As Oliver watched the battle unfolding around the golden pear, he suddenly noticed something strange.

All around the clearing, especially near the roots of the trees, there were countless tiny holes scattered throughout the ground. They were so small that most people probably wouldn’t even notice them.

At first, it didn’t seem important but then Oliver narrowed his eyes as something about them felt odd.

Beside him, Korre glanced over briefly before returning her attention to the battlefield.

Seeing Oliver staring toward the ground, she simply assumed he was trying to figure out some route through the beasts. After all, that was exactly what she was doing herself.

But, then Oliver saw movement near the tree as a tiny creature crawled out from one of the holes.

It was an ant or at least something that resembled an ant.

It was a tiny red colored ant which had a dark shell carried faint metallic patterns and it size was slightly larger than a normal ant.

’An ant?’

He was still staring at them, but then more of these tiny creatures started coming out of the holes.

These ants weren’t emerging from just one of the holes hole, they were emerging from all of them.

A nearby fox-like beast suddenly noticed one of the creatures climbing onto its leg.

With an annoyed growl, it casually crushed the ant beneath its paw. The beast didn’t seem concerned in the slightest for about two or about three seconds.

But then hundreds, no, Thousands of the ants surged out from beneath the earth.

The fox barely had time to react before the swarm engulfed it, due to which, the beast immediately began howling.

It rolled across the ground while desperately trying to tear the ants away from its body, but there were simply too many of them. They crawled through its fur, onto its face, and into every gap they could find.

The fox smashed itself into a nearby tree as its desperate screams echoed throughout the clearing.

’What the hell.’

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only victim as a second beast suddenly began panicking and soon after a third.

The ants were basically everywhere now.

Korre had noticed the commotion too, however, unlike Oliver, however, she hadn’t been paying attention to the ground earlier. And as most of these tiny beasts directly went into the other beast’s fur, she was unable to see the ants.

From her perspective, all she saw was a perfectly healthy beast suddenly begin throwing itself against trees for seemingly no reason.

"What is happening?" she whispered to which Oliver pointed toward the ground.

"The ants."

"The what?"

"The ants."

Korre followed his gaze and only then did she finally notice the creatures who were pouring out of the earth from every direction.

And there were far more of them than either of them had initially realized.

Most of the weaker beasts were overwhelmed almost immediately due to which the battlefield gradually descended into even greater chaos as the weaker beasts tried to escape from the army of ants.

Oliver watched everything with wide eyes.

For the first time, he was witnessing quantity overcoming quality.

Oliver’s eyes followed the countless ants pouring out from the ground.

’Do these ant beasts also have soul cores? Can I get essence shards from them? And what about inheritances?’

There were so many of them. Literally hundreds and maybe even thousands.

For a brief moment, Oliver genuinely considered jumping into the battlefield and killing a bunch of them as the ants were very weak individually.

But then he looked at the unfortunate fox beast that was already dead and his enthusiasm immediately disappeared.

The ants might be weak alone, but there was nothing weak about a swarm of thousands.

Moreover, Oliver wasn’t interested in finding out how it felt to become their next meal.

’Yeah... maybe another time.’

His greed sure was great but his survival instincts were even greater.

Then something else caught his attention.

Amongst the struggling beasts was a creature who resembled a leopard.

It was relatively smaller than it’s normal counterpart back on Earth.

Moreover, unlike any leopard Oliver had ever seen, strange gills protruded from both sides of its neck and bright orange flames occasionally erupted from its mouth as it tried to burn away the ants surrounding it.

The bizarre sight made Oliver blink.

’An amphibian?’

The beast released just as quick another burst of fire, instantly incinerating dozens of ants.

Oliver scratched his head.

’But how the fuck does it use fire?’

Korre, too, was staring at the leopard with her mouth slightly open and Oliver had to admit... 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

She looked surprisingly cute when she was confused.

Her eyes remained fixed on the strange leopard-like beast as it released another burst of flames and incinerated dozens of ants.

For several seconds, she simply stared and then she pointed at it.

"How is an amphibian doing that?"

For several seconds he too simply stared at the flaming gilled leopard before letting out a sigh.

"Haah."

"The Spirit Realm really doesn’t give a shit about our logic, does it?"

Goldie suddenly pushed against Oliver’s head and began pointing frantically toward a particular section of the battlefield.

Following the squirrel’s gaze, Oliver quickly noticed what it was trying to show him and there really was an opening.

Most of the beasts were currently occupied fighting either the ant swarm or each other. The giant serpent was busy crushing anything that came near it while the bulldog was surrounded by dozens of ants.

And so, very few eyes were paying attention to that side of the tree anymore.

Goldie pointed again, this time even more aggressively.

Oliver let out a slow breath as he sighed.

’Come on...Oliver...man up.’

His gaze shifted toward the golden pear hanging from the branch before he looked back at Korre.

"I’m going."

Korre immediately frowned as she looked at him.

"What?"

"I’m going."

"Are you insane?"

"Probably."

Before she could continue arguing, Oliver pointed toward the countless ants spreading throughout the battlefield.

"Just keep those things away from me."

Korre looked as though she wanted to physically drag him back, as she tried to grab his hand, but unfortunately for her, Oliver had already started moving.

"Oliver! You idiot."

Keeping low, he slipped into the battlefield. with his heart pounding.

Every step he took felt dangerous. Any of the stronger beasts could kill him instantly if they noticed him, but thankfully, nobody was paying attention and in between all these strong beasts his presence basically vanished.

As Oliver moved closer to the tree, his eyes landed on the strange fire leopard once more. The creature continued releasing waves of flames while desperately preventing itself from being buried beneath ants. Looking at it, an idea suddenly appeared in Oliver’s mind.

A grin slowly formed on his face.

’Well... let’s make things worse. After all, I am the Apostle Of Disorder, aren’t I?’

Without hesitation, he activated Firecraft and a small stream of flames shot from his hand and struck a patch of burning vegetation nearby and the fire immediately began spreading.

A moment later, the leopard noticed the growing flames, and it instinctively responded with another powerful blast of its own and the two fires connected.

The result was immediate and because the leopard’s flames were vastly stronger than Oliver’s, the blaze rapidly expanded throughout that entire section of the battlefield.

’Damn! It’s surely a high graded Ravager.’

Several beasts were forced to retreat due to the ants while others became distracted by the sudden inferno and even the ants scattered away from the expanding flames as many of them died.

The battlefield, which was already quite chaotic, became even more chaotic and that was exactly what Oliver wanted.

Taking advantage of the confusion, he immediately sprinted toward the tree.

A few ants that had not yet escaped tried to jump on him, but Korre’s vines acted as a barrier between them.

His heartbeat thundered in his ears as he was about to reach the base of the golden pear tree. Looking up, he found himself staring directly at the fruit.

It was so close that he could clearly see the golden veins running across its surface.

Seeing it so close, he couldn’t help himself and he ended up rushing towards it, and then without any hesitation, Oliver jumped towards it and stretched his fingers upward.

Unfortunately, it still wasn’t enough and as he began descending back towards the ground, he thought, ’Shit.’

For a brief moment panic flashed across his face but then suddenly something wrapped around his waist.

They were vines. Korre’s vines.

Before he could react, the vines tightened and violently pulled upward.

"WOAH!"

Looking back, Oliver saw Korre standing several meters away. Her expression was strained and beads of sweat had appeared on her forehead as countless vines erupted from the ground around her.

’Hehe...Now this was the assist of the century.’

The vines continued lifting him higher and higher and as soon as the pear was in reach, without any hesitation, he stretched out his hand and grabbed it.