Ch.113 The Rise of an Ant

    The growth of her colony brought her great happiness and she hated for it to slow. So as a result of this, the brave adventurers that dared to try their luck in The Burning Nines, often didn’t come back.

    However, she couldn’t say that the power she gained wasn’t worth the loss in egg production.

    Ever since the day she was born, the only thing she had been able to do was produce eggs and expand her family. But this wasn’t a kind World that would allow her and her colony to just exist in peace. No, just like her the other creatures of the World needed nutrition, and her colony, which was voluminous enough to provide value but virtually defenceless, was the perfect prey.

    And although it was only the smaller and weaker creatures like the rats and the ferrets that actually cared about the nutritional value that they could provide, it wasn’t rare for the stronger Beasts to kill them just to keep their territories looking nice. After all, most beings couldn’t endure the nauseous sight of thousands of ants crawling over each other.

    So, the first 2 years of life could be considered to be hell. Always running from other lifeforms and rarely ever finding something to eat. And If it wasn’t for the occasional 4 limbed creature that stood upright on 2 legs (something that the System informed her was a ‘Human’), she would have definitely perished long ago. The fact that something that was even bigger than the rats was so weak used to always puzzle her, but she didn’t care.

    They may have been stronger than an individual ant, but they were unable to defend themselves against the combined might of the colony. So they became food. They and the other insectoid creatures were the only things that they could eat, so eat they would.

    But unlike all the Ant Queens that had come before her, she had possessed a sharper intellect along with a burning desire to devour her oppressors. All she needed was just a single chance.

    But fuelled by a surge of desperation, the Ant Queen made multiple attempts to find a soft spot that she could take advantage of. The thigh, the chest, the nose, the tongue, but nothing worked.

    ...Until she tried the large gash mark on the back of the Deer’s left hind thigh.

    Indeed...

    The thought of trying one of the open wounds on the carcass had not once crossed the Ant Queen’s mind. But to be fair, it was to be expected. She had been trying to tear off a chunk of flesh to swallow it herself, so the location she took a bite from shouldn’t really have mattered. And indeed it didn’t, the bite that she took at the wound failed just like the rest, but when the hot blood gushed into her mouth, all thoughts of flesh vanished.

    And not for any good reason.

    ...

    The pain of consuming the blood of Spirit Beast that had an affinity with fire was something that she struggled to recount even till this day. It puzzled her because she had a FANTASTIC memory, but she suspected that the severe reaction that she had to the blood had never actually stored itself in her memories in the first place. But that was foolish, was it not?

    She didn’t really know, but she did remember that instead of retreating quickly when she had regained her bearings, the 2 year old-foolishly-brave version of herself started charging towards the remains of what used to be a Rigid Stone Bear.