Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
An Overlord-tier Dragon Ant went by Gao Peng and his familiars. Maybe it saw them, and maybe it didn’t. Whether it noticed Gao Peng or not, the Overlord-tier Dragon Ant disregarded them.
“Come, let’s catch up,” Gao Peng said as he put Dumby into the space.
Could it have been that Dumby’s Emperor-tier presence was too obvious, or was Floating Light and Flamy’s King-tier presence easier to ignore…?
The Overlord-tier Dragon Ant was in such a hurry. What could have enticed it so?
Gao Peng’s mind spun, as he knew that this Overlord-tier Dragon Ant may have been heading to the location of a dragon’s corpse. He wasn’t sure what attitude a Dragon Ant would have towards its own kind. Was it like that of the wolves, in which case, unless it was of the opposite gender, there could be only one leader?
Naturally, Gao Peng didn’t believe that it existed in an ecological chain, like regular ants.
If a group of Emperor-tier and Overlord-tier Dragon Ants were to form an ant’s nest, it would be truly terrifying. Gao Peng couldn’t imagine the level of existence for this ant’s nest. After thinking about it, that wasn’t so crazy.
Nonetheless, the path taken by the Overlord-tier Dragon Ant was dead quiet, which saved Gao Peng quite a bit of trouble. Along the way, he hardly saw any monsters. Even if there were King-tier or Emperor-tier monsters, they ignored the presence of Gao Peng and his team.
“Squeak!”
“Hiss!” Shrieking sounds rose like a symphony from deep within the valley. A large creature revealed a scaly claw, its large body hidden in the white fog.
Gao Peng guessed that the fog in Dragon Death Valley had probably reaped many years of released essence from the corpses of dragons, which formed a powerful visual effect.
Amidst the fog, Gao Peng pretty much followed the sounds of the monster in order to determine what direction to go. Simply by listening, one could tell that there was more than one Dragon Ant in the deep valley, but he didn’t hear them fighting among themselves.
Gao Peng’s expression changed slightly. More than one Dragon Ant? Maybe Dragon Ants didn’t habitually reject their own kind. It might even have been a social creature.
Rarrr!
Bang!
Sounds of monsters fighting could be heard in front of them. Gao Peng carefully crawled forward. His body close to the ground, elbows sunk into the soil, Gao Peng belly-crawled closer to the battleground.
Smack! The battle caused a clump of soil to land right beside Gao Peng’s head. He remained calm.
Gao Peng was clear-minded and knew that he might not be safe; it might have been that these monsters already knew that he was present but chose to disregard him because he was seen as too weak to be a threat. But if he released Dumby, things would be different.
These fighting monsters could suddenly turn their attention to attack him. Although he was safe, that wasn’t a reason to lower his guard.
There was the sound of a monster crawling beside him. Gao Peng turned to look and saw a gray insect, as large as a car, trying to move closer to the battleground. It seemed scared and didn’t dare go too close.
A Lord-tier Dragon Stone Beetle. Floating Light had killed one just a moment before. Gao Peng recognized this beetle.
Time trickled by and this Dragon Stone Beetle saw Gao Peng but ignored him. It took a quick glance and seemed to decide that Gao Peng wasn’t tasty, so it quickly gave up on him and chose to move closer to the battleground.
After half an hour of shadowing the butt of the Dragon Stone Beetle, Gao Peng finally saw what the group of monsters was fighting over in the middle of the battleground. At the heart of the battleground, a large body lay sprawled on the ground, a gray neck with layers of old skin and a long slender tail that transformed into a cloud of smoke at the end. With a white body that rolled on and on, this was a behemoth of a beast, like a Western dragon.
The air was filled with a vague stench, massive amounts of gas seeping out of the monster’s corpse and mixing in the air. The fog was actually being emitted from the body of this monster!
Gao Peng was shocked. It was as though he was seeing a monster for the first time. This huge corpse seemed to have died recently.
[Item Name]: Corpse of the Smoke Dragon
The corpse had a ‘fresh’ scent. The huge curled body stretched on and was at least a thousand feet long. This was Gao Peng’s first time seeing a corpse of this creature. Could this dragon be the same one that had been shrieking at the valley earlier?
Around the dragon corpse, there were several monsters that were either fighting or staring angrily at each other. Among them were four Dragon Ants gathered in a small group. They were made up two Emperor-tier and two Overlord-tier Dragon Ants, all making sharp irritated sounds.
The four Dragon Ants clustered together, forming a circle, and squeezed themselves around the stomach of the Smoke Dragon. They ignored all the other monsters and focused on eating their food. It was only when another monster came close that they would stop eating, tilt their heads, and give the approaching monster a look of warning.
With this behavior, the Dragon Ants were able to hold on to a single position.
Gao Peng thought for a while. Maybe when they weren’t paying attention, he could quietly release Fifth Baby, a little Dragon Ant.
Through his thoughts, he instructed Fifth Baby, “Remember to be careful and humble when you go over. You are of the same kind, so these adult Dragon Ants shouldn’t bully you. Just act sweetly, head over, and address them as your uncles and aunties.”
With Gao Peng’s encouragement, a dazed Fifth Baby crawled over. The adult Dragon Ants were tearing apart the dragon meat when they heard footsteps. They turned their heads ferociously and glared at… Hey, where did this baby ant come from? From its size, it should be just out of the nest. Where’s its family?
The adults Dragon Ants wore confused looks. This little fellow, this size… How could its family be so careless that it couldn’t even watch over an infant and had allowed it to be here?
Dragon Ants were pack creatures, and every Dragon Ant who reached adulthood would leave the nest and set up their own nest independently, but they liked to live in areas near dragon graves, and when they found dragon corpses, they would band together and form an alliance to fight other enemies.
Fifth Baby ran over and looked longingly at the dragon corpse in front of it, almost salivating. Since this little Dragon Ant wasn’t even as big as their feet, naturally these adult Dragon Ants didn’t chase it away. Anyway, it didn’t make a difference whether it was there or not.
Just like that, Fifth Baby got away with eating and drinking there…
Half an hour later, while the adult Dragon Ants were still devouring the smoke dragon, a full Fifth Baby secretly snuck away, half crawling, half rolling. His stomach was round and big, as though he was eight months pregnant.
A Dragon Ant retrieving the bloodline of a dragon corpse was an event that happened by chance. A Dragon Ant that ate a dragon corpse might not necessarily receive a bloodline. At times, even after a Dragon Ant had finished eating a few whole dragons, it might not have received a bloodline, but some that were lucky could receive a bloodline when they had only a few mouthfuls.
It was this uncertainty that made the Dragon Ants greedy to snatch up different dragon corpses, eating whatever they could…
