"Die!! Die!!!"

Roaring Ooyama descended upon Makoto's position, raising his thunder hammer to obliterate the smaller guy.

As for me, I scratched my head and wondered what it was with antagonists and their clichés of yelling at their opponents to die. Like, seriously? Couldn't they think of a more original insult or something?

Makoto wasn't fazed by Ooyama's approach. He merely tossed his knife to the ground, piercing the dirt. Reaching for his cup of tea on the wooden table he had conjured earlier, he shook his head and clicked his tongue.

"Tsk.."

With a single, fluid motion, he flung his cup of tea at his knife, which was protruding from the earth. The tea splashed against the small weapon and immediately vaporized into wisps of ethereal green mana.

"Eh?!"

Ooyama was stunned by the sudden surge of green mana, which solidified in front of him. A massive, solid wall of wood formed before the berserk God of Thunder, crackling with green mana, but Ooyama didn't hesitate and smashed his thunder hammer against the wooden barrier. The massive weapon slammed into the thick wood with a thunderous roar.

However, brute force couldn't prevail over the supple, gigantic tree that had sprang to life. To my surprise, I saw that the gigantic tree was very similar to my Redwood Robe in that it had several layers of defensive enchantments.

Unable to break through the thick, solid wood, Ooyama jumped back, thanks to Newton's third law. By attempting to exert a tremendous amount of force, he ended up having an equal and opposite power reacting against him.

Both Sanada and Makoto watched the stunned Ooyama quietly, even as he struggled to comprehend what had just happened.

"A tree? How are you able to summon such a thing with such low levels?!"

Sanada ignored the raving Ooyama and glanced at Makoto, amused.

"Oh? You're going to use that ability to end this fight?"

"Shut up," Makoto snapped as he swung his knife toward his left. Spinning his knife in his left hand, he narrowed his eyes as green mana flowed around him. "Summon ability.." he mused as he brought his knife to his lips, almost as if to play it.

He's a summoner too? I gaped at him.

"Divine Fire Ants."

Ooyama jerked up at that. "Ants?!"

As if on cue, a stream of bright red fire ants began crawling out of the woodwork..I mean gigantic tree. From nestled holes, gaps and crevasses, fire ants began flooding out and crawling over the withered bark like a tide of crimson fire.

I half-expected the fire ants to crawl over Ooyama, but he was too far away and the fire ants didn't seem to want to leave the tree. Instead, they crawled all over the tree, flapping their bright red wings (huh, I was pretty sure ants didn't have wings, so these must be special type of ants) and covering the gigantic tree in a fiery carpet.

"Oh? The tree is transforming into ants?"

Suzuki glanced at the tree, which was disappearing under the endless swarm of fire ants, intrigued. I shook my head.

"No..the ants are eating that tree."

If I didn't magnify my glasses and zoom in, I wouldn't be able to see the individual ants. In fact, with normal vision, all I could see was a tree being consumed by fire, the vivid colors of crimson and orange resembling that of an inferno.

"Ugh.."

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Some distance away, Nishida stirred, having been flung against a mountain rock against his will. Rubbing his head, which throbbed incessantly, Nishida groaned and sat up. Blinking, he caught sight of the swarm of fire ants and his eyes bulged from shock.

"Shit..what are those?!"

"Makoto, did you make a move as well?"

Aoyama was staggering to his feet as he continued to heal himself with his restoration spells, soothing green mana permeating his wounded body. I nodded, staying back with both Lilith and Hoshizaki.

"Seems like Makoto's ants need to eat wood before they fight."

Makoto continued to play his wooden flute, which had completely transformed from a knife and into a shifting musical instrument. Wisps of green mana flowed from his flute and drifted leisurely toward the fire ants.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

However, despite the swarm of fire ants surrounding him, Ooyama was more amused than afraid. None of the ants could penetrate the God of Thunder aura that shrouded his massive body, the powerful electricity keeping them at bay.

"Your little ants are useless!" Ooyama sneered. Makoto merely smiled and transformed his flute back into his knife.

"It's time to end things."

Then hurry up and end it instead of looking all smug and gloating! You want to give Ooyama a chance to counterattack or something?

Makoto lifted a finger toward his lips, and whispered. I spotted a small fire ant perched on his finger, flapping its wings a little as it listened.

Interesting..

I adjusted the magnification on my glasses and zoomed in on the fire ant. To my surprise, the readings in my glasses were going off the charts. Apparently, the sensors could detect an increase in body temperature and fire mana.

Makoto was smiling as he offered an explanation.

"Divine Fire Ants eat wood to preserve them as fuel.."

"Eh?! What's going on?!"

Even the slow and stupid Ooyama realized that something was amiss as the fire ants surrounded him, their mana signatures and temperature surging. Perspiration rolled off his body in streams as he glanced around, despite being protected by his God of Thunder ability.

The fire ants ignored his surprise and continued to swarm all over him mercilessly. Batting their wings, they crawled all over his God of Thunder aura, their only increasing mana protecting them from the deadly electric field that wreathed Ooyama's body. Within a minute, Ooyama's God of Thunder was completely engulfed in a fiery cloak of insects.

"The bomb is ready."

I had no idea why Makoto was trying to act cool, but I decided against saying anything. Keeping quiet, I watched as he cocked his hand back, the knife in his hand crackling with flames. In an instant, I suddenly understood what he was trying to do.

This can't be good..

In a swift motion, Makoto threw his knife at the massive figure of Ooyama's God of Thunder, which was now carpeted in fire ants. His aim was true, the flaming knife striking one of the fire ants adhering to the lightning aura and breaking it apart.

The flames ignited the wooden fuel inside the fire ant, the wooden fuel that the insect had consumed earlier.

The fire ant exploded, setting up a chain reaction that ignited the other fire ants. The surrounding fire ants also went up in flames, which sparked even more explosions that swept across the entire sea of milling insects.

"Shit! They're exploding!"

Beads of perspiration ran down Ooyama's face when he saw the explosions battering against his God of Thunder aura. No matter how powerful his defensive God of Thunder aura was, there was no way it could withstand multiple, repeated explosions of this magnitude – especially when they were all combined at the same moment.

With a howl, Ooyama vanished in a tremendous explosion that swept across the valley.

However..

"Phew. It's good that Ooyama didn't die from that explosion."

Sanada sighed in relief as snowflake-shaped mana scattered around him.

"Tsk, it's because you saved him."

Makoto sounded irritated as he glared at Sanada, who was holding his bell up and casting an ice spell that poured out of it.

The frozen body of Ooyama crashed against the ground, crumpling into an undignified and unconscious heap.

Interesting.

Without thinking, I used Absolute Appraisal on Sanada. I had planned to use it on Makoto, but Sanada had stepped into my view, inadvertently blocking Makoto from my ability. No matter. I would have plenty of chances later.

Name: Sanada Hiroyuki

Species: Human

Job/Rank: Ice Lord/Hero

Special Abilities: Frost Armor, Ice Sculpt, Absolute Zero

Nishida's eyes widened at the sight when he understood what had just happened.

"Sanada casted an ice armor enchantment on Ooyama to save him from the explosion!"

Sanada turned to Makoto and waved his overflowing bell to rebuke his smaller classmate, but he maintained his cool tone.

"They're here to send an invitation, so it may be better if we go easy on them."

At his statement, the ice armor cracked and the now awake Ooyama spilled out, lightning crackling around his body. As he toppled helplessly onto the ground, Makoto approached him, his leather boots crunching against the ground.

Before Ooyama could sit up, Makoto already had his knife at the big guy's throat, preventing him from moving.

"Remember, every member of Iron Knights here won't lose a battle to even the elite members of our class. I don't care if you're Kobayashi's Elite or whatever, we're no inferior in strength to any of them."

Nishida still couldn't wrap his mind around what had just transpired.

"What's going on!? Shidou should still be quite a low level. How is his special ability so powerful?! It doesn't make sense! It's not normal!"

You guys are way too reliant on this whole level thing. Strength couldn't be quantified and measured by something as rigid and inflexible as "levels". The whole lower level couldn't beat higher level thing made less sense to me.

"Oh, looks like those two are elementalist-type heroes."

Unfortunately, for them, their feats had caught Suzuki's attention and he was looking at them with deep interest.

Lightning crackled around him as he jumped up to confront them, exuding a terrifying aura that saturated the battlefield.

"But don't you're carrying that joke a bit too far? It's not funny, you know? To actually say that you won't lose to the elite heroes of our class."

It seemed that even among the heroes in my former class, there was a disparity or class difference. There were heroes who were extremely strong such as Kobayashi and Suzuki, and there were the lower-level heroes who were less renowned.

"Even if I'm not Kobayashi, there is still too much of a difference in our strengths!"

With a swing of his spear, Suzuki conjured up a gigantic thunderstorm. A bolt of lightning leaped out from the heavens and smashed against the face of the mountain, leaving a blackened, smoldering scar on the rock.

"No way.." Aoyama murmured.

"He can control the weather itself?!" Lilith gasped.

"Suzuki's abilities seem to have leveled up again," Makoto grumbled bitterly as he glared up at the churning thunderclouds.

"Kekeke."

Suzuki was chuckling as he watched all of our stunned reactions.

"I, Suzuki Shirou, am at level 999. I'm the closest hero to hit the level 1,000 mark."

Just missing one more level to hit level 1,000..couldn't he do that by grinding or something? You know, defeating a random demon or whatever.

"Come, let's fight!"

With a manic grin, Suzuki unleashed the full force of his heroic aura, weighing us down with tremendous pressure.

This is..a strengthening technique!?

I was forced to jump back before a lightning spear pierced the ground where I stood just a millisecond earlier. Glancing around, I saw that the others were all in the same dilemma, evading a barrage of lightning spears.

"Whoa.."

I watched Suzuki warily. Even though he physically didn't change, I could tell that he had boosted his raw power by at least ten times. It was almost as if he was appropriating Ooyama's Berserker technique for himself.

"Scary..how scary.."

"What is that?!" Aoyama murmured. Sanada and Makoto were both staring at the lightning-clad Suzuki in shock.

Ooyama wasn't the God of Thunder. The true God of Thunder was Suzuki Shirou himself. Gigantic bolts of lightning splayed all over his area, conjured by the enormous thunderstorm that was brewing above him.

"Tanaka!"

Completely oblivious to the tremendous change in weather that he had brought about, Suzuki was focusing all his attention on me. A single lightning bolt slammed into the place where I stood, arcing off his spear in an almost casual manner.

Staggering back, I chewed on my lip as I rested my gaze upon Suzuki's fearsome incarnation. Lightning continued to dance about him, reducing the area around him into a blackened crater. Golden electricity trickled and buzzed about his lithe, deadly form before culminating into a dragon-like shape that curled around his super-long spear.

"Let me see your true strength."

"This guy..he has the weather completely under his control," Lilith muttered as she watched Suzuki in awe. "As expected of one of Evelyn's Chosen.."

"Suzuki-kun's..completely different from before," Hoshizaki remarked, turning deathly pale as she watched the immense amount of lightning that wreathed the lead delinquent's muscular physique. Though not as large as Ooyama, Suzuki still gave off a feeling that made me instinctively fear him. He wasn't just about raw power but raw talent and ability.

"Kekeke."

Suzuki raised a hand. Above, the lightning from the thunderclouds descended and dispersed into countless golden bolts, each taking the form of an electric spear. With a single motion, Suzuki spun all the lightning spears so that they were aimed straight at me.

Lightning crackled around Suzuki's hands and fingers as he directed his barrage of lightning speas. He smirked, pausing dramatically as if to tease us.

"Thousand Divine Lightning Spears."

Why the fuck are you telling us the name of your technique? I wondered, annoyed.

The lighting spears began to glow even more fiercely at his words, and the static electricity generated grew so massive I was beginning to feel numb.

"Every minute, a thousand lightning spears will descend upon you all."

With a swing of his hand, Suzuki unleashed a devastating bombardment of lightning spears that sailed toward us. Countless electric projectiles rained down on the rocky terrain, leaving scorched craters and fuming holes.

Lilith, Hoshizaki, the others and I were all forced to run for our lives as the lightning spears relentlessly bombarded us.