The Long-Face Beast

Once the initial excitement of gaining wings wore off and the enthusiasm cooled, reason once again took over.

The plan to soar through the skies has been temporarily shelved; the most important task now is to maintain the Mother Nest and rebuild the Swarm's structure.

Over the next few days, nothing happened except that the Big-Headed Ant lost varying numbers of their Super Giant ants every day.

The temporary underground base was completed yesterday. Besides Rowan and the Mother Nest's individual cells, it includes Hatching Room, storage rooms, and other facilities. In addition, there are as many as five escape routes...

After a few days of rest, the Mother Nest has basically recovered.

Rowan placed a production order immediately, with the first batch consisting of fifty Worker Ants.

This production method consumes a lot of energy, but fortunately, the Worker Ant are too small compared to the size of the Mother Nest at this time. The situation will not repeat itself, where the queen Ant Queen spewed out a single Big Black and then remained listless for over a week.

Half a day later, fifty Worker Ant ants arrived.

Immediately afterwards, an order was placed for 10,000 Insect Egg per day, which will hatch into Worker Ant, Excavator Ant, and Spy Ant.

There's no need to produce combat units in the early Swarm; with current resources, you can't afford to support them yet. Focus on getting your Engineer Ant ready first, and then play it safe and develop your forces for a while.

The base gradually got on track, and Rowan personally took on the hunting missions. Since the "Granary" was right next door, the danger was very low. The base was adding 10,000 Insect Egg every day, and after they hatched, the fifty Worker Ant could no longer take care of them.

The Mother Nest suspended orders for Insect Egg and prioritized the production of Worker Ant ants for a week. The addition of several hundred Worker Ant, while still insufficient to meet the needs of the Hatching Room, only provided temporary relief, but this was the best that could be done for now.

After several rounds of genetic optimization, the Worker Ant are now being produced at a much faster rate. If we can persevere for another ten days or so, the first batch of pupae will hatch, and the shortage of manpower will be resolved.

As for the larvae during this period, they were simply fed less frequently. They wouldn't starve to death, so there wouldn't be any major problems.

That day, Rowan had just emerged from his cave to prepare for a hunt when he noticed some unusual vibrations coming from the ground.

These tremors weren't like the earth-shattering ones that came from afar a few days ago. They were somewhat faint, indicating that the creator was not large and not far from Rowan.

The jungle has too many obstructions, making visibility extremely poor.

Rowan carefully activated his optical cloaking ability, climbed onto a nearby tree trunk, and planned to use his height advantage to observe his target.

However, the visibility from above is also poor.

The membranous wings popped out from under the elytra, and Rowan Walking Leg the tree trunk with his legs while simultaneously opening his wings and flapping them lightly a few times. Although he couldn't fly, this allowed him to glide to another tree trunk not far away.

And, without a sound.

This is a new way of using wings that Rowan discovered. He learned it by chance when he was daydreaming in the treetop and saw a creature with a flying membrane under its armpit on a taller tree in the distance.

At the time, because the distance was too far, Rowan could only vaguely see what looked like a frog or some kind of lizard, not very big, jumping down from a high place, spreading its limbs, gliding away and disappearing into the distance.

Back to the point, Rowan practiced on his own many times, just like the others. Although he didn't have the professional equipment, the membrane wings were still usable.

However, due to his weight, his gliding distance is extremely short, limited to two adjacent tree trunks, and he also needs to use jumps to help him glide.

Although it has significant drawbacks, it does add another way for him to move around, which greatly improves his safety in situations like the one he is currently facing.

After traveling about twenty meters, Rowan was surprised to find that the unknown creature was heading in his direction.

He remained still, and soon he saw the true face of the unknown creature.

This is a creature that looks somewhat like a dog, but its head is particularly long and thin, making it appear somewhat grotesque. It is over a meter tall, and its body length, including its tail, is nearly three meters. Its limbs are short and thick, with three toes on each claw, and are very strong and powerful. Its entire body is covered with grayish-brown steel-like hairs, without any armor plates.

The Long-Face Beast approached a tree near Rowan, its long nose sniffing around as if searching for something.

Rowan cautiously followed him among the tree trunks, trying to figure out what the guy was up to. The man had a physical advantage, and his skills were unknown; it wasn't wise to make any rash moves for now.

Gradually, the Long-Face Beast approached the leaf-cutter Big-Headed Ant's Leaf-Cutter Squad. Then, as if it had spotted its target, it happily ran towards the Big-Headed Ant.

As the distance closed, a nimble, slender tongue, more than half a meter long, shot out from the mouth of the Long-Face Beast. The tongue accurately struck a medium-sized Soldier Ant, then rolled it into its saliva, chewed it a few times, and with a flick of its throat, swallowed it whole.

Rowan was shocked to see this; he never expected that this dog-like fellow had actually mastered the skills of a frog.

Then he became somewhat angry.

He had long considered the Big-Headed Ant Nest next to his base his Granary. Now, wasn't this guy trying to snatch food from a tiger's mouth?

This Long-Face Beast seemed to be a seasoned expert in dealing with Big-Headed Ant, using its long tongue to ambush them from a distance. Worker Ant and Soldier Ant disappeared quickly, and the once dominant Big-Headed Ant remained completely unaware.

The flaws are too obvious, making it easy to target.

After observing for a while, Rowan realized that this Long-Face Beast seemed to have no other talents besides its tongue. Come to think of it, if this guy had many talents and outstanding abilities, he wouldn't be so big as to be doing something like ambushing ants.

Moreover, for such a long time, this guy only attacked ants smaller than medium-sized Soldier Ants. As for the giant and Super Giant ants, the Long-Face Beast chose to stay far away from them.

Rowan Wen had a better idea of what was going on. How dare they try to steal food when their fighting strength was so weak?

Just as the Long-Face Beast was happily eating, it suddenly felt a weight on its back, stumbled, and almost fell to the ground. Just as it was about to struggle, it suddenly felt a pain in the back of its neck, followed by a lightness on its back; the thing that had been pressing down on it was gone.

The one who attacked just now was naturally Rowan.

The Long-Face Beast's eyes were located on the sides of its head, with its blind spot above them. Rowan used gliding and optical cloaking to land silently on its back.

Before the Long-Face Beast could react, two Venom Fang pierced its nape. This area was only covered by fur, beneath which lay relatively tough skin, but its defense was far inferior to that of the Exoskeleton Armor, and the Venom Fang easily breached its defenses.

After injecting the venom, Rowan immediately moved away from his target and climbed back up the nearby tree trunk.

The poisoned Long-Face Beast's death is only a matter of time; there's no need to entangle it further. Just wait patiently from the sidelines.