At the beginning of spring, before the protagonist's plan to open a new trade route was implemented, an unexpected visitor broke the tranquility of [New Yang City].
On March 20, the giant ant king "Lao Xin" suddenly appeared outside [Xinyang City] with more than a dozen ants, without any warning.
The God Envoy King warrior who discovered them immediately reported to the protagonist, which surprised the protagonist.
As one of the most virtuous and respected kings in the Belly Ant Clan, "Old Heart" rarely leaves his nest. In the first half of last year, he came to [Xinyang City] twice: once to lead the main army with the intention of attacking [Xinyang City] Yang Cheng], he came as the commander-in-chief; the other time was related to trade, requiring him to lead the team and make decisions, and he came only after contacting him in advance.
Today, "Old Heart" suddenly appeared outside the city without saying hello, which made the protagonist feel that something was wrong.
The protagonist's life has been full of ups and downs, and he has also developed a unique sense of abnormality and danger amidst the ups and downs, just like Liu Da'er's ability developed during his wanderings.
Sure enough, as expected, as soon as he met "Old Heart", the other party lowered his limbs and tentacles to the ground, appeared extremely humble, and then made a seemingly tempting suggestion.
"Old Heart" expressed his intention to come, saying that on behalf of the Jubelly Ant Clan, he decided to formally break away from the vassal status of the Red Fire Ant Kingdom and join the army of the God Envoy King as a loyal vassal.
But at the same time, he also begged the God's Envoy King's Army to provide the military protection that the suzerain country should provide as a matter of course when the Belly Ant Clan is in danger.
The protagonist immediately sensed a hint of danger and conspiracy. Who was the "Old Heart" targeting when he said he wanted to receive military asylum? However, "Lao Xin" never divulges this information during the tentacle communication with the protagonist, which makes the protagonist even more aware that the ants have intentions.
If the Belly Ant clan only faced ordinary military threats, the protagonist would naturally not mind sending an army to help the Belly Ants deal with it. After all, as the current only export channel for the Divine Envoy King's legion, the Belly Ants must be protected if they can.
But common threats can be dealt with by the ants themselves. They go to such great lengths to come to seek refuge with them, and they are so courteous and treacherous for nothing. If they had not encountered an imminent major threat, then they would be a ghost!
The protagonist has already gained some understanding of the nearby terrain after sending out an exploration team last winter, and is no longer in a blind spot. He knew that the territory of the Belly Ant Clan was bounded to the east by barren shoals that were unsuitable for ants to live in, to the west was the Legion of the God Envoy King, and to the north was its suzerain country Red Fire Ant.
There is no fixed ant race living on the deserted beach to the east. If it is a wandering ant tribe, it will not venture through the deserted beach with almost no food during the barren period that has just begun in spring.
To the west is the Legion of the Divine Envoy King. The protagonist naturally knows that his subordinates did not attack this neighbor who paid tribute to him and also changed trade for him.
All that's left is the threat from the north. Combined with the fact that "Old Heart", the representative of the ant, expressed that he would not hesitate to break away from the control of the fire ants, it becomes obvious where the threat comes from and who it is.
Sure enough, the protagonist repeatedly asked whether there had been any battles in the Ant Nest recently, and if so, he had to look at the information package. He also said that if the other party does not truthfully confess and provide information, he will refuse the request of the Belly Ant Clan.
"Old Heart" finally reluctantly handed over the information package. The protagonist checked it and found no trace of lying.
When the protagonist was in his hometown, the ants he met were all honest, and the information in the information package was absolutely accurate. But the protagonist himself can edit and modify the contents of the information package in his mind. Although it will leave traces that he can see, other ants will believe it when they see it. The protagonist also learns from this that the contents of the information package are not necessarily completely true.
The ants in this place are much more cunning than in their homeland. Last year, the ants in the Red Fire Ant Kingdom and the Envoy King's Army hid from each other and reaped a lot of benefits, which made the protagonist confirm this.
So he carefully checked the information package. Based on his experience, the content of this information package was true.
Sure enough, what the protagonist read from the information package was exactly the scene where a group of fire ants suddenly attacked the woods where the ants live.
"Old Heart" himself didn't know where they had offended the suzerain country. The red fire ants of the suzerain country did not send a messenger at all after the spring of this year. They directly sent thousands of troops and killed them in a fierce manner.
The ants were like silly sweethearts facing a gangster with evil intentions. At first, they eagerly approached them to show their goodwill. However, it was not until they were attacked and reported by the worker ants who escaped back to the nest that the three senior kings felt uncomfortable. Wonderful, hastily organized resistance.
The fighting power of the Red Fire Ants is naturally no match for the Red Fire Ants. Previously, the Red Fire Ants had sent more than a thousand Fire Ant warriors, and there were no vassal warriors. They defeated the Red Fire Ants until they surrendered and became willing to become vassals.
But this time it was a little different. The abdominal ants learned from the previous failure. Under the leadership of the commander, they avoided fighting with the red imported fire ants. Instead, they relied on the terrain to constantly move and always occupy the position above the red imported fire ants. Use formic acid shots to attack from a distance.
However, the red fire ants still followed their last experience and planned to raid the tree nest of the ant in one go and capture the thief and the king to solve the battle.
As a result, under the flexible harassment of the abdominal ants, the fire ants, which were not very good at climbing trees to fight, were led by the nose in the maze of crisscrossing trees, as if there were shots of formic acid from all directions, but It's always hard to catch these monkey-like enemies in the trees.
The ants successfully pinned down the red imported fire ant army, eventually forcing this small group of red imported fire ants to retreat leaving more than a hundred corpses behind.
But the ants who won the victory were not happy.
As one of the top commanders of this battle, "Old Heart" knew very well that if the red fire ants decided to eliminate their own clan for some reason, they would not be so big-hearted and only send a small force next time!
If more fire ant warriors come next time, if next time the fire ants bring forest ants or vassal ants who are good at forest warfare, then their own clan will be difficult to resist.
You know, just to resist a thousand red fire ants, more than three thousand ant warriors almost used up all the formic acid, and they only killed more than a hundred red fire ants, barely forcing the enemy back!
Therefore, the ants held a meeting of all kings and decided to find another backer, just like when they escaped from the pursuit of leaf-cutter ants and found red fire ants as backers.
For a weak ant tribe, survival is the first priority. The ants will not laugh at the slaves of the three surnames, but will only laugh at those ants who died because they did not judge the situation.
Now, the ball is at the feet of the protagonist. Should he accept the surrendered ant?
