Chapter 293: Chapter 293. Is death okay?

"HAHH!" Theo shouted to get their attention, and he was successful; the crawlers saw him all along and started moving toward him.

Theo took out the sword from his scabbard again, he had just now cleaned it, and it was going to be dirty yet again.

But when two of the crawlers came close enough, they halted. Theo didn’t know why that was but then he saw the others still move toward them so he butchered them with the sword and went to look at the situation again.

All the ants in the formation marched forward while Theo went inside the bond to check on things only to see the ant queen’s silhouette facing the two crawlers with their emotions of panic and confusion everywhere.

Theo could tell they were a lot more intelligent than normal, the emotions were very clean, just like the ant queen.

The mantis’s emotions on the other hand felt crude even after a lot of investment to the intelligence stat which didn’t seem to be working the magic.

But there was also the fact that investing in the points meant that the maximum intelligence it could reach had increased, not that it miraculously increased its intelligence. Theo understood that with the help of the books he had of the academy. It was there in the first Chapter.

When he quickly got out of the bond within three seconds, Theo saw the ants already reaching the two crawlers.

He saw the freakishly fast running green spider move from the corner of the army and to the crawler on the left.

Theo saw it dig its fangs the moment it reached close enough. The colour around the crawler’s skin that it bit started becoming greenish as if it was a canvas and the spider was painting.

All the ants swarmed all around the crawler’s body.

The embermaws sitting on the spiked worker ants attached resin all around the crawler’s body making it ignite and leave burn marks.

Theo saw the bigger ones use their tough mandibles to crunch on the big crawler and soon, the crawler was oozing blood from all over its body.

He could tell the reinforced big ones were doing more damage than the spiked ones. Tearing off parts of the crawler’s body with a single bite force.

Then there were the Aquamandible, they threw jets of water from their backs.

Whenever the shots of water touched the crawler, it made a ripple effect but nothing more than that. The spray was not that strong to pierce the skin.

’But this still helps, the more they use it, the better it will get. The same happened with the metallic strike, and now the damn glutton even uses it to move faster, not just attack.’

More and more crawlers poured in when the swarm became too much for both the side parties to handle.

But Clara still sent many knives toward the oncoming ones before she ran and got on the boar to move toward Theo.

Theo, on the other han,d just swung his sword left and right. Notifications poured in, which was normal.

But more than that, he finally got bombarded with thousands of them at once making him smile.

He read a few key words like ants and tarantula while he kept fighting.

Theo quickly told the ants to go back but the ant queen had something else planned. The army of ants started moving forward in a march, this time, faster.

’Get them back!’ Theo made an absolute command but it was as if the ant queen had stopped listening.

A crawler came forward and bit down on the ground where many of the ants were in, but they scattered in a uniform manner the moment it hit the ground.

Theo was at a loss for words, he saw the swarm of ants get maneuvered with finesse and get on the crawler.

The spider had multiple embermaws attached to it and when it speedily went to a moving one, it jumped making Theo scream internally.

’All this time and I never knew it could jump...’

The spider bit like the first time while the crawler kept thrashing its body.

The embermaws placed all the resin in one spot, their antennae were glowing bright.

When the ember was at the point of burning, the spider unlatched its fangs and hopped down with the ants still perched on its back.

Theo saw the resin flare up so much that it made the crawler actually scream.

Yet the job was still not finished as the crawler was moving very slowly while shivering. Theo couldn’t help but feel like ending its life but it ended on its own when he saw all those notifications of the embermaws getting Experience.

Many of the smaller and low leveled ants all around the crawlers leveled up.

But seeing all the chaos that Theo couldn’t follow, he couldn’t help but ask, ’Is there any ant that is dead?’

The bond was not silent this time, images of many dead ants were shown to him. The lifeless bodies of many big and small ants all around the miniature battlefield.

Theo couldn’t help but grit his teeth.

’They would not have died if you had listened to me, ant queen’ He said through the bond.

But the ant queen showed another few imageries of inside the trolley colony.

Theo’s eyes widened when he saw many dead ants in the corner all stacked on each other.

’...’ Theo had no words.

’So... you’re saying it’s okay for them to die?’ Theo asked, he didn’t know if any answer would come and even if one came, it would be hard for him to understand them as the ant queen talked in image language and only sometimes, emotions.

But this time, as if the ant queen had planned this conversation all along, it showed emotions of approval through the bond.

’....’

Theo did not know what to say, but soon his eyes turned cold. He didn’t seem like himself at the moment.

’You’re wrong, but these sacrifices wouldn’t go in vain.... I have an idea.’