Chapter 86: The Demonized Army Ants

Contacting Gale Blade:
“Blade, how’s your team doing with the dungeon boss? How much longer until you clear it?”
“It’ll be a while. Our whole group got wiped except for the leader, the tank’s little secretary, and a few support players standing far away. Quite a few are still alive, though.”
What?
Only a mage and a tank left for damage—can they really bring down a boss with ten million HP?
“You can’t be serious. With everyone else down, can two people’s damage really finish the boss?”
“Sure can. The boss is enraged now, so their damage output is higher than the boss’s healing. It’s just slow—probably another hour or so.”
“What if the boss locks down the little secretary? Then he’s done for.”
“No worries, he’s died loads already. If he goes down, the supports just revive him. We’ve got four resurrection skills, so every minute or so he’s back on his feet.”
“You guys sure have stamina.”
“No choice—without you, our damage is way too low, so we have to chip away at it. Honestly, this is how boss fights are supposed to go. Your insane damage is a bug, really.”
“Well, finish up soon. I’ve just found the Wolf King again—I’ll camp here and wait for you to come over.”
“What the heck, the Wolf King’s respawned already? We just took it down less than twenty hours ago. That’s a fast respawn!”
“I don’t know, but I definitely saw it—no mistake.”
“Guard the Wolf King. Don’t let anyone else get to it.”
“Don’t worry. No one’s getting here—the mobs are as dense as grains of rice, so others can’t make it through.”
“Just keep an eye on the Wolf King. We’ll head over after finishing the dungeon.”
“No rush. I’ll farm mobs nearby. You guys focus on the dungeon.”
“Understood.”
After ending the call, Zhang Shan started circling the Wolf King from a distance, farming monsters while keeping the boss in sight at all times.
A wild red boss like this is a rare encounter—each one means a chance at great gear and skill books.
It has to be guarded well.
By the time Gale’s team finishes the dungeon and travels here, it’ll probably take over an hour. There’s nothing to do but wait.
He’s already acquired the passive from the wild wolves here, so there’s no real reason to keep grinding. But since he’s flagged as a red name now, it’s not convenient to roam elsewhere.
And he needs to guard the Wolf King anyway.
He kept grinding, browsing the forums as he waited for his red name status to clear, and planning which passive skill to hunt for next.
After the recent battle with the Sovereign Seas Guild, Zhang Shan realized he desperately needed a life-steal passive.

But does such a monster even exist?
Zhang Shan always keeps an eye on forum posts about monster information, but he’s never heard of a monster with a life-steal effect.
Maybe the new world doesn’t have that mechanic, or maybe no player has found it yet. He decided to search the forums carefully.
Without a life-steal effect, his ability to sustain during prolonged fights is sorely lacking.
Though he’s joined the Gale Guild, Zhang Shan usually operates alone.
Except for major bosses or dungeon runs, he rarely teams up with guild members to farm.
His level and gear far outstrip others’; teaming up only drags down his efficiency with no real gain.
For a solo player, the ability to sustain in battle is crucial.
Last time, when a dozen warriors from Sovereign Seas surrounded him, swinging their blades wildly, he lost a life in an instant.
If not for his resurrection skill, he’d have been finished.
But with a life-steal effect, the outcome would have been totally different; his immense damage output would let him slug it out head-to-head with the warriors.
As a man who dreams of one day soloing a demon god, no matter how strong his gear gets, a life-steal effect is essential.
He’d just have to keep searching—he refused to believe there was no monster with a life-steal passive.
Opening the game forum,
Zhang Shan noticed he’d become quite the celebrity in the game.
The battle between him and the Sovereign Seas Guild was the talk of the forum, with all sorts of people throwing opinions around.
Some stood firmly with Sovereign, claiming they’d actually won and had sent Zhang Shan back to town—saying he was locked away in jail as they spoke.
Most, however, believed Zhang Shan was the victor, since the outcome was obvious: after the fight, Sovereign’s players went silent.
No matter how much the world channel called out, no one from Sovereign replied—clearly a sign of guilt.
Zhang Shan had originally planned to upload footage of his head-to-head with Sovereign Seas Guild to the forum.
But then he thought better of it—there was no need to prove anything to anyone; as long as he enjoyed himself, that was enough.
Upon closer inspection, he saw that no one else had uploaded any guild war footage either.
Maybe he should be the first, and set it as a paid post to earn a little extra cash.
Though he wasn’t short on money now, who would ever say no to more?
With that in mind, Zhang Shan immediately made a post in the guild section, titled something like “Shocking! This is how guild challenges are really fought in the New World,” and set the price at ten copper coins per view.
With that done, he turned to his real task—searching for monster info posts.
There were a dizzying number of posts about monsters on the forum, so Zhang Shan tried filtering for monster skills to see if any had life-steal.
He found nothing—maybe some monsters did, but if the posts didn’t highlight it, he couldn’t filter them out.
He decided to filter by monster level instead, pulling up every post about monsters above level thirty.
He began reading through them one by one.
Not all monsters had passive skills; most low-level monsters only had active skills.
Monsters with passives were rare.
After sifting through dozens of posts—most of which were useless or purely speculative with no stats listed—he finally found something promising.
Hmm? These ant monsters looked interesting. Like the rabbits in the starter village, they had a passive that boosted attack power.
Demonic Giant Army Ant: Level forty, attack power 2400, HP 12,000, skill: Ant Strength (Passive).
Ant Strength (Passive): Greatly increases attack power.
Though tiny, ants are naturally strong, able to lift dozens of times their own weight.
This skill looked great—probably just like the rabbit’s passive: if he could get it, it would boost his attack by 10%.
Right now, his attack was already 3800; a 10% boost would add nearly 400 more—more than most mediocre accessories could ever give.
He’d have to figure out a way to get this skill.
But these army ants were high-level; at level forty, they were fifteen levels above him.
With that much level suppression, most of his damage would be reduced.
He might not be able to handle it, especially if the army ants were packed together.
Still, he made a note to check it out once his red name faded.
He had to at least try—even if it was slow going, he was so far ahead in level that he wasn’t worried about being caught up for now.
Besides, another powerful passive would be invaluable down the line.
He hadn’t found a life-steal passive, but an attack-boosting skill was a decent consolation.