Rohan moved before his thoughts could fully catch up this time.

The moment the second rustle came fr0m behind them, he spun on his heel and drove his spear backward in one smooth motion, the point cutting through the air with enough force to punch clean through a solid steel wall.

Clang!

The impact jarred his entire arm. The spear hadn’t hit flesh exactly, nor bone or even armour. It was chitin!

’But to still feel the impact even after upgrading my spear... this beast must be even more formidable than the Elite Soldier ant I took care of before!’

Rohan was pleasantly surprised by this revelation. Here he thought that it’d take a while for him to actually be able to find an opponent good enough to test his strength on, thinking that he would have to wait until he returned to the outside universe and use the Association’s testing centre.

But it turns out that opportunity came much quicker than expected!

A huge shape burst out of the foliage the next instant, screeching as it deflected Rohan’s half lodged spear that had punctured its chitinous armour on the side of its head as it lunged.

Elane sprang away without needing to be told, as an attack from this beast was far more lethal to her than to Rohan. Her bow was already in her hands by the time she landed.

The thing that had been stalking them finally revealed itself in full, and the moment Rohan laid eyes on it, his expression twisted into something halfway between recognition and relief.

’It’s an Ant! But not one that I recognise...’

He and Elane did venture out in the general direction of the Firestone Forest, but they didn’t enter it directly as their direction of travel took them just off to the side of it, so they were bound to encounter beasts they hadn’t had run ins with before.

But Rohan also felt a clear sense of something else from this beast.

’It’s E rank, but only a Normal tier this time.’ Much more manageable than the previous Ant King and Queen that he took down with the single-use genetic armaments.

And also a much better target to test his strength against!

This Ant was encased entirely in a green coloured shell of chitin, and blended in amazingly with the environment surrounding it.

’This explains why we couldn’t spot it even when it revealed it’s presence by making noise.’

Even now he had to focus on it quite a bit just to be able to distinguish between it and the surrounding foliage.

It’s green shell didn’t glimmer in the afternoon light like all the other Ant-type beasts he’d encountered. But compared to the other times he was facing off against an E rank being, whether it was beast or human, he didn’t feel the same oppressive pressure at all.

There was still danger there, of course. It was still an E rank beast after all, above Rohan’s rank, and a sturdy one at that.

His now Commander tier spear was able to penetrate through its tough shell, but it wasn’t able to severely injure it in one blow.

’It’s still very much a threat to the beast though, I can guess that the limit of what my spear can harm right now would be a beast at the same level of that Ant King and Queen from before. Seems like I still need to push to evolve it to E rank after all.’

Instead of the dread an F rank would normally feel when facing off against a superior beast like this Green Ant, what flared up in Rohan’s chest was something much more straightforward.

Excitement.

"Leave this one to me." He said back to Elane.

The ant screeched and rushed him head on. Its heavy limbs tore through the undergrowth with cruel violence that would have made the old Rohan panic.

Rohan planted his feet and met the charge halfway, driving his shoulder into the side of its head with enough force to knock the entire beast off its feet.

The ant crashed into a tree, splintering bark and wood, while Elane watched from the rear in enraptured awe at the might Rohan was display, eager to achieve such a level of strength herself.

The ant wasn’t even able to leave a single scratch on Rohan in the entire process, his Molten-stone skin taking the brunt of all its impact and deflecting it perfectly.

’Nice to see that my armour lives up to its strength.’ Rohan thought, as he watched in wonder as the ant screeched from pain, as its attempt to attack him left it with molten lava sticking to its forelimbs and burning away through its armour and the fragile flesh underneath, layer by layer.

By the time the ant finished reorienting itself, Rohan’s spear had punched through those damaged front legs that were still burning in molten lava and tore them clean off.

His Molten-stone skin didn’t just increase his armour and body’s strength, it also made his body weight triple, which made his every attack that much heavier.

The beast tried to strike back, one of its remaining limbs smashing into Rohan’s side with an attack that was strong enough to flatten and dent the earth on impact.

But Rohan barely budged.

It seemed this ant, like all the others he’d encountered, wasn’t too smart and hadn’t learned its lesson from the last time it attacked him.

Another leg succumbed to that excruciating, searing pain of molten lava eating away at it.

"Oh, this is nice."

A savage grin spread across Rohan’s face.

Nobody but him knew how great the feeling of defeating a higher ranked beast in a one on one fight felt in that moment, and even Elane could only watch from the rear, with eyes practically sparkling at the amazing sight before her.

An F rank Awakened had just taken down an E rank beast, completely alone and without the help of any overwhelmingly powerful one-time-use equipment at that.

In their minds, this was a much more impressive feat than his one of killing the two E rank Elite ants, as that wasn’t truly achieved with his strength.