Insect Tamer's Ascension-Chapter 327: Non tamed beast guided successfully (8)

4 hours later...

Things weren’t looking good for the camp or its residents.

The fight had been raging nonstop the entire time, with none of them given a single moment of rest.

The boar and the pup continued killing, but at this point, the pup had started to whine, its body clearly feeling fatigued and heavy with exhaustion.

Unlike before, when the aura created a safe zone and they could just get in, their group now had to fend for themselves nonstop, without reprieve.

’The timing has become too irregular too... they are coming almost nonstop now...’ Theo thought as he punctured a few more crawlers’ heads, his grip still tight on the hilt of his sword.

Earlier, even when they used to fight outside the safe zone, the crawlers would appear in a predictable number of groups and in certain waves.

But this was totally different, completely irregular.

It felt as though every crawler in the region had got a note about the aura’s disappearance and were now swarming toward Theo’s group endlessly.

’We need to think of a way to get some rest,’ Theo thought grimly. ’But how?’

But his thoughts were interrupted by a sudden distress signal from the ant queen.

’What is it, Ant Queen?’ Theo asked, but even when he asked, the ant queen’s response could only be heard for a few seconds before the connection was cut off, accompanied by a warning that it couldn’t communicate right now.

But a few seconds of connection was enough.

"A new type of beast has entered this area right now!" Theo shouted, his heart pounding inside his chest. "Everyone, be on your toes!"

With the baron gone, the responsibility for the camp now rested entirely on his shoulders.

"What?!" Elias exclaimed, frustration flashing across his face, before he forced himself to calm down; he was not supposed to get angry at the young master.

"Calm down," Theo said firmly. "And be ready for anything."

’Ant queen, when you can, send me what this new beast looks like,’ Theo ordered silently.

But for the entire next minute, there was no response.

Until finally, a flash of an image burst into his mind.

It lasted only an instant, but in that flash of a moment, Theo saw the silhouette of a massive beast through an ant’s perspective.

And then, in the next, the ant was swallowed whole by it.

"Come up from the ground!!" Theo screamed, cutting down all the crawlers swarming near him before retreating a few steps.

"Clara, Elias! Cover me here!" he shouted while already moving forward.

The two were given no time to think. The moment Theo moved forward, the crawlers started surging toward them instead.

Theo sprinted ahead, killing anything that came too close to him, and within moments, he had reached a massive hole of the colony.

Theo plunged his hand inside and began throwing the soil away as fast as he could.

No crawler seemed to be emerging from this location since the colony below was taking care of them underground.

Theo scooped out two large chunks of soil, and soon a somewhat big chamber came into his view. It collapsed upward due to the force, the soil spilling away and from between his fingers.

Theo let out a breath of relief when he saw a silhouette covered in ants.

"Tell them to get away from you and start coming out of the ground as fast as they can." Theo gave it yet another command.

The Ant Queen’s antennae began glowing instantly.

In seconds, the ants swarming the Ant Queen began moving away and formed lines at its side.

Theo finally saw the whole Ant Queen clearly and reached out, grabbing it gently with his other hand.

’Your exoskeleton is tough; that’s great,’ Theo muttered.

For the first time, he was holding the Ant Queen in his hands.

It was as large as his entire hand, its small face extending as far as the quarter of his arm.

It barely looked like an Ant Queen, its form was unusual, completely unfamiliar.

The only part of the Ant Queen’s body that seemed to be moving was its big, glowing antennae.

Soon, emotions flowed into Theo’s mind, emotions where the Ant Queen was asking him what it should do next.

Theo smiled.

"Tell the biggest ants to grab all the larvae and get onto my hand," Theo commanded, and the Ant Queen’s antennae began glowing brighter.

The response was immediate. Nearly a hundred reinforced ants rushed into action, carrying larvae from the collapsing chamber.

Soon, more images flooded Theo’s mind, from the perspective of a reinforced ant that got swallowed along with soil and stone by a massive, open maw.

"Faster," Theo urged them to move faster.

One by one, the ants began climbing his hands, then his arm, finally latching themselves across his armor.

When the Ant Queen informed him that all the larvae were out and secure, Theo nodded and looked around his body.

Countless brown-colored pouches covered his body, held firmly by the ants’ mandibles.

Not wanting to test the strength of their already strong mandibles, Theo left the other ants and ordered them to follow the Ant Queen.

He sheathed his sword and started running.

The crawlers immediately noticed him and surged toward him.

When the first lunged at him, Theo kicked it as hard as he could, bursting the creature’s head, splattering its blood everywhere.

He froze for a split second in shock, but realizing that there was no time to be surprised, he kept running towards a certain spot.

More crawlers rushed toward him.

Theo smashed two more aside before another latched itself onto his leg, its teeth trying to dig in, but the armor protected him.

In the next few seconds, five more crawlers leapt on him and latched themselves on both his legs.

While he couldn’t feel any pain, a shiver ran down his spine, and panic surged through his mind space.

As if answering to these very emotions of fear and panic, a blinding white light shot toward him.

And the next instant...

Two of the crawlers attacking him were dead.

"Mantis!"