Lin Miao noticed that there was something off about the ants he kept.
To be precise, the entire insect colony he had raised from scratch had been acting downright bizarre lately.
He had been raising this colony for nearly a year, starting with just over a dozen test-tube queens and gradually expanding them to their current scale.
They hadn't died out or declined; instead, they had steadily expanded, long outgrowing their initial test-tube and plaster nests.
In the exact center of his living room sat a terrarium he had designed and built with his own hands.
The substrate was thirty centimeters deep, planted with moss and nerve plants, and even equipped with professional grow lights.
Every time Lin Miao looked at this decent-looking little world, a massive wave of accomplishment washed over him.
He had planned it all out: once the colony stabilized a bit more, he would film some of their daily routines and upload them online to make a bit of extra pocket money.
But over the past half-month, something strange had started happening.
The colony's feeding speed had surged by more than threefold.
The fish food he had topped up the day before would be completely gone by the next morning.
Yet, strangely, the number of ants he saw on the surface hadn't spiked at all; they looked exactly the same as before.
While the soil terrarium was great for the ants, it also made it impossible for him to see what was actually happening underground.
Lin Miao scratched his head, not thinking too deeply about it.
“A healthy appetite is a blessing. It's better than them dying off.”
He picked up the container of mealworms and tapped the glass wall of the terrarium with a smile. “I'm giving you guys a special treat today.”
Ever since the colony had grown stronger, their hunting capabilities had also improved by leaps and bounds.
He no longer needed to chop up the mealworms. If he tossed them in alive, the worker ants would swarm them and drag them into the tunnels in the blink of an eye.
Just as the last mealworm vanished into a crevice in the soil.
Without any warning, a line of text glowing with a faint golden light abruptly floated before Lin Miao's eyes like a projection.
【The inhabitants of the otherworld are growing fearful of your servants.】
Lin Miao froze instantly.
Only one thought occupied his mind: Am I seeing things?
Before he could even rub his eyes, new lines of text popped up one after another, quickly filling his vision.
【Extreme fear and awe obtained.】
【Divine Net initiating...】
【*Abnormal awakening detected. Some functions have been restricted.】
“Are you kidding me?! What the hell is this?!”
Startled, Lin Miao took a step back and waved his hands wildly in front of his face, but the text seemed to be burned onto his retinas, remaining completely still.
He closed his eyes tightly, then snapped them open.
The text was still there.
He rushed to the bathroom and splashed cold water onto his face. Looking up into the mirror, the golden text still hovered right before his eyes.
After messing around for a full five minutes, Lin Miao finally discovered an astonishing fact: the text actually moved with his thoughts.
Just like operating a smartphone screen, if he wanted it to go left, it went left; if he wanted it to shrink, it shrunk.
“This isn't a hallucination...”
Lin Miao's heart pounded wildly as his gaze locked onto the only clear option on the interface.
【View Servants】
He instinctively selected it with his mind.
The dense wall of text vanished instantly.
In its place, a real-time video feed hovered before him.
The screen was pitch black, showing only countless wriggling shadows moving slowly.
【Night Vision available.】
A small line of text popped up.
With a thought, Lin Miao activated it.
The darkness suddenly receded.
The moment he saw the scene before him, Lin Miao gasped and froze in his tracks.
This was the ant nest beneath the soil.
It was the true underground kingdom he had nurtured for a year but had never seen with his own eyes.
Crisscrossing tunnels branched out in all directions, with countless worker ants bustling about in an orderly fashion.
The nursery chambers were packed with milky-white eggs and larvae, while soldier ants with massive mandibles patrolled the tunnel entrances.
The scale of it was far beyond his imagination.
Holding his breath, Lin Miao manipulated his perspective to move freely through the nest.
For an ant-keeping enthusiast like him, this sight was more breathtaking than any CGI blockbuster.
He followed a worker ant, gradually exploring this world he had created with his own hands, yet found completely unfamiliar.
Just then, a remote tunnel caught his attention.
This tunnel was far from the core of the nest, narrow and long, yet a steady stream of ants was shuttling back and forth through it.
They were in a great hurry, each carrying something in its mandibles.
Heart stirring, Lin Miao steered his field of view to follow them.
The next second, his pupils shrank.
His mind went blank, buzzing as it ground to a complete halt.
What those ants held in their mandibles was not the mealworms he fed them, nor was it anything he recognized.
There were severed human fingers, fingernails still attached.
There were scraps of coarse burlap stained with dark red blood.
There were also rusty metal spearheads, broken iron swords, and even dented pieces of armor.
How could these things possibly appear inside his terrarium?!
Lin Miao stared intently at the jarring sights on the screen, the blood in his veins turning to ice.
He had raised these ants for a year.
Yet, deep underground where he couldn't see, they were bringing back spoils of war from an alternate world.
Rate on N.U.
