# Chapter 44: Cornered Beast
The one who emerged from the flames was naturally the Ant King. Its current appearance could no longer be described as merely miserable.
Most of the Ant King's tail had vanished, blown off by the Destruction Finger. This tail was a crucial attack method for the Ant King, and moreover, this appendage connected to the Ant King's spine. Suddenly losing its tail would cause the Ant King to lose its sense of balance for a short time.
Compared to injuries elsewhere, the tail wound was within acceptable range. The Ant King's most severe injury at this moment was on its head.
Earlier, Su Xiao had shot the Ant King in the head, shattering a third of its cranial carapace. Now, after taking this fire-elemental bullet, the Ant King had bid farewell to its "dome hat." It was now bald.
Sometimes going bald doesn't make you stronger, as evidenced by the current Ant King. That previous bullet had actually been deflected by its head carapace; otherwise, it wouldn't have been a simple matter of "removing" the dome hat.
The Ant King pressed its hand against its head, extinguishing the flames atop it.
"Two layers of skull?"
Su Xiao observed the Ant King through his scope. After pulling the bolt, he loaded a lightning-elemental bullet into the chamber.
The Ant King was badly injured, but this was definitely not a good time to charge in. Or rather, any time could be a good time to charge in, except right now.
The Ant King had already sensed the threat of death. In its current state, the Ant King was a cornered beast. Under this life-or-death crisis, it would use any means to escape, or drag a few down with it.
The most dangerous phase of the siege against the Ant King had arrived — a cornered beast fights desperately.
As long as they could endure this phase, the Ant King would enter a weakened state. That would be the real opportunity to close in for melee combat.
Because Mizusaki had used the Ice Giant to forcibly freeze the Ant King, the Ice Giant couldn't recover in the short term.
This was quite awkward. Unless Mizusaki had water in her brain, she wouldn't engage the Ant King in melee combat now. Old Smoke also basically couldn't advance. As for Chairman Netero, he had retreated several seconds ago.
In the original work, the Chairman did perish together with the Ant King, but don't think the Chairman was cannon fodder, always willing to go die.
In the original work, the Chairman chose mutual destruction out of necessity. Given the current situation, it was clear they could resolve the Ant King without paying a tragic price, so why would he sacrifice himself? Considering the Chairman's current physical condition, he could live for several more decades. If he could break through his limits again during this time, it wasn't impossible for him to regain his former strength.
The Ant King was about to fight desperately as a cornered beast, but it suddenly noticed that the humans surrounding it had all retreated, now encircling it from a distance.
"Opportunity."
The Ant King immediately understood the situation. Enduring the burning sensation on its head, it crouched while large cracks appeared beneath its feet.
"Still haven't learned to stop that obvious charging stance even after taking a bullet."
Su Xiao chewed gum while adjusting the magnification of his scope. For predictive shooting, lower magnification had a higher success rate due to the larger field of view.
If it were Su Xiao's former marksmanship, he absolutely couldn't have hit the Ant King through predictive shooting. But now it was different. The Duke of Annihilation's embedded effect, "Balanced Order," had elevated his firearm proficiency to the Mastery level, spanning an entire rank.
Su Xiao rose from the ground and rested the Duke of Annihilation on the already prepared support. Given the current situation, his next few shots would all have to be predictive. There would be no more opportunities for "fixed target" shooting like before.
The Ant King vanished from its spot. Su Xiao immediately adjusted his aim and pulled the trigger based on instinct.
Bang!
The gunshot echoed far before dissipating, followed by a boom as the Ant King crashed headfirst into the ground, sending large clumps of earth flying high.
Su Xiao's shot had hit the Ant King's thigh. The lightning-elemental bullet was extremely fast with strong penetrating power, directly creating a fist-sized hole in the Ant King's leg.
After firing this shot, Su Xiao obtained important information: elemental bullets (lightning) weren't suitable for the current stage. The Duke of Annihilation's default ammunition was armor-piercing rounds with sufficient penetrating power. The lightning attribute was now just icing on the cake, not a timely help.
However, elemental bullets (lightning) weren't useless. When the Duke of Annihilation's attack power couldn't meet Su Xiao's needs, he could exchange for elemental bullets (lightning) to compensate for attack power with penetrating ability.
Su Xiao's shot piercing the Ant King's leg made Mizusaki and Old Smoke's eyes gleam. Both almost simultaneously had the same thought: what if that gun was aimed at them?
Chen also felt uneasy. Compared to Mizusaki and Old Smoke, his body was more fragile. Taking a shot like that, he would depart peacefully, not even needing an urn, directly turning into minced meat returning to Mother Earth's embrace.
Would Su Xiao snipe Chen and the others? The answer was of course not. Not to mention their life-saving measures, even if he killed all three, what then? Monopolize the Ant King's heart?
Killing Chen and the other two would be almost the stupidest choice. There were over a hundred contractors around the courtyard. Even if Old Smoke and the other two died, those hundred-plus would swarm in after the Ant King died.
If they could kill the Ant King, Su Xiao and the other three would indeed compete for the Ant King's heart. As Old Smoke said, grabbing the heart depended on each person's ability. This also expressed another meaning: whoever among the four grabbed the heart should best split off three small pieces. This was the minimum baseline for later cooperation.
The one who grabbed it ate meat; those who didn't drank soup. The reason for doing this was to prevent being surrounded by those hundred-plus contractors. If Su Xiao and the other three fought independently, those contractors would absolutely dare to surround any one of them.
If the four maintained cooperation, those contractors wouldn't dare to surround them anymore. Moreover, the benefits from obtaining the Ant King's heart were closely related to these hundred-plus contractors.
Getting more of the Ant King's heart wasn't necessarily better. There was an upper limit. Beyond this limit, even obtaining more heart portions was useless.
The reason the Ant King's heart was valuable was that it was extremely sought after in the Hunter world. Having it could prevent forced execution. Those contractors who didn't obtain the Ant King's heart would definitely be willing to pay dearly for it.
Since they were in a derivative world, the contractors didn't have many Paradise Coins, but they had treasure chests, freshly acquired equipment, precious materials, and even unused Soul Crystals.
As long as they had the Ant King's heart, saying they could sit back and collect money wasn't an exaggeration. But before that, they had to deal with the Ant King first.
Su Xiao breathed slowly. He stopped chewing and immediately loaded the last elemental bullet (dark) into the chamber.
The Ant King, with a wounded leg, crouched half-kneeling. A bullet flew toward it.
The Ant King instinctively tilted its body. The bullet flew past its side, ultimately embedding into the earth.
The Ant King was puzzled. It wondered why this attack was so weak. In reality, Su Xiao hadn't fired at all. This was a shot from another sniper.