Eaten Ch.88

Chapter 88: Ant Queen

Xie Chongyi lowered his head. “How did you end up like this?”

He didn’t seem to actually expect an answer, because he still hadn’t let go of Wu Heng’s cheeks.

He bent closer, then slipped his fingers into Wu Heng’s mouth. Wu Heng was still human, so the inside of his mouth was soft and warm.

Xie Chongyi pinched Wu Heng’s tongue, which kept dodging around.

“Green tongue,” Xie Chongyi said.

Wu Heng rolled his eyes.

He probably understood. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the vines still rising and falling beneath the heap of ant corpses. With abundant food and immense energy, they had grown stronger—less like plants, more like insects. Well-trained, well-organized, working together to gather as much nourishment as possible to feed the mother body, who in turn produced more of their kind, granting them sharper adaptability, and stronger offensive and defensive capabilities.

As the mother body, he naturally experienced some changes as well.

Wu Heng sat up, pulling his back away from Xie Chongyi’s hand. His tongue tingled faintly. “It grew bigger than before.”

“A normal developmental stage for a plant,” Xie Chongyi said, giving his head a pat. He stood up, scanning the surroundings, sinking into thought.

“Don’t you feel these ants are different from the mutated creatures we’ve encountered before?” Xie Chongyi asked, lowering his gaze.

Wu Heng leaned over and pulled a long, barbed leg from an ant corpse beside him. The closer it was to the tip, the darker the color. Held in his hand, it felt like a heavy blade. He poured out the cooled, translucent bodily fluid from inside—a cold, bloody stench drifting out.

“Tastes a bit better,” Wu Heng said.

“Tch.” Xie Chongyi had nothing to say to that.

The danger had only paused. Everyone else had already begun cleaning the battlefield. No one knew when the next wave would hit without warning. Though victory gave them momentum, they were far too exhausted to pursue it.

In the mountains of ant corpses, human limbs occasionally appeared. People picked them up one by one, holding them carefully against their chests, and walked far out to an open area before finally setting them down with heavy, reverent slowness.

More than half an hour passed before Wu Dian suddenly appeared. He approached the group, all of them looking battered and worn.

“What happened here?” he asked.

The crowd still hadn’t recovered from the ant swarm’s attack and had no mind to answer him, but one tall, heavily built man raised his fist and charged at Wu Dian.

“I’m going to make you pay for my brother’s life!!!”

Wu Dian shifted aside, struck the man’s arm with his palm, twisted his wrist behind his back, and shoved him several meters away.

The man staggered, nearly falling over. After steadying himself, he turned sharply, his blood-red eyes glaring at Wu Dian.

“Where the hell were you? Do you have any idea we lost five people in an instant?!”

Those five had been reduced to fragmented remains—what pieces could be retrieved weren’t enough to assemble into a full body. As for the missing parts, there was no need to guess. They had clearly been swallowed entirely by the yellow fire ants.

No one was unafraid of death; it wasn’t as if they hadn’t mentally prepared for it. But everyone hoped, at the very least, to have a whole body to return home and be buried properly.

After understanding the general situation, Wu Dian said in a businesslike tone, “My condolences.”

He sat down cross-legged. His face held no trace of sorrow.

“Ants have a matriarchal social structure. Aside from the queen, who gives birth and expands the colony, both worker ants and soldier ants are female. The ones you faced just now were likely the soldiers—they’re responsible for the colony’s security.”

Wu Dian took out a detector and an electronic stylus from his bag. He touched the stylus tip to the surface of the yellow fire ant’s energy core.

A red light lit up in the middle segment of the stylus, flashing up and down in a step-like pattern before finally stopping, blinking steadily at the center of the narrow screen.

“Fire attribute. Ability level: C.” Wu Dian put the stylus away. “The queen should be somewhere between B and A level.”

The evaluation standard used in Jingzhou was similar to the system Wu Heng’s group had devised themselves, but Wu Heng didn’t believe the ants’ individual mutation level actually reached C. It was just that when evaluating a species like ants, sheer numbers influenced the final result.

But the queen ant…

Wu Heng lay on the ground with his eyes closed. He didn’t recall seeing any yellow fire ant that looked distinct enough to be the queen. There hadn’t even been a single winged reproductive—no sign of any future queens either.

“So high?” the furious man from earlier said gruffly.

“Not really,” Wu Dian replied. He held nearly ten energy cores suspended above his palm. They dissolved into threads of red light and sank into his hand. “Abnormal magnetic fields aren’t usually caused by a mutated creature’s power level being too high—it’s their ideology. That’s the trait that other mutated creatures lack.”

Not really high?

Everyone swallowed hard. Sure, one punch could kill a single ant—but who could throw ten punches in one second?

Wu Dian stood up. “For those who die in the line of public duty, the government continues to follow the benefits system from before the apocalypse. The parents, spouse, and children of the fallen will receive a certain amount of compensation—currency or food. The government will do its best. You can give me the names of the five who just died. Once we return to Jingzhou, I’ll apply for their pensions.”

The man spat on the ground. “My brother was the only one left in his whole family.”

Zheng Xi knew the background of the ability users in the Melli Town base best. He thought for a long while before telling Wu Dian, “Among those people, only Qian Daxian still has a seven-year-old son.”

Wu Dian nodded slightly.

After eating his fill, Wu Heng felt drowsy. He leaned against Xie Chongyi’s shoulder. “We’re going to catch ants again.”

“Not necessarily.” Xie Chongyi leaned against a bamboo stalk. “He might be able to handle all of it alone.”

A faint, scattered glow flickered in Wu Heng’s eyes.

At that moment, Wu Dian turned around. With his back facing everyone, he lifted his chin slightly. His eyes glowed gold, and his silhouette began to blur. The illusion lasted less than ten seconds—then a row of clones identical to Wu Dian appeared.

They drew their long blades—and opposite them, an entire expanse of identical clones materialized, stretching beyond sight.

Every move Wu Dian made was like pressing Ctrl+V.

Under the bamboo forest, everyone found themselves surrounded so tightly by the same man that not even water could seep through.

Wu Heng slowly straightened his posture. “Class Monitor, what ability is this?”

“Simulation.”

Wu Heng lifted his gaze. Above him, the “Wu Dian” copies wore cold, emotionless faces. They all shared the same features, the same expression—even each strand of hair slanted in the exact same direction. Staring too long made his vision swim with dizziness.

“The same as yours?” Wu Heng remembered that Xie Chongyi and Wu Dian came from the same origin, but the ability Wu Dian used earlier had nothing to do with simulation.

“Not the same,” Xie Chongyi said.

Wu Heng didn’t ask further. A sharp rustling—like blades being drawn—swept past his ears. The clones on the ground turned into gusts of wind that shot skyward, bamboo leaves scattering wildly.

The dense ant nests were destroyed in an instant. Countless yellow fire ants tumbled down like rain. In moments, blood and severed limbs filled the sky.

Everyone’s vision was washed in dark, bloody red.

X’s body swelled, growing larger. It turned its back and lowered its helmet-like wings over everyone’s heads.

Aside from Wu Heng and Xie Chongyi, everyone else had already prepared themselves mentally to be smashed in the skull by falling ants. But after tightly shutting their eyes, the expected pain never came. Over the roar of their own panicked heartbeats, they looked up—straight into the red, bloodshot eyes of the mutated bird.

The huge grey parrot let out a muffled, rumbling coo. The heat under its wings carried a feral, animalistic odor, danger rolling off it in waves.

So even though they all knew it was that young man’s pet, they still instinctively covered their heads—just in case it decided to crack their skulls open like sunflower seeds.

The top of its wings thudded with repeated impacts. X let out a “painful” coo and pulled back the wing on the side that didn’t contain Wu Heng.

People were immediately knocked over, forced to scramble back up to face the falling swarm.

When the world finally returned to silence, Wu Heng poked his head out from beneath X’s wing. He turned around. “Class Monitor, why is Wu Dian so strong?”

Xie Chongyi’s lips twitched. “I can do it too.”

“Then why didn’t you…”

“I don’t feel well.”

All the clones vanished. Wu Dian descended from the towering canopy, landing lightly. He held his blade; not a speck of dust clung to him. Before him lay an enormous creature.

It was clearly an ant—but unlike the others with large heads and small bodies, this one was the reverse. It had a small head and a massive body. Its translucent, segmented abdomen made up two-thirds of its entire form, and inside, immature yellow fire ant eggs drifted and pulsed.

“The queen ant,” Xie Chongyi said as he walked over and crouched before its mandibles.

Du Weichen hid behind Li Qing. “Its color is a bit prettier.”

“What’s the point of reproduction in the animal kingdom?” Li Qing asked, confused.

Xie Chongyi gently stroked the queen’s trembling antennae. “Reproduction is their purpose. Many male animals spend their entire lives building nests only to die after providing sperm to the female. Some even use their own lives to help the female give birth more safely. Females do the same—just in different ways.”

As he gave this lecture, the others thought Xie Chongyi pitied the queen. Wu Dian had left it for last, so they assumed it might be spared.

“No more talking. Kill it,” Xie Chongyi and Wu Dian said in unison.

Wu Heng raised his hand beside the queen’s abdomen. “I agree.”

The queen’s compound eyes glowed faintly red. If one looked closely, there even seemed to be moisture in them.

Xie Chongyi split it cleanly in two. From the swollen abdomen, ant eggs mixed with viscous fluid poured out like a flood.

Wu Heng picked up one egg and popped it into his mouth. He chewed twice—it felt a bit like a kiwi seed, only softer.

X squatted nearby, repeatedly pecking and drinking. “Tasty.”

“Careful, you’ll hurt your neck,” Wu Heng said as he pressed down on the back of its neck to help it straighten up.

The energy core inside the queen’s head was removed—a red core, but pale in color.

Wu Dian stood where he was and tested it three times with his electronic pen.

D-level.

Du Weichen was incredulous. “Huh? After all that work, it’s just a D? Its level is worse than mine?”

“The ant queen may have a low rank, but she can produce an army. What can you do with your low rank?” Li Qing mocked.

A trace of confusion flickered across Wu Dian’s face as well, though he wasn’t disappointed. He hadn’t come here for energy cores in the first place.

Xie Chongyi tilted his head back, thin sweat glistening along his brow bone. He drifted off for a moment, then looked at Wu Heng. “The queen ant is only a reproductive tool.”

Wu Heng immediately understood what Xie Chongyi meant. But before he could respond, a timid boy’s voice suddenly sounded behind them.

“Ah, you figured it out already?”

A boy had appeared like a ghost, wearing short sleeves and shorts, his eyes clear and bright.

The most notable part was the pair of wings on his back—like cicada wings, but thinner, longer, trailing along the ground, trembling excitedly.

——————————————————————

Author’s Note:

Wu Heng: Don’t know who that is. Ate it.

Xie Chongyi: Don’t know who that is. Killed it.

Wu Dian: A threat to society. Slash it.

Female and male ants both have wings during their reproductive period. The difference is, after mating, the male loses his wings and dies, while the female sheds her wings and becomes the queen, establishing her own ant colony. (Though not all of them necessarily shed their wings—it depends on personal ant preferences cough.)

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