Law of the Swarm

Chapter 73 The Demon Insect from the Abyss
The weird and strange life manipulates the ants grown from its body to perform simple activities.

The manipulative ant's fangs bit the half of the butterfly larva beside it for a while, then it opened its huge circular mouth again, and ate the gray-white ant that grew out of its body together with the remaining half of the butterfly larva.

The surface of the meat ball continued to squirm, and this time the squirming became more intense.

It didn't take long for its body to grow eight thick black exoskeleton legs. The entire surface of the meat ball was covered with a layer of hard black exoskeleton, and the meat ball was constantly changing.

The entire meat ball eventually turned into a black spider nearly half a meter in size, but unlike ordinary spiders, this spider had a pair of translucent wings in the shape of cicada wings growing on its body.

The black spider spread its legs and moved around. It shook its head to look at itself, and then observed the surrounding snow for a while, as if it was thinking about something.

Not long after, the exoskeleton on the black spider's body trembled slightly, the black gradually faded, the black spider slowly turned gray, and then from gray to white like snow.

It spread its wings and began to fly in the forest, and stretched out the tentacles that ordinary spiders don't have on their heads, and began to search...

White spiders do not have names.

It may have had a name once, the name given by Shadow, but because Shadow left for a while, it forgot it.

It even forgot whether it ever had a name.

It has taken over Shadow's job since it disappeared a few months ago and its angry owner has searched for it several times and failed to find it.

Let it go to the main world, look for and catch bugs that break through the limit of species, and pay attention to whether there are traces of shadows, and kill them if found.

From its third pupation, it possesses a certain amount of wisdom
The white spider couldn't understand why its owner had to go to such great lengths to send it to the main world to find those weak bugs.

Insects that can be easily crushed to death have no value at all.

But as long as the master ordered him to do it, he would definitely do it to the best of his abilities.

The few ants just now were very close to the limit of the species, and the white spider felt that it was a pity that he could complete the task assigned to it by the master just a little bit.

There are still seven days left, and the white spider knows that when the glowing thing in the sky rises and falls seven times, it will return to the abyss again due to the master's [Insect Swarm Teleportation].

……

……

System brought Shava back to the wintering lair. Along the way, he never found the breath of the abyss, nor did he feel uneasy anymore.

After planting a few frosty flowers in the snow near the lair, System finally made up his mind, decided to rest tonight, wait until tomorrow to recharge his mind, and then began to transform his talent [Molting Growth] into [Pupation] 】.

After entering the nest, System went to the huge empty room where Queen Linda was staying as usual, and checked Queen Linda's condition.

In the past six months, System has not found a pair of male ants for the female ant Linda. Although there are sporadic ants surviving in the adjacent ant nests, there are no male ants among the surviving ants.

Five months ago, the ant nest had completely lost its movement, and it was unknown whether the ants had all died or the surviving ants inside had gone dormant.

It wasn't until his ant people explored that ant nest in the last two months that System knew that the ants in that ant nest were basically wiped out, and only a dozen or so worker ant pupae remained dormant underground. on one's last legs.

Although there was no movement in the ant nest, after more than a month of continuous strengthening at that time, the female ant Linda inexplicably began to lay eggs.

Just like a hen can lay eggs without the presence of a rooster, only those eggs cannot hatch into chicks.

The same is true for the female ant Linda. Since that day, she has produced ant eggs from time to time, but the ant eggs produced can only hatch into non-reproductive worker ants and soldier ants.

System speculates that this is a means for ants to preserve the continuation of the race when they lose both the queen and the male queen at the same time.

After System's continuous strengthening over the past few months, and asking the queen ant Linda to control the number of eggs she lays, the quality of her offspring has also gradually improved.

Between expanding the scale of ants and producing elite ants, System finally chose the latter.

System knew that with the ice and snow and the lack of food, if he rashly expanded the size of the ants, his ant people would undoubtedly lead to their own destruction.

"Wait until two months later, the size of those butterflies will become larger, then let's expand the size of the ant colony..."

System pulled back the tentacles wrapped around the queen ant's body, and through probing, System knew that the day when queen ant Linda's second pupation was very close.

It is estimated that in another ten days or so, the queen Linda will enter the second pupation just like Shava and the dozen or so ants.

However, how long it will take for the second pupation to break out of the pupa is still unknown. It took Shava nearly four months to successfully break out of the pupa.

As for the dozens of ants that pupated for the second time, two of them are soldier ants, and the remaining thirteen are worker ants. They all entered the second pupation in the past month. How long will it last? System couldn't guess either.

"You may not be able to emerge from the chrysalis in two months, so let's expand the size of the ants when you emerge from the chrysalis..." System sent a spiritual message to the ant queen Linda.

"Wang, tell me, I don't understand..."

As Queen Ant Linda has always said, although she is smarter than ordinary ants, she is obviously not as good as Shava and Grasshopper Queen Kun.

Perhaps after she pupates for the second time, her intelligence will become higher.

System shook his head, and left the empty room where the ant queen Linda was.

Speaking of the wisdom of ants, a special ant appeared in System's mind, a relatively thin worker ant named Black.

Almost every time System returned to the lair, he would see Black coming to greet him, but he unexpectedly did not see him this time.

Black is also called Little Black by System. There is a small black spot on its head. He is an accidental product of System's failure to strengthen worker ant eggs.

At that time, he tried to endow the worker ant eggs with the silk-spinning ability of butterfly larvae, but failed, and then inexplicably made the worker ant acquire extremely high intelligence.

Even though Xiao Hei is just an ordinary worker ant, her intelligence is higher than Shava's.

In terms of computing power alone, the current Xiao Hei has even surpassed him.

Ten days ago, System taught Xiao Hei a small game of backgammon because he was bored.

Draw a grid on a piece of ice he made, then use dead leaves and ice crystals as chess pieces.

As a result, the first few rounds were fine, and he could basically win easily. After a while, he and Xiao Hei played a close game, and after a few more rounds, System never played this kind of game with Xiao Hei again. The game is over.

But apart from intelligence, Xiao Hei's level improvement and blood in his body are very bad.

But Xiao Hei has an unimaginable spirit of not admitting defeat, and System can feel Xiao Hei's desire to become stronger and then help him.

For this reason, System, who had already decided not to lie to the ants, lied again.

In fact, Xiao Hei does not have the conditions to activate [Spiritual Connection] at all, because it is difficult to increase the level, and Xiao Hei's second pupation is also hopeless.

……

System briefly inspected the lair, and it didn't take long for him to see Black shuttling between the lair's empty rooms.

Black apparently spotted him and moved quickly to him.

"Wang, I just checked a few times and removed the worker ants that went out for food. There are 117 worker ants in the nest, and 5 are missing."

"Ok?"

System showed a puzzled expression. Although the ant colony occasionally lost one or two ants in the past six months, it was very rare for five ants to be missing at one time.

And at this moment, System's body trembled slightly, and his [intuition] brought him a feeling that the five ants were most likely dead...

(End of this chapter)