It... vanished. The plump white ant queen quietly snuck food...

She went flying, and the mutated yams in her basket spilled out.

Clutching her short hoe, she grimaced in pain and tried to get up. But she had taken a nasty fall, scraping her knees, elbows, and chin. It hurt so much that she could not move for a moment.

Someone passing by spotted what had fallen from her basket, snatched it up, and ran, not caring in the slightest whether she would chase them.

"That's mine!"

Sang Luoluo could only watch the person's back recede into the distance. They paid her no mind at all.

Even robbery was this brazen.

Luckily, she had food in her space. Otherwise, this would have been a terrible loss. She could not win a fight over it and would starve to death sooner or later.

A snicker came from nearby. Lei Qi charged the weapon in his hand, then withdrew his gaze and gestured for the captain to look in the direction he pointed. "Captain, she's so weak. It's a miracle she's still alive."

Qi Feng glanced where Lei Qi pointed, uninterested, then immediately looked away and studied the scan data transmitted to his wristwatch. This area had already become mutated ant territory. The ground beneath them was full of mutated ants.

"Got nothing to do?" he asked coldly, his voice full of disdain.

Lei Qi immediately wiped the grin off his face. "Captain, I'm busy charging the machine."

Qi Feng said at once, "We've already detected more than three thousand mutated ants."

"H-how many?" Lei Qi doubted his own ears. Over three thousand mutated ants? They could not possibly have reproduced so quickly in such a short time. The only explanation was that the squad had overlooked this place when clearing mutated animals out of Zone 31B last time.

Chapter 12: It... vanished. The plump white ant queen quietly snuck food...

Qi Feng frowned and said calmly, "There's another possibility. There was nothing wrong with our last mission. These mutated ants mutated again, and their reproduction and growth rates increased."

Lei Qi swallowed. Their squad rarely made mistakes on missions, and he had great faith in the captain's command on that front. Somewhat shaken, he said, "I'd rather we'd botched the mission."

If the ants had mutated again, that would pose an even more terrifying threat to the base and to humanity.

If the ants had mutated, what about the other mutated animals? Lei Qi hardly dared think any further.

Qi Feng trusted his own judgment and spoke calmly into the radio. "Report the scan data to the base in real time. Also, leave a few alive and send them to the lab. Tell the guys to locate the queen, capture her alive too, and send her to the lab."

"Roger."

"Roger."

"..."

Sang Luoluo endured the pain and climbed to her feet. Sensing a pull nearby, she glanced behind her and found that the mutated ants were still a long way off. The crystal core she sensed came from the plant that had tripped her.

It was a crabgrass plant. Sang Luoluo hurriedly crawled over, raised her hoe, and hacked at its base several times, severing its roots and stems.

Its roots were shallow but spread across a wide area, making it difficult to remove. The portion aboveground was several meters long, but Sang Luoluo only concerned herself with the part she could sense. The grass could feel pain and actually began flailing wildly, as though protesting being chopped.

Seeing that it was not very aggressive, Sang Luoluo glanced behind her again. The mutated ants were starting to crawl this way. She sped up, severed the other side of the crabgrass with a few strokes, and tossed it straight into her space to deal with later.

She picked up the basket beside her and started running. This time, the mutated ants really were chasing her. She was not running slowly, but the mutated ants behind her seemed fixed on her. Even the ones chasing other residents nearby came over to pursue her.

As she ran, her knees burned with pain. It suddenly occurred to her that perhaps the smell of blood from her scrapes had drawn the mutated ants after her?

There was no other explanation.

The people who had reached safety in the distance were now watching her being chased by ants. Sang Luoluo had planned to throw out a few pieces of chicken innards to distract the mutated ants, but now that would not work either.

She could only run for her life. Seeing that members of the Guard in the distance had noticed her, Sang Luoluo waved, running so hard she could barely catch her breath. A moment's inattention sent her falling again, piling pain upon pain. The next instant, a mutated ant caught up and lunged at her, its jaws and limbs flailing.

Sang Luoluo had no choice but to swing her short hoe at the ant's head and mouth. The struggle left several scratches on her wrists, drawing blood.

A laser swept in from behind and pierced the ant's body. It dropped to the ground and did not get up.

Only then did Sang Luoluo notice the powerful pull coming from this ant.

The mutated ants behind it caught up, only to be shot dead by laser after laser from several Guard members who came chasing after them.

Sang Luoluo noticed that the residents were still watching her and did not dare act rashly. The ant's shell was very hard, and she could not make it vanish right under everyone's noses.

That powerful pull reminded Sang Luoluo of how she had felt when she obtained the large crystal core before. The crystal core inside this ant definitely held a considerable amount of energy.

Under attack, the nest disgorged a vast swarm of ants from underground. The Guard had already sent reinforcements to exterminate them. Sang Luoluo's current position happened to be within the mutated ants' range of activity. She was not the only one; many residents out gathering were within that range too. Those who had run far away earlier had actually ended up closer to the nest.

The mutated ants scurried through their underground tunnels, emerging from every exit.

"Ah!!! There are ants here!"

"Help!"

Hearing the residents' panicked cries, the Guard hurriedly tried to reassure them through a loudspeaker. "Everyone, stay calm. You all have tools. Kill any nearby mutated ants you can handle, and only run if you can't handle them. The Guard is right here with you. We'll kill all these mutated ants soon."

"Run!!"

"What, should we wait around to die?"

"Easy for you to say! With this many ants, how long will it take to kill them all?"

"You'd have to be an idiot not to run."

"..."

The Guard's reminder did little good. Everyone formed an encirclement, converging on the nest from all sides.

Sang Luoluo watched another swarm of ants crawl out behind her and to her left. Each one stood half a person's height, conspicuous as they moved across the ground.

The people around her had already started running toward the Guard's trucks. Others ran farther away. For a time, the scene was utter chaos.

Sang Luoluo knew she should run away as soon as possible too, but there was still a crystal core inside the ant that she had not dug out. The Guard would surely gather up and destroy these ant corpses later. Finding it again would not be easy if she came back, so she might as well seize this chance to take it now.

Seeing that everyone around her was busy running, swinging tools at mutated ants' heads, or urging their families along, all occupied with their own affairs and not looking her way, she also started toward an area with fewer ants. She touched the mutated ant's corpse, and the next instant, as she broke into a run, the corpse went into her space.

With the scene this chaotic, no one would notice.

Sang Luoluo ran with her empty basket on her back, not daring to stop for even a moment. The memory of fighting that ant still made her scalp prickle. She had no desire for another round.

At that moment, about a thousand meters away, He Fei of the S17 Squad stared at the scene in his scope, his now-golden eyes narrowing.

He had been using his sniper rifle to eliminate mutated ants threatening the residents' lives. While scanning the scene through his scope, he spotted a familiar figure. He had not paid much attention at first, but just as his gaze swept past, he caught something that startled him.

The corpse of a mutated ant beside that girl had simply van... vanished into thin air.

He relaxed his eyes for a moment. He certainly hoped he had seen wrong, but would he, He Fei, really have seen wrong? He was an Evolved Human, the one with the best eyesight in the squad. Nothing could escape his eyes. Even if it happened in the briefest instant, he could still detect it. He definitely had not seen wrong. It had vanished.

"He Fei, five o'clock! What are you doing? Spacing out? Give us support!!"

"Oh." He Fei snapped back to his senses and immediately aimed and fired.

That young girl was probably an Evolved Human too. He would report it to the captain later.

Sang Luoluo ran all the way into the crowd in one go. Mutated ant corpses littered the ground here. A few had been killed by scavenging residents, but most had been shot dead by the Guard. It was safe here for now.

Sang Luoluo felt as though her throat would start smoking from all that running. Both her legs were trembling.

The temperature began rising. It would soon be ten.

Sang Luoluo felt around in her basket, pulled out a bamboo tube, and started gulping down water. She was drenched in sweat, and the temperature was already over forty degrees.

She looked around. Only the dense woods ahead offered shade, but people were already there.

With no other choice, and with everyone else already looking for somewhere to shelter from the radiation, Sang Luoluo began searching too. All the nearby shady spots were occupied. She looked around and chose to go farther away, settling beneath a large tree.

There were more trees here, and she was the only person in this spot.

She did not dare let her guard down at all. No one knew whether some other mutated animal might suddenly appear here.

In the distance, mutated ants were still falling one after another. The Guard worked quickly, finishing the battle just before ten. As far as the eye could see, there were ant corpses.

They also drove a truck over and dug for a while with a large machine, excavating a plump, snow-white ant queen the size of a truck's cargo bed. Several people in heavy mechs worked together to lift her straight onto the truck.

They drove off with her.

As expected, the Guard next began clearing away all the mutated ant corpses in radiation suits.

Beneath the tree's shade, Sang Luoluo kept an eye on the Guard's movements in the distance while directing part of her attention into her space, using a chainsaw to cut up the mutated ant.