'an earthquake? Or is it an enemy attack. Who would it be this time wasp? Hornets or other ants but non of them should be able to produce such great vibration?'he thought as he looked up only to discover a large black tentacle like object coming from another of the main entrance.
'what in the world!?!'
In the next moment the tentacle like object mover with great speed and agility, swiping left and right. Any and all ant touch by it would be glued to it, suddenly the queen release a great amount of warning pheromones.
He could somehow tell what it meant in human words.
'retreat into the deeper level of the nest, do not look back do not hesitate'
He was greatly surprised that this queen whom had remained calm and calculative even when attacked by the hornets group was giving such an order.
Very quickly he regain his composure and using his soul which was so large some of its parts were nearing the surface to view the enemy. What was before his gaze was a large giant beast as big as a mountain and wide enough to cover the sky if he had look at it face to face.
The great nemesis of ant's and their greatest nightmare, destroyer of ant colonies.
ANTEATER.
anteater are creatures whom evolved special way to eat ants and no matter the amount of biting and stinging ants do, it'll never reach nor harm them thanks to their impenetrable hides.... (For ants)...
Next on their arsenal, would be their weapons of mass destruction. Their large and sharp claws which could and would easily cut through a ant fortress walls like it's nothing, this claw could cut, dig and rip apart anything in its way. Then there's their mouth which had evolved into a form much suitable for ravaging ant colonies and bringing down their demise.
And last but not lest,their tongue.
The large black tentacle like tongue moves as though it had a mind of it's own and would immediately grasp and glue to any and all ants to close to it.
The tongue could stretch, widen, retract, discrete special saliva that can glue the ant to it and it's almost if not completely resistant to the bites of the ants.
The ant heard a sound and look at its origin only to discover two queen guards were carrying the queen while flying towards a hole below the queens bed. Another was escorting them escorting them, while the last one which also happened to be the injured one flew straight for the anteater.
The general had lead the first generation and most of the colony underground.
When the last false queen was close enough, the ant concentrated all its attention to it and witnessed time seemingly slow down.
The false Queen's head suddenly cracked as she opened her pincher with all her might and bite down at the very tip of the tentacle like tongue.
In the next moment the pincher somehow pierce through a little and that hurt the anteater, whom thrashed it's tongue around in a frenzy.
This throw away the false queen, thought her head exoskeleton was still at the tongue tip.
Suddenly the tongue stopped and retracted.
And the ground started vibrating again. After a few minutes or so it had completely left, the ant had been watching the rampage from a hidden place throughout the entire process.
Only afterwards did it come out.
'the queen's guard's could snap my neck of my body if it's a test of physical strength and I can only win if I use my energy blast or explode it's head with soul force yet one died so randomly, sacrificing itself for her queen...Her colony' he thought with darken expression
'if that anteater had somehow attacked me I don't know if I could survive... even after using both my energy blast I'll still be weakened from exhaustion and would be left at the mercy of the enemy. And...The soul of the anteater was around the size of a small chicken egg and it's mind was definitely stronger. I don't know If I could course it to explode the way I did with the ants' he thought as he looked at the damages caused by the anteater.
The losses on the colonies side were over half a million from what he could see. worker and soldiers alike, even some drones sand princesses.
'currently I only have about a week at most before my lifespan runs out.....but I haven't seen any solution at all,this truly is troubling' he thought as he started making his way into the deeper levels of the cave yet at that moment he sported a cricket crawling strangely into the nest.
One most know must insect would avoid an ants nest as much as possible, and that includes grasshopper and cricket's alike.
'wait, grasshopper's and cricket's.....horsehair parasite' he thought as he looked at the strange behaving cricket.
Phylum Nematomorpha,also know as horsehair worms are a type of parasite that as adults are free but are
parasites in arthropods
as juveniles. This parasite would find a suitable host which are mostly crickets and grasshopper and would constantly suck nutrients from them to substan themselves, afterwards they would wickedly mind control the host to seek water bodies and drown themselves to death to be able continue their species.
'this might just be my answer, even if not permanently I could probably use it to my advantage.... Luckily that I was a scientist in my past life and had wasted most of my life in inner structure of different organisms although it had been so long I still have everything fresh in my mind. Is this another effect of the thoughts marble?' he thought
Most insect would usually eat anything and even other insect but this would only fill their body with 'food' nutrients but parasites have the ability to absorb the 'life' and 'food' instead. This basically makes the parasite almost immortal if their host is still living and is able to provide their necessary nutrients. To insects this creatures are practically immortal vampires.
A horsehair worm just so happens to be such type of parasite.
'and if I wipe out the worms consciousness and remove some of the other unnecessary organs and parts like their reproductive organs,connect my nerves system to its their own,and with my puppeteering abilities that my soul gave me I'll basically and practically have extra arms and their ability to suck lifeforce.... But for me to be able to do something like this, I'll need a great number text subjects and large number of workforce' he thought as he watch he cricket rest at a small wet place at a Corner of the nest.
'Is it finally time to take that step? Well it now or never' he thought as he made up his mind and started walking stealthily towards cricket.
The cricket didn't even notice nor did it seem to care about it's surrounding temporary. When the ant was close enough he looked a the cricket and saw four different souls in it's body. It seems as though being in the crickets body made its spirit cover out their own spirits and vastly masked their mind waves.
Yet he could see the three other souls and faintly sense their mind waves.
In the next moment he used one two piece of a tentacle to erase the consciousness of the cricket and made it follow him with his soul ability, puppeteering.
A long the way he meet few other ants and they wanted to dismantle the cricket immediately but he simply wipe out their consciousness and made them carry the cricket for him.
'with my current abilities, I can easily control ten ants with my soul puppeteering. After all I can create five soul tentacles and each can be separate into four smaller piece which is about twenty piece all together and yet I only need two pieces two control an ant. wait,that's not right? I can reduce the size of each piece and make the as small as the first feeler I made. With that each tentacle can be separated into five pieces, meaning I can control about twelve ants and still have a pierce remaining' he continued to think randomly as he sat on top of the cricket as the puppet ants carried it to a hidden corner.
The thing about ant nest are there are always small hidden rooms or cave nobody uses, and at this moment. The ant had the puppet ants drop the cricket inside and started digging to expand the size of the cave, but with a little twist.
He used his experience and knowledge about architecture from earth as model and in a day and half of working made a large three floor space. Normally twelve ants wouldn't be able to do it alone in just a single day. But the thing about ant are once a small group starts something more would come to join and the ant was glad they did.
Afterwards he made them bring large dried leaves to cover all open spaces afterwards covered it with molding sand and let it harden the the carried thick stick which would look like trees to them and stood it at different soft and unstable sides of the ceiling as pillar. Then he sent them to bring some edible mushrooms and planted it at the side, some ant corpse and other insect corpse all fresh. he made them bring two honeypots after all what is an honey ant without honey?
And in less than seventeen hours he had made a 'civilized' yet 'alien' form of architecture in the ant civilization. Most of the passing ant wanted to enter yet were dismantle by the seven guarding puppet soldier ants. As for the remaining five ants? Made two caretaker of the cricket and are feeding it and tending to it and the other three are following him.
Among all his puppet ants only the two looking after the crickets were workers while the others were soldier's.