Overlord: Rise of the Zerg

The autumn air is crisp, and the autumn wind, still carrying a bit of summer heat, blows through the grass, setting off layers of dark green with golden waves.

After defeating the ant nest at the bottom of the tree trunk, the northern branch of the mother nest successively cleaned up the surrounding ant colonies step by step, becoming the insect overlord on this piece of land.

They followed Zero's instructions and sent flying ants to guard the fruits on the small trees. At the same time, they were also actively looking for a suitable breeding room.

The autumn wind is bleak. In this mature season, food gradually becomes abundant. Some weeds on the grassland gradually produce a large number of seeds. Many autumn insects also become active and look for food everywhere.

Those insects that need to hibernate or do not need to hibernate, all eat fat and strong, and a large number of insects begin to bury the eggs of their offspring in the soil.

These undoubtedly provided a large amount of food information for the ant colony led by Zero, who had almost the entire field of vision around him.

Ant colonies also need to survive the winter. The cold air in winter prevents ant colonies from moving on the ground, so they must also store enough food.

Although in the summer, the ant colonies attack in all directions and harvest a large amount of food, the mother nest and branch nests have already stored enough food to satisfy the current size of the ant colony through the cold winter.

But who can have too much of something like food? What's more, under Zero's command, even in the cold winter, the ant colonies hidden underground will not stop developing, which requires more food to provide security.

If there is insufficient food, the ant colony can only lie dormant in the cold winter. From Zero's perspective, this was undoubtedly a waste of time throughout the winter.

The amount of grain stored became larger and larger, and the ant colonies had to expand their nests again. They dug new granaries again and stored old grains and new grains separately in the order of capture.

The ant nest also ushered in another round of expansion.

Although the food supply has increased significantly, Zero has no plans to further expand the ant colony on a large scale.

On the one hand, because winter is approaching, Zero must store enough food to ensure that everything is safe. At the same time, in Zero's planning, there are still many projects that need to continue construction in winter, which will undoubtedly require huge food consumption.

On the other hand, it is also preparing for expansion in the coming spring.

Expanding the ant colony on a large scale before the possible risks of cold winter arrive will undoubtedly increase the possibility of risks. Although Zero hopes that the ant colony can expand quickly, it does not mean that he will choose to take risks to achieve this.

Judging from the current situation, as long as it develops steadily, it is only a matter of time before the ant colony's power covers the entire grassland. This goal can be achieved as long as it develops steadily, and there is no need to take unnecessary risks.

Since the branch nest where No. 3 is located and the mother nest have opened an underground fast passage that connects to each other, the western branch nest closest to the mother nest has also completed the construction of the passage a few days ago.

Due to the long distances, the remaining directions are still being excavated. However, according to the current progress, these passages can be completed before winter comes.

Currently, Zero's ant colony already has 25 queens, totaling more than ants of various types. The food stored in the ant nest is enough for the existing ant colony for two seasons, and it continues to increase.

A total of 7 earthworm breeding rooms have been discovered, five of which have been put into use, raising 22 adult earthworms, more than larvae, and countless eggs.

However, due to the reproduction cycle of earthworms, it has not been able to increase the output of the ant colony.

The other two are under rapid construction and are expected to be completed in ten days.

In another month, the earthworm larvae currently being raised will reach maturity. They will combine with the original adults to lay eggs within a few days. A large number of eggs will hatch before winter.

This batch of hatched earthworm larvae will all become the initial ration of the ant colony over the winter, including some adult earthworms.

Due to the lack of breeding rooms, the ant colony cannot support so many adult earthworms. The humus food they eat is not a problem, but it ensures that they live safely in the ant nest instead of drilling holes everywhere and damaging the structure of the ant nest. This is something that current ants cannot do.

Zero actually had an immature idea in his mind, but he never put it into practice. This involves taking certain risks and taking a long enough time, so Zero has been hesitant.

The idea is very simple, which is to build a completely unhardened breeding space, put a small number of earthworms into it, and then send a large number of soldier ants to closely guard it.

Once you find an earthworm trying to escape, pull it out immediately and attack it, inflicting as much pain as possible without being fatal, and then release it.

This cycle repeats over time, and over time, it may be possible to complete the domestication of this batch of earthworms one day.

However, the large-scale expansion of the ant colony has stopped, there is enough food, and the cold winter is approaching, and it will take a lot of time to complete this work. Ling thought that there seems to be no need to do this at the moment.

However, if this idea is possible, it will undoubtedly be a great plan for the ant colony for generations to come. It will also be a huge reform to the way the ant colony survives, and it is not a bad idea to call it evolution. After all, this is a real “worm ranch”!

"How about setting up a pilot first? If the risk is controllable, it's not too late to expand the scale. If it's not controllable, the loss won't be too great." Zero thought.

Once a decision is made, it is done immediately. Zero has always been more action-oriented.

He immediately ordered three hundred worker ants to come out of the mother nest and let them open a passage that was more than two meters long, two centimeters wide and two centimeters high, from the easternmost ant chamber of the mother nest.

The ant colony carried out Zero's orders as faithfully as ever.

This passage only relies on these three hundred ants, and it is obviously impossible to achieve it in a short time. Zero is not in a hurry, it is just a conjecture of his own, and there is still two opinions on whether it will succeed or not. At present, there is plenty of food in the outside world, and the labor of worker ants is needed everywhere.

It is the wisest choice to devote more worker ants to the work of carrying and hoarding food.

With the worker ants working around the clock, the tunnel was completed six days later, and the ants also used their own saliva to simply reinforce the outer wall of the tunnel.

After the passage was completed, Zero ordered them to dig a shallow pit fifty centimeters in diameter and five centimeters deep at the end of the passage.

This is obviously a much larger project, relying on only 300 worker ants and taking several months to complete.

Moreover, such a huge underground pit is very easy to collapse, so it is also a huge test for the load-bearing above.

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