Chapter 286: Gaemi’s New Form

Joo Joowon moved closer to the honey-jar ’succulent’ and examined it with utmost seriousness.

Only at this moment did he notice that a tiny insect was living between the ’stamens’.

The insect’s entire body was pure white, plump, and moist, with a faint pale yellow tint. It resembled a piece of warm jade. Even someone who was extremely afraid of insects would not feel frightened upon seeing it. Instead, they would develop an impulse to obtain it, along with an obsession with it.

Joo Joowon suddenly began to wonder whether he had come to the wrong place or had the anthill already been taken over by an outsider?

The moment this suspicion arose in his heart, he saw a pitch-black ’tide’ surge toward the succulent and begin cautiously watching its surroundings as if facing a powerful enemy.

"Huh?"

Joo Joowon could not help freezing for a moment. His Mental Power was not weak, and he had not revealed any murderous intent or other emotions. In theory, it should have been impossible for him to be discovered.

Level 10 was a threshold. Normally, those at this level could completely overwhelm extraordinary beings below Level 10. This was especially true when they were hiding in the darkness and observing secretly. Because of the difference in their life levels, even extraordinary beings who specialized in Mental Power would still have difficulty noticing anything strange.

But judging from the current situation, it seemed that he had already been discovered?

At that moment, a strange fluctuation drifted outward. It was eighty percent like Mental Power and twenty percent like a soul.

The message was obscure, the word order was reversed and chaotic, and it was difficult to tell what it was trying to say.

However, the intense hostility within it was unmistakably clear.

Without giving it any thought, Joo Joowon’s Mental Power pressed down like a dark cloud covering the sky. The soldier ants that had been flapping their wings immediately collapsed one after another, falling onto the soldier ants beneath them.

He was somewhat surprised.

The Mental Power fluctuation released by this insect was clearly Gaemi’s.

Mental Power was like an identification card. There was no way he could mistake it.

But how had it become like this?

Not only had its body become smaller, but even its species had changed.

The other side also froze for a moment. It had probably sensed a familiar aura from the Mental Power fluctuation. Only after a while did it release pheromones, ordering the soldier ants guarding it to leave.

After receiving the order, the soldier ants quickly withdrew like a tide, leaving only Gaemi behind.

Joo Joowon extended his Mental Power toward Gaemi. He was simply too curious about how Gaemi had managed to develop into this state in such a short period of time.

Generally speaking, ants in nature needed at least a week to a little over ten days to hatch from eggs. Even if extraordinary power had shortened the time required for ants to hatch, it should not have become this short.

As completely metamorphosing insects, ants had a larval stage that lasted even longer than their incubation period. After the larval stage, they still had a pupal stage. Only after emerging from their pupae could they become proper worker ants or soldier ants. Once all these processes were completed, at least a month and a half would have passed.

Of course, the Ant Queen could also force rapid growth by sacrificing the ants’ lifespans and physical health. She could forcibly shorten the time needed for them to develop, then gradually replace them once normal ants began working.

Even so, they should not have been able to complete a month-long process in only two or three days.

Considering the unreasonable innate skills of extraordinary creatures, Joo Joowon was merely curious about this.

After communicating with Gaemi, Joo Joowon discovered that her ability to express herself had declined considerably, and her mind was also somewhat confused. Fortunately, her ability to understand things was still quite good, so Joo Joowon was able to roughly sort out what had happened.

To put the development of the anthill simply, it was a case of, "While the neighbors stored food, I stored the neighbors."

After digging out the anthill, Gaemi had only roughly laid her eggs. She had not hatched them. Instead, she immediately released pheromones, luring all the ants in the surrounding area over. The original Ant Queen had been directly treated as spoils of war and brought over by her own children as well.

Gaemi had been able to develop so rapidly because of these "good neighbors."

Originally, everything had been developing step by step, and nothing seemed wrong. But who could blame Gaemi for having such strong Mental Power? Therefore, after she became busy, she had been "hit."

More precisely, she had only been affected halfway.

Mental Power had little to do with intelligence. For a mutated beast like Gaemi, which had not been born very long ago and had a simple mind, she had some brains, but not many. Because of this, she had actually reacted faster than ordinary people.

She had immediately made a decisive choice to temporarily disable her Mental Power. Instead, she returned to her old methods from before the apocalypse and used only pheromones to control the ant colony.

However, some things could not simply be thrown away because one wanted to discard them. Even after she stopped using Mental Power, the Whispers still existed.

After realizing that the situation was not good, Gaemi forcibly gave birth to a group of powerful soldier ants to protect herself. She then "returned to her original state" and shrank back into a pupa.

Of course, unlike ordinary ants, she could still command the ant colony after becoming a pupa. She could also move, although it was not as convenient as before. This was a life-saving method passed down from the previous generation to its descendants. By transferring the "poison" into the pupa, all the old illnesses would disappear when she emerged again.