Migration Up

Rowan somewhat hated his keen eyesight, and he also felt a bit of resentment toward himself for watching the entire process.

Why did he have to witness the preparation of such a rare delicacy? How was he supposed to eat it now? This was nothing short of a critical hit to a foodie.

He turned his head away, refusing to look any further, and focused on scouting the path.

Due to his obstructed field of vision, he had only managed to search a radius of a few hundred meters before nightfall, discovering four ant nests. These were all Black Ant nests, generally quite large in scale. Perhaps this was related to their ability to farm other insects; a more abundant food source allowed them to sustain a larger population.

Rowan had already chosen a new location for his nest: the intersection point between the four ant nests. Although this position was somewhat dangerous, Rowan was already highly experienced in how to conceal a nest.

These Black Ants could not dig very deep underground, so he only needed to build his nest deep beneath the surface as he had done before. Then, he would construct a transit station above that was completely disconnected from the nest below.

The insect nest below would be like an isolated island, connecting to the transit station above only when transporting food.

Since the purpose of this outing had been achieved, it was time to return. The day was growing late, so he decided to rest for the night and set off tomorrow morning.

Early the next morning, Rowan crawled out of the soil, stopped by a nearby ant nest to mooch a meal, and then began climbing toward the cliff face.

He still felt lingering fear from his last encounter on the cliff. This time, he chose a different spot, digging his claws firmly into the rock wall and pulling his body upward.

Rock climbing was a task that consumed a great deal of stamina, especially given Rowan's somewhat rotund physique, which required extra effort to move. However, his massive size also meant his limbs were thicker and stronger, which enhanced his ability to withstand strong winds—it was a case of pros and cons.

He carefully watched the crevices in the cliff, guarding against anything suddenly jumping out. If he were ambushed, he would not hesitate this time; he would immediately use Catapult Start to launch his body away.

Although this would mean having to climb all over again, Rowan's goal this time was to find a safe path. When he returned next time, he would be bringing many subordinates, so he had to ensure the route was secure.

Fortunately, he did not encounter any attacks along the way. It seemed that those spiders were not common on the cliff face; he must have had particularly bad luck to run into one last time.

From morning until dusk, he finally climbed the several-dozen-meter cliff. The reason it took so much time, aside from the physical exhaustion of climbing, was that the wind became too strong at one point. Even with his thick limbs, he couldn't hold on, so he found a rock crevice to hide in for a long time until the wind died down before crawling out.

The desert region above was largely devoid of major dangers, so Rowan decided to travel through the night.

By the evening of the next day, aside from a few short breaks, he had been traveling at full speed the entire time. Finally, what had taken over two days to traverse on the way there, Rowan covered in just one day and one night on the way back.

Calculating the time, this trip—including the journey there and back and his restorative sleep—had taken about a week. Everything in the Insect Nest was still intact; aside from the fact that the stored food was basically exhausted, there were no other losses.

Most of the insects were lying quietly on the ground to conserve energy. Only a small number of smaller Worker Ants were feeding the larvae.

Rowan also saw over a dozen tiny Black Armored Beetles nearby. It seemed the first batch of developed insect eggs had finally grown into adults.

He unsealed the room containing the Mother Nest, fed it some food, and then linked with it to upload some newly acquired genetic fragments.

Rowan had already used the time on the return journey to plan how to relocate the Insect Nest.

The current population of the nest, including adults, larvae, pupae, and eggs, totaled over a thousand. Adults made up the majority, accounting for more than half, while the rest were mostly pupae and larvae.

Because the Mother Nest had been ordered to stop producing new eggs early on, there were very few unhatched eggs left in the nest.

He first issued an order for all the insects to consume the remaining food, and then each adult carried a larva, pupa, or egg. He connected to the Mother Nest himself, while the small Black Armored Beetles crawled beneath it, forming a square formation with their back shells pressed together to create a makeshift platform to support the Mother Nest.

With everything prepared, the migration army set off in a grand procession.

A few digging ants led the way, carving out a path to the surface.

Big Black could not communicate, and Rowan had originally intended to abandon it. To his surprise, when Rowan and the many small Black Armored Beetles pulled the Mother Nest outward, it followed closely behind.

On the barren earth, a giant beetle dragged a fleshy mass slowly along. If one looked closely, one could see many small beetles moving beneath the mass. Behind them followed hundreds of ants, their mandibles clutching pupae and other items.

This massive group of clearly different species lived in harmony, moving slowly toward the same destination.

As the main force moved, the burden of carrying their families meant their speed was naturally not as fast as when Rowan traveled alone. He estimated that at their current pace, it would take at least a week to reach the cliff.

The Black Armored Beetles were fine; there were still some tall trees along the road that hadn't been ravaged, and there were always fresh, tender branches to eat. The ants, however, could only lick tree sap for moisture. Rowan didn't know how long they could last on water alone without food.

He decided that once they reached the new site and produced a new batch of eggs, he would definitely add the "soil-eating" genetic fragment; at the very least, he wouldn't have to worry about them starving to death.

Every evening, Rowan would lead the insects to dig a temporary cave. The night temperatures were quite low; the adults were fine, but the larvae couldn't handle it.

He hadn't noticed this issue on the first night, which resulted in all the remaining eggs freezing to death, along with some larvae. The pupae were fine, but two adults that had just broken out of their pupae were also frozen to death.

There was no help for it; they were protein, after all. Rowan ordered the insects to eat them, which served as a slight replenishment of energy.

Along the way, the scattered Earth-Yellow Ants that he could occasionally see before had vanished; he hadn't encountered a single one in several days of travel.

A week later, the migration army finally reached the edge of the cliff. By this time, the number of insects had shrunk from over a thousand to just over nine hundred.

Aside from those that froze on the first night, insects were lost every day thereafter for various reasons. Most were larvae that died due to lack of food, along with some newly emerged adults whose constitutions were too weak to hold on, and others who fell behind and couldn't keep up.

The reasons were varied and strange, but those were all in the past now. They had achieved their phased goal.

However, they were about to face an even more severe test.