Nameless Death wasn’t panicking, but countless thoughts swirled in his mind.
The same was happening inside the ants’ minds, he was sure of it.
They weren’t surprised by his attack, or find it unjust.
This was the Jungle of Red Silence.
Here, species went extinct every day, and being weak was a sin.
If you were weak, you were attacked. If your neighbor was weak, not attacking them was foolish.
The ants didn’t scream or rage. They didn’t accuse him of invading their home. They’d done the same themselves too many times to count.
An instant passed before both sides recognized each other as an enemy.
Nameless Death instantly activated Time Dilation, Frenzied Instinct, and Berserking Will at once.
His movement speed, reaction speed, and instincts, raw power, and judgement ability skyrocketed.
The surroundings slowed to a crawl as he dashed forward, grabbed the corpses of the three ants he had already killed.
Darkness poured from his hand. The Darkness Firmament responded, wrapping around the dead ants and drawing their abilities and Existence into him.
His strength surged, and his existence rose.
Power filled his limbs and lungs like fire.
His mind flashed with new knowledge.
The ants’ techniques were crude but efficient, mostly based around World resonance and group formations.
He also saw rough layouts of the ant tunnels and nests.
‘These were the grunts,’ he realized. ‘They didn’t even know the full structure.’
His thoughts were suddenly cut off.
The ants activated The World.
Five hundred different Worlds overlapped.
They resonated, and combined.
Nameless Death’s surroundings distorted violently. His body buckled, and he was suddenly in a different space.
It was a massive spherical space, which seemed to be infinite in size.
And he was in the dead center, unable to move.
Gravity pressed against him from every side.
It felt like there was no up, or down, and he was stuck in the space where he was.
Suddenly, there was sound.
Something between rushing water and howling wind.
Gallons of Devouring Blood appeared out of nowhere and came for him from all directions.
Nameless Death tried to move. Nothing happened. The space had been warped too far by the sheer force of the ants’ united Worlds.
He was locked.
Only one thing saved him: the protection from his World Energy. The ants couldn’t convert his blood into Devouring Blood and use it to eat him.
He gritted his teeth.
The World
He summoned his own three Worlds of Time Dilation.
But it was useless.
Three Worlds against five hundred Worlds. And not just five hundred Worlds, but five hundred working in unison, forming a resonant structure.
Still, he had to try.
The Devouring Blood made contact. His skin began to hiss, flesh bubbled, bones started to crack. Pain spiked through his nerves.
But he didn’t scream.
‘This won’t work. Even if I copy their Worlds from the Cores I devoured, it won’t change anything. I’ll still be overrun.’
Nameless Death pushed his abilities to the very limit.
His World Energy flared.
Two more monster Cores formed, floating behind him.
It hurt like hell as his Core trembled, and his Seed of Existence let out a silent screech.
Now, he had five Cores. Six, if he counted his own.
He deployd the Time Dilation World stored within the new Cores.
Five Worlds formed around him, compressing, folding, expanding.
The surroundings slowed even further as his own time became faster.
The Devouring Blood around him turned sluggish.
Five Worlds were being powered by his Existence. The strain was unbearable. But the strain didn’t come without power.
Since a single Existence was activating five similar Worlds, the Worlds’ power multiplied.
Not linearly, but exponentially.
On the other hand, the ants Worlds were combined but still powered by different Existences. Their combined Word was strong, but the increase in strength was not exponential and instead it was linear.
The result?
Time for him was moving so fast that even the Devouring Blood couldn’t keep up. It tried to consume him, but it was like watching rot set into stone. Too slow to matter.
But the price was immediate.
His Cores began to fracture. His Seed of Existence cracked.
His Existence warped.
Somehow, he knew if he didn’t stop the damage to his Existence would be permanent.
And still, he didn’t stop.
Red lightning erupted from his body. The Death kept him from dying.
With time nearly frozen around him, he could look. He scanned the strange space, and he understood something.
Each ant was a fixed point in this sphere. Each one had deployed a World. And together, they created this formation.
‘This is something like a multi-World construct.’
The ants’ World had the Concept of defense, devouring, and blood (exploding blood).
But there was something else too.
Gravity.
The reason he couldn’t move was because an ant had fused the Concept of Gravity in this combined World.
He turned, looking around, and spotted a presence, much stronger than all other ants.
‘I need to kill that thing.’
‘If I can do that, then I will be able to move even if I let time flow normally.’
Currenly, he could move after he deployed all of his Worlds.
This was because of the nature of gravity.
The gravity was generated by Space Elementals.
To be exact, it was the result of sub-elementals being emitted and absorbed by a pair of Space Elementals.
When you came in contact with these sub-elementals, the flow of their direction would determine the direction of gravity.
Nameless Death didn’t remember who had taught him this knowledge of Space Elementals, but he felt it was someone important to him.
He thanked the person, whoever it was, and got to work.
Normally, you couldn’t avoid gravity formed by flowing sub-elementals. But right now, he was moving too fast. The sub-elementals were too slow to even interact with him.
He was free.
He stepped forward, or rather, he launched himself.
He used the Devouring Blood itself as a foothold, and kicked off.