Destroyer Of Empires; Anteater

"An earthquake? Or is it an enemy attack? Who would it be this time - wasps? Hornets? Or other ants? But none of them should be able to produce such great vibration," he thought as he looked up, only to discover a large, black, tentacle-like object coming from another part of the main entrance.

"What in the world?!" In the next moment, the tentacle-like object moved with great speed and agility, swiping left and right. Any and all ants touched by it would be glued to it. Suddenly, the queen released a great amount of warning pheromones.

He could somehow tell what it meant in human words: "Retreat into the deeper level of the nest, do not look back, do not hesitate." He was greatly surprised that this queen, who had remained calm and calculative even when attacked by the hornet group, was giving such an order.

Very quickly, he regained his composure and used his soul, which was so large that some of its parts were nearing the surface, to view the enemy. What was before his gaze was a large, giant beast as big as a mountain and wide enough to cover the sky if he had looked at it face to face.

The great nemesis of ants and their greatest nightmare, destroyer of ant colonies: the ANTEATER. Anteaters are creatures that have evolved special ways to eat ants, and no matter the amount of biting and stinging ants do, it'll never reach nor harm them, thanks to their impenetrable hides.

Next in their arsenal would be their weapons of mass destruction: their large and sharp claws, which could easily cut through an ant fortress's walls like they were nothing. These claws could cut, dig, and rip apart anything in their way.

Then there's their mouth, which had evolved into a form much more suitable for ravaging ant colonies and bringing about their demise. And last but not least, their tongue - the large, black, tentacle-like tongue that moved as though it had a mind of its own. It would immediately grasp and glue to any and all ants too close to it.

The tongue could stretch, widen, retract, and discharge special saliva that could glue ants to it, and it was almost, if not completely, resistant to the bites of ants.

The ant heard a sound and looked at its origin, only to discover that two queen guards were carrying the queen while flying towards a hole below the queen's bed. Another was escorting them, while the last one, which also happened to be the injured one, flew straight for the anteater.

The general had led the first generation and most of the colony underground. When the last false queen was close enough, the ant concentrated all its attention on her and witnessed time seemingly slow down.

The false queen's head suddenly cracked as she opened her pincers with all her might and bit down at the very tip of the tentacle-like tongue. In the next moment, the pincers somehow pierced through a little, and that hurt the anteater, which thrashed its tongue around in a frenzy.

This threw away the false queen, though her head exoskeleton was still stuck to the tongue tip. Suddenly, the tongue stopped and retracted, and the ground started vibrating again. After a few minutes or so, it had completely left.

The ant had been watching the rampage from a hidden place throughout the entire process. Only afterwards did it come out.

"The queen's guards could snap my neck off my body if it's a test of physical strength, and I can only win if I use my energy blast or explode its head with soul force. Yet one died so randomly, sacrificing itself for her queen... her colony," he thought with a darkened expression.

"If that anteater had somehow attacked me, I don't know if I could survive... even after using both my energy blast, I'd still be weakened from exhaustion and would be left at the mercy of the enemy. And... the soul of the anteater was around the size of a small chicken egg, and its mind was definitely stronger. I don't know if I could force it to explode the way I did with the ants," he thought as he looked at the damage caused by the anteater.

The losses on the colony's side were over half a million from what he could see - workers and soldiers alike, even some drones and princesses.

"Currently, I only have about a week at most before my lifespan runs out... but I haven't seen any solution at all. This truly is troubling," he thought as he started making his way into the deeper levels of the cave. Yet at that moment, he spotted a cricket crawling strangely into the nest.

One must know that most insects would avoid an ant's nest as much as possible, and that includes grasshoppers and crickets alike.

"Wait, grasshoppers and crickets... horsehair parasite," he thought as he looked at the strange behaving cricket.

Phylum Nematomorpha, also known as horsehair worms, are a type of parasite that are free-living as adults but parasitic in arthropods as juveniles. This parasite would find a suitable host, mostly crickets and grasshoppers, and constantly suck nutrients from them to sustain themselves.

Afterwards, they would wickedly mind-control the host to seek water bodies and drown themselves to death to continue their species.

"This might just be my answer. Even if not permanently, I could probably use it to my advantage... Luckily, I was a scientist in my past life and had wasted most of my life studying the inner structure of different organisms. Although it had been so long, I still have everything fresh in my mind. Is this another effect of the thoughts marble?" he thought.

Most insects would usually eat anything, even other insects, but this would only fill their bodies with "food" nutrients. But parasites have the ability to absorb the "life" and "food" instead. This basically makes the parasite almost immortal if their host is still living and able to provide their necessary nutrients.

To insects, these creatures are practically immortal vampires. A horsehair worm just so happens to be such a type of parasite.

"And if I wipe out the worm's consciousness and remove some of the other unnecessary organs and parts, like their reproductive organs, connect my nervous system to theirs, and with my puppeteering abilities that my soul gave me, I'll basically and practically have extra arms and their ability to suck life force," he thought as he watched the cricket rest at a small wet place at a corner of the nest.

"But for me to be able to do something like this, I'll need a great number of test subjects and a large number of workforce," he thought.

"Is it finally time to take that step? Well, it's now or never," he thought as he made up his mind and started walking stealthily towards the cricket. The cricket didn't even notice nor did it seem to care about its surroundings temporarily.

When the ant was close enough, he looked at the cricket and saw four different souls in its body. It seemed as though being in the cricket's body made their spirit covers obscure their own spirits and vastly masked their mind waves.

Yet he could see the three other souls and faintly sense their mind waves. In the next moment, he used two pieces of a tentacle to erase the consciousness of the cricket and made it follow him with his soul ability, puppeteering.

Along the way, he met a few other ants, and they wanted to dismantle the cricket immediately. But he simply wiped out their consciousness and made them carry the cricket for him.

"With my current abilities, I can easily control ten ants with my soul puppeteering. After all, I can create five soul tentacles, and each can be separated into four smaller pieces, which is about twenty pieces altogether. And yet, I only need two pieces to control an ant," he thought.

"Wait, that's not right? I can reduce the size of each piece and make them as small as the first feeler I made. With that, each tentacle can be separated into five pieces, meaning I can control about twelve ants and still have a piece remaining," he continued to think randomly as he sat on top of the cricket as the puppet ants carried it to a hidden corner.

The thing about ant nests is that there are always small hidden rooms or caves that nobody uses. And at this moment, the ant had the puppet ants drop the cricket inside and started digging to expand the size of the cave, but with a little twist. He used his experience and knowledge about architecture from Earth as a model, and in a day and a half of working, made a large three-floor space.

Normally, twelve ants wouldn't be able to do it alone in just a single day. But the thing about ants is that once a small group starts something, more would come to join, and the ant was glad they did.

Afterwards, he made them bring large dried leaves to cover all open spaces, and then covered it with molding sand and let it harden. Then they carried thick sticks, which would look like trees to them, and stood them at different soft and unstable sides of the ceiling as pillars.

Then he sent them to bring some edible mushrooms and planted them at the side, some ant corpses and other insect corpses, all fresh. He made them bring two honeypots - after all, what is a honey ant without honey?

And in less than seventeen hours, he had made a "civilized" yet "alien" form of architecture in the ant civilization. Most of the passing ants wanted to enter, yet were dismantled by the seven guarding puppet soldier ants.

As for the remaining five ants, he made two caretakers of the cricket, feeding it and tending to it, and the other three were following him. Among all his puppet ants, only the two looking after the crickets were workers, while the others were soldiers.