Chapter 319: Chapter 319: Better to run than getting drowned

Theo gritted his teeth, he needed to give a direct order to the ants right now or it would just not be enough time to save everyone.

He quickly thought about something and looked toward a certain person.

"CLARA!" He shouted, making her look at him. "Catch me!" he spoke and closed his eyes.

’Hive Link,’ he spoke, and his eyes turned golden right away. Clara quickly moved forward toward him in frantic movements and was this close to getting Theo’s head banged on the ground, but she was able to save it.

Just like that, when Theo opened his eyes again, there were so many visions in front of him, as if he was using thousands of screens at the same time.

The difference was that looking at these screens every second led to a lot of pain in his brain.

But he didn’t waste time and thought about shouting as loud as he could, to reach all the ants and the bond members at the same time.

"All of you are to come back up to the ground as quickly as you can, main priority for the ant queen to be transported first," he spoke in a commanding voice that resounded all over the Hive Link.

And then quickly, he retracted his mind from the Hive Link, only to get a sharp pain in the center of his head.

He saw his body wobble and move up and right, and the ground move speedily below him.

When he was able to concentrate again, which was a few seconds later, Theo groaned and felt that he was being carried.

At one glance, he could tell that Clara was running with him on her shoulder.

"I am here now, you can put me down," Theo tried to say, but all that movement only made him mumble with groans.

Clara quickly stopped, set Theo down, and checked on him from top to bottom.

"Thank you," Theo spoke and offered her a military elbow tap, which she took right away.

Theo looked at the surroundings and saw all three of the worms on the ground, their bodies not moving.

"Are they already dead?" Theo asked, only to see the notifications of their death messages and his EXP that was stuck in one place even though he got a lot of it.

"Yes, young master. But these attacks are continuous. The baron told me to keep sprinting till I am unconscious, as more are coming up right now," she spoke and asked with concern, "Why did you use that skill right now?"

Theo realized something from that question and looked toward the nearest big hole of the ant colony. He could see activity and multiple ants there, which meant that the plan had reached everyone.

He made sure through the ant queen’s bond, and sure enough, his command had reached each and every Hive-linked beast.

’I am getting better,’ he thought when he saw yet another level up of the Hive Link skill.

"Young master?" Clara spoke, only for Theo to come out of his thinking.

"I had to order every ant to come out of the colony with the ant queen. They had made a big chamber right at the end of the colony that was connected to all the tunnels the burrower worker ants were making. All that blood was supposed to go inside that big chamber, but it seems even that is not enough. It got flooded, and now the whole colony is getting flooded with each second."

"So that problem became this big..." Clara spoke with a hand on her mouth.

"Yeah. I was thinking that by the time the big chamber was supposed to be filled up, the soil around it would just soak everything in and the chamber would be left half empty every time. But clearly, I was wrong," Theo spoke while shaking his head.

"I see, but they are coming out now, so your command reached them, young master. That is good enough for celebration, don’t you think?" Clara said to cheer him up, making Theo chuckle and look at the big opening on the ground again.

Many ants had made a blob around a big thing, making him know the ant queen was out now.

Theo saw big white lumps in the mandibles of the bigger ants, and he was relieved.

"All the brood seems to be safe too," he spoke in relief. He checked in on the bond and found out that there was still a lot of brood left to get out, but the ant numbers were good enough to retrieve them.

Theo looked at the location of the three worms entangled in one place again, only to realize something.

"Elias! I need the ape’s help to get these big crawlers out of the ground! Come quick!" he shouted, making Elias look at him from far away. He was standing with the baron, waiting for more gigantic crawlers to come.

Theo started running and reached the crawler much sooner than Elias.

But soon, they were there too, and the ape went and stood near the crawler with a confused expression.

He tapped the sword’s blade a few times in confusion, making a vein pop on Elias’s head.

"You dum—" he was going to say something, only to refrain and continue, "Just give the sword to me and help us pull this crawler out, alright?" Elias spoke.

The ape could swear he just got sworn at, but it couldn’t put a hand on it, so it passed the sword to Elias and pulled on the crawler.

When one was out of the ground completely, everyone looked at the horrifying spectacle again.

The ants had made so many holes that were still leaking blood that even the ape felt something was wrong.

Theo got shivers when he saw those bites. He knew how many ants were there to make something like this.

Five thousand burrowing worker ants.

That was the number.

’If my ants get even bigger than this, I can’t imagine how much damage they would do... There is brood even bigger than these ones now...’ Theo thought with excitement.

And with two worms out now, the tunnels stopped getting supplied with blood again, making Theo feel relieved.

But when the ape pulled the third worm, something weird happened.

The worm just wouldn’t budge.