The Almighty Ring

Wave after wave of ants were charging at Jiang Fei. These baby ants had even lower Attack Power and Health Points than the Worker Ants. They could only attack Jiang Fei once, stinging him a little, before dying to the reflect damage. However, there seemed to be no end to their numbers.

In less than five minutes, thousands of baby ant corpses were piled up around Jiang Fei. On the other hand, Jiang Fei was down to half his health points.

“How the f*ck do you even do this?”

Jiang Fei suddenly yearned for the previous mutant breeding room. As the mutant eggs were as large as humans, the breeding room could only house hundreds of the eggs, at most. However, these ants were barely larger than his fists. If the entire room’s full of eggs were all hatched, the numbers could range into the tens of thousands. Even Jiang Fei would eventually fall.

“Argh! That Ant Breeder has to go. I’m not going to last forever!”

Jiang Fei started unlocking his protective armor. He used the opportunity to drink the Health Potion and restore his Health bar by a thousand points.

However, the Ant Breeder was basically out of his reach. It was surrounded by closely grouped baby ants. Although he could kill them with a single reflect damage, the continuous streams of baby ants still made it difficult for Jiang Fei to wade forward. In fact, every second involved hundreds of attacks which kept Jiang Fei’s body locked in a flinch animation. Therefore, skills like Jumping Slash which required a short charge were impossible to activate.

Ice Burst!

In an instant, the baby ants in a fan-shaped area before Jiang Fei were all slain. Jiang Fei could not rely entirely on the passive return damage to get rid of these baby ants. He had to work his arms about. Otherwise, he would be drowned in the never-ending onslaught of ants!

Battle Cry!

Ice Burst was rather powerful, but Battle Cry was still more-suited for these numerous baby ants. After all, the baby ants’ Health Points did not even reach a hundred. The Battle Cry and Ice Burst could both kill them instantly. But the Battle Cry had a far superior semi-circular range of eight meters!

With a single Battle Cry, Jiang Fei had completely wiped out the baby ants next to him. He had some time to take a breather and gulped down another bottle of Health Potion. Finally, the opening that he had been waiting for!

Jumping Slash!

The moment he had just enough breathing room, Jiang Fei pounced on his enemy target before the baby ants could swarm up to him yet again.

Although the Jumping Slash was classified as an instant skill, it actually required approximately 0.1 of a second of kneeling down before it actually activated. Under normal circumstances, this charging time was negligible. After all, it was just too tiny a window for anyone to capitalize on.

However, with more than a hundred attacks each second, you would be constantly interrupted at any given moment. Jiang Fei was unable to unleash the Jumping Slash earlier on, because of the continuous attacks from the baby ants.

“Leap!”

In an instant, Jiang Fei had leaped away from the baby ants surrounding him and landed right next to the Ant Breeder.

Ice Burst!

Sunder Strike!

Bash!

The moment he was close enough, Jiang Fei unleashed all of his offensive skills. He instantly hacked down the Health Points of the Ant Breeder by more than a third!

Sadly, that was the extent of his charge. A large number of baby ants surrounded him once again. The Ant Breeder immediately ran away from Jiang Fei’s area of attack and continued to hatch ant eggs elsewhere.

“Motherf*cker…”

Jiang Fei frowned. Now, the distance between him and the Ant Breeder had increased yet again. The cooldown time of Jumping Slash was only one minute, but the cooldown time of Battle Cry was three minutes. Based on how the situation was turning out, it would take another two cycles of that skill combination before the Ant Breeder could be eliminated. However, his Health Points would not last that long!

However, without Jumping Slash, Jiang Fei had no means of approaching the Ant Breeder! As he helplessly stared at the Ant Breeder in the distance, Jiang Fei was suddenly struck by a fresh, new idea.

“I’ve got it!”

Jiang Fei had an idea!

Ice Burst!

Changing his direction, Jiang Fei started blowing out frosty energy towards the Ant Breeder. However, the Ant Breeder was ten meters away from him. The Ice Burst’s area of effect could not reach the Ant Breeder!

Intercept!

Suddenly, Jiang Fei activated a skill that one would rarely see him using.

It was also capable of instantly closing the gap, but, the cooldown was only one minute. However, Intercept also had its limitations. It could literally be intercepted and interrupted by any obstacles in between Jiang Fei and his target!

The obstacle could even take the shape of the terrain — where any difference in height had the danger of tripping him up. If there was another monster or player between the caster and the target, the skill would also end up in a failure.

Jiang Fei had breathed ice upon his enemies not long ago, killing a whole bunch of little critters between him and the Ant Breeder. It meant that Jiang Fei now had a clear path to Intercept and approach the Ant Breeder by targeting an unfortunate Baby Ant located about eight meters away.

“Alright! Just one more minute before being able to use Intercept on the Ant Breeder!”

Jiang Fei measured the distance between himself and the Ant Breeder — a distance of approximately seven meters. His next plan was to combine Ice Burst with Intercept and send himself flying towards the Ant Breeder!

After all, the Ant Breeder was only a monster and was not very bright. If Jiang Fei did not attack it, it would not continue running away. Therefore, even if Jiang Fei was only seven meters away, it continued to hatch baby ants at the same spot!

“F*ck me! My Health Points are going down like rainwater!”

Every second meant hundreds of attacks. That meant that he was losing hundreds of Health Points every second. As Jiang Fei emptied bottle after bottle of potions, one minute seemed like an eternity.

Ice Burst!

Intercept!

It was finally time. However, Jiang Fei barely had over a thousand Health Points left!

Bash!

Sunder Strike!

…

After another round of attacks, Jiang Fei was surrounded by the baby ants. The Ant Breeder had escaped once again!

“Ding!”

A golden light flashed as Jiang Fei’s emptied Health Points activated the Divine Blacksmith’s Blazing Hammer, which denied him death once!

Battle Cry!

After another minute had passed, Jiang Fei’s Battle Cry was ready. By then, his Health Points had once again fallen below three thousand!

Jumping Slash!

After sweeping aside the baby ants that surrounded him, Jiang Fei immediately activated Jumping Slash and closed in on the Ant Breeder.

Ice Burst!

Bash!

…

The Ant Breeder was already severely weakened. It was unable to withstand Jiang Fei’s latest onslaught. Otherwise, Jiang Fei would have been the one buried alive by a mountain of ant hatchlings.

Upon the Ant Breeder’s death, the baby ants stopped hatching. After nearly killing Jiang Fei, they all fell to the combine reflect damage. Jiang Fei could finally release a sigh of relief.

“Whew… Godamnit… I’m so exhausted!”

Jiang Fei sat on the floor, no longer concerning himself with the disgusting ant corpses scattered all around him.

As he consumed items to recover his Health Points, Jiang Fei surveyed his surroundings. Upon the Ant Breeder’s death, soft cracks could be heard coming from somewhere nearby. Jiang Fei peered down and soon found that the remaining ant eggs have started cracking. Clearly, this was scripted to doom him. Or not. This might just be the ant’s equivalent of still-births.

“This sucks balls. I’ve never had to work so hard for no rewards whatsoever.”

Jiang Fei felt the desire to yell at everything in sight. None of the monsters, including the three Ant Breeders and the countless baby ant corpses around, showed any signs of flashing light. That meant only one thing. They had not dropped a single loot!

However, just as Jiang Fei fell deeper into the pits of depression, a crack suddenly appeared on the ground. An object had appeared right before his eyes!