Chapter 003: The Golden Ant King

“Impossible.” At this moment, Du Fan’s veins bulged as he increased the energy output in his hands to combat the red-haired ants approaching him. He shouted loudly, “Rob, Brother Moses, you two must eliminate these red-haired ants completely from the underground world. Otherwise, it will be us who disappear!”
“Understood.”
Hearing Du Fan’s orders, Rob and Moses immediately appeared in front of him. With extreme fury, they combined their domain powers with a trace of divine power and sent it in the direction of the red-haired ants.
“Pfft!”
Just as the energy generated by Rob and Moses touched the red-haired ants, they suddenly began to burn. In an instant, thousands of them turned into ashes, with magic cores falling to the ground one after another.
Although this battle didn’t last long, it was extremely shocking for Du Fan and the others. The five strong warriors knelt down, placing their hands on their chests in silence.
This was a ritual unique to knights, reserved for those they greatly admired. Three minutes later, the five stood up and headed further away.
No sooner had they left than black ants over twenty inches long emerged from the ashes. In just a few minutes, their numbers exceeded those of the red-haired ants before. After cleaning up, they returned underground, but Du Fan and the others collected all the magic cores from the red-haired ants.
“Second Brother,” Du Fan stopped and turned to Bashah, who was not far behind. He spoke pleadingly, “Next time, don’t act on your own without my orders. After all, we’re not very familiar with this underground world. If domain-level magical beasts appear, we won’t be able to handle them easily.”
“Mm,” Bashah nodded at Du Fan and replied calmly, “Don’t worry. I realized what happened just now. Even I’m surprised by how united these magical beasts are. If you hadn’t intervened in time, I might have been injured too.”
“Mm.”
Du Fan led everyone to sit down and rest. He then took out the magic cores from his storage ring and began counting them. There were six thousand level-3 magic cores, three thousand level-2 ones, and around ten thousand level-1 ones.

At the same time, the energy clay previously created by the red-haired ants should weigh around several hundred kilograms. If used to make armor, it should be sufficient to produce over two thousand pieces of armor. However, this is still a drop in the bucket compared to the military force Du Fan currently has.

“Hm?” At that moment, Rob exclaimed in surprise, standing up and staring in shock at what lay before him, unable to speak.

Following Rob’s gaze, the five of them also stood up as if facing a formidable enemy, their mouths wide open as they stared at a three-meter-tall magical beast with two giant fangs. Six flesh wings with golden patterns flapped slowly behind it, and its six massive feet were even tougher than those of the spider possessed by Count Wade before. The ground beneath them began to tremble uncontrollably, as thousands of black soldier ants surged forth like a tide.

“Damn it,” Du Fan sighed, looking at the enormous magical beast before him. If his guess was correct, they were facing the most powerful being among the ant race in the underground world—the Golden Ant King.

The Golden Ant King was terrifying to anyone. Not only could he command all the ants in the underground world, but his own strength was nearly at the divine level. Once an ant became a king, it was already infinitely close to the divine realm. If a battle really broke out, it was likely that Du Fan and his companions would not be able to defeat it easily. Since those at the divine level couldn’t fully utilize divine power, even in the best-case scenario, they could only be considered peak domain experts.

At that moment, Basha helplessly shook his head and stepped in front of Du Fan and the others, saying in a firm voice, “Let me take responsibility for the trouble I caused.”

“Hmm,” hearing Basha’s words, Du Fan didn’t stop him and simply nodded. Looking at the tens of thousands of black soldier ants at his feet, he said with a headache, “Then let’s deal with these damned black soldier ants for you.”

Upon hearing Du Fan’s words, Basha nodded at him, drew a large axe from behind, stepped forward, and launched himself like a cannonball at the Golden Ant King.

Seeing Basha’s move, the Golden Ant King also acted as if facing a great threat. Its two long antennae lashed out like whips in Basha’s direction, while its two front feet stabbed toward him as well.

“Clang!” A sound of metal colliding rang out. At that moment, Basha, wielding his large axe, stood up to confront the Golden Ant King’s two antennae.

After slashing around wildly, Basha finally flew back to his original position, panting as he stared at the Golden Ant King before him. From this round of combat, it was clear that Basha not only hadn’t gained the slightest advantage over the Golden Ant King but had even nearly been injured by him. At this moment, the power of the gods began drawing magical elements from the air on its own, restoring the domain power within Basha’s body without his command.

“Huh!” Basha exhaled heavily, glancing at the Golden Ant King and gripping his axe tighter. Even a strong warrior like Basha could sense a considerable pressure from the Golden Ant King. With a loud shout, he charged forward, swinging his axe in that direction.

Seeing Basha’s move, the Golden Ant King casually raised its two antennae and then did something no one expected—it used its fangs to firmly grip Basha’s axe. After all, Basha’s axe, reforged using the Earth Fire obtained by Du Fan, already possessed strength comparable to that of a divine weapon. Coupled with Basha’s innate talents as a dwarf, the Golden Ant King’s action was undoubtedly suicidal.

“Crack!” The people present were stunned as they watched in shock as Basha’s axe was broken in two by the Golden Ant King’s fangs.

“That’s an axe that’s almost on par with a divine weapon,” Du Fan said in surprise, looking at the Golden Ant King. He then waved his hand to eliminate an attacking black soldier ant and shouted toward Basha, “Elder Brother, do you need my help?”

“No need,” Basha replied, holding his now broken axe. With blazing eyes, he glared at the Golden Ant King and said coldly through gritted teeth, “I’ll turn your fangs into my new axe!”

“Boom!” Miraculously, a smaller flame emerged from Basha’s broken axe. As soon as this flame appeared before everyone, the temperature of the underground world began to rise rapidly.

Feeling this terrifying heat, Basha’s height surged to about three meters, his arms swelling with muscles, while the power of the gods circled around him incessantly.

“The True Form of the Fire God?” Du Fan narrowed his eyes and glanced in the direction where Bashah was. The last time Bashah had used his True Form of the Fire God, he had been surrounded by five cardinals of the Holy Church. Yet, thanks to that form, Bashah had easily disabled one of the cardinals. Presumably, now, in his anger, with that form, even the Golden Ant King before him would likely have to flee quickly.

“Roar!” The Golden Ant King let out a loud scream, his body radiating golden light as he charged toward Bashah like an enormous beam of light.

Seeing the incoming golden light, Bashah shouted loudly, grabbed the Golden Ant King’s two legs, and threw him away with great force. Immediately afterward, he unleashed a barrage of punches on the latter, causing him to spew blood nonstop.

“Eye of the Fire God!” At that moment, Bashah without hesitation passed the Earth Fire in his hand across his eyes. His originally black eyes now emitted a bizarre red glow, and his long black hair turned fiery red. His black hair naturally began to burn, and under the intensity of the flames, the underground world became as scorching as magma.

The Golden Ant King let out an anxious roar, slowly retreating in the face of Bashah. But Bashah didn’t give him any chance. In the next instant, he appeared in front of the Golden Ant King, and with a crack, Bashah pulled out two fangs that resembled divine artifacts.

No matter how much the Golden Ant King screamed, Bashah ignored him and continued to dissect his body. In just a few breaths, the once lively Golden Ant King turned into a pile of corpses. His skin, legs, fangs, and antennae were all separated and placed aside. Only then did Bashah slowly take out a fist-sized magic core from his pocket.

After the Golden Ant King died, tens of millions of black soldier ants were also easily destroyed by Du Fan and his companions.

“From now on, the ant race will never appear in this dark world again,” Du Fan said calmly as he looked at the piles of corpses, before beginning to divide the loot with the powerful warriors around him.

……

Soon, after the entire ant race was completely wiped out by Du Fan and his group, the news reached Ulbas and Huamusi’s ears.

“What did you say? The Ant Tribe has been completely wiped out?” At this moment, Count Wade looked at Ulbas and Huamusi in front of him in surprise—such shocking news had come from their mouths. Count Wade was an envoy of the underground world. Under normal circumstances, as long as the king didn’t object, Duke Wade could mobilize any force in the underground world! Although the Ant Tribe had always been one of the lowest-ranked races in the underground world, they were extremely numerous, and their combat strength when united was astonishing. Now that he heard the news of their destruction, even Count Wade couldn’t help but feel sorrow. However, what Duke Wade truly regretted wasn’t the loss of the Ant Tribe’s lives. As was well known, though their strength was the weakest among all races, their numbers were the largest in the underground world. Count Wade’s original plan had been to make the Ant Tribe disappear from the underground world, so that he could easily seize tens of thousands of crystal cores. This would undoubtedly enhance the strength of the Night Elves, the Spiderfolk, and even human armies. But now, all of Count Wade’s plans had gone up in smoke because Du Fan had arrived in the underground world. Compared to his previous resentment, he now felt, just like Fischer, an overwhelming desire to rush out and tear Du Fan apart.