Chapter 168 - Chapter 168: Chapter 163: Fight in the Dark l

Chapter 168: Chapter 163: Fight in the Dark l

Translator: 549690339 |

Not striking face to face, but secretly using a mysterious insect to track and locate Qin Niu, anyone could guess the purpose.

The sole intent was to wipe out Qin Niu’s insects in one fell swoop and seize them all.

“Master, this insect seems to be responding to the call of the queen, I can hardly control it!”

Fourth alerted Qin Niu.

“Use the power of the ant colony to restrain it.”

Qin Niu issued the order.

Nowadays, his ant colony could increase by 100 ants a day, and given the chance, he would cultivate new termites punctually every day.

Nearly a hundred special termites could be added daily.

The main issue was that there were too many of them, so the ordinary termites were cultivated in batches, resulting in a certain mortality rate.

To cultivate a hundred ordinary termites into Grade Two special termites, there would always be four or five unfortunate deaths.

This loss was within Qin Niu’s acceptable range.

At this moment, following Qin Niu’s command, a hundred special worker ants capable of Spirit Control were thrown into battle. There were Swift Puppet Ants, Lightning Puppet Ants, and leading them were Grade Three Green Scale Puppet Ants.

They were worker ants that had undergone secondary cultivation.

In terms of strength, Grade Three termites were certainly much stronger than Grade Two ones.

For today’s battle, Qin Niu directly mobilized six hundred special worker ants and over four hundred special soldier ants, a super luxurious Termite Army ready to attack.

For an ordinary Insect Master, having a Grade Two insect to command was already enough to feel complacent.

Even for a true Insect Master, a Grade Two insect was also invaluable.

Now, with over a thousand ants of Grade Two and above forming an army, there’s no need to describe how terrifying that might be.

It is estimated that even a Grade Four insect might be instantly torn apart by them.

The previously restless strange insect, once suppressed by a hundred Puppet Ants, instantly became obedient.

“If there really is a queen, the main adversary should be showing up soon.”

Qin Niu waited patiently.

Now, all he could do was to adapt to the situation as it unfolded.

The sky gradually darkened, the tired birds returned to the woods, and they quieted down.

Qin Niu looked at the Ancient Banyan Tree beside him; it appeared incredibly tranquil in the night. If one didn’t know its terror, it would be almost impossible to spot any abnormalities or dangers from the outside.

As the night fell completely, the whole mountain seemed to wake up, with the roaring of various beasts rising and falling.

Many nocturnal wild animals, insects, snakes, and rats emerged from their nests.

They roamed about, searching for food.

Qin Niu’s chosen hiding spot was a fairly robust chestnut tree, where he hid, motionless.

The main adversary was still nowhere to be seen.

He wasn’t in a hurry, patiently waiting. Contesting with someone as unfathomable as Old Master Huang, if one lost patience too quickly, it was easy to be wiped out by the opponent.

A pale moon gradually ascended into the sky, and its silvery light bathed the earth, revealing the silhouettes of grass and trees in the moonlight.

The shadows of the trees were faintly discernible on the ground, like so many ghosts.

“Master, that queen insect seems to have arrived.”

Fourth alerted Qin Niu once more.

All around was very quiet, and there were no sounds to be heard.

After a while, Qin Niu heard a rustling in the vegetation.

It was clearly different from the noise of the wind stirring the trees.

He didn’t focus his gaze in the direction of the sound, because the powerful were very sensitive to being watched. If he kept staring in that direction, he would immediately alert the adversary to his presence.

It could even pinpoint Qin Niu’s hiding spot.

The noise of the vegetation being disturbed wasn’t loud; a shadow more agile than a mountain marten was inching closer to the strange insect’s location.

Qin Niu knew that the crucial moment had arrived.

He dimly saw a black insect about the thickness of a chopstick, inching forward, bending its body repeatedly.

It must have been tracking by scent.

There was someone following the insect, taking their time but keeping up.

The light was too poor to see the person’s face clearly.

Qin Niu also dared not stare.

“No matter where you come from, let’s lure you in first,” he thought.

He commanded the waiting Termite Army, “Take control of that queen and keep it moving forward.”

Fourth had already aimed its antennae at the queen.

The Puppet Army within the Termite Army immediately exerted its power in unison.

The queen insect’s body trembled violently; its head suddenly lifted and then split open, transforming into over a hundred black ‘strands of hair’. Each ‘strand’ was actually one of its heads.

Qin Niu’s scalp tingled at the sight.

“Master, its level is higher than mine, I can’t control it for long.”

Fourth conveyed the message to Qin Niu.

Even with such a vast Termite Army’s help, it could only barely restrain the queen, indicating that the adversary was at least a Grade Four insect.

“As long as it can enter the range covered by the banyan tree ahead, that will be enough.”

Qin Niu didn’t need to control the queen for long.

Such a powerful insect would probably be very difficult to deal with; it was safer to let it become nutrition for the Ancient Banyan Tree.

Under the control of the ant colony, the queen insect continued to move forward.

Seeing its silhouette gradually disappearing into the range of the Ancient Banyan Tree, Qin Niu breathed a sigh of relief.

The shadow also followed it inside.

Qin Niu felt as if his heart was about to leap out of his throat.

Thankfully, nothing unexpected happened in the end.

The person went directly into the maze of the Ancient Banyan Tree.

“Could Old Master Huang have been taken care of so easily?”

Qin Niu found everything too smooth.

His consistent caution and suspicion kept him still, watching secretly.

At that moment, a buzzing sound came from the sky.

It was like the noise made by powerful wasps flapping their wings.

At night, giant wasps generally do not come out.

Because they cannot see.

This meant that it was very likely some other insect.

Qin Niu looked up at the sky and saw two insects as thick as knife handles flying above. Under the moonlight, he could barely make out that their silhouettes resembled those of hornets.

Hornets this big?

Qin Niu was quite familiar with this mountain region. He had never seen hornets of such size before.

Moreover, not only were these two hornets extraordinarily large, far exceeding ordinary giant wasps, but they also possessed Night Vision. He was almost certain that these two hornets were most likely the Corpse Bees raised by Old Master Huang.

They had undergone secretive mutations and evolution, acquiring the ability to see in the dark.

“Fourth, do you see those two giant hornets in the sky? Look for a chance to lead the ants to knock them down, regardless of life or death.”

“The distance is too far, we can’t reach them.”

The long-range attack capabilities of Fourth and the Termite Army were limited, the further the distance, the weaker the power.

Facing such airborne enemies, they were somewhat powerless.

“If it really comes to it, we’ll have to use the Bee Legion.”

He didn’t have many Grade Two bees cultivated at the moment.

Since the Queen Bee hadn’t been evolving for a particularly long time, it took time for the first batch of a hundred bee eggs to hatch, pupate, and mature.

Only about ten Grade Two Worker Bees could be cultivated each day, and sometimes one or two would die from bursting their bodies, so the number of special bee swarms was still very limited.

These two Corpse Bees were much stronger than the green giant hornets Qin Niu had been raising.

If he were to have the bees go up against them, the casualties would definitely be extremely heavy.

And his bees did not possess Night Vision.

He was at a disadvantage on all fronts.

To utilize the swarm would only be a last resort.

The main issue was that there had not been enough time for development; the bee swarm’s cultivation was far from sufficient.

It was fine when dealing with ordinary insects.

But faced with an Insect Master as formidable as Old Master Huang, he seemed somewhat at a loss.

The foundation and cumulative effort of the two sides were not on the same level.

The two giant bees, upon losing their target, began to lower their flight altitude, carefully approaching this way for reconnaissance.

They seemed to sense that the Ancient Banyan Tree ahead was extremely dangerous, behaving very cautiously.

When Qin Niu saw their altitude decreasing, he felt a surge of excitement.

“Fourth, quickly command the ants to climb the tree and get ready to knock them down.”

The Termite Army silently and swiftly climbed onto the trees to shorten the distance between them and the two Corpse Bees.

Finally, the distance between them was getting closer and closer.

Almost without any warning, one of the Corpse Bees spun twice in the air and fell vertically downwards.

The other was controlled by Fourth.

“Master, it’s too strong; we can’t control it for long.”

Fourth appeared to be struggling considerably.

“The one that fell hasn’t died.”

He warned Qin Niu.

“Hold on for a moment.”

Qin Niu scanned the surroundings and did not find any other figures or movements.

He took out a specially made insect-catching net and had Fourth control the Corpse Bee to approach his position.

As it got close, he could already smell the unique stench of rotting corpses, even from two or three meters away.

Qin Niu seized the opportunity, and without any hesitation, he netted it in one go.

The bee’s mouthparts were extremely frightening, and it easily bit through the net’s threads.

It should be noted that those threads were thickened.

“Get inhere!”

Qin Niu took off a Bronze Canister from his waist, not very big, just about the size of a normal chopstick holder.

He had specially bought some canisters in town for catching insects.

He never expected that they would actually come in handy at this moment.

Encased in the Bronze Canister, it still struggled fiercely, wildly biting all around.

But its mouthparts, no matter how strong, couldn’t bite through the smooth inner walls of the Bronze Canister.

“Next time, I’ll have to customize a few more thickened Bronze Canisters.”

Seeing how fearsome this Corpse Bee was, Qin Niu was shocked to his core.

After capturing this Corpse Bee, he let the ant army kill the other one on the ground that had suffered a heavy blow to its spirit.

In the blink of an eye, the ants killed the Corpse Bee alive.

“Don’t eat it; I need it.”

The corpse of this Corpse Bee was very useful for cultivating the Ant Queen and the young ants.

Perhaps it could help them evolve.

After all, this was a ‘premium ingredient.’

He felt that these Corpse Bees were at least Grade Three insects, and they might even have reached Grade Four.

The captured Corpse Bee, although already owned by someone, couldn’t be tamed, but could be kept for crossbreeding with other wasps to cultivate a new bee species.

It did not stay still inside the Bronze Canister, constantly moving about.

Making a rustling noise.

It seemed it wanted to escape.

The foul stench of death wafted from the air holes, making people want to vomit.

“Looking at the situation, its master must not be dead. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be in this state.”

Qin Niu deduced in his mind.