Beastkin Mercenaries

How should they respond?

In Lin Miao's eyes, the more urgent battlefield was naturally the one where the enemies were already closing in on the nest.

These brand-new enemies had circled around to launch a flank attack before the main forces even clashed. They were opponents the colony had never faced before, and they had already rushed right up to the vicinity of the nest.

“Captain, don't you think something is off?” a beastkin mercenary whispered to the muscular leader.

Tux nodded and replied in a low voice, “Yes, the atmosphere is strange.”

They stopped briefly to rest, completely unaware that a scouting ant, holding its breath, was silently watching their every move from a tree.

They were all fully armed, and the exceptionally burly man in the group was Tux, whom the others addressed as Captain.

“Since a while ago, this area hasn't felt like a normal forest.”

Tux's subordinates possessed senses just as sharp as his intuition.

In reality, everything near the nest had already been completely transformed by the colony.

The nest built by countless worker ants had become a massive fortress buried deep underground and heavily reinforced on all sides. But the changes went far beyond that.

Thanks to the colony's hunting squads tirelessly sweeping the area and clearing out all prey, the local ecosystem had undergone an earth-shattering transformation.

Whether carnivore or herbivore, any beasts large enough to catch the colony's attention had long since vanished from the area.

“Captain, what if we just slip away quietly?”

One of the beastkin mercenaries grinned and suggested.

For the colony, it would undoubtedly be a wonderful thing if those allied with the goblins betrayed them and fled.

“No, we need to find out exactly what these monsters are. Karon and the other goblin chiefs have been uniting the wild goblins in this region to expand their influence.

But if those guys all die, it'll be like handing this vast land over to these monsters on a silver platter.”

However, this beastkin named Tux was clearly quite intelligent.

Having heard rumors of the ant colony from somewhere, he maintained an extremely high level of vigilance toward these unknown monsters.

Lin Miao watched the screen, sighing, “In that case, there's no choice but to fight.”

Soon, as the beastkin began to move again, the ants in the nest immediately reacted.

They would safely lure these intruders into their most effective traps, then wipe them all out in one fell swoop.

【They are intentionally drawing the enemy to the nest.】

The traps dug by the colony were scattered around the nest—in fact, the nest itself was the ultimate trap.

Thus, the beastkin naturally approached the nest and saw the massive fortress with their own eyes.

Watching the beastkin gape in utter disbelief at the sight before them, Lin Miao couldn't help but chuckle. “Quite a shock, isn't it? I was the same way at first.”

The massive fortress was built by the ants digging up dirt, crushing and mixing it with felled trees, and piling it up bit by bit.

To these beastkin, it looked like an impregnable castle.

They had probably expected a crude underground burrow, so they all recoiled in panic.

“Qu-Quick, prepare yourselves! We must not let these monsters get away!”

Sensing an impending danger, Tux turned pale and shouted a sharp warning.

Lin Miao wanted to applaud his sharp intuition, but in truth, they had already fallen into the colony's meticulously prepared trap.

“Captain! Those things are coming out of the tunnels!”

The ants surged out of the simple tunnels they had prepared in advance, instantly surrounding the beastkin.

The beastkin had been preparing to take out the oil and kindling they brought to burn down the nest, but they froze in shock as the ants instantly blocked every possible escape route.

“Damn it, everyone prepare for battle!”

Without any unnecessary testing, the battle erupted instantly.

At a glance, at least a hundred beastkin mercenaries and a swarm of ants two to three times their number locked in a brutal melee in front of the nest.

“...They're so strong.”

Watching the clash unfold, the first thought that crossed Lin Miao's mind was that the beastkin's combat power far exceeded his expectations.

“Where do you think you're going?!”

The beastkin warriors possessed physical capabilities entirely different from the goblins. With furious roars, they swung their massive axes and greatswords, instantly shattering the ants' exoskeletons.

Whether it was ordinary worker ants or ants that had undergone Tier 1 evolution and possessed harder exoskeletons, their bodies were instantly crushed and pulverized by the beastkin warriors. Their strength was truly terrifying.

The combat power of each beastkin warrior was comparable to a formal knight of the human factions.

【Your servants are surprised by the enemy's combat power.】

“If we go head-to-head, we might actually lose...” Lin Miao frowned, murmuring to himself.

The beastkin had clearly failed to form a proper formation, and Lin Miao couldn't even tell if their commander was issuing any effective orders. They were simply mixed together in a chaotic jumble, wildly swinging their weapons.

This chaos was entirely due to the colony digging traps in advance to lure the beastkin into an encirclement, allowing the close-quarters melee the ants excelled at to unfold smoothly.

Yet, even though the colony held the numerical advantage, each beastkin warrior could easily handle several ants at once, leaving the battle in a fierce deadlock.

If anything, the beastkin's morale was soaring. Their shouts and roars were not the desperate cries of the losing side, but the battle cries of warriors boosting their own and their comrades' fighting spirit.

Venomous ants were urgently deployed to the battlefield, frantically spraying their acidic venom at the beastkin.

“It's poison!”

“Protect your vitals! Even a single drop in your eyes is fatal!”

However, the powerful beastkin warriors merely covered their faces to protect their vitals, enduring the chemical burns on their bodies as they continued to fight with fearless resolve.

Some even deflected the oncoming spray using nothing but the wind pressure generated by their violent weapon swings.

While the venom was not as instantly lethal as it was against the goblins, contact with their skin still caused agonizing burns. Yet, through sheer mental fortitude, the beastkin pushed through the intense pain and fought on.

“Is this race really this powerful?”

Even Lin Miao, watching silently from the other side of the screen, was left speechless by the beastkin's incredible fighting spirit.

【Your servants worry that deploying more worker ants to replace combat casualties will cause a Growth Impediment.】

Indeed, although the enemy's formidable combat power had caught the colony somewhat off guard, there were still plenty of worker ants focused on production inside and around the nest.

However, they were worker ants in the truest sense, carrying out all the labor required to keep the entire colony running.

If these worker ants, who were like the lifeblood of the colony, were pulled into battle, the entire hive's operations would grind to a halt, and their growth would regress.

It was only natural that the colony would do everything possible to avoid such a scenario.

“They are feeling confused.”

Lin Miao could clearly feel that the entire colony, which had always made calm judgments and remained unshakable, was now plunged into unprecedented confusion.

The strength of this new enemy was simply too great. The ant colony, which had been dubbed the harbingers of doom in this region, had encountered a force stronger than themselves for the first time, pushing them to the brink of defeat.

This was an entirely novel experience for them, so feeling confused was only natural.

Because of this, Lin Miao was certain that he had to step up and guide them now.

He still remembered how they had completely run wild and lost control in the past just because they misunderstood a single sentence of his.

“Even if it causes losses, you must fight. The longer you hesitate, the greater the losses will be.”

Lin Miao spoke to the system interface, emphasizing every word.

His personal wish was for even the worker ants to be fully mobilized for the fight.

Since losses were inevitable, they should minimize the final toll; dragging things out would only make the losses mount.

【Your servants are responding to your will.】

【To completely resolve the issue, they are taking action at any cost.】

“...Huh?”

Lin Miao froze. No, even if he wanted them to fight, he hadn't told them to go this far.

“What on earth is going on here?”

Having led his men to breach the colony's nest, the beastkin captain, Tux, stared at the scene before him and muttered blankly.

Although the ants' tenacity, strength, and collective combat coordination were not to be underestimated, they were not impossible to eliminate if his men stayed focused.

Just moments ago, they had wiped out most of the defending ants.

Yet, from the depths of the nest, an endless tide of even more ants was surging out.

“They... they just keep coming!”

Even the beastkin, whose wild instincts had been awakened by the thrill of battle, began to recoil, terror washing over their faces.

The colony had completely abandoned their eggs and larvae, which required constant care. Even the second Queen Ant, who had been dispatched to the secondary nest, had halted her egg-laying duties—an activity as vital as breathing to the hive—and dragged her massive body out to join the fray in person.

“Something is wrong with these monsters!”

Guided by his sharp intuition, Tux clearly sensed that the colony's aura had completely shifted.

What he did not know was that the colony had fallen into a state of absolute frenzy in order to carry out the will of their god.

“No, retreat!”

Tux quickly made the decision to flee, but the frenzied colony had no intention of letting them go.

Shaking off these swarming giant ants and escaping was already out of the question.

Ultimately, the beastkin were forced to halt once more, locked in a desperate, life-or-death melee with the colony.

“What the hell are these things now?!”

In the midst of the chaotic battle, a new type of ant—freshly hatched from their pupae and immediately deployed—joined the fray.

They were as large as massive predatory beasts, their bodies covered in thick, armor-like exoskeletons bristling with sharp spikes.

“Are you kidding me? Their defense is way too high!”

Tux watched in shock as the dagger he had infused with magic power and thrown was deflected cleanly off a barbed ant's shell.

These were entirely different from the other ants, which he could easily cleave through with a single swing.

Against these barbed ants, he had to exert his full strength and channel a massive amount of magic power just to crack their shells and inflict minor damage.

“There... there are too many of them...”

Although the barbed ants were few in number, their arrival was enough to completely shatter the beastkin's morale.

Coupled with the reckless, frenzied onslaught of the entire colony, the beastkin fell one by one.

Tux watched helplessly as one of his screaming men was pinned down by six or seven ants from all sides, tearing at his limbs and devouring his innards.

The sheer horror of witnessing this firsthand was more impactful than a thousand words.

“We must escape! And we have to warn everyone that a disaster is brewing in the northeastern forest!”

Tux swallowed hard. Only now did he finally understand why the goblin tribes had spared no effort to form a coalition army.

He then exerted every ounce of his strength to bark a retreat order to his remaining subordinates.

Fleeing with their backs turned to the enemy was a great dishonor for the beastkin, but he could no longer afford to care about that.

Now the most important thing was to survive and spread word of these terrifying ants across the entire continent.

【Your servants will not let a single enemy escape; they will kill them all.】

Immediately, the colony began a relentless pursuit of the surviving beastkin who scattered in terror after their defeat.

Although they were Lin Miao's servants, they had not yet fully grasped the deeper nuances of their god's will. Thus, they faithfully executed the command to “eliminate all enemies with everything they had.”

They would continue their pursuit until either the fleeing enemies or they themselves collapsed from sheer exhaustion.

“Hey! Stop chasing them! Get back to work!”

Seeing that the victorious colony was not returning to the nest to resume production but was instead continuing to chase the scattered enemies, Lin Miao couldn't help but yell anxiously.

Fortunately, the Queen Ant had not personally joined the pursuit, but production within the entire nest had indeed ground to a temporary halt.

“Well, now I need to think about how to make up for this. Still, those beastkin were incredibly strong, especially considering they were just a mercenary band.”

Lin Miao, who had been pacing around the living room, finally slumped onto the sofa, staring at the shifting screen before him.

He couldn't help but blame himself; watching the colony win victory after victory had made him a bit complacent.

“I need to move faster,” Lin Miao thought to himself.

It seemed he needed to feed the colony more diverse foods, and he also planned to accelerate the introduction of different ant species to grant them brand-new abilities.

That otherworld was truly not to be underestimated.

“My bad. I shouldn't have said you guys went too far. It seems you're still far from strong enough.”

Lin Miao muttered to himself, then switched the display on the screen.

Fortunately, the main force of the mutated ant army clashing with the goblin's main army had also secured a smooth victory.

Now, more than anything else, the most pressing question was how the colony would evolve and what new abilities they would gain after reaping the spoils of this war.

After all, most of the challenges the colony currently faced could be completely resolved through predation and evolution.