When Rowan saw the special trick this bug could perform, his eyes lit up. He hurriedly jumped down from the tree trunk, too.
The bug plunged into the grass and vanished. If Rowan hadn't been staring at it without blinking this whole time, it might really have gotten away.
His size proved an advantage now. Like a tank, he charged straight toward the bug. He ignored every obstacle in his path and simply crushed his way through.
As it crawled at speed, the bug's coloring kept changing to match its surroundings, making it hard to spot.
Unfortunately for it, it didn't have powerful hind legs like a grasshopper. Rowan had already locked onto it, and after it had squeezed through just a few gaps in the weeds, he caught up.
One long walking leg shot out like lightning, stuck to its back, and dragged it in front of Rowan.
His two digging legs came down from above and pinned it. The bug struggled with all its might, but to no avail. The difference in strength was too great to overcome.
His mandibles clamped around it. They snapped together, and the bug gradually stopped struggling.
Fresh food was best eaten right away. Rowan stayed where he was and enjoyed a hearty meal before returning to his bedroom to rest.
When he woke, he got a glimpse into the secret behind the color-changing bug.
The surface of Rowan's Exoskeleton Armor was covered in a layer of extremely fine, densely packed scales.
The skin cells of the scales contained numerous nanoscale crystals, forming a special kind of pigment cell. By controlling the spacing between the crystals inside them, these cells could reflect light of different wavelengths.
They could quickly adjust themselves to their surroundings, making the scales reflect the same light as nearby objects. This fooled observers and concealed the bug.
This new ability was highly specialized, and a powerful counter to Rowan's Clairvoyance.
The eye was an extremely complex and delicate optical system, as well as a vital organ of observation. It sensed light and projected it onto the light-sensitive retina to form an image. That image was then converted into a special signal and sent to the brain.
Light came in many colors. How many a creature could see depended on the kinds of photoreceptors in its eyes. Human eyes contained three kinds of photoreceptors, so humans could see three primary colors, while dogs had only two.
Rowan's eyes were far more complex, and he could see more primary colors. He couldn't tell exactly how many. Mixing primary colors in different proportions could produce many new colors, but those weren't primary colors.
He used his former self as a point of comparison. The world he saw now was much richer than before. For instance, he could see a very special kind of light. It couldn't show him the sun or moon of this planet, but it let him determine their directions and use them to navigate.
Ever since he had become a bug, his terrible sense of direction had been cured. It was all thanks to this special light.
But even being able to see more kinds of light didn't make him immune to this new ability.
That was because the ability perfectly mimicked the light reflected by the surrounding environment. No matter how many kinds of light an observer could receive, nothing would look out of place.
Just like before, Rowan had only been able to tell that another bug was clinging to the tree bark because he could perceive depth. To his eyes alone, there was no way to distinguish it from the bark.
But by analyzing what he saw, he could work out that it was a bug.
Even so, that depended on knowing in advance that something was amiss. If the Worker Ants hadn't discovered the anomaly, Rowan could have stared at it all day without noticing anything.
Still, despite how effective the ability was against him, its weaknesses were obvious. Creatures like ants, which barely used their eyes to observe the world, were practically like an audience of blind people watching a dance.
They could spot it with ease. The bug had also been far too straightforward, overconfident in its ability. Even after it was surrounded, it refused to believe it had been discovered, and ultimately handed the ability over to Rowan.
Despite all its shortcomings, it was still some seriously impressive high-tech biology. In his previous life, Rowan had come across videos online of similar inventions: special armor that used electronic screens to imitate images of the surrounding environment and fool the eye.
But that kind of device was utterly outclassed by this creature's evolved instinct.
For now, though, the biggest benefit of this new ability was that when Rowan clung to a tree trunk, he no longer stood out like a blob of dog-skin plaster.
After this little interruption, life settled back into its usual calm.
Day by day, the Insect Nest continued to develop in an orderly fashion. The vegetation within its range gradually began to differ from that around it.
Rowan introduced new rules for raising aphids. The aphids were only allowed to eat an old leaf after the plants had grown a new one.
If the aphids multiplied too much and ate food they weren't allowed to, the Worker Ants would cull some of them and recycle them into protein.
Thanks to these strict controls and the irrigation of organic fertilizer, the vegetation in his territory flourished.
With plenty of food, more and more bugs hatched in the Insect Nest. Once their numbers reached a certain point, a new round of expansion began.
Under Rowan's direction, and with the Insect Nest's normal operations secured, every bug that could be spared surged forth.
With plenty of experience from previous campaigns, the bugs knew exactly what to do. They uprooted one Ant Nest after another, each of which had originally served as a food-extraction station.
This was no evenly matched war. Guided by advanced tactical thinking and fielding several times the Ant Nest's forces, the Insect Nest's army met no meaningful resistance.
After expanding the territory outward in a fan shape by a hundred meters, the Insect Nest army stopped and began another period of rest and recovery, consolidating its holdings.
Once the Insect Nest was on the right track, its growth snowballed.
Large numbers of experienced Worker Ants set off for the new territory. They would establish new Aphid Pastures there. At the same time, the vegetation in the new territory was irrigated with organic fertilizer.
The gaps they left behind were filled by a steady stream of newly matured bugs emerging from their pupae.
Rowan had lost track of how many bugs were in the Insect Nest. Bugs died in accidents every day.
Some died while mobbing Black Armored Beetles. Others wandered outside the territory to explore, then somehow got lost. Still others were ambushed by unknown bugs.
There were also bugs underground here, lying in wait to attack like Stinky Earthworms. They dug small, funnel-shaped pits in the ground, and Worker Ants passing by could easily slide into them.
The bugs waited at the bottom of the pits. When prey fell in, they suddenly sprang out. They used the pair of pincer-like jaws on their heads to seize their prey, then dragged it underground to eat.
Most of them, however, were concentrated in the new territory.
The Insect Nest had nearly cleared them all out after taking over the area. But a few had escaped the purge, and every day some unlucky bugs still fell victim to them.
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