Two leisurely months passed in the blink of an eye, and the Insect Nest had changed beyond recognition.
Above the Insect Nest stood a Transfer Station serving as a Fake Nest. Four spacious tunnels connected it to four Ant Nests, and Worker Ants constantly came and went, carrying food from the Ant Nests to the Transfer Station.
Then, in the evening, when the tunnels between the Transfer Station and the Insect Nest reopened, they moved the food into the Insect Nest.
Above the Transfer Station, the soil excavated when the tunnels and chambers had first been dug had been piled into a tall mound. It not only prevented rainwater from flooding the tunnels but also concealed plenty of food that had not yet been divided up, including the bodies of many Sentry Worker Ants.
With a steady supply of resources from the four Ant Nests, the Insect Nest had developed rapidly. The number of adults had already surpassed a thousand, and there were nearly two thousand more eggs, pupae, larvae, and other young.
All these newly bred bugs were upgraded ants with drastically altered genes. Although they still resembled ants in appearance and behavior, they were now combinations of several different kinds of bugs.
As soon as the temporary Insect Nest had been dug out, Rowan had ordered the Mother Nest to produce over two hundred Excavator Ant eggs. He had also given them the Soil-Eating Gene to ensure they would not starve in the harsh conditions of the early days.
Excavator Ants could do everything ordinary Worker Ants could, and they were also expert diggers. The four tunnels connecting the Ant Nests stretched more than a thousand meters in total, all thanks to these new varieties of ants.
Once the tunnels had been dug and a stable food supply secured, Rowan bred Worker Ants equipped with Formic Acid Spray. They were poor at close combat, so their main duties were carrying food and providing ranged fire support in battle.
Next came the new Soldier Ants. They were based on the original Soldier Ant template, with different gene fragments added. The main difference was the weapons they wielded. Some had the hook-shaped mandibles of Earth-Yellow Ants, some had enlarged versions of Black Ants' own jaws, and others had the massive mandibles of Black Armored Beetles.
They had also been given the Black Armored Beetle's strength genes. Combined with their Soldier Ant genes, this made their Mature Forms a full size larger than ordinary Soldier Ants and much more formidable in battle.
There were also a few specialized units, such as Scout Bugs equipped with Clairvoyance. They could see more than twenty meters ahead. However, because their intelligence was limited and they struggled to communicate what they found, they were not much use yet and still needed further upgrades and training.
Then there were the Spy Bugs. The four Ant Nests were scattered far apart, and Rowan could not possibly travel thousands of meters back and forth every day to sneak in and carry food out. With no other choice, he bred these bugs, which could change their own pheromones.
Their limited intelligence also made them poor at carrying out their duties. However, they had some ability to learn on their own. After Rowan personally taught them for over a month, they could finally manage their tasks on their own, if only barely.
After that, although they still made the occasional mistake, Rowan entrusted them with smuggling food out of the Ant Nests. He was not being careless; he had his reasons.
First of all, the bugs were relatively safe. Black Ants could not see through their disguises. At worst, they might fail to cover their tracks and let the Black Ants discover the Smuggling Tunnels.
But the Insect Nest was far stronger than before. So what if the Ant Nests discovered the tunnels? Even though they had several times as many members as the Insect Nest, Rowan was still confident he could flatten them.
If their tool bugs had not been doing such a good job, a few of the surrounding Ant Nests might already have been wiped out.
Just a few days earlier, the Ant Nest to the southeast had discovered a Smuggling Tunnel, and several Scout Engineers had crept inside. The Ant Nest then gathered a large force and charged into the tunnel. The Insect Nest reacted swiftly as well: the Worker Ants on transport duty were also responsible for scouting, and they spread pheromones as they went. The Transport Team withdrew from the tunnel in an orderly fashion.
Then the Insect Nest's Soldier Ant Legion entered the tunnel, and the Worker Ants in the Transport Team stopped retreating and followed the Soldier Ants toward the battlefield. The two forces met, and without wasting a word, launched straight into battle.
The Soldier Ants on both sides blocked the tunnel, while the Worker Ants seized the chance to ambush them, biting antennae and tearing at limbs. But the Insect Nest had a ranged attack formation. After several rounds of Formic Acid Spray, the enemy Worker Ants suffered heavy casualties. The Soldier Ants had stronger defenses, but their eyes, antennae, and other vulnerable spots were still burned.
All the bugs in the Insect Nest had been given the Acid-Resistant Gene. So although the Formic Acid Spray did not distinguish friend from foe, it only washed their carapaces until they shone brightly and caused them no harm.
The Ant Nest's wounded troops were no match for the Insect Nest's unscathed forces. Without the support of their Worker Ants, the Ant Nest's Soldier Ant formation was promptly broken.
The Insect Nest's Engineers swarmed forward, seized the enemy's limbs, and yanked them in every direction, leaving them sprawled like victims of quartering and unable to move. The Giant Mandible Soldiers took the opportunity to come forward and behead them.
Then the Insect Nest's Soldier Ants led the charge, sweeping through the enemy ranks. Some Worker Ants followed close behind, while others lagged back to finish off enemies who had been corroded by formic acid but were not quite dead yet.
They fought all the way to the Ant Nest's Hatching Room. Only when Rowan intervened did the army retreat. The defeated Ant Nest did not dare complain and had to swallow its humiliation.
According to the post-battle count, the Insect Nest had lost nine Soldier Ants and dozens of Worker Ants. The Ant Nest had lost seventy-one Soldier Ants and nearly a thousand Worker Ants. It had been crippled in a single battle.
The Insect Nest had suffered some losses, but it had gained a large haul of ant corpses. They were high-protein food and excellent provisions. Most of the spoils from the battle were buried in the mound above the Insect Nest.
Afterward, however, the Ant Nest's food supply dropped sharply. This left Rowan deep in thought: why had he been so aggressive? Why couldn't they all just settle their differences amicably?
Even if they had to fight, they could have stopped once they had the upper hand. He felt he had acted too rashly. At the time, watching the Swarm charge forward had filled him with excitement, but crippling the Ant Nest had also hindered his own development.
To support the Ant Nest's postwar reconstruction, Rowan temporarily closed the Smuggling Tunnels to give them time to recover. Fortunately, their eggs had not suffered many losses. With such generous support, he was sure they would soon be able to resume their proper work as tool bugs—and do it even better.
Rowan had not taken part in the local war. His own body had changed enormously, too. After he gave up sneaking into the Ant Nests, the transport tunnels were never expanded again. If he had joined the battle, he would have blocked the tunnels and hampered both his own fighting ability and that of the other bugs.
After this battle, Rowan felt that these bugs had become noticeably smarter. To put it simply, the original bugs were like simple machines that needed instructions before they would work. This new generation, on the other hand, was more like it had a certain degree of artificial intelligence: they could handle more complicated tasks and even learn to some extent.
Rowan guessed that the change might have been caused by the Insect Nest's continued growth, or perhaps by interactions between the various gene fragments. Of course, this was only a guess. The exact reason still needed to be determined through further observation and experiments.
All in all, Rowan considered it a welcome change.
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