Chapter 222 - Ant Queen

"What shall I do for you, Lord Spirit?" The worker ant asked.

"Do you know where your queen is?" Compass Carburettor asked in response.

"There are five of us!" The worker ant replied, "Just under this area alone."

"…"

Feeling headache for a moment, Compass Carburettor said, "Then, bring a Queen here, no matter who. Someone young and that had just become a queen is better."

"They won't come out no matter what." The worker ant said. Even though it was under the effects of Slave Harem and had a staunch loyalty, it didn't show any signs of betraying the colony. After all, that was a mentality that went beyond an ant's sense of self.

It wasn't something he could affect.

But, Compass Carburettor only smiled in response, bestowing the Skill of Strength upon it, asking, "Do you feel stronger now?"

"Yes," The worker ant bobbed its head. With the Skill of Intelligence, it was able to communicate with him. And now, with the Skill of Strength, it felt stronger than before, feeling like it could even become a guard ant.

"I'll be able to give the same to a Queen too. So, bring one to me. With that, you'll be able to destroy the Grassmen." Compass Carburettor smiled, pointing at two Grassmen that were nonchalantly standing in the open yard, gazing at everything as if it wasn't of their concern.

"I'll try," Saying so, the worker ant retreated into its tunnel and vanished.

Compass Carburettor waited patiently, staring at the Grassmen, feeling the other party stare at him in response.

For the next couple of minutes, nothing was exchanged between them before Compass Carburettor raised his hand and waved at them, "Hello darling! Looking sharp today, are we?"

In response to his provocative action, the Grassmen winked at him once before turning around, gazing at the battle between the ants and the mosquitoes.

'Did I just get hit on by a Grassmen?' Compass Carburettor frowned, shuddering for a moment as some inexplicable scenes flashed through his mind.

After one turned into a Grassmen, they were no longer human and the concept of gender vanished from them. Their bodies morphed, turning androgenous, preventing him from recognising their prior identity as a human.

So, since he was bored, he just tried to probe them. But getting such a response only stumped him, unable to make heads or tails of the situation.

'Do they also have sentience?' He thought, frowning because even when the Grassmen winked at him, he didn't receive any Mental Energy at all.

"Tell me when you are bringing the queen." Saying so, Compass Carburettor returned to the room at the top, closed the door upon entry, ensured the place was secure before sliding under the bedsheet. Gently hugging Grisha, he closed his eyes and began to sleep.

Three hours later, he woke up, feeling somewhat tired because he had killed and refined two Systems on the same day. So, his mind was still exhausted, causing him difficulty to even think.

The only reason he woke up was due to the worker ant constantly sending his messages through their telepathy.

Getting up, he descended the flight of stairs, arriving at the living room, noticing two ants approach him. The first was the worker ant that was fist-sized.

The second was the queen that was a metre in length. It was an alarmingly large ant that possessed a tough carapace.

Upon seeing it, Compass Carburettor didn't immediately take action, gazing at the worker ant instead, "Are you sure this queen is willing to gain power?"

"Yes, after all, she would have been driven out of the nest anyways. There are enough queens here." The worker ant replied.

"Haha, alright." Saying as such, he condensed his Anthozoa, fluidly shooting two bullets into the ant queen, watching the two abilities sink into it before a connection was established between the two.

Once it became a member, Compass Carburettor observed the loyalty it possessed, Bestowing it seven Skills from his physique section.

To give it a Core Skill or a Personal Fragment, 100 loyalty was required for each. Since the ant queen didn't possess that much, he only gave her the basic Skills.

But, just that alone strengthened her a lot, causing her to make a humane bowing action, "Thank you for bestowing this power onto me, Lord Spirit!"

"Do you have an army of your own?" Compass Carburettor asked it.

The ant queen shook her head, saying, "I'll have to create them from scratch. I have only recently become a queen."

"Well, no worries." Smiling, Compass Carburettor waved his hand, using Directional Misalignment to cause countless mosquitoes to gush into the living room before they pierced through each other, forming a large sphere that landed on the ground. "Here's your food. If you need more, just tell me. For starters, use this living room as your nest. Once you have enough workers, you can start building a proper one underground."

"Alright!" The ant queen replied chirpily, "As I have become stronger, the ants I birth would be stronger than the others."

Saying so, she excitedly began to munch on the mosquito carcasses that the worker ant brought her from the sphere. It was unknown as to how she did it, but she condensed more than half of the mosquito carcasses into her tiny body, sleeping for a day before beginning to lay eggs.

In the meantime, all Compass Carburettor did was use his Haggon form to devour the insects and create Armaments. He also created more inferior-Darble bracelets that he tied around Grisha's body, hoping that she would be able to awaken her Darlac eventually.

Until she woke up, he didn't plan to move elsewhere. From time to time, he closed his eyes and sensed the location of his Spydragon, noticing that Rhizen had reached the settlement on the hill that he had helped create.

Aware that Rhizen would have to cross Feora City and reach his house that was located on its outskirts, he wasn't worried. Rhizen had a sweetheart that he shared everything with. So, the next target for the Systems would probably be her.

They would take action the moment Rhizen returned to his house. And, it would take quite some time for that to happen. After all, the grass would have already begun to grow.

It seemed that once the grass was burning, Rhizen used the chance to drive through from the foot of Mount Craire. But, when it began to grow, he coincidentally noticed the ring of vehicles around a hill nearby, deciding to survive by heading there.

That's how he had escaped the fate of being turned into a Grassmen.

"So, there's some more time before I have to take action.. Until then, it's a regular apocalypse-survival story."