The growth of her colony brought her great happiness and she hated for it to slow. So as a result of this, the brave adventurers that dared to try their luck in The Burning Nines, often didn’t come back.

However, she couldn’t say that the power she gained wasn’t worth the loss in egg production.

Ever since the day she was born, the only thing she had been able to do was produce eggs and expand her family. But this wasn’t a kind World that would allow her and her colony to just exist in peace. No, just like her the other creatures of the World needed nutrition, and her colony, which was voluminous enough to provide value but virtually defenceless, was the perfect prey.

And although it was only the smaller and weaker creatures like the rats and the ferrets that actually cared about the nutritional value that they could provide, it wasn’t rare for the stronger Beasts to kill them just to keep their territories looking nice. After all, most beings couldn’t endure the nauseous sight of thousands of ants crawling over each other.

So, the first 2 years of life could be considered to be hell. Always running from other lifeforms and rarely ever finding something to eat. And If it wasn’t for the occasional 4 limbed creature that stood upright on 2 legs (something that the System informed her was a ‘Human’), she would have definitely perished long ago. The fact that something that was even bigger than the rats was so weak used to always puzzle her, but she didn’t care.

They may have been stronger than an individual ant, but they were unable to defend themselves against the combined might of the colony. So they became food. They and the other insectoid creatures were the only things that they could eat, so eat they would.

But unlike all the Ant Queens that had come before her, she had possessed a sharper intellect along with a burning desire to devour her oppressors. All she needed was just a single chance.

And it came!

In a valley formed by 2 mountains, a mini war of epic proportions had broken out between a foraging team of the Carmine Flame Deers, and a hunting team of the Rigid Stone Bears.

They were 2 out of the 5 hegemon races within the mountain range and frequently had hostile altercations, it was so bad that whenever they would meet, a war would immediately break out. And if the Carmine Flame Deers won, they would burn the corpses of their enemies to ashes (usually out of rage), but if the Rigid Stone Bears won, they would devour the corpses of their enemies without leaving a single scrap.

However, this time, for the first time ever (at least, according to the Ant Queen’s memory), the war had resulted in a total Wipeout with none of them surviving, leaving plenty of bountiful Spirit Beast corpses in their wake. And for the Stage 2 Magic Beast Ant Queen who had stumbled into the climax of the scene, it was simply a heaven sent opportunity!

Not wasting a single second, she rushed towards the carcasses with thoughts of power filling her heart. She knew that if she dared to stall, the sweet smelling blood of the Spirit Beasts would bring all kinds of attention, and It was for the same reason that she didn’t order her colony to drag the carcasses back to their nest. There was no way for the current ‘them’ to eliminate the trail and resulting smell, so the only way to capitalise on this opportunity was to devour the carcasses immediately!

First, she went for the Carmine Flame Deers because she could tell that they were much more tender than the Rigid Stone Bears. Their rough and stiff fur that remained static despite the wind wasn’t something that the Queen wanted to test. She wasn’t even sure that she could eat them. But the soft red bodies of the Carmine Flame Deers? Simply a delicacy!

At least, that’s what she had initially thought. But reality proved itself to be much different from her daydreams when the Queen failed to pierce Beast’s tough skin. That was when it hit her... How could a mere Magic Beast devour a Spirit Beast even if it was dead?

It was then that she remembered the many times the colony had tried to defeat their enemies with their ‘sharp’ mandibles only to receive repetitive failure and countless losses, and despair slowly dawned on her. If their Mandibles didn’t work before, why should things change just because of the fact that their target was dead. It was hopeless!

But fuelled by a surge of desperation, the Ant Queen made multiple attempts to find a soft spot that she could take advantage of. The thigh, the chest, the nose, the tongue, but nothing worked.

..Until she tried the large gash mark on the back of the Deer’s left hind thigh.

Indeed..

The thought of trying one of the open wounds on the carcass had not once crossed the Ant Queen’s mind. But to be fair, it was to be expected. She had been trying to tear off a chunk of flesh to swallow it herself, so the location she took a bite from shouldn’t really have mattered. And indeed it didn’t, the bite that she took at the wound failed just like the rest, but when the hot blood gushed into her mouth, all thoughts of flesh vanished.

And not for any good reason.

..

The pain of consuming the blood of Spirit Beast that had an affinity with fire was something that she struggled to recount even till this day. It puzzled her because she had a FANTASTIC memory, but she suspected that the severe reaction that she had to the blood had never actually stored itself in her memories in the first place. But that was foolish, was it not?

She didn’t really know, but she did remember that instead of retreating quickly when she had regained her bearings, the 2 year old-foolishly-brave version of herself started charging towards the remains of what used to be a Rigid Stone Bear.