Chapter 298: Chapter 298. Danger to the ant colony- want to learn it?
The next five minutes went by with the baron trying to have something to hold on to and keep moving far away from the camp.
Theo saw him move quite far from the camp, and that was the moment he jumped.
The jump was like a water droplet falling into an ocean.
But when the baron actually fell back to the ground, the ground seemed to quake near Theo too, even though he was so far.
CRITTER CRITTER CRITTER
The same nostalgic voices came from nearby, making Theo find his sword lying near the campfire.
The crawlers started coming out in unbelievable numbers, but they were not there for Theo or the mantis.
Each one of them moved toward the corpse of the behemoth and attached themselves to it.
’Oh no.’ Theo knew what was going to happen to all those poor things, and seeing the sheer number, he also knew what was going to be used.
The mantis’s face twitched a few times seeing so many attached right now.
It moved its face back and then forward in a single thrust with its mandibles fully open.
A big spray of poison moved forward and was in the air.
The spray didn’t stop for many seconds, and the mantis casually sprayed it to the left and right, almost covering a whole left shoulder area of the behemoth.
And as if thinking they were done, it went to the next spot where they accumulated and Theo saw it use its spores.
It had been so long since it had used them that even Theo was surprised by the sheer amount that came out.
The spray zone was so big that when it started settling down on the ground and the crawlers’ bodies, they started twitching right away.
The mantis just hopped on them and pierced its foreleg into their heads one after another.
’I am so confused... was the mantis always this strong?’ Theo thought to himself and went back in time to think about it.
Yet the more memories he skimmed through, the more he felt like something was missing.
’Was... the mantis ever fighting at full strength... Did it ever get that opportunity before...?’ Theo thought with realization, making him shocked.
’No way.’
Theo couldn’t help but look at the mantis casually killing everything without the metallic strike.
’All this time, I have tried making it bigger, thinking the bigger it is, the better its chances of winning fights will be... but its development says otherwise...’
When Theo was thinking all that and was going to come to a conclusion, he felt a distress signal from the ant queen.
’What is it, ant queen?’ Theo asked in a hurry and panicked when he got the picture.
"FUCK!" Theo shouted and went to the spot where the trolley was kept, there was a hole right at the exit of the trolley, where the ants were making some underground chambers right now.
Theo saw a line of ants going inside the hole, especially the big ones.
’Fuck, are you okay, ant queen? Are the ants okay?? How many crawlers are there?’ Theo asked, making the ant queen share its vision with him.
Theo’s eyes had a silver tint to them, and he saw something else playing in front of him.
There were countless ants crammed up in one small space. There was a big pile of them at one of the sides.
And the POV changed to that of a small ant looking at the situation as if it were a camera.
Theo saw a crawler’s face opening and closing as if it wanted to get inside the hole but refrained. It was trying to get the ants to come to it to suck them into its mouth.
’Tell the aquamandibles to throw water into its mouth and the embermaws to ready the resin. When the mouth closes enough, tell the reinforced ants to get the embermaws to it and attach the ember to it.’ Theo gave a command that made the ant queen, among all that chaos, give the order.
Theo could not find any brood in the chamber right now, which was good, it might still have been in the trolley colony.
The aquamandibles aimed their backs at the crawler’s open mouth and when it went directly into its mouth.
A loud screech came from it, and it closed its mouth instinctively.
Four reinforced ants went with great speed, and when they were close enough, the crawler tried to retract itself, but the resin was already on it.
When it pulled its mouth out, Theo saw the hole it had made flare up yellow and light the whole chamber bright.
Theo saw all the ants form up close, the reinforced ones’ mandibles looked like they were industrial-grade pincers made to cut iron. The aquamandibles were close, and Theo could see their fine color from up close.
’Is it gone?’ Theo asked the ant queen, but he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Hey son, what are you doing? Did you see the hyper jump?" The baron spoke with a ’hmph’.
There were leaves and sticks attached to his hair as if he had just fallen on a tree.
"F-Father, get your aura up, the ants are being attacked!" Theo spoke in a hurry.
The baron’s eyebrows went up in curiosity, and he nodded before closing his eyes. When he opened them again, Theo felt a little ticklishness in his spine which helped him know the aura was there now.
"Thank you." He spoke after sitting down on the ground, finally, a sigh coming from his mouth.
’Did any of them die?’ Theo asked through the bond, and the ant queen denied, making Theo sigh again.
"What is that spider doing?" The baron asked, pointing at the spider that was trying to dig a hole inside the ground near the hole that was already made.
It was using all its legs with prowess and tried digging as much as it could.
Theo kept a hand on its head gently.
"It’s over now, you can relax, spider." Theo spoke out loud, making the spider stop and stare forward before moving to look at Theo again.
The baron looked at the interaction between his son and the spider, and just when Theo had said that, the spider stopped completely, making him realize the bond he had with these small creatures. They listened to him.
"Alright, now that the danger is gone, do you want to learn hyper jump too?"