Seeing this, Wen Jing stopped advancing and guided her Gravity Silk toward the hole closest to her.
The hole looked as though it had been bored by a woodworm. She approached and tentatively bit its edge.
"..."
The little blue-violet bug drew back her mouth and shook her head. If biting the trunk down in the ant nest area was like a human biting alloy, then this seemingly more "tender" section of bark was like biting gold. It was less hard, but thick and tough.
Wasn't that why the ants all built their nests in natural tree hollows? After enhancement, Wen Jing's current level-two mouthparts were somewhat stronger than the ants', but still nowhere near strong enough to damage the bark efficiently.
Of course, if she kept her mouthparts enhanced and stubbornly gnawed at one spot, she might manage to chip away a small piece of bark, but the effort clearly wouldn't be worth the result.
Adjusting her angle toward the little hole, Wen Jing hesitated over whether to poke inside and gnaw at the wood within. If ants could build nests there, that meant the interior wasn't as hard.
The next instant, her antennae shot upright. She sensed something rapidly approaching from below the hole.
"Whoosh!"
The instant Wen Jing flew backward on her Gravity Silk, a round mouthpart lined with interlocking fangs shot out of the hole and lunged at her like lightning. Its fine, densely packed teeth resembled a professional cutting machine.
Energy Shield!
White light flared from the little blue-violet bug, blocking the attacking creature in the nick of time.
"Creeeak..."
Under the collision, even the shield made of energy gave off a teeth-grating scrape.
Using the recoil from the shield to put some distance between them, Wen Jing finally got a clear look at the mouthparts' owner.
It was a slender, threadlike creature, pure black from end to end. Its head had no other organs whatsoever, entirely occupied by that sharp, disc-shaped mouth.
From an insect's perspective, it looked like a sanity-draining black snake, but from a human's perspective, its appearance was much like... a horsehair worm?
The scant memories Wen Jing had of this creature from her previous life flashed through her mind. She only vaguely remembered that it was a disgusting-looking parasite.
The one before her was probably some Ancient Wilderness specialty or a mutated variety. It seemed to feed on the giant tree's trunk, so the sharpness of its mouthparts went without saying.
If Wen Jing hadn't released her Energy Shield in time, once it landed a bite, it would definitely have climbed onto her and kept gnawing. Her exoskeleton's current hardness couldn't withstand that kind of attack.
After missing its strike, the black worm lost its support and fell onto the trunk. Its body writhed rapidly before slipping back into another nearby hole.
But the commotion had already disturbed the creatures in this area.
The next instant, Wen Jing, who had retreated to a safe distance, saw a scalp-prickling sight-
Countless black worms poked their heads from the little holes across this section of trunk, writhing in the air as they searched for prey. The mouthparts on their heads opened and closed like flowers, forming a dense, terrifying swamp.
No wonder the ant army had sent out danger signals as soon as it approached. Anything that could claim a section of the main trunk was no pushover.
Besides, they didn't look as though they would fear resin shells. They could also hide inside the trunk when attacked. Borrowing the ant army's route seemed unworkable.
Wen Jing stopped urging the ants behind her forward and instead looked up at the dense canopy overhead.
The black worms had a limited leaping range. Should she use her Gravity Silk to take a look up there alone?
While she hesitated, Wen Jing suddenly felt a fierce gust sweep in from the southwest.
"Chirp!"
The bird's cry arrived before the bird itself.
With that clear chirp, the ant army behind her, which had still been hesitating over whether to advance, instantly became a red sea of pheromones. Without any prompting from Wen Jing, they began retreating rapidly.
Wen Jing's mind buzzed, and for an instant, her body and limbs couldn't move. She had actually gone straight into a "freeze response" upon encountering sudden danger.
As creatures at the bottom of the food chain, insects were on many animals' menus, but this was the first time she had learned that a single birdcall could put her in such a state.
Was it the innate intimidation of a natural predator, or some special ability this Ancient Wilderness bird possessed?
Time seemed to slow at that moment. In a corner of Wen Jing's compound eyes, a long black beak, red-and-white feathers, round gold-and-black pupils... appeared frame by frame. Through the movement trajectory simulated by Dynamic Vision, she could see that it was about to glide toward her.
"There wasn't enough time to evolve..."
Wen Jing's mind was cold and clear. At that moment, she spat out the only thing she could still use: Gravity Silk. Her target was-one of the flying bird's outstretched wings!
The next instant, the black beak swept in on a fierce wind, snapping toward the little blue-violet bug floating stiffly in midair.
Wen Jing released her Energy Shield at full strength while accelerating the retraction of her Gravity Silk.
"Crack..."
With the clear sound of the shield shattering, she brushed past the sharp black beak and stuck to a wing the red-and-white bird couldn't reach in flight.
"Snap!"
After snapping at empty air, the red-and-white bird continued gliding for a stretch before landing on the black worm swamp.
At first, the protruding black worms instinctively bit at the bird's feet, only to be immediately torn at by its sharp claws.
The next instant, its beak darted down, biting through the black worms and sucking them into its mouth as though slurping noodles.
As green blood fell, the nearby black worms seemed to finally react, withdrawing beneath the bark one after another.
"Chirp-!"
The red-and-white bird let out another cry that intimidated the insects, then raised its beak toward the holes in the trunk.
"Thock, thock, thock, thock..."
A rapid series of impacts rang out. It wasn't merely a physical attack: energy surged over its beak, which actually lit up with lightning, shocking the black worms beneath the trunk into immobility and leaving them helpless as the red-and-white bird feasted.
Having successfully escaped using her Gravity Silk while it landed, Wen Jing retreated downward while watching the scene through her compound eyes, complete with built-in "rearview mirrors." She let out a breath of lingering fear.
Fortunately, the red-and-white bird hadn't used lightning on her back then, or she would already have become an appetizer before its noodle meal.
Retreat, retreat, retreat! This was no place to linger!
Ant General Jing's first campaign had failed before it could begin. She landed in the middle of the army and drove her ant carriage more than ten meters down from the upper trunk, fleeing back to the ant nest headquarters in the middle section.
The upper part of the giant tree wasn't somewhere she could conquer at this stage. Besides, judging by what she had seen, the black worm swamp was a bird cafeteria. Who knew how many more birds there were closer to the treetop?
With a natural-predator debuff weakening her, no number of ants would make the fight possible. She would have to wait until she evolved and grew stronger.
Having made her decision, Wen Jing didn't intend to head back for the day just yet. She looked down the main trunk again and raised her twin tails:
"Chirp, chirp!"
The ant army didn't even care about their lives when a real fight broke out, so mere fatigue was hardly worth mentioning. At her command, they set off toward the lower part of the giant tree, brimming with vigor once again.
In contrast to the upper section, the bark below grew darker and darker, its texture increasingly thick.
After traveling roughly seven or eight meters, she could clearly feel the moisture in the air increasing rapidly. The trunk became wet and slippery, and moss began to appear. Not only the view toward the tree's base, but even the branches extending around them were shrouded in hazy gray-white mist, impossible to make out clearly.
The excessive humidity also kept the ant army moving their antennae. Like the ants, Wen Jing occasionally used her forelegs to instinctively wipe away the tiny droplets of water condensing on her body.
After continuing for a little while and passing through a layer of mist, the view before her suddenly opened up.
Wow...
Wen Jing couldn't help marveling inwardly. Thick green moss lay like a lawn, covered in some unknown kind of vine. The vines' leaves and rootlets were blue-gray, resembling a thicket from an insect's perspective.
Growing on the vines were white flowers that gave off a faint blue fluorescence.
In the thin mist, the faintly glowing white flowers resembled mysterious, dreamlike lanterns, exquisitely beautiful and full of fantastical color.
The ant army, however, clearly had no appreciation for scenery. They stopped before the thicket formed by the vines, their antennae constantly moving. They hesitated to advance, yet didn't retreat outright as they had when facing the black worm swamp.
Wen Jing saw red dots representing danger and white dots representing attraction appear in their pheromones.
Her gaze turned to the white flowers growing on the vines. It wasn't just the ants; she could feel it too. The flowers... or more precisely, their centers, exerted a twofold attraction of chemical signals and energy.
Flowers that glowed definitely weren't ordinary...
After a brief daze, Wen Jing came back to herself and restrained the urge to rush toward the flowers. After her failure up above just now, she couldn't afford to let her guard down again.
So she manipulated her Gravity Silk and mercilessly tossed the two ants at the very front into the vines.
Unexpectedly, no creatures ambushed them, nor did the vines move to coil around the ants.
Caught off guard by being thrown inside, the large ants hurriedly got to their feet, then extended their antennae and waved them in bewilderment. Nothing unusual happened, but they didn't explore any deeper either, instead quickly running back into the ranks.
Seeing that the ants didn't dare venture farther, and unable to see the flowers' condition from this distance, Wen Jing paused before deciding to investigate personally. If she encountered a dangerous creature, she would retreat and let it taste the ant army's resin shells.
Extending her Gravity Silk onto the nearby vines and anchoring it at several suitable landing points like a spiderweb, she rushed toward the nearest fluorescent white flower.
The moment she stepped onto a petal, the attraction coming from the flower's center grew even stronger.
So it was nectar...
The sweet scent made Wen Jing move her mouthparts involuntarily, but she still did her best to restrain the urge to crawl inside and taste it. She carefully waited where she was for a moment, then bit a petal with her mouthparts. Only after confirming she could bite through it did she crawl into the flower's center, looking back every few steps.