The acidic solution in the trenches gradually drained and dried up. The number of Big-headed Ant troops was also steadily decreasing. Although reinforcents sporadically arrived on the battlefield via the bridge, their numbers were negligible.
By the ti the main forces of the Big-headed Ants crossed the trench to rejoin the battle, the original force of over 500,000 had dwindled to fewer than 100,000.
As reinforcents arrived, the Swarm troops fought and retreated. Once the number of Big-headed Ant troops crossing the trench reached a critical level, the sa tactics were employed again.
Through two cycles of attrition, the Big-headed Ants lost around one million soldiers. Unfortunately, the Worker Ants of the Swarm had exhausted their reserves of acidic solution and could not repeat the tactic a third ti.
Luckily, no further reinforcents erged from the Big-headed Ant nest at this point. The forces on the ground appeared to represent their entire remaining reserves. Luo Wen estimated their numbers to be around four million.
The Swarm, having lost approximately 100,000 troops during the two bouts of attrition, was left with around 2.9 million soldiers.
2.9 million vs. 4 million.
Considering the nurous miniature combat units among the Big-headed Ants, the battle would still be a tough one. The next stage would be a head-on confrontation.
The fighting was fierce. Luo Wen even joined the fray personally. As a unique colossus on the battlefield, he could kill nurous Big-headed Ants simply by smashing his massive pincers into the ground. However, this move was indiscriminate and risked injuring his own troops.
But such concerns were a luxury he could no longer afford. Leveraging the advantage of his long arms, he did his best to avoid friendly fire. anwhile, Soldier Ants sward over his body, defending his blind spots, like his back.
Every ti Luo Wen’s pincers struck, a few agile enemies would climb up his limbs. At these monts, the Soldier Ants on his body would deal with the intruders.
The Big-headed Ants, to their credit, refrained from employing underhanded tactics like poisoning, which minimized their threat to Luo Wen. Of course, this was only true for small numbers of them.
The battle lasted a full day and night, a clash devoid of strategy, fought purely with brute force.
In the end, the Swarm barely eked out a victory.
Luo Wen surveyed the battlefield. Of the Swarm’s giant combat units, only a single Giant Scorpion remained; all others had perished. The Soldier Ants and Worker Ants had also been decimated, leaving few survivors.
Out of 10,000 Transport Bugs, the more agile and sharp-eyed among the Swarm, over 3,000 had died. Additionally, another 2,000 had suffered irreparable injuries that hindered their mobility. Since the Swarm did not sustain creatures with no value, these would be recycled.
After accounting for losses, of the original 2.9 million troops, fewer than 100,000 remained. Most of these survivors were non-combatant functional units, such as 5,000 Mucus Bugs.
The battlefield was strewn with corpses, a small area bearing the remains of nearly seven million insects.
Although his forces were decimated, Luo Wen felt no regret. Victory was all that mattered; the winner would claim everything.
With the corpses left behind, the Swarm’s 3,000 Queen Ants would need only one growth cycle to replenish the army, perhaps even surpassing its forr strength.
anwhile, the Big-headed Ants had lost over seven million troops. How their nest sustained such numbers was a mystery—one that had lost its protectors and awaited Luo Wen to uncover.
Still, Luo Wen did not imdiately excavate the nest. Although the Big-headed Ants had been defeated, no one could predict what might remain within their lair. After such an exhausting battle, his forces were severely depleted.
Since the nest would not run away, his imdiate priority was to process the spoils of war.
Luo Wen ordered his remaining troops to guard the battlefield while he, despite his exhaustion, returned to the forward base.
He dispatched multiple Scout Bugs to all nearby bases, ordering each to send half of their forces for reinforcents. Without resting, Luo Wen then rallied the 200 Queen Ants and all other remaining bugs from the outpost—a group of roughly 50,000 to 60,000—and rushed back to the battlefield.
Fortunately, the battlefield had remained undisturbed during their absence.
The outpost forces, mainly composed of Burrower Ants, were put to work imdiately. They, along with the surviving Giant Scorpion, excavated a temporary shelter.
The Queen Ants began processing the corpses scattered across the field, laying eggs directly.
Over the next two days, as reinforcents stread in from rear territories, the Swarm’s numbers swelled back to 500,000. Tirelessly, the bugs cleaned the battlefield, transporting most of the spoils back to their territory. A smaller portion was left on-site for the Queen Ants to consu.
With his forces replenished, Luo Wen regained his confidence.
At his command, the Swarm surrounded the Big-headed Ant nest.
The nest had nurous exits and an abundance of mysterious openings at the top. Unwilling to disperse his troops, Luo Wen simply selected one entrance and ordered his forces to advance while he waited outside.
The operation progressed smoothly. The Big-headed Ants had indeed depleted their forces. The Swarm encountered minimal resistance inside the nest, as evidenced by their negligible casualties upon erging.
In addition to capturing the Queen Ant of the Big-headed Ants, the Swarm also retrieved so peculiar items.
One of these was a mass resembling chewed leaves mixed with saliva, then dried. In so areas, leaf veins were still faintly visible. The substance was intertwined with a web-like network of white fibers.
Luo Wen scratched his head, unsure of its purpose. However, the visible leaf veins indicated this was the Big-headed Ants’ hidden secret.
Unable to discern much from its appearance, Luo Wen summoned Burrower Ants and the Giant Scorpion for assistance and began excavating the nest himself.
An hour later, he had dug out a cross-section of the nest to better observe its structure, hoping the special materials’ storage locations might reveal so clues.
The Big-headed Ant nest was unlike anything Luo Wen had seen before. It featured a complex spiral design with winding passages that widened into rooms at intervals. The deeper the spiral, the larger it beca, resembling a circular pyramid.
Each chamber along the spiral passage stored the leaf-like substance and white fibers. These were fused into a honeycomb structure filled with empty holes.
Deeper underground, within these spiral chambers, Luo Wen discovered the honeycomb structures also housed eggs, larvae, and pupae.
“It looks like a plantation,” Luo Wen speculated. He vaguely recalled that so intelligent ant species cultivated their own food. Perhaps the Big-headed Ants were such a species.
Though their large heads seed to be filled only with muscle.
Testing his theory was simple.
The Big-headed Ant Queen was still alive. Luo Wen placed it back inside the nest to observe its behavior.
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