Luring the Tiger Away from the Mountain

Foraging and exploration by worker ants rely on pheromones. When they discover suitable food but cannot bring it back alone, they leave pheromones along the path when returning. Nearby worker ants detect these scented pheromones and cooperate to transport the food back.

Ants sent out for transport also emit pheromones to guide more ants to join. This creates a positive feedback mechanism, and after some time, the entire colony follows the shortest path to the food source.

If a worker ant doesn't return but dies along the way, other worker ants will discover it and bring it back.

Although many worker ants venture out each time, it's rare for all of them to die simultaneously. The exploration range of worker ants is peculiar, covering various areas, so dead ants have a high chance of being discovered by nearby ants and brought back.

It's normal for a colony to have many dead worker ants. However, this particular queen suddenly woke up from her ignorance overnight. After being attracted by an unknown force, she deliberately stimulated the worker ants to search by releasing pheromones.

Because of this, when the assigned group of worker ants didn't receive pheromone feedback for a long time, the queen sent out a new batch of worker ants to explore.

It wasn't until the third wave of worker ants returned with two humans and three large ants that the situation changed.

The worker ants that returned did not recognize the scent of their own kind on the large ants' bodies; they merely considered them special food, like humans.

Only the awakened queen recognized that the dormant worker ants were members of her own colony.

Their lack of pheromone secretion was the reason for their "disconnection."

The scent emitted by the awakened humans drove the surrounding ants into a frenzy, rushing to tear them apart and consume them, even causing the queen to almost lose control.

Seeing the size of the worker ants gradually increase after consuming human flesh, the queen instinctively desired more human flesh, thus sending out more worker ants to explore.

As more and more worker ants began to disconnect, the queen sensed that something was amiss.

Subsequently, some worker ants transmitted the message of "intruders" back to the queen, prompting her to mobilize soldier ants to kill them.

However, the queen discovered that the bodies of the invaders brought back were the large worker ants that had gone missing, leading her to realize that her colony had rebelled because of eating human flesh.

Consuming human flesh could enlarge the ants and seemingly enhance their intelligence. The ants, which originally acted solely on pheromones and instinct, became increasingly difficult to control in the queen's eyes.

Even after consuming human flesh twice, the queen noticed a significant increase in her size, and wings were slowly growing back on her back.

Moreover, she found that she seemed to gain insight into human thoughts upon contact with humans.

Thus, she began sorting through those thoughts and attempting to both command the worker ants to bring back live humans and selectively choosing ants. Some ants responded very positively to the controlling pheromones she secreted, so she designated these ants as her personal guard, prioritizing them in distributing human flesh to promote their mutation and growth.

It turned out that these guards, mutated under the influence of her controlling pheromones, showed even greater loyalty to her, and they could even secrete secondary controlling pheromones based on her orders.

These secondary controlling pheromones would attract and guide other ants to act with the guards, allowing the queen to further control the ants below, forming multiple ant legions with one or more guards as the core.

Using this new ant colony pattern, the queen launched a massacre against the rebellious ants to seize territory and resources.

Unlike the queen's policy of collecting live humans and distributing food uniformly, the rebellious ants succumbed to their desire for human flesh and chose to eat on the spot.

Tom, upon awakening, encountered these rebellious ants, and most of the gnawed bones he saw along the way were left by them.

In the second floor, the several rooms he explored were all empty, as the shrunken people had been carried back to the nest by the queen's worker ants.

After adjusting the structure of her personal guard, the queen realized that the dark crevices were no longer suitable for the increasingly large colony. Therefore, she moved the entire nest out and occupied the room rented to the telecommunications company for storing equipment.

Moreover, she found strange stones forming in the bodies of mutated ants, and touching a certain stone would expand the range of her controlling pheromones. She then issued orders to dig out stones from the bodies of any mutated ants.

Just now, after consuming the man with long hair, she realized that there was a person in captivity with a strong will. Before consuming him, she believed she should first absorb his knowledge.

And it found that the lower the human's guard against it, the more knowledge it could absorb. That's why it just ordered the soldier ants to "invite" him earlier.

The strong-willed person is none other than Tom.

Now, having severed communication with the queen, Tom quickly assimilated the thoughts and memories she transmitted, understanding the reasons behind the ants' abnormal behavior.

Using the emerald gem to enhance one's thoughts was something both the queen and Tom could do. So, during their recent contact, they exchanged memories and knowledge.

Besides learning about the recent events in the ant colony, Tom acquired a wealth of knowledge about the organization and management of ant colonies. However, digesting this information would take some time.

Similarly, the queen also gained much of Tom's knowledge about crafting and general physics, requiring more time to assimilate.

At the moment of disconnection, Tom sensed the queen's passing regret and disappointment. She certainly wanted to gain more knowledge.

"This is an opportunity!" Tom rubbed his head, wiping away the blood from his nose. He quickly surveyed his surroundings, calculating how to escape.

The main gate had been bitten open by large soldier ants, but the path was filled with countless small and medium-sized ants. Escaping from there was unrealistic.

Far behind the queen, there was a window. If he could climb up to the window and break the glass, he should be able to escape. However, there were no mature conditions for climbing up or evading the pursuing ants at the moment.

In the glass jar, Liu Lian felt that Tom's appearance seemed familiar, reminiscent of scenes from some games they played together.

"Tom... may be negotiating with the queen," he murmured.

Li Qiang didn't understand. "Negotiating? What kind of negotiation? You mean negotiating with a tiny ant less than the size of a fist? Don't make me laugh!"

Liu Lian retorted, "Yeah, well, you were almost bitten to death by a tiny ant the size of a fingertip!"

Being retorted by Liu Lian, Li Qiang felt irritated but realized it wasn't the time to lose his temper. So, he patiently asked, "So, is this negotiation a good thing or a bad thing?"

As he asked, Chen Jianbin also stared, eagerly awaiting Liu Lian's response, while Luo Jun, dejected, stared at the ceiling.

"I don't know. Maybe it's about sacrificing us all to the queen, with Tom becoming her strategist, helping her conquer humanity's territories. Then, when the time is right, he'll turn against her, overthrowing the queen and seizing control of the ants. Haha, he's like the male version of the Queen of Blades," Liu Lian speculated.

"Psh..." Li Qiang thought Liu Lian was just teasing him.

Actually, Liu Lian's speculation wasn't entirely far-fetched. At least, Tom could sense that the queen's arrangements for him were similar to what Liu Lian had said: "Help the queen strengthen the colony."

Tom wasn't interested in playing "StarCraft" with an arthropod. He clenched the emerald gem, connected with the queen again, and their consciousnesses intertwined once more.

After all, ants were still ants. Even though the queen had gained intelligence and autonomous thinking after mutation, she still had a very immature mindset. All her feedback relied on the information she received. As for the authenticity of the information, she had not yet realized the existence of "false information."

Initially, Tom fabricated a memory: he had discovered that the rebellious ants had formed an alliance with another species of black ants and "deduced" that those black ants would soon launch an attack.

After learning this crucial "intelligence," the queen immediately mobilized a large army of ants to attack outward, aiming to eliminate the invading black ants outside and prevent them from endangering her safety.

Thus, the four people in the glass jar soon witnessed a terrifying scene: as huge soldier ants lined up, countless small and medium-sized ants gathered around them. There were probably two to three thousand ants, a sight that made everyone's heart pound. They had no idea that there were so many ants hidden in the building.

It's worth noting that these two to three thousand ants weren't like the tiny ones they had encountered before, which could be crushed with a finger. The ants Liu Lian and the others encountered were the size of mice, and with three thousand of them rapidly crawling around them, the fear was intense. Moreover, many of them were as big as rural dogs, deepening everyone's fear.

In fact, the queen intentionally induced and forcibly hatched stored ant eggs, rapidly producing a large number of soldier ants in the shortest possible time, relying on quantity to win against the overall stronger rebellious ants.

Just when Li Qiang and the others thought it was all over, and they would be gnawed to the bone by thousands of ants, the army of ants quickly fled outside, and the number of ants in the huge room quickly dwindled.

"As expected..." Li Qiang sat down on the ground, nearly scared out of his wits: "Is Tom helping the queen mobilize troops to capture more humans?"

Chen Jianbin, with a turn of his mind, said, "That's a good thing. If ants have more people to eat, they won't eat us. Then, we can fight against the queen together. That's great!"

Liu Lian gave him a disdainful look, feeling disgusted by this guy who lacked principles and backbone. "I always feel like Tom's up to no good."

"No good? Hah! How bad could it be? Worse than being eaten by them?" Li Qiang asked nonchalantly.

At this point, Luo Jun spoke up, "As long as Zhang Meng is killed, anything goes."

Zhang Meng cast a shadow over everyone. His parachute escape indirectly caused the death of Zhang Jiaqi. It was only natural for Luo Jun to hate him.

Meanwhile, Tom, upon seeing the queen falling for his trap, felt ecstatic. He carefully disguised his thoughts and remembered the dying man's hint to him, "The ruby is your only chance."

From the queen's memories, he found a scene: a small figure holding a ruby, fists glowing red, smashing an ant's head with a single blow, then torn to pieces by a large number of ants.

Ants couldn't distinguish colors, and the queen didn't understand why the person suddenly became so powerful, but Tom did.

However, he had already tried, and holding the ruby had no effect. This left him feeling discouraged; the ruby wasn't his opportunity.

Soon, the queen's body began to sway suddenly, and Tom felt her anger. The queen must have received feedback from the army of ants.

His lie had been exposed!

Several soldier ants nearest to him lowered their heads, opened their huge pincers, and charged towards him.