Paul eyes lit up when he heard what Sheyan said. He was actually quite close with Dardanian, and when he found out the value of the One-Horned Flying Ant glands that Dardanian had brought back, he was really tempted. Besides, anyone would be interested in plundering a monster nest.
So he immediately said without hesitation, “What’re we waiting for, then? Remember, a day here is much shorter than a day on earth, so if we keep dilly-dallying, it’ll soon be daytime, and the operation will get much harder.”
But Sheyan still hesitated.
“Well… Do you think we should ask them?
Paul, blinded by greed, was already as anxious as a cat on a hot tin roof. He sighed and told Sheyan, “You think of them now, but will they think of you in the future? Why is a shrewd guy like you so foolish when it comes to these matters? Aldaris escaped the pursuit of the seven One-Horned Flying Ants by himself, so he must be familiar with the terrain and the routes in the vicinity of the mushroom rock. We already have a ready-made guide, so what are we waiting for? If the others had the same thought and moved ahead of us, what’re we gonna do then? Fight them?”
Sheyan turned to look at Aldaris. The latter replied, “Fine by me. But keep in mind that it’s much more dangerous to move in the dark than it is during daytime.”
“I’ll have Heracles lead in front. Seaman, get Ramtas to follow behind. Nothing should be able to stop us,” Paul said after a moment of contemplation.
Sheyan secretly smiled. He had put on this whole act for the sole purpose of luring Paul to willingly make this suggestion. Paul was a suspicious fellow, so if Sheyan had taken the initiative to suggest this from the start, Paul would definitely doubt his intention.
***
The data of all three of them had been recorded into Vassily’s defence system, so the three men managed to sneak out of the camp undetected. The occasional storm-like roar of the machine guns also helped to cover up any sound they might have made.
Tonight, there were no storms, no rain, no thunder nor lightning. Only a deep darkness enshrouded the plain, providing protection for everything in it.
Up above, the Uplos asteroid belts emitted a clear yellow light, completely overshadowing the brilliance of the stars. The light gently poured onto the ground. If one did not gaze up to the sky and only looked down at the ground, one may even mistake the calm illumination for a flood of translucent moonlight.
But the wilderness was not quiet at all. A large number of insects were singing. Some of them were courting, some were attracting food, and some were issuing warnings.
These insects were definitely not harmless. For example, the most typical kind they met was a type of creature called the Spoon-End Cicadas, whose heads were fat like spoons. They had one notable difference compared to other cicadas, and that was their diet.
Ordinary cicadas fed on the juice of trees, while Spoon-End Cicadas were carnivores. More specifically, they liked to feed on the juice and blood of decaying animals. The trio were repeatedly attacked by these crazy insects along the way.
Their attack carried a special characteristic. When you hear a long, unique cicada cry moving towards you quickly from the distance, it would mean that a Spoon-End Cicada had appeared.
The Spoon-End Cicada liked to make a grand appearance. It would dive towards its target at a high speed like a dive bomber. With its sharp mouthpiece standing erect in front of it head like a horn, it would stab towards the target kamikaze style by borrowing the intense momentum from its dive.
And it would do so in the darkness!
Let alone human skin, even the thick skins of buffalos and wild boars could not withstand the stab which carried behind it the determination to die if the cicada failed.
Fortunately, Ramtas’ natural magic had proven very useful in this situation. After Ramtas had placed a ‘Mark of Nature’ spell on each of them, the Spoon-End Cicadas would glow like 100-watt light bulbs in their vision, so they could now detect the Spoon-End Cicadas from afar and prepare for them in advance.
Sheyan had killed more than a dozen cicadas by now. At first, he had tried to smash them like he was smashing a home run in baseball, but after a few times, he lost interest and simply dodged to the side to let them crash into the soft soil.
In this dark and humid environment, their plump flesh and strong wing muscles were delicacies that the underground insects had long coveted. These underground insects were experts at seizing opportunities; they would never give the Spoon-End Cicadas the chance to fly up again.
And thus, the three contestants dealt with all kinds of strange attack patterns as they traveled. These “special treatments” that planet Uplos had prepared for them appeared in a variety of unimaginable ways. Sheyan had high HP and defence, so he was not too bothered, but Aldaris and Paul had truly suffered along the way. These sufferings were not fatal, but they were extremely annoying.
Under the lead of Paul’s powerful robot, Heracles, the trio finally arrived at the mushroom rock an hour later. The mushroom rock still looked like a mushroom, but it was now a mushroom that had a large chunk bitten off its head. Cracks had also spread all over the vertical cliff. After another two or three earthquakes, the mushroom rock would probably become a thing of the past.
The trio would claim that their act of coming here was a result of their meticulous and observant mind, but in truth, it was an act that was shameless and unscrupulous. And being the shameless, unscrupulous people that they were, they naturally had a plan to deal with the One-Horned Flying Ants.
They threw on the ground a piece of fresh Flying Ant gland that they had kept in their personal storage, then hid themselves. Based on the habit of the One-Horned Flying Ants, they would surely come over to investigate when they detected the smell of their own kind. When the time came, the three would leap out in ambush….
It did not take long for a One-Horned Flying Ant to fly down nimbly from the dark sky. The wings on its body were not the common skin membrane kind, but termite-like chitinous wings that were thin and transparent.
Its body was as big as a lion’s, but at least 80% of its appearance was reminiscent of an ant. Its bee-like rear was constantly stretching and retracting, occasionally displaying a glimpse of its black, venomous sting. Sheyan had already witnessed the might of the venom from the wounds on Azsa and the others, so he had no intention of trying it out.
“This is a male ant,” Aldaris quickly sent a message to the other two, “From the moment it was born, it serves only two purposes in life. The first is mating — it’ll provide sperms for the queen. The second is fighting. So, don’t get careless.”
“Oh, then wouldn’t the glands of male ants be more valuable?” Sheyan immediately added, “We only got the glands of the worker ants before, but we’re now seeing these guys who specialise in reproduction and fighting. From this, we can deduce two things. First, the ant colony must have suffered a great damage, so much so that these male ants, who were like the royal bodyguards, have to come out and do work. Second, the gland of this male ant must be twice, no, ten times more valuable than the gland of a common worker ant!”
Following Sheyan’s last sentence, Paul had already impatiently controlled his colossal robot to jump out from hiding. The robot with its astonishing weight fiercely slammed down onto the male ant. Aldaris’ dagger also cut across the male ant’s wings. What followed was naturally a good ol’ beating without any honour to speak of.
Despite being ganged up on, the ant still resisted for nearly five minutes before it died. Sheyan’s Cyborg No. 1 was stabbed by its venomous sting. The horrifying venom corroded the cyborg’s plastic and rubber components in a frenzy as soon as it entered the cyborg’s body. If the cyborg had not collected some spare parts before this, it would have broken down.
Unfortunately, the male ant’s fierce struggle before its death had damaged its gland, so they did not get the harvest they expected. This made Paul extremely angry. He even wanted to take it out on the ant’s carcass, but Aldaris stopped him in time. They cut off most of the male ant’s carcass and stored them in their personal storage, then left the crime scene in a hurry.
This was a lesson learnt from the contestants’ previous experience with the flying ants; a lesson paid for with blood. When a One-Horned Flying Ant was killed, the ant colony would rush to the scene following the pheromone it secreted. If the contestants were not careful, they would be heavily surrounded.
After the three men fled, they observed the development of the crime scene through the monitoring cameras they left behind. They found that the pheromone secreted by a male ant attracted much more attention than that of the common worker ant. Five male ants had quickly rushed to the scene. After circling around the area and finding nothing, they took what was left of their companion’s carcass away. Three of them even circled around for a few more times before they reluctantly left.
Witnessing this, the trio immediately formulated an even more shameless plan. They divided the remains of the male ant into five portions, then let four of their cyborgs each take a portion and run towards separate directions. The cyborgs would abandon the male ant remains and then quickly run away. Because most of a cyborg’s body comprised of plastic and rubber, as long as they ran away immediately after throwing away the remains, it would be hard to track them.
With this arrangement, the five males ants from before were thus separated and one of them was killed by the contestants. Now that Sheyan and Paul also had experience in fighting against the male ants, their efficiency had increased.
In truth, with only four male ants left, it would not be impossible for the three of them to eliminate all four ants in one go if Sheyan went all out. But Sheyan naturally would not reveal his trump card now, so they continued to adopt the divide-and-conquer strategy.
Only when the number of male ants was reduced to two did they become smarter. No matter how the contestants baited them, they would no longer come. However, that was not a problem anymore. The threat posed by two male ants was already at an acceptable level. They could now go straight for the ant nest under the mushroom rock!
