Negotiating with the Queen Ant

"Ruby, remember, the ruby is your only chance!" The long-haired man blurted out before being dragged away by the worker ants, leaving Tom puzzled.

"Ruby? What ruby?" Liu Lian slapped his head. "Oh right, yesterday you were yelling about us all trying the gems. You said you could communicate with biscuits just by using emeralds? Do you have a magic touch?"

Facing the gaze of the others, Tom nodded calmly. "It's just that it allows me to communicate with biscuits, nothing else. That's why I wanted you all to try. Maybe the long-haired guy noticed something, so he reminded me. By the way, where are the gems we brought?"

Several rubies and emeralds, even a green crystal, were in the backpack. Tom couldn't find them after waking up, but they were probably eaten by ants or stored away.

"Look!" Li Qiang shouted across.

They saw the long-haired man being thrown out and then many small ants swarmed out, followed by a giant figure slowly emerging.

"That's a huge ant! Must be over two meters tall, right?" Liu Lian exclaimed unconsciously.

With their current senses, two meters tall would translate to about 8 to 9 centimeters in their previous size, just a little taller than their current 7 centimeters.

"That's the Queen Ant," Tom said. "The Queen Ant is even bigger than the soldier ants, but exaggerated to this extent... It must have mutated from consuming humans, so it can directly command and dispatch all ants."

"Mutated?" Liu Lian licked his lips. "Are you saying it's like the cerebrates in StarCraft?"

This Queen Ant was just an enlarged version of the regular worker ants. Its six legs had degenerated and become shorter, but its abdomen was particularly large, moving very slowly, carried by dozens of worker ants of various sizes.

After the Queen Ant matures, it grows wings and flies into the air to continue its growth. It mates with other male ants in the air, and the male ants queue up to mate with it until its weight exceeds the limit that the wings can bear. It then lands, sheds its wings, and digs a hole to lay eggs and reproduce. At that time, its body already contains enough X liquid to produce ants for a lifetime.

On this Queen Ant's body, Tom saw two pairs of wings, although still very small and unable to fly, he believed they grew after its mutation. If it continues to mutate, it may be able to fly.

The worker ants around the Queen Ant were responsible for serving it food and water and moving it around. After it lays eggs, they also transfer the eggs to other places for hatching.

Now, in front of this Queen Ant, which was more than twenty times their size, these small-sized worker ants looked so tiny, but the dense number of ants was still intimidating.

Besides dragging the Queen Ant, some of them were also responsible for carrying gems. Tom recognized among them the green gems he had collected.

The long-haired man was thrown in front of the Queen Ant. He knelt on the ground, gazing at the Queen Ant infatuatedly. Now everyone knew the fate of the long-haired man.

The Queen Ant didn't rush to eat him. Instead, it picked up the green crystal and swallowed it.

"What... what's going on?" Liu Lian was puzzled. They all knew ants ate people but had never seen ants eat gems or crystals. Now, with delicious human flesh in front of them, the Queen Ant was eating stones, which was unexpected.

"What is it trying to do?" Li Qiang asked in confusion.

Without saying a word, Liu Lian thought for a moment. "Tom, when you asked us to run earlier, was it because you communicated with that soldier ant with only its head left?"

Liu Lian's mind was quite nimble. Tom nodded. "Yes."

"Since humans can communicate with ants, can't the Queen Ant also communicate with us humans? You said it has mutated to the point where it can directly command and dispatch ants."

Chen Jianbin, hearing this, felt like he had grasped a lifeline. "That's great, Tom, go quickly, tell the Queen Ant not to eat us, and we'll take its army to find more people. Go!"

Li Qiang turned around and kicked him down. "Damn, you traitor!"

Tom disliked people like Chen Jianbin, but his focus wasn't on that now.

"If it really can access human thoughts, then it may be trying to learn human thoughts."

The first time he communicated with a biscuit, Tom experienced a very strange feeling. He seemed to be the biscuit himself, witnessing the biscuit's battle with the ant colony with his own eyes.

If this Queen Ant can really do the same, then it may be truly learning human knowledge. If it learns more, scenes from the Zerg's Queen of Blades in StarCraft could happen.

Thinking of this, Tom couldn't help but shiver, but the next moment he suppressed the fear, because that was something for later. Right now, he had to find a way to survive.

The Queen Ant might be digesting the crystal. After waiting for a while, it opened its mouth wide, bit onto the long-haired man's head, broke his skull, and began sucking.

The long-haired man's body was hung up, seemingly enduring great pain, trembling all over, with a lot of blood flowing from the burst skull.

"Ugh..." Chen Jianbin turned around and vomited again. Compared to being eaten by soldier ants just now, the death of the long-haired man was even more terrifying.

In a few moments, the long-haired man was completely swallowed by the Queen Ant, leaving behind a large pool of bloodstains and some scattered internal organs on the ground.

The others all turned pale. They all imagined that they would face the same fate, and it was already difficult for them not to collapse mentally.

In contrast, Tom had a higher tolerance level. At this moment, he was still carefully observing the Queen Ant.

The Queen Ant finishing off the long-haired man didn't satisfy her; instead, she turned her head and waved her antennae towards their direction. In that moment, Tom's whole body stood on end; he felt the Queen Ant was "staring" at him. Soon after, two large soldier ants crawled over and entered the glass jar, coming up to Tom. Surprisingly, one of them crouched down. Everyone was shocked by this situation. What did the soldier ant mean?

"Tom, does it want you... to ride on it?" Liu Lian asked with saliva. "You really are the guy with the magic touch; the Queen Ant wants to communicate with you?"

At this moment, Chen Jianbin rushed over, grabbing Tom's feet and tearfully said, "Brother An, please, go talk to the Queen Ant, let her spare this despicable man, I won't dare disrespect you again, I beg you."

Other people detested Chen Jianbin's shameless behavior, with Li Qiang even spitting at him. However, for Tom, they felt more awe.

Tom felt things weren't that simple, but he had no choice now and had to mount the ant.

The soldier ants carried him out of the glass jar, and as they progressed, he could feel the ants "watching" him. He didn't know if it was the individual ants or if the Queen Ant was "watching" him through them.

Arriving in front of the Queen Ant, he dismounted onto the ground, and the Queen Ant lowered her head to him. The Queen Ant's mandibles were large, her head even larger; she could easily snap Tom's head off with one bite. Tom took a deep breath, calming himself. Although he didn't know why the Queen Ant was treating him with such respect, he knew it wouldn't change the fact that she saw him as food. The Queen Ant continued to lower her head towards him. After hesitating for a moment, he reached out to touch her, but there was no expected sensation.

At that moment, a small worker ant brought a green gemstone to him. He picked it up and held it in his hand, then touched the Queen Ant again. A severe pain surged from his hand to Tom's brain, feeling like someone drove a large iron nail forcefully into his head.

Tom trembled violently, feeling his mind go blank; blood streamed from his nose, looking as if he had been electrocuted.

"It's like high-voltage electricity!" Liu Lian added. "He must have been electrified by the Queen Ant, haha!"

Li Qiang glared at him. At this critical moment, Liu Lian still found time to joke, which really annoyed Li Qiang.

To outsiders, Tom seemed to be in great pain, and indeed he was. However, after the initial blankness and intense pain, suddenly everything became clear.

He vaguely "saw" himself in the dark soil, surrounded by small ants. Then a strong consciousness struck his mind.

"He" felt many strong desires outside, an impulse to devour everything. So "he" sent out "hands," but after a long time, none returned, not even a message. So "he" sent out another batch of "hands," and soon, like before, none reported back. This time, "he" sent out the most recent batch of hatched "hands." Before long, they brought back two bipeds and three of the first batch of "hands" that had lost contact.

The first batch of "hands" were all asleep, but "he" found their sizes were significantly larger; their individuals were as big as "thorns" now.

Images and thoughts flashed rapidly in Tom's mind, never before had he received external information so directly, feeling like his head was about to explode.

He kept trembling until finally he let go of the Queen Ant. In that moment of release, he could sense the Queen Ant also experiencing great pain and confusion, just like him.

Tom shook his head, trying to clear his mind, then quickly began to process the information he had just received. He had probably touched the Queen Ant's memories.

When they first shrank, the Queen Ant felt a temptation; it must have been the flesh of the shrunken humans tempting her. So she sent two groups of worker ants to explore. Both groups didn't return until she sent her most "loyal" worker ant, which brought back the two shrunken humans and three of the first batch of "lost" worker ants. She realized that the shrunken humans were the temptation that had attracted her, and after the humans woke up, her worker ants disregarded order and rushed to eat them. Shortly after eating, those worker ants fell asleep, and the first batch of three worker ants woke up from their slumber, transmitting the message of exploration back to her: "Food, delicious food."

Both the first and second waves of worker ants couldn't resist the temptation and directly started eating the humans on the spot, then fell asleep. Afterward, the Queen Ant sent out more worker ants to search for food. Soon, there were large and medium-sized worker ants, so she ordered the search area to expand from the first floor to the second. During this process, some large worker ants began to "lose contact." Initially, she thought they were killed by human counterattacks, but as more and more worker ants "lost contact," she began to realize something was wrong.