The Spoils of War

Watching more and more ants gathering, many of them mutated worker ants, Tom knew the opportunity had come. He decisively activated the lighter and directed it towards the mutated soldier ants surrounding the red crystal.

The high-temperature flame instantly ignited the flammable mutated soldier ants. Tom didn't immediately burn them to death; the flames swept through the ant colony rapidly, only igniting one mutated ant after another.

The ants, now on fire, had never encountered such a situation. The intense heat made them panic and flee in all directions, inadvertently approaching the nearest groups of small ants. Wherever they went, the smaller ants fell to the ground, curling up and being burned to death.

"Now's the time!" Bo shouted, activating his powers and drawing out his sword. "Rong Shu, come with me!"

Seeing the opportunity, the reserve team, led by Bo, swiftly inserted themselves under the feet of Old Street Zero. Then Rong Shu stepped forward, the green gem on his arm emitting a green light. He extended his hand towards a mutated worker ant that was burned to death on the spot but still on fire, causing the flames to flare up.

Tom, wearing Old Street Zero, scooped up Rong Shu and rushed to another mutated soldier ant that was frantically circling in panic. With another wave of Rong Shu's hand, the flames diminished considerably.

Thus, the onlookers saw Tom running through the ant swarm with Rong Shu, continuously fanning the flames, strengthening the fire by burning more mutated ants, while weakening the surviving ones to ensure they burned longer and killed more small ants.

"Hey, what about igniting the furniture?" one of the guys expressed concern.

"Forget about that, focus on killing the scattered ants with me!" Bo shouted, his sword swinging relentlessly, constantly cutting down ants of all sizes emerging from the fire.

So, everyone armed themselves and scattered, harvesting the ants fleeing in panic like headless flies.

Meanwhile, Tom targeted his fires strategically. Holding Rong Shu, he successfully controlled the flames, ensuring that the fire on the mutated ants was slightly smaller, allowing them to live longer and burn more small ants.

Surveying the ground covered with ants of all sizes, Tom quickly found the larger ant looking bewildered in the corner.

It was the queen ant, mutated queen ant. It seemed that it wasn't as lucky as the one Tom encountered the first time, as mutation hadn't made it smarter. It was currently panicked by the fire. It wanted to run, but its enlarged body couldn't fit into its usual burrow, and scared by the fire in front of it, it tried to climb the wall... but with its size, even moving was difficult, let alone climbing.

Tom put Rong Shu down and shouted to Bo, "Protect Rong Shu!" Then he dashed towards the queen ant, which was dazed and confused.

Forced into a corner by the flames, the queen ant was helpless, not knowing what to do. In the end, it was restrained by Old Street Zero, its head pinned down, and its six legs subsequently pulled out.

Unable to move without its legs, the queen ant was immobilized. Two seconds later, Tom released one of his hands from the metal glove and swiftly stopped the resonance of the large red crystal. Then he pressed a switch, switching the conductor to another compartment in his backpack, where a green crystal was stored.

With its head restrained, the queen ant couldn't struggle. Two seconds later, Tom released one hand from the metal glove and pressed it against the queen ant's head. Green light spread throughout its body.

Tom had once communicated with a queen ant capable of secreting controlling pheromones, learning many ways to control ants. At that time, he had deceived the queen ant into sending out all its subordinate ants. Facing this even dumber queen ant now, it would be easier to control it.

Sure enough, the mutated queen ant had evolved an efficient organ for secreting pheromones, but this queen ant lacked enough experience to know how to use it.

This turned out to be advantageous for Tom.

Typically, there would be only one queen ant in a colony. After laying eggs, the queen ant would secrete a hormone to ensure that the ant eggs didn't hatch into reproductive ants, thus avoiding the emergence of new queen ants threatening its position. If reproductive ants were discovered among the hatched ants, the worker ants would usually eliminate them.

Now, Tom's task was to make the queen ant secrete pheromones containing instructions, directing the worker ants hiding in the wall nests to locate all the ant eggs and "transfer" them outside.

Such strongly directive pheromones were unprecedented for the small worker ants, and they had no resistance at all, obediently carrying the ant eggs out of the nest.

At this point, the ants that still had a chance to escape had fled, leaving only the dead ones in the house. With Bo's help, Rong Shu extinguished the fires everywhere. This gave the worker ants carrying the ant eggs some sense of security and made them more actively carry out the queen's orders.

Watching the continuous stream of ant eggs being carried out, everyone felt increasingly uneasy. There were too many, at least two thousand or more. These must have been produced by the queen ant working overtime recently.

If it weren't for Tom devising this plan of action, even if they killed this colony of ants, the worker ants hiding in the wall nests would hatch these ant eggs. Without the suppression of the queen ant, more than two thousand ant eggs would definitely produce new queen ants, posing a threat to the future.

After commanding the worker ants, Tom noticed that the queen ant's presence had weakened significantly. Having never produced such a strong pheromone before, he quickly emptied its body. Then he exerted more effort, causing the queen ant to emit another, more intense pheromone: sleep.

This pheromone had a strong hypnotic effect on the worker ants. Originally a strategy employed by the queen ant in times of food scarcity and harsh external conditions, it would induce some ants into a state of sleep to reduce food consumption, ensuring that after the harsh conditions passed, there would still be enough ants to gather resources.

Thus, more than a hundred exhausted worker ants, who had just finished moving the ant eggs, quickly lay down on the ground, falling into a deep sleep.

At Bo's command, these worker ants were swiftly decapitated. With this, the operation against the mutated ant nest was successfully completed.

After the intense battle and the recent fire-filled environment, Tom, now freed, was soaked through even more than before. Exhausted, he even needed Bo's help to lift the jar and drink some sugar water.

Someone went back to the camp to call for help in moving things, while others began inspecting every corner of the rooms to see if there was anything valuable.

"What should we do with so many ant eggs? Burn them?" Bo scratched his head, feeling troubled by the pile of ant eggs. Once hatched, over two thousand ants, even if small, could devour them all.

Tom chuckled and called Rong Shu over. "Rong Shu, what do you think we should do with these?"

"These?" Rong Shu picked up an ant egg, weighing it in his hand. It was about the size of a goose egg. "Tom, are you suggesting we... eat them?"

"Ant eggs have low fat content but are rich in various amino acids, vitamins, and trace elements. Of course, they're edible. And... I remember that black ants have been approved by the Ministry of Health as a new food resource. Among ants, their nutritional content is even higher. I think not only can we take back the ant eggs to eat, but we can also bring back the heads of those worker ants and cook them."

"Really?" Rong Shu's eyes lit up with joy. Recently, food supplies had been limited, and Wei Shu had been encouraging him to experiment with rice in various ways to keep morale up. Now, hearing that this pile of ant eggs and ant heads were edible and highly nutritious, it solved a big problem.

"Of course!" Tom stretched his arms, feeling his strength returning.

"In that case, let's quickly move the ant eggs back. We'll treat Tom to an extra meal tonight. Haha! With these ant eggs, I have over a dozen recipes." Bo stood up, inspecting Old Street Zero, which was covered in scratches. Fortunately, the iron material was tough enough; otherwise, Tom would have been shredded by the mutated soldier ants long ago. Others also sighed in relief, realizing how dangerous the situation had been.

After a while, Skinny came running back, shouting, "Bo, An, come and see this!"

Tom's interest was piqued. Surely Skinny and the others had discovered something remarkable.

They followed Skinny to a nearby box, where a huge shadow lurked in the dark corner. Others held their weapons, hesitating to approach.

"What is this?" Bo was puzzled. The creature was estimated to be over 20 centimeters long and about 9 centimeters tall, entirely black with white spots on its long antennae and back, looking quite terrifying.

"Wow, I know!" one of the guys said. "This is a longhorn beetle, back in our hometown, we call it a 'bullhorn bug'. We used to catch them to play with when we were kids. But, uh, its appearance seems a bit different. Could it be mutated?"

Skinny swallowed nervously. "Does it... eat people? Or... meat?"

"Longhorn beetles are usually found on trees. They chew on wood and leaves for a living... As for whether they eat people... I don't know."

"Is it still alive?" Bo whispered.

Tom beckoned for a guy to hand over the green crystal he was holding, then carefully approached, while the others stood guard with their weapons. Bo even pulled out a pistol, something he hadn't done even during the battle with the ants.

Tom activated the green crystal, pressing his hand against the beetle's body. Then, his mind tightened as he entered the longhorn beetle's mind.

Communicating with creatures used to give him a headache, but now, perhaps due to his frequent use of crystals, he was becoming more accustomed to it, without experiencing headaches anymore.

The first thing Tom could ascertain was that the longhorn beetle was still alive, captured by the mutated soldier ants.

A few days ago, it had eaten a large gemstone and then fallen into a deep sleep. It was subsequently discovered by worker ants searching for food, and then attacked by mutated soldier ants. Woken by pain, it struggled desperately, but before fully waking, it was bitten by the mutated soldier ants, and its body was coated in their acidic toxins, causing it to fall into a coma.

It seemed that these soldier ants hadn't immediately eaten it after dragging it back. Instead, they left it on the side, guarding it heavily. Tom speculated that they were waiting for it to grow larger through mutation while still in its sleep. However, after being unconscious for a few days, it had indeed grown larger, but before the queen ant could start eating it, Tom and his team raided the ant nest. The mutated soldier ants guarding the longhorn beetle also joined the battle, resulting in the beetle remaining asleep.

Due to Tom's intrusion, the longhorn beetle's consciousness began to gradually awaken. However, perhaps due to the numerous ant attacks it had experienced before falling asleep, it was extremely frightened. Upon discovering that there was still consciousness in its mind, its fear only intensified.