Chapter 115: Strange Behavior
Chapter 115: Strange Behavior
Two days passed, and at first things were going great, but then the ant’s behavior started getting strange.
For one, they had stopped attacking as much and went into hiding.
A terrible scent accompanied their strange behavior. It smelled like rotten eggs and the atrocious scent was everywhere in the nest.
Strangely, it reminded me of back home whenever we had a storm or a natural disaster heading our way that threatened to destroy the entire city.
People packed up their belongings and stayed inside their homes without daring to come out.
Loud sirens would blare through the entire city while we sat at home, watching the news and hearing about the other settlements that had been wiped out while the storm headed our way.
We spent every second of the day thinking that it might be our last day on earth.
It was as if we were playing a game of russian-roulette with nature.
The situation with the ants felt similar. As if something were coming, but I had no clue what it was.
"We should be careful, master. The Void is home to strange enemies and mysterious phenomena."
"Do you have any idea what is happening, Lily?"
Lily was my go to for information since she was privy to all sorts of knowledge.
"Well, I’m not sure; everything I know about anything I learn from... I learn from somewhere. But I’ve heard that there is some kind of strange entity that travels the Void, moving between the different strata like a ghost. Whenever they arrive at a strata, the monsters there start acting strange."
I listened to what Lily had to say and then thought for a moment.
"A strange entity... like a monster"
"I’m not sure."
With Lily’s warning in mind, I continued to observe the ants and their behavior got even stranger.
I kept myself hidden underground and stifled the mana pouring out of my body so I could observe them without drawing their attention.
That’s when I notice more ants coming up from the bottom of the nest.
These ants were tens of times more powerful than the ants I was used to facing. I could tell that much at a glance.
Their exoskeleton seemed much harder. It almost resembled cast iron, only much darker in color.
Not only were they double the size of the ants we were facing before, but they also had large pincers like a crab.
While their face consisted of 8 distinct eyes, just like a spider’s.
They carried themselves with almost military-like authority as they broke into the chambers the weaker ants were hiding in and forcibly dragged them out.
If the weaker ants tried to fight, then they were instantly killed.
"What the hell is this, some kind of civil war?"
No, not exactly. The weaker ants weren’t rebelling. They were just being attacked and dragged off to god knows where.
I almost felt a pang of pity for the poor little creatures. Every chamber was meticulously searched, and every ant was forcibly dragged away, leaving none.
They seemed to be heading down to the lower chambers.
Obviously, I was going to follow them. This situation had me curious.
The lower I went, the more atrocious the scent became. It was truly disgusting.
All my senses were telling me to retreat simply because of this nasty scent.
What could it be?
After all, it became impossible to travel underground. If I did, then sections of the nest would be at risk of collapsing.
I traveled stealthily behind them even though I was at risk of being seen.
If there is anything I know, it is that most of what the ants do is in service of their queen.
I’m certain this is no different. Just as I thought, it wasn’t long before I was seen and attacked.
Acting quickly, I retreated into another chamber and quickly sealed the entrances, leaving only one.
Ants poured in through the entrance, and when the room was filled with hundreds of ants, I finally sealed the entrance.
With all the entrances sealed, I flooded the room with magma. If was almost as of I created a massive magma tank.
The magma burned the ants’ exoskeleton and even made its way into their bodies, boiling them from the inside.
The ants flailed and tried to break through the goo, trapping them inside, but it was to no avail.
But these ants had intelligence and quickly learned. The magma couldn’t melt through their hard exoskeleton immediately so they closed their mouths and instead of trying to break through the googum, they started digging through the walls.
Ants were exceptional at digging, so they could easily break through walls.
This was even more since they had pincers.
Seeing this, I acted instantly, and with just a single touch, the entire wall became coated in obsidian.
The hard material made it impossible for them to break through.
The ants began to grow even more frantic, but there was nothing else they could do.
At this point their deaths were inevitable. Soon I was swimming in a tank of corpses.
[Magma Absorption]
Acting quickly, I absorbed the magma back into my body, along with the corpses that had devolved in it.
[You have gained 7060 biomass]
The chamber instantly returned back to normal as if nothing had happened.
It would be interesting if I could turn this place into some kind of supervolcano, but the way the nest is set up, it would be a waste of time.
Volcanoes erupt when there is a build up of heat and pressure. Since the nest had several holes passing through it, it would be impossible for pressure to build up.
I would have to seal all the entrances like I did here. But to seal all the entrances in this city-sized nest would be too time-consuming.
Plus the fact that this nest was an architectural work of art. It was basically built to withstand liquid.
It had upward-sloping tunnels and water traps designed to channel water away so magma could never flow freely through this place.
It was just an interesting idea.
With the ants that came after me taken care of, I continued following the rest of the ants as they ventured down into the nest, and I tell you, if I could rip my antennae from my head, I would.
My eyes were filled with tears, and I admit a part of me felt like crying.
The smell was just that horrible.
’What the fuck!’
I felt as if I was constantly gagging and as I opened my mouth; more of the nasty smell entered.
I couldn’t take it anymore; I was at my breaking point.
I would rather be eaten by ants.
Was this some kind of torture?
Did they plan it all along to kill me with this horrible scent?
I endured three days of it until I began to see hallucinations.
In the end, I could no longer follow the ants who were bravely marching towards the horrible smells, so I didn’t get to see where they were taking the weaker ants.
I contemplated leaving while I still had my sanity intact. I had to fight through those emotions and seal myself off in one of the chambers.
I flooded the chamber with magma. Swimming through magma always gave me a strange calmness, but not this time!
With this scent even the magma smelled tainted. Nothing I did could distract my mind from the horrible scent.
Was this because of the entity Lily spoke of or something else?
Lily and Aphrodite were currently in my storage space.
Aphrodite was hard at work in my storage space doing the task I assigned her, so I hadn’t heard much from her. Lily seems to be helping her.
While Dracule was out searching for the queen. I wonder how he’s faring.
I wonder how Amanda is faring...
I’ve been keeping track of her scent while following the ants.
Strangely, their scent intertwined as if they were in the general vicinity of where the scent was coming from.
Finally, after an agonizing few days, the scent finally went away, but unfortunately, I didn’t find out what caused it. It irked me, but I was glad the scent was finally gone.
It was a relief to be smelling fresh air once again. I wanted to take a few hours to appreciate it but I couldn’t waste any more time so I continued forward.
The ants from before were gone, but their scent still remained. I followed both their scent and Amanda’s scent.
Before, the entire nest seemed to be hiding as if every ant were afraid of being dragged off by the strange black ants with pincers.
But now that those ants are gone, the others could come out.
It wasn’t long before I ran into a strange generation of ants. Instead of an exoskeleton, these ants had tough dark red scales.
Their heads were flat. It reminded me of a picture I saw in a player university textbook, of a salamander.
Except they had features of a regular ant. The creatures opened their mouths wide in a threatening manner before charging towards me.