Chapter 294: Chapter 294. Intruders inside he gate
Theo made them all march back to the safe zone, and when he did, he went and threw the dead crawler bodies away, only to see all the dead ants.
Theo didn’t know what to feel about them; he knew ants died all the time. It was natural for one or two to go when there were thousands in one place.
But it still didn’t feel right to him, the death of all those ants.
He picked up each and every body of the ants on the ground, at least the ones he could find, and kept them at the gate of the castle in hopes that they would get the same respect as the other fallen ones.
’Alright, now listen to what I am going to say, ant queen.’ Theo thought through the bond and made it understand every bit of the plan for now.
He knew the ant queen understood it, and when he made some more of the crawlers come toward them.
The ant queen stopped one as specified, while he got rid of the other two.
When there was only one left, he told Elias and Clara to be extra careful that nothing more comes back while also ensuring their own safety.
’Alright, remove the paralysis now.’ Theo thought through the bond, and the crawler shivered and looked here and there.
Yet there was no time when the spiders started speedily crawling toward it in a straight direction.
The crawler instinctively moved forward to take a bite off the spider, only for the spider to put a small web on the ground along the way and pull itself back at the right time.
When the crawler’s attack was complete, the spider didn’t even take a millisecond to prepare, it pounced again and jumped on the crawler’s head to pour out the poison in it.
When the colour around it changed to green, it was the turn of the aquamandibles as planned.
The two perched on the spider’s body shot jets of water. Theo had his fingers crossed, it all depended on their aim.
Yet at the very first try, they shot the jet of water directly in the eyes of the crawler, making it scream.
The embermaws went to work and went dangerously close to the crawler’s mouth before putting the resin all at one spot before scittering away to the spider’s back again.
The resin ignited, making one side of the crawler’s face all burned up.
Theo felt like it was more of a torture strategy than a kill one.
But he needed the embermaws to improve their skills and the spider was just needed for the poison and the movement.
They jumped down right away when they all got the kill message making Theo realize it only took them less than three minutes to take care of it.
’I just need to make use of them in strategies rather than an all-out war, the ant queen doesn’t understand how much focus, training and resources go into the development of each ant... They are more useful alive than dead for the whole colony and me.’
Theo thought and as if the ant queen was listening in, it sent in some more images making Theo look at them with amusement.
They showed how the ant queen dug into the first chamber inside the ground in the forest, laid the first brood and went foraging for resources before the first few ants came.
Theo could feel the intention behind the imagery too and smiled.
’So you want that evolution option huh...’ Theo thought and an instant yes came from it through emotions.
’But whatever you dig with it, we will have to leave one day, will you be okay leaving your new home?’ He asked.
There was some halt but the ant queen did approve of leaving, Theo was sure he felt some emotions of wherever he went, they would go too. But he wasn’t sure so he only took it as a ’yes’.
’I will help you complete all the requirements. We should start right away then.’ Theo spoke and made the ants go back to the colony in order to drag them back to the camp.
He saw them take the fallen soldiers inside the colony and in the end, when everyone was gone, the tarantula went to the entry too, moved its many eyes toward Theo for a moment before getting inside it too.
"I am going to get the ants to safety, I will be back soon!" Theo shouted making Elias and Clara nod.
When he was gone, Elias made extra sure that he was not there anymore. He moved from his safety toward the other end where Clara was.
"Clara, can you pass me one of your throwing daggers?" He asked politely yet Clara didn’t even look back. She took care of everything in front of her before stepping back with the boar and pup.
When she was at the safe zone, she looked at Elias with a frown.
"Do you really want to do this?" Clara asked, "It’s not like you’re doing something bad, you’re defeating as much of these beasts as we are with your own methods..."
Elias looked at her with his serious expression before moving his hand up.
"Will you let me have a throwing dagger or not?" He asked again and when Clara saw how serious he really was.
She sighed and got one out of the leather strap and gave it to him.
"Thank you, I will not forget this." He said with a big deep breath before going back to his location.
Clara felt concerned but the boar nudged his face at her making her look at it and smile.
"Yeah, he should be okay."
Outside the gate,
"We are sure they went to this one, sire." A tamer in a crimson red robe spoke. There were intricate designs on that robe making the person look a lot more important.
"Good, it will take us some time to find them but when we do..." One of the people in the group spoke with a smile, he kept a hand on the hilt of his sword.
"It’s about time for our next duel, Aldric"