“Yes, this is a logical choice,” Lin Miao thought to himself.
The ant colony was always starving for food. They constantly expanded their massive nest in all directions while sending out scouts and hunting parties to broaden their territory. All of this was within Lin Miao's expectations.
Furthermore, their decision to head south, where human presence had been confirmed, rather than west, which remained uncharted territory to them, was a natural and logical progression.
To the ants, the human forces—whom they had already fought once and whose “nest” they had even captured—were much easier to deal with than the beastkin who had once struck terror into the colony.
【The Queen Ant has utilized past experiences and newly consumed traits to find a more effective way to use the venomous ants' toxins】
“As expected, it's venomous stingers,” Lin Miao muttered under his breath, looking at the system prompt.
The new ant species he had painstakingly acquired and introduced after the leafcutter ants was another exotic type known as the bullet ant.
They were a notorious species that used their stingers to inject potent venom.
Now, having broken free from the endless swamp of forced egg-laying, the first-generation Queen Ant had become the brain of the colony, specializing in evolution and bloodline refinement.
She did not stop at simply mass-producing bullet ants. Instead, she constantly combined genes in an attempt to engineer even stronger soldier ants.
“How utterly monstrous,” Lin Miao marveled as he stared at the newborn ant species on the screen.
The Queen Ant had clad the soldier ants in the armor of barbed ants and modified those spikes into venomous stingers, creating a massive and incredibly fierce new type of soldier ant.
In addition, there were variants that merely replaced the barbed ants' spikes with venomous stingers, and others whose stingers grew on their heads instead of their abdomens to be used during charges.
It was safe to say that all kinds of chimeric ant forms were springing up like mushrooms after a rain.
Every time Lin Miao recorded their characteristics, he was left astonished.
Among these newly born hybrid species, those deemed inefficient were quickly weeded out by natural selection, while the highly efficient variants received further improvements.
Even someone like Lin Miao, who constantly recorded their changes, was barely able to keep up with the speed of their evolution.
Yet, the first-generation Queen Ant and the entire colony managed to naturally master and utilize all of it.
【Your servants have officially begun their hunt】
Immediately after, these reinforced combat forces were divided into hundreds of hunting parties. They swarmed out of the forest and began sweeping through the southern plains.
And their victims were the humans living together in villages.
“They're crossing the river! Everyone, gather together! Run!”
“Hurry, run!”
On the screen, the residents of an unnamed village appeared, trying to fend off the hunting party.
Living by the river in a barren borderland, they had likely built fairly sturdy wooden fences and prepared basic weapons.
However, the ant colony currently surging toward them was fundamentally different from ordinary bandits or packs of magical beasts.
As the one who facilitated their rapid reproduction and evolution, Lin Miao knew this better than anyone.
“It's too late! Let's fight them to the death!”
“Take your positions! Fire!”
Perhaps because the river flowed slowly but was relatively wide, the villagers had let their guard down and failed to escape in time.
Watching the ants form a dense raft with their own bodies to cross the river, the villagers had no choice but to prepare for a desperate battle.
【Your servants have determined that their numbers and resistance are negligible】
However, in the eyes of the ant colony, which had gone through multiple wars and accumulated extensive combat experience, the villagers' resistance was futile and fragile.
No matter how they roared in resistance, the ants advanced without the slightest hesitation.
Even when their companions were struck by arrows and fell, they would trample over the corpses and press forward.
Even if they fell into traps and went off course, they would use their bodies to form bridges so their companions could pass safely.
Particularly those mutated soldier ants, clad in barbed ant armor and wielding venomous stingers, were practically mobile siege engines now.
With a single powerful slam of their bodies, earthen walls would collapse with a crash. Those holding spears in an attempt to block them would instantly be sent flying, coughing up blood.
It took a hunting party of several hundred ants less than two hours to completely wipe out a village.
The only survivors were those who had run for their lives from the very beginning.
Those who failed to escape, regardless of age or gender, were thoroughly slaughtered.
Concepts like playing with or abusing prey simply did not exist for the ants.
No matter who it was, once they fell into the ants' grasp, they were impartially reduced to lumps of flesh.
“Villages are no longer a challenge for them,” Lin Miao observed silently.
His side had won, but he felt no joy. People were dying, but he felt no sorrow.
This was a one-sided invasion, and the result was a one-sided massacre.
If Lin Miao wanted to, he could have easily looked away or turned off the screen to do something else, but he did not.
Because turning a blind eye would not change what had already happened.
“Sigh...”
Lin Miao walked out of his house, took a deep breath of the outdoor air, and lit a cigarette he had quit long ago.
He thought he had grown accustomed to such scenes, but that was not the case.
Of course, the ant colony had no need for such complex emotions, and strictly speaking, neither did he.
After all, when it came down to it, Lin Miao and the ant colony were merely engaging in a struggle for survival with everything they had.
However, if the ant colony's intelligence grew higher in the future and they could eventually communicate normally, whether they would still completely obey him remained a massive question mark.
“No. Because of this, I must make sure the ant colony obeys me in the future! Since fate has already bound us together, I must make them my exclusive subordinates.”
Lin Miao made up his mind.
There was a world of difference between being unable to understand his words due to cognitive limitations, and being able to understand them perfectly but choosing to ignore them.
Currently, it was the former. But if it became the latter, the situation would become irreversible, spiraling into the worst possible scenario. He could absolutely not let that happen.
“Answer me this. Do beings like gods—or more precisely, their servants—also exist in the world I am currently in?” Lin Miao asked the system in his mind.
【Gods can elevate their Divine Status through numerous servants and their sphere of influence, which is their territory. Acquiring more territory is their most crucial objective. A god without territory or servants will lose their Divine Status and perish】
This system, which was supposedly created by the Creator God for his descendants, was already being used by numerous gods scattered across the universe.
Hearing the system's response, Lin Miao's gaze darkened.
If acquiring more servants and territory was a god's duty, then what was the origin of the monsters that had suddenly opened spatial rifts and invaded Earth one day?
Just as Lin Miao's ant colony was sweeping through the otherworld, could the monsters that once ravaged Earth have nothing to do with the existence of gods?
“If this speculation is true, what should I do?” Lin Miao's fists clenched involuntarily.
Those monsters were his sworn enemies, having taken everything from him when he was a child.
Though he was currently just a powerless ordinary human, his insistence on joining the company back then was precisely for this reason.
He hoped that every small action he took would serve as the beginning of his revenge against those creatures.
Inside Count Roland's castle, a large crowd had gathered, and the hall was filled with clamor.
“The borderlands have been reduced to scorched earth! There are no surviving villages left!”
“Those monsters have deployed multiple units! Each unit ranges from a hundred to three hundred beasts. They are practically painting the entire region in the color of death!”
These speakers were messengers sent by lords whose territories were directly threatened by the ant colony that had begun its southward march.
Having heard the reports brought by the fleeing refugees, everyone was gripped by sheer terror.
“As expected, those creatures aren't the type to be satisfied with just that.”
Celia stood among the crowd. The very people who had refused to listen to her before were now in a panic, running around like headless chickens.
The onslaught of the ant colony was just that shocking; their known numbers had already reached several thousand.
Furthermore, even accounting for some exaggeration in the survivors' descriptions of the ants, they were far stronger and more ferocious than what Celia had witnessed before.
“How could this happen...”
Count Roland was also in complete disarray.
He had originally thought that playing the role of a balancer and preserving his own forces' strength would be enough. He never expected an external enemy to suddenly appear and threaten the very foundation of the entire region.
“My Lord Count, did I not tell you? All the lords must unite immediately to stop those monsters!” Celia said calmly, looking at Count Roland.
“There's no denying it. The fact that those monsters are only starting to appear now... does it mean the goblins have been completely wiped out?” the domain's administrator couldn't help but ask.
Celia nodded and replied in a heavy voice, “Yes. They have already eliminated the goblins who competed with them in the forest, and now they are marching south in search of new prey.”
“Mhm...” Count Roland let out a wordless grunt and fell into deep thought.
Although he was a greedy man who still coveted Celia despite his advanced age, he was by no means a fool.
“Then what exactly do the other lords plan to do? I hear they can't even defend their own territories. Do they really have the spare forces to form a coalition army and crusade against those monsters?” Count Roland scanned the room and asked in a low voice.
“Well...” Hearing this, everyone exchanged troubled glances, unable to find an answer.
Someone suggested in a whisper, “Perhaps we could hire adventurers who specialize in hunting magical beasts...”
Moreover, even if Count Roland wanted to step forward and devise a countermeasure, there were simply too many insurmountable practical difficulties.
Getting the rival lords to agree to a peace treaty and pool all their strength into defense was no easy task to begin with.
And going beyond defense to actively strike at the ant colony's nest—the source of the disaster—was as difficult as climbing to the heavens.
“My Lord Count! S-Someone has arrived from the capital!”
At that very moment, unexpectedly, the people who could provide a solution had actually come knocking on their door—and they were from the kingdom's central government, with whom contact had once been lost.
“Who is it?” Celia's heart skipped a beat as she wondered to herself.
Ever since the royal family, the core of the kingdom, lost its authority, the lords across the land had begun ruling their territories independently.
The central government was no exception. In fact, the most brutal and bloody battles had taken place right in the heart of the kingdom.
The people arriving now were those who had rapidly squeezed out other factions in the capital to become the new center of power.
Celia couldn't help but gasp as she watched a tall, handsome, blonde man slowly walk in.
“Count Roland, the atmosphere here is simply dreadful.”
The blonde man spoke with a smile, his tone carrying a hint of nonchalance.
“Why has a representative of His Grace the Grand Duke come all the way here?”
Count Roland asked warily, maintaining a high level of vigilance toward these people who might very well become his new superiors in the future.
“To subjugate the evil monsters surging down from the north, of course.”
The man spoke with absolute composure, revealing a piece of shocking news.
Not only Count Roland, but even Celia's eyes widened in astonishment.
“Has... has the news already reached the capital?” Count Roland stammered in shock.
Hearing Count Roland's words, the blonde nobleman who introduced himself as Daniel curled his lips into a smile and made an even more shocking statement:
“Count Roland, you may not be aware, but those monsters are by no means simple magical beasts. They are the servants sent by an evil god, an enemy that everyone must unite to fight. Therefore, please prepare yourselves for battle.”
With matters having escalated to this point, the other lords, who were already driven into a corner by the ant colony, had absolutely no way of refusing Daniel's proposal.
“The central government will dispatch more reinforcements, but much of the burden will still need to be borne by you. In exchange, we will show you something new.”
Just like that, Daniel instantly seized complete control of the room.
He drew his sword, its blade glowing with a brilliant golden light, showcasing the power he relied upon to everyone present.
“The forces of the evil Outer God shall be swept away before this holy light.”
This was a power fundamentally different from the magic power that humans could possess.
Staring at the sword radiating that dazzling and noble light, the surrounding crowd instantly broke into a commotion.
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