Overlord: Rise of the Zerg

Autumn passed quietly amid the busy work of the ant colony, and the yellow leaves returned to the earth, crushed into dust, and once again became a part of the earth.

Zero commanded the ant colony to replant the seeds dropped by dozens of fruit trees. At this point, it was already the third year since Zero planted the first batch of fruit trees.

The original fruit tree has grown taller and taller, and the number of fruits it has produced in recent years has also increased year by year.

The first batch of fruit trees planted by Ling have already grown to more than one meter tall.

The original slender branches have gradually become thicker, there are many branches at the top, and the crown of the tree has begun to grow. Maybe in two years they will bear fruit too.

As for the seeds planted in the second and third batches, they are still in the state of seedlings.

After several plantings, more and more fruit trees began to take root in the north of the river. Until this time, plus the dozens of seeds planted by Zero again, if everything goes well, the total number of fruit trees on this land will exceed one hundred in the coming year.

The threat of termites was slightly relieved after Zero discovered that they could not leave the forest, but they were still necessary to guard against, so Zero hatched many flying ants in the ant nest at the edge of the forest to monitor the termites.

In order to complete his goal of advancing into the forest and opening up more land for the ant community, Zero must obtain more food sources.

After the current output of the two major pastures meets the consumption of the ant colony, there is actually a 30% surplus.

In the summer, ants made breakthrough progress in the breeding of aphids. The genetic frequency of heat resistance in aphids is getting higher and higher, reaching 80%, and they are large and produce extremely fast.

Unfortunately, it was almost autumn at that time, so Zero could only collect a large number of aphid eggs that almost perfectly met the requirements of the ant colony, hoping that they would bring excess benefits to the ant colony in the coming year.

In addition, ants are becoming more and more adept at domesticating earthworms. After generations of continuous screening, Ling found that the offspring of domesticated earthworms were naturally afraid of ants after they were born.

This fear is undoubtedly a good thing for the ant colony, allowing them to accept their identity more quickly after moving into the colony.

In addition, the continued cultivation of this kind of earthworms is still in progress. After a large number of breeding rooms are filled, those first generations of domesticated and mature earthworms will be replaced by their descendants - those earthworms that are naturally afraid of ant colonies. Instead, Zero's plan is to let the earthworms pass on this fear of the ant colony from generation to generation, until one day they truly become the vassals of the ant colony.

Of course, during this process, the ants also conducted aphid-like breeding of earthworms. Compared with the number of earthworms hatched in each batch, the number that the breeding room can accommodate is obviously far from enough.

Then, only earthworms that are naturally fat and easy to tame will be selected by the ant colony and put into the breeding room for cultivation. Earthworms that do not have this quality will enter the granary of the ant colony.

The strength of the termites forces Zero to find more food sources to prepare for defeating them. In this autumn, Zero took advantage of his vision to search the grass almost inch by inch, hoping to find new food for the ant colony to consume.

He believed that in such a large meadow, there would always be some plants that would produce fruits that were suitable as food for ants.

Sure enough, after searching to this extent, he finally found two plants suitable as food for ants, and these two plants really helped the ant colony a lot.

One is a plant that produces large tubers underground in the fall, similar to sweet potatoes, and also produces large amounts of black seeds. Due to the large accumulation of sugars, its tubers have a sweet taste and are loved by ants.

The other is a plant that can produce red fruits the size of mung beans. The flesh of this fruit is also red and contains a lot of sugar. As for the seeds, they are divided into the pulp and are relatively small.

The discovery of these two plants made Zero even more excited. He can plant fruit trees, why can't He grow this crop?

He directed the ants to carefully collect the seeds of these two plants, intending to wait until next spring to sow them.

…………

Time continued to pass in the busyness. Just as Zero was directing the ants to carry out winter construction nervously, the first snow of this winter fell outside.

It snowed for five days in a row, and the entire grassland and forest were covered with heavy snow.

Zero has long been accustomed to this. All work is going on normally, and the snow on the surface has not affected the ant colony underground at all.

However, just when the snow stopped, news came from the ant nest in the forest that made Zero a little scared.

A large number of termites rushed out of the cave and came to the ant nest in the forest!

The termite army was discovered in an ant nest located deep in the forest. However, Zero had time to change his field of view and observe for a moment. All the ants in the ant nest, including the queen, had been killed by the termites.

Apparently they learned the location of the vents of the ant nest from somewhere, perfectly avoiding the main entrance that was covered by heavy snow, and launched a surprise attack on the ant colony from the vents.

Although the ants in this ant nest did not buy much time for Zero, Zero still roughly discovered some information during this short observation.

He was surprised to find that the appearance of the termites that rushed into the ant nest was hugely different from the ones he encountered during the spring battle.

First, the antennae on their heads are shorter and their bodies are longer and narrower. The entire body is no longer roughly white, but a strange ice blue.

Secondly, this group of termites that broke into the ant nest are very powerful in fighting. The bite force of their mandibles is amazing. They can kill a worker ant in a few seconds and leave themselves almost unharmed.

Finally, and most importantly, Ling discovered that the main army of termites did not appear. Only these strange ice-blue termites invaded the nest, numbering in the tens of thousands.

This discovery made Lingda breath a sigh of relief, but also felt very strange.

These are definitely not termites. Zero doesn't think that termites can ignore the temperature of more than ten degrees below zero and enter the ant nest from the ground vents, and they are so powerful.

It was obvious that the other party did not know why they had a group of powerful combatants that could march in winter, and discovered the vents of the ant nest through unknown means, perhaps smell, or some other ability, thus killing the entire ant nest including the ants. All ants included.

And just a few minutes later, they appeared in another adjacent ant nest.

There is no doubt that this is another one-sided massacre. The ants are no match for them. This strange group of termites still shows strong combat power in the face of the ants who have occupied the territory and are ready to fight. , killing all the ants in the ant nest with almost no loss.

They acted very fiercely, but looking at their behavior, Zero was completely relieved.