Keep evolving.
He still had plenty of evolution points, and he'd already killed male ants—evolving into one was only fair, right?
Male ants could fly, after all.
Zhang Yang wanted to fly too.
"Ding! Evolution started. This evolution consumes 200 evolution points."
Another burst of black light, this time mixed with faint white specks.
As the light merged into his body, Zhang Yang's size swelled again—he transformed into a winged male ant.
"Ding! Evolution successful."
"Reinforce."
"Ding! Reinforcement successful. Consumed 30 evolution points. Strength +0.1, Constitution +0.1, Agility +0.1."
Now Zhang Yang was truly inflated.
A tiny ant with nearly ten pounds of strength—who wouldn't get cocky?
After talent amplification, his original 0.3 strength had now become 0.9.
"I must've been out of my mind digging so deep."
The now-swollen Zhang Yang felt a little regretful.
With his current strength and constitution, so what if he got swarmed by ants?
With stats like this—just pick up the spear and charge, right?
Ignoring how far behind the chasing ants still were, Zhang Yang locked onto the upward direction and started digging like crazy.
He was going to face the colony head-on.
His digging speed upward was terrifyingly fast.
"Huh? Why is the soil getting wet here?"
As he neared the surface, Zhang Yang suddenly felt puzzled.
Raining outside?
But when he finally broke through the surface, Zhang Yang exploded in rage.
Now he understood why the soil had been wet.
He saw a massive… thing… that was spraying water outward.
"You son of a—"
Zhang Yang shot into the sky. Even though it was his first time with wings, he controlled them surprisingly well.
"What the fck? That thing just now was tiger dck?!"
Flying upward, Zhang Yang finally got a clear look at what had just peed on his head.
A huge, freakish-looking tiger—very big, body length easily four or five meters, looking extremely fierce, with long fangs. Definitely not a normal tiger.
"Even if you look scary, you can't just—"
Zhang Yang stared at the tiger, but before he could finish, the gust from the tiger's nostrils blew him off balance.
The big tiger didn't even glance at Zhang Yang, just shook itself off casually and swaggered away.
"Little tiger, just you wait. The day I become a tiger, I'm definitely pinning you down and rubbing your face in the dirt."
Zhang Yang was utterly miserable. If heaven gave him another chance, he absolutely would not choose to surface from that exact spot.
Too disgusting.