Assassination

During this time, with nothing else to do, he had used spider genes as a template and added genes for large eyes. He had sent the spiders out to patrol the Cliff, where they were also responsible for scouting the desert above.

A few days ago, he had received word that another army of Earth-Yellow Ants had appeared in the desert. The Scout Spiders' report had been so vague and unclear that he hurried up to the top of the Cliff to observe the situation himself and gather intelligence.

He cautiously poked his head over the edge. After hundreds of days and nights of growth, his large eyes could now clearly survey the area within a fifty-meter radius.

A little over twenty meters ahead of him, countless Earth-Yellow Ants crawled over one another, trampling each other as they streamed past Rowan like a muddy, yellow flood.

When the army neared the Cliff, it changed direction and rolled away.

Rowan kept watch for several hours before the entire army had passed. Meanwhile, the desert, which had regained its green vitality after a period of recovery, had once again become barren and desolate. Only a few Earth-Yellow Ants that had fallen behind the main force wandered about.

Rowan finally understood how the scenes he had witnessed while traveling across the desert had come about. The Earth-Yellow Ants treated the entire desert as a hunting ground, sweeping through it every so often.

No wonder this area, though not far above the underground river, had always seemed so desolate.

The sheer number of Earth-Yellow Ants also left Rowan stunned.

He compared them with the bugs in the Insect Nest. Even piled together, more than ten thousand bugs would only make a small mound and take up very little space.

Then he thought of the endless rolling clouds of yellow dust, marching on for hours...

Rowan couldn't imagine how many Earth-Yellow Ants it would take to create such a spectacle, but he was sure that if the number could be counted, the final figure would have a great many digits.

When he had first seen the sight, Rowan had already decided to move. The Insect Nest had grown much stronger, but if it faced the Earth-Yellow Ant army, he doubted the outcome would be much different from before.

Later, he discovered that the Earth-Yellow Ants didn't approach the Cliff. And since his underlings had mastered the divine skill of eating dirt, they could always go underground and lie low for a few days when the army came, then emerge after it had passed.

Combined with the various limitations involved in moving their base, this had put the idea out of his mind. Besides, he had ambitions of his own: one day, he wanted to lead his bugs in a direct assault on the Earth-Yellow Ant army and avenge the gutting and exile he had suffered back then.

Oh, that was wrong. Rowan wasn't one to hold a grudge. He only wanted to get justice for the plants and animals of the desert.

So, to become stronger and take revenge—cough, cough, to get justice for them—he had to expand his forces. That meant further developing the Insect Nest, and clearing out the surrounding Ant Nests was a must.

As for talk of being hardworking, tireless, and having rendered great service, naturally, there was no need to bring any of that up again.

Today was the day the army set out. Their first priority was to clear out the four Ant Nests nearby. They would take down one each day, then clean up the battlefield and tally the spoils. The goal was to finish within a week.

The Insect Nest already had enough bugs to overwhelm any single Ant Nest, but to avoid unnecessary losses, they still needed a proper battle plan.

The battle began with a sneak attack. A dozen or so Spy Ants altered their pheromones and walked straight into the room where the Ant Queen lived without meeting any resistance.

It was a room that opened off a passage. A huge Ant Queen lay in the center. It looked like a Worker Ant enlarged dozens of times, except its abdomen was long and swollen, decorated with beautiful yellow rings.

Four strong Soldier Ants stood guard around it, while Worker Ants lined up to feed it food held in their jaws.

A few other Worker Ants carried away the Insect Eggs the Ant Queen had just laid.

The dozen or so ants that suddenly crowded into the room caught the Soldier Ants' attention. But after probing them with their antennae and detecting nothing unusual, they paid them no more mind.

The Spy Ants had been bred using ordinary Worker Ants as a template, then modified with genes for changing pheromones, Catapult Start, and Formic Acid Spray.

But that was the old version.

Several Spy Ants approached the Ant Queen with food in their jaws, pretending they wanted to feed it.

The rest spread out and approached the four Soldier Ants.

The Soldier Ants grew a little restless as the Spy Ants drew near, but they didn't react aggressively. They let the Spy Ants crawl onto their bodies.

In an Ant Nest, being stepped on by one another was perfectly normal. Soldier Ants were especially large, so they were even more accustomed to being trampled.

Once the Spy Ants had climbed onto the Soldier Ants' backs, a coiled, tape-measure-like mouthpart slowly emerged from their jaws. It uncurled until it was as straight and stiff as a steel needle.

Then it slipped through a gap in the Soldier Ant's armor. The Soldier Ant didn't notice a thing.

After the battle against the spiders, Rowan had wanted to equip the new version of the Spy Ants with venomous weapons.

They were designed to infiltrate and gather intelligence, and, at critical moments, to assassinate key figures. They were a specialized unit that served as assassins.

Sometimes Rowan wondered whether it was a bit much to put so much effort into breeding bugs. Was it really necessary to get so elaborate with creatures of such low intelligence?

Then he remembered the Black Armored Beetle, the War God, who had been killed through a dirty trick; the venomous spider that had been mobbed to death without a chance to fight back; and the vast army of Earth-Yellow Ants that had covered the land.

After thinking it over, he decided that though bugs might not be very intelligent, their instincts, honed over countless years, and the various marvels they had evolved were still worth taking seriously.

He had nothing better to do anyway. He might as well try coordinating different types of troops and amuse himself.

But when he actually began modifying them, he found that spiders needed their pair of chelicerae to use their venom. Rowan himself had only been able to inject venom and attack after growing a new pair of chelicerae.

Worker Ants were small, and there wasn't enough room on their heads to add another pair of chelicerae. Even if he forced the modification through, they would probably develop poorly and remain tiny. They could likely deal with enemies their own size without trouble.

But against larger foes, such as Soldier Ants, their small chelicerae might not even pierce their armor.

Besides, Worker Ants were currently meant to provide ranged support and assist with attacks. They didn't really need stronger close-combat abilities.

And producing Insect Eggs with this gene modification would consume a great deal of extra energy. Compared with its usefulness, it simply wasn't worth the cost.

Then Rowan remembered the Camouflage Bug, a classic example of overcoming the strong while weak.

Its needle-shaped mouthpart had serious limitations, but its method of finding a weak point, injecting venom, and killing its target turned out to be a perfect fit for the Spy Ants, the assassin unit.

That was how the Spy Ants came to be assassinating the Soldier Ants before him.

Suddenly, the Soldier Ants seemed to sense something. All four began rolling and thrashing almost at the same time. Their bodies seemed to have lost coordination; they couldn't even stand steadily. Finally, they curled up and trembled nonstop, looking as if they were in great pain.

The Black Armored Beetle had died without ever noticing, silently and painlessly. That was because the Camouflage Bug, though frail, was about the same length as the Black Armored Beetle and could just about be considered its equal.

But there was a huge size difference between the Spy Ants and the Soldier Ants—several times over. The venom the Spy Ants produced and stored wasn't enough to kill a Soldier Ant with a single strike.

Even so, it was enough. Large patches of the Soldier Ants' muscles had dissolved. They weren't dead yet, but they could no longer control their bodies and had lost the ability to fight.

In their condition, they were suffering even more than the Black Armored Beetle had before its painless death.

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