Marcus stared down the swarm of ants coming right for him which was led by the weakest of the three royal guards.
'Embodiment of light'
As light enveloped Marcus' body he shot forward at an incredible speed straight towards the swarm of ants, but right before he was about to impact the first ant, he became ethereal again and slipped through the ants.
Coming out the other side Marcus turned solid once more and having already finished gathering the mana for his tier four lightning magic spell, unleashed the thunderbird strike straight for the ice ant queen.
The large mass of electricity flew at an incredible speed towards the queen ant, but the two members of her royal guard that had stayed behind to protect her moved forward to intercept the spell.
At the same time both of them shot forth a blast of the ants' signature ice acid which impacted Marcus' spell causing it to discharge well before hitting the queen.
Of course, Marcus had anticipated this as he used his speed burst to run right past the two royal guards straight for the queen.
Taking his scythe out Marcus imbued it with as much mana as the scythe could handle, before getting into a stance to strike down the queen.
Appearing right before the queen like a flash of light Marcus swung his scythe up planning to cleave her head right in half.
However, as he was bringing his scythe up a massive spear of ice appeared out of nowhere and pierced right through his torso leaving a massive gaping wound.
Marcus immediately felt the searing pain of having his body impaled and tried to jump back to a safe distance, but the queen ant swatted him away with one of her legs sending him skidding across the ground back towards the swarm of ants.
When Marcus came to a stop, he could feel his body staring to crack as a massive amount of the grey mist that was equivalent to his blood gushed out of him.
Unfortunately, he had no time to think as a horde of ants pounced on top of him determined to tear him apart.
The horde of ants moved around in a frenzy biting, stinging, and splashing around ice acid.
After a minute of carnage, the queen commanded the ants to part so she could see what was left of the intruder that dared attack her in her own chamber.
Looking at what was left, there appeared to be nothing, but the faintest scrapes of clothes and the queen was satisfied that Marcus had perished.
After that all of the ants went back to their post ready to cater to the queen's ever need, except one.
One ant was quickly crawling away, using the confusion of the situation to slip out of the queen's chamber.
This one little worker ant continued its way back up towards the exit of the nest until after ten minutes its body began shudder.
The ants body shook all around before Marcus popped out of it having exhausted the ten-minute limit he could use his possession ability each day.
Looking around Marcus noticed that there were no other ants than the one he had been possessing in the tunnel he was currently in.
Looking at the confused ice ant Marcus exerted his phantom pressure on it crushing its fragile soul.
He then quickly stored its corpse in his item box before resolidifying and slumping against the tunnel wall.
Marcus knew that this was incredibly dangerous, but he had no choice, he still had a massive gaping hole in his stomach and his HP was draining at an alarming rate.
Acting quickly Marcus used his iron threads to wrap up the hole in his gut preventing any more of his essence from leaking out.
'Ugh, I cannot remember the last time I felt this much pain, even though the pain I feel is leagues less now that I am a ghost a hole in my gut still hurts like crazy. I need to hope that no ants come down this tunnel for around an hour so I can recover enough to float out of here.'
With the immediate danger gone, and his "life" currently no longer at risk Marcus focused all of his energy on recovering from a wound that would have been instantly fatal for most.
To speed up his recovery Marcus drank every last healing potion he had in his possession as well as constantly applying his tier one healing spell to his wound, but the effects were only minor since neither the potions nor spell were meant to deal with this level of damage.
While doing his best to recover Marcus' luck ran out after ten minutes as a line of a dozen ants came down the tunnel he was in.
Quickly acting Marcus let loose a chain of consecutive fire shots incinerating each of the ants.
However, Marcus knew that this would only give him a brief respite as more ants would eventually come to investigate the scene he had made.
Struggling onto his feet Marcus went down the opposite end of the tunnel hoping to find a more secluded place where he could rest.
He dared not use his ghost form to escape right now since his iron threads would no longer block the wound in his torso and his lesser regeneration skill only worked while he was using his solid form.
Trudging along Marcus, did his best to avoid the ever increasing number of ants, but the more of them he had to kill the more the ants searched for him.
Eventually Marcus came face to face with one of the large tank sized ants along with over a dozen of the soldier ants.
Marcus knew that in his current condition he had no chance of dealing with this threat and against his plan reverted to his enteral form.
He immediately felt the wound in his torso start to leak again now that his iron threads no longer closed the wound.
Looking up towards the ceiling Marcus floated right through the ground making a beeline for the surface.
After passing through what seemed to be an endless maze of ant tunnels Marcus finally breached back into the surface just in time to see the sun set.
'Fuck, I only have around ten percent of my HP left, and I can feel my strength draining. I need to find a place to rest quickly and hope I am not found out.
Swiftly moving his head from side-to-side Marcus looked for a suitable place to hide and eventually came to the conclusion to perch on top of one of the trees he could see in the distance.
Floating along Marcus made his way towards the small patch of trees around three thousand feet away hoping to find a temporary respite.
As he approached, he could see a group of the ice ants patrolling the area, but they thankfully did not seem to be investigating the tops of the trees.
Finding the tallest tree Marcus carefully positioned himself on a sturdy branch that was obscured from the ground and once again returned to his physical body.
Once he had made sure that he would not fall he reclosed the wound using his iron threads, and Marcus for the first time in a while felt the need to sleep.
He then slowly closed his eyes feeling that his strength was exhausted and went to sleep lamenting his big mistake of attacking the ice ant queen.