Zhang Yanhang had seen smaller Crimson Iron Ants whose pincers were a fifth the size of their heads, which was considered quite large. However, these large Crimson Iron Ants had claw-shaped mouthparts that were half the size of their heads, giving their large pincers an extremely pronounced presence, and they looked absurdly large.

Aside from that, in other aspects, these large Crimson Iron Ants still resembled ordinary Crimson Iron Ants. At least their exoskeleton armor, which was also a reddish color, looked very similar.

After briefly observing these large Crimson Iron Ants, and while they had not yet launched an attack, Zhang Yanhang quickly began to check their attribute list.

[Crimson Iron Destruction Ant (Elite)]

[Level: Second Tier Three Stars]

[Talent: 1. Mystic Steed Power. 2. Large Crimson Iron Ant (Destruction Ant).]

[Mystic Steed Power: When launching an attack, there is a 2.1% chance to trigger an extra attack effect. Strength +30%.]

[Large Crimson Iron Ant (Destruction Ant): Female large Crimson Iron Ants born from the mating of the Lord Monster Crimson Iron Queen Ant with the Crimson Iron Prince Ant without reproductive abilities and not fully developed. Throughout their growth process, they often consume a large amount of Crimson Iron Ore and absorb the nutrients within to forge their hard exoskeleton.

Although the hard exoskeleton of Crimson Iron Destruction Ants, forged by consuming a large amount of Crimson Iron Ore, endows them with defensive power far exceeding their own constitution, it is excessively heavy due to high density. Together with the huge claw-shaped mouthparts on their heads, the Crimson Iron Destruction Ants become quite cumbersome, rendering their wings mostly for ground movement, despite having them.

However, a benefit is that, compared to other varieties of distant Crimson Iron Ant relatives, due to their considerable size and strength, Crimson Iron Destruction Ants do not need any additional means to mine Crimson Iron Ore. They simply use their own claw-shaped mouthparts to maintain a high-efficiency mining activity.

As a means to digest high-quality Crimson Iron Ore, within the Crimson Iron Destruction Ants, corrosive ant acid of high potency still exists to soften the ore. However, because their own development is immature and their digestive capabilities are still inadequate even with the effect of the ant acid, they often expel some of the hard materials outside their body, which the outside world generally calls Crimson Marrow.

This highly corrosive ant acid, apart from softening the Crimson Iron Ore during digestion, is also often expelled in one go from their abdominal digestive tissues when facing powerful enemies, using the sticky substance to injure their foes, obstruct the enemy's advance, and seal the entrances to tunnels.]

[Life Value: 800/800]

[Energy Value: 0/0]

[Strength: 45]

[Agility: 36]

[Constitution: 40]

[Intelligence: 15]

[Charm: 5]

[Skill: 1. Giant Clamp Strike. 2. Shattering Rock. 3. Ant Acid Spitting.]

"Are they really large Crimson Iron Ants? However, their level is worlds apart from that of the ordinary Crimson Iron Ants. A mere low-level Crimson Iron Destruction Ant, which is only responsible for mining and transporting Crimson Iron Ore, is actually a Second Tier Three Star Elite monster with Second Tier Four Star Level strength."

Zhang Yanhang recalled that in the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalaguli, even the Ant King seemed to have only Third Tier strength, meaning any ordinary large Crimson Iron Ant here was stronger than the Ant King, on par with the Second Tier Four Star Lord Monster Crimson Iron Queen Ant.

Although the Crimson Iron Queen, as a Lord Monster, was far superior in strength to these ordinary monsters, with their cumbersome form, if the number of Crimson Iron Destruction Ants were large enough, not too many, probably no more than a hundred or so, it was estimated they could defeat the Crimson Iron Queen.

It's just that, while killing the Crimson Iron Queen, they would also be taken out by the Queen's self-destructive blast at its last breath.

"Although it's not the same species, this Crimson Iron Destruction Ant really continues the excellent tradition of the Crimson Iron Worker Ant. It has fifteen points of intelligence but lacks an Energy Value, having only Life Value and completely lacking any genuine offensive means.

The first two skills, Giant Clamp Strike and Shattering Rock, are obviously used in the process of mining Crimson Iron Ore, while Ant Acid Spitting is a self-defense skill for last-minute survival."

The reason why the Crimson Iron Destruction Ants had no genuine offensive skills was evident to Zhang Yanhang, explicitly stated in the first line of the introduction to the talents of the Crimson Iron Destruction Ant.

Since Crimson Iron Destruction Ants are immature females born from the mating of the Lord Monster Crimson Iron Queen Ant and Crimson Iron Prince Ant without reproductive abilities, they lack genuine attack power, which is only acquired when their development is more complete.

After all, the newborns of most animals don't possess offensive means, nor do they need them – their parents provide protection. And if the parents are killed by enemies, regardless of how strong their offspring's attack abilities might be, it still spells death. Even if they are not eaten by the enemy, they would likely die from lack of foraging skills.

Although the Crimson Iron Destruction Ants, with their size comparable to rhinos, don't seem related in any way to the typical animal cub, as far as their internal level is concerned, the development stage of the Crimson Iron Destruction Ants is just slightly above that of initial egg and freshly hatched larva.

Since the egg is not considered a life form, the Crimson Iron Destruction Ants are comparable to children who just passed the 0-3 years infancy stage and entered the 3-6 years childhood phase.

This was like the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalaguli that Zhang Yanhang had previously cleared. If the development stages of the entire Ant Nest were divided, at most, only the Lord Monster Crimson Iron Queen Ant and its mating partner, the Ant King, would be considered to have reached adulthood.

The rest, even creatures like the fully developed Crimson Iron Breeding Ants, could only be considered in their teenage years, namely within the age range of 14-17.

This age range, although physically fully developed and also possessing full reproductive capabilities, it is clear that any normal person with a functioning brain would not choose to have children at this stage, since they would still need to go to school.

But the constraints the Crimson Iron Breeding Ants face are far greater than those of a school, due to genetic and other physiological limitations, they can never truly mature before the death of the Crimson Iron Ant Queen; after all, their maturing process, just considering the sheer difference in body size, is almost a sort of abnormous development.

The disparity is so vast that under normal circumstances it is impossible to trigger spontaneously, it must be triggered with the assistance of other Crimson Iron Ants, ahem, mainly the male Crimson Iron Breeding Ants. During this process, the male ants participating in the assistance will also evolve into Crimson Iron Ant Kings, who from then on will take on the duty of breeding the Crimson Iron Ants.

"Before, I felt that these Crimson Iron Destruction Ants' flying ability wasn't quite up to par; now after looking at their attribute list, it's indeed really not up to par.

Due to an overly cumbersome exoskeleton and a huge claw-shaped mouthpart that makes their body somewhat unbalanced, their Agility attribute is shockingly low at only thirty-six points — only slightly stronger than a Second Tier Two Star Monster, not to mention Second Tier Four Stars, even for Second Tier Three Stars, it barely meets the standard.

However, this size and the exoskeleton do indeed endow the Crimson Iron Destruction Ants with tremendous Strength, reaching the Second Tier Four Star limit of 45 points — they are truly power-type contenders."

But compared to these attributes, Zhang Yanhang was more concerned about that Talent.

"I didn't expect the Crimson Iron Destruction Ant's Talent to be Mystic Steed Power. I originally thought it would straightforwardly be Ant Power or even Power to Tie Chicken.

Yet it turned out to be Mystic Steed Power, a Talent I've never seen before. Though I haven't seen it, just looking at its Talent Effect of triggering extra attacks and increasing Strength, it should indeed be related to Ant Power, perhaps an upgraded version of it."

Zhang Yanhang remembered that in ancient times there were generally two terms for ants, one was Ant, which accounted for termites, flying ants, and small ants.

The other is Mystic Steed, which mainly referred to some large ants, and using it here is indeed very appropriate because the body size of this Crimson Iron Destruction Ant is actually as enormous as a rhinoceros. From this point of view, Zhang Yanhang even felt that Mystic Steed was somewhat of an overstatement.

After checking the attribute list of the Crimson Iron Destruction Ant, Zhang Yanhang silently exhaled a breath, then threw a punch towards the chest exoskeleton of that same Crimson Iron Destruction Ant, which had climbed onto him and was relentlessly clamping his head with its massive claw-shaped mouthparts, not sure if it was using Giant Clamp Strike, Shattering Rock or perhaps a simultaneous combination of both.

Bang!

With a loud noise, the Crimson Iron Destruction Ant's talent described as very hard but still crisply shattered like paper under Zhang Yanhang's fist.

The massive impact force, under the effect of inertia, penetrated layer by layer, the muscles and thick Crimson body fluid inside originally intended to act as buffers became excellent conductive substances; the esophagus responsible for consuming Crimson Iron Ore and various gland tissues were reduced to mush under the compression of muscles carrying the massive impact force.

The massive impact force carried forward armor fragments and flesh, effortlessly penetrating the two-meter-thick chest structure and forming a mass of bloody mixture that slammed into the Crimson Iron Ore Wall beside it, then exploded with a roar.

During this process, the six limbs connected to the exoskeleton chest of the Crimson Iron Destruction Ant had already fractured, with the fragile joint structure proving virtually no defensive power against such immense impact.

As for the head and abdomen of the Crimson Iron Destruction Ant, they had flown off with the impact force long ago.

[Successfully killed a Second Tier Three Star Monster 'Crimson Iron Destruction Ant (Elite)' ×1, soul points +160.]

After the Crimson Iron Destruction Ant was dead beyond dead, the kill notification promptly appeared in Zhang Yanhang's ears. However, he didn't have time to pay attention to this just yet, as the other Crimson Iron Destruction Ants were closing in again.

As monsters with Second Tier Four Star Strength, these Crimson Iron Destruction Ants might have slightly impaired vision due to living underground for long periods, but their reaction abilities were still very impressive.

Or to put it another way, Zhang Yanhang was standing there stiffly, an easy target for any monster, so in fact, the Crimson Iron Destruction Ants had already spotted him at the first moment and started their attack. However, their claws simply couldn't grasp Zhang Yanhang's head, allowing him to leisurely check his attribute list.

The surrounding Crimson Iron Destruction Ants kept throwing themselves at Zhang Yanhang, but at this time, their large size—or rather, Zhang Yanhang's smaller size—took advantage of the situation.

These Crimson Iron Destruction Ants, each five meters long and two meters wide, could fill up the space beside him with just one or two, only leaving limited gaps for others to attack.

To put it more simply, with Zhang Yanhang's small size, at most two Crimson Iron Destruction Ants could lie one in front of the other on him, using their claw-shaped mouthparts to clamp his head together. There was no space for the other Crimson Iron Destruction Ants to squeeze in, eliminating the possibility of a multi-ant assault.

Of course, this was mainly because the Crimson Iron Destruction Ants had limited attack methods. Were they replaced by other Large Crimson Iron Ants capable of energy attacks, Zhang Yanhang would be facing high-density barrage attacks.

Although these Crimson Iron Destruction Ants kept clamping at Zhang Yanhang's head or rather, his Energy Shield, the shield's increased defensive power left Zhang Yanhang confident that it could even block a Normal attack from a Fourth Tier Monster, let alone these attacks from Second Tier Monsters, which were so weak that they couldn't generate a single ripple.

After all, he was a Third Tier Awakened, even if he had just been promoted and hadn't had the time to upgrade his Technique Immunity before hunting the Second Tier Late Stage Monsters—the Molten Fire Giant Lizard and the Molten Lava Giant Turtle—within the Permanent Teleportation Channel, their attacks had not broken through his defense. To breach it now was not just a bit difficult, but downright impossible.

Because the timing of hunting monsters was a bit tight, after checking the attribute list, Zhang Yanhang didn't want to tangle with them any longer. The formal hunt was about to start, so he directly punched the audacious Crimson Iron Destruction Ant that dared to pounce on him.

Sonic level Attack Speed combined with a punch of several hundred tons of force instantly shattered the body of the Crimson Iron Destruction Ant, turning it into irregular pieces of a bloody mixture.

Meanwhile, the slightly more intact parts, under the force of inertia, hit another Crimson Iron Destruction Ant located behind and immediately penetrated its head exoskeleton armor, plunging into its body along with the tremendous force and slamming into more of the Crimson Iron Destruction Ants behind.

Where the corpse passed, it was carnage, with flesh and blood flying everywhere, only stopping after smashing several Crimson Iron Destruction Ants and due to the thick Crimson Iron Ore Wall surrounding it.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.