The wandering spirit threw the Chimera Ant's soul directly into the mist, where Oboro immediately absorbed it.
"It's really much stronger than the souls of ordinary monsters," Oboro couldn't help but sigh.
The weight of a soul was determined by the strength of the target's life energy, which provided feedback and enhancement effects. In other words, if the Chimera Ants could be made more threatening and their strength increased, the effect of soul absorption would reach the next level. Just like raising pigs, you fatten the piglets first and then slaughter them.
The simplest method would be to make the Chimera ants awaken directly, just like in the original timeline, but only those who were at least excellent soldiers, captains, or division commanders could achieve this awakening. Ordinary ants simply couldn't do it.
The team's current location was on the edge of the ant colony's territory, meaning they wouldn't encounter Chimera ants above captain level.
Kill first, talk later
In just a few days, with the help of Menchi and the others, they had lured thousands of Chimera ants to the foot of the lonely peak, where they fell into the thick fog. A rough estimate put their kills at several thousand, not an insignificant number even for the current ant nest.
Oboro judged that by this time, the ants in the nest must have noticed the abnormality.
"It should be soon," he whispered softly the next day, looking out into the forest at night.
At the same time, he called up his system panel.
Host: Oboro Age: 27 Profession: Three-star Ancient Text Hunter Combat power level: Martial Arts Master, World Class Hunter (8th rank) Comprehensive Attribute Evaluation: Third-order superhuman Nen Ability: Rupture of Time and Space, Thresh's passive skill Hell's Curse, Senna's passive skill Absolution Absolution Effect: (Attack Range +25 meters, Critical Strike Chance 100%, Life Steal 51%)
Oboro glanced at it, his eyes mainly focused on the Absolution effect. Absolution meant that after killing a target, a black fog would drop for collection, not a soul.
The soul effect came from Thresh's Hell Curse, which had gone from a passive skill in-game to an active, unlockable Nen ability. Senna's skills remained passive because they had no development value.
Both attack range and life stealing had increased significantly due to his gains from the Black Tide Incident, the Kakin Kingdom, and the Shadow Descendants led by Jed, as well as the loot from the past few days.
The critical hit rate remained fixed at 100%; any excess would be converted directly into life stealing. Oboro's plan was to use the black mist dropped by normal Chimera ants to increase his life steal to 100% first. In that case, the only attribute left to increase would be Attack Range, which improved relatively slowly, not as significantly as the armor and magic power granted by the souls.
As for the armor and magic power, he wanted to wait until the first phase of the hunt was over before assessing any changes.
"Killua's return to Greed Island is relatively slow, so finding Dragon will take longer. They'll enter the NGL about half a month later than in the original timeline. My team still has almost a month. At our current rate, we can conservatively kill tens of thousands of ants. And that's assuming the army of the ant nest doesn't target us directly. If a troop captain or division commander leads a large army against us, that would change things completely.
Oboro carefully calculated the possibilities.
An ordinary ant queen could lay hundreds or even thousands of eggs daily, and the fertility of a Chimera ant queen was even more terrifying. He remembered that the original text mentioned that the queen could produce dozens of eggs every day, unless they were special eggs that required excellent genes at the elite level. Each time the queen fed, she could lay several eggs. So the queen in the nest had been eating continuously, never stopping.
Unlike all other ants, the king ant was not hatched from an egg, but was born alive. Once the queen began to prepare for the birth of the king, she would no longer produce other ants.
"The royal guards, including Neferpitou, have already been born, but they are still dormant in their eggs, not yet awakened. Chimera ants at the level of division commanders and corps captains are present, and the queen is now preparing to give birth to the king, which means that the ant population has stopped growing. Still, conservatively, the entire ant nest must contain about 200,000 ants, possibly more."
Oboro frowned deeply.
The Chimera ants had been hiding in NGL for too long. Normally, an ant nest contained about 2,000 ants, but they could reproduce 20 nests a year. In other words, within a year, there would be tens of thousands of ants, and this calculation didn't even take into account the terrifying fertility of the chimera ant queen.
Even counting from the time the Kakin Empire issued the biological survey order, nearly four years had passed.
Two hundred thousand Chimera ants, at least!
That was only the lower estimate.
"Neferpitou," Oboro muttered and closed the system panel, his thoughts racing.
His current telepathic ability could only increase in intensity. His physical body's aura and blood had reached a bottleneck, which meant that his aura capacity couldn't increase any further.
And the amount of energy was crucial!
Currently, the most he could achieve was to extend his Ghost Mist to a range of about one kilometer, without any excess "energy" to further extend the range of the Mist Sea. It worked similarly to the Nen "En" technique.
But Neferpitou and the Ant King Meruem possessed transcendent physical strength that transcended dimensional boundaries, with an aura so powerful it defied imagination.
Meruem used his aura to sense external objects equivalent to En, which covered the entire capital of East Gorteau.
The distance was simply too great.
Of course, the amount of aura wasn't absolute - a sufficiently powerful Nen could compensate for the differences in attack and defense.
But the difference between King Meruem and himself in raw physical power was like heaven and earth. Even if he destroyed the entire Chimera Ant Nest and absorbed countless souls to strengthen his Nen and increase his physical armor, he might still not be able to match the king.
"Those three might be manageable," Oboro thought, thinking of Neferpitou, Shaiapouf and Menthuthuyoupi.
He bit his finger thoughtfully. "But after absorbing enough souls"
"Meruem is undeniably powerful and seemingly untouchable, but nothing is absolute. Judging by the strength of the three royal guards, when those ants die, the souls they drop must be extraordinary. After absorbing them, plus a group of division commanders and troop captains, tens of thousands of ant souls combined with my original foundation, I might stand a chance."
Oboro's eyes flickered with ambition before he sighed. "Forget it, better not to provoke such a dangerous monster."
He lacked absolute confidence.
In the coming battle, it wouldn't just be ants that would perish.
Many members of the Association would also fall, including Chairman Netero!
They were all potential food for Oboro.
Still, he couldn't resist the temptation to test Meruem's power: Could he, as a human, defeat a higher life form without relying on the Poor Man's Rose?
In truth, he didn't need to take that risk.
Besides, Meruem would die eventually; all he had to do was wait and collect his soul.
But not to experience the king's power while he was alive seemed like a wasted opportunity.
One step at a time. We'll see what happens.
"Captain, I brought more ants," Anthony's voice echoed in his mind.
"Good," Oboro replied, regaining his composure.