Chapter 398: The Mystery

Pandora saw no large eggs.

The egg mound was densely packed with thumb-sized, milky-white ant eggs—not a single one exceeded that size. There were no eggs anywhere in the mound of the kind that could hatch Killer Ants.

But she did spot something farther from the egg mound, in a corner where the colony seemed to pile its waste and debris: scattered fragments.

Those fragments were incomplete—some reduced to half a shell, others with jagged, uneven edges—but they were clearly larger.

They lay strewn across the corner, mixed in with the egg-shell remnants the Borer Ants had cleaned out, yet she could still make out their original form.

They were thicker and harder than the shells of ordinary ant eggs, and their color was darker—a dull, grayish white.

They were very likely the shell fragments of Killer Ant eggs.

Pandora silently counted them.

The number roughly matched the Killer Ants she had killed earlier.

Which meant both the Borer Ants and the Killer Ants had indeed been produced by the queen before her—same origin, same lineage, all born from one mother.

But why did the former still seem to be under the queen’s control, maintaining order, while the latter... seemed to have gone out of control?

Those Killer Ants, by all logic, were born from the queen.

They should have stayed by her side, patrolling her territory, guarding the nest. That was what a normal ant colony should look like.

Yet for some unknown reason, they had not kept to the queen’s side. Instead, they had scattered through the lower floors, roaming separately, each fighting on its own.

They had not even gathered with one another. It was only when Pandora killed one of them and its pheromones spilled out that they converged at last, as if receiving some kind of command.

This did not fit the logic of an ant colony.

Or rather, it did not fit the logic of a normal ant colony.

How strange.

Pandora was still mulling over the logic when the queen made her move.

Faced with the sudden intruder, the queen struggled to raise her upper body.

The motion was extremely labored. Her enormous abdomen hung like a heavy sack of flesh, dead weight pinned to the ground. Only the front half of her body could barely lift.

Her two massive, sharp mandibles strained open, emitting a low, harsh hiss, trying to frighten the intruder away.

But her huge body made even movement difficult.

And her clumsy threat display posed no menace whatsoever in Pandora’s eyes.

In fact, because her body was so unwieldy, the posture of her propping up her front half stirred a strange, unbidden sense of...

Pity.

Like an overfed cat too fat to stand, still desperately arching its back, trying to scare off an enemy with a “fierce face” that had long since ceased to be visible.

Pandora shook her head, and the faint smile at the corner of her lips faded.

Then, she raised a hand.

The shadows around her gathered, rose, and condensed into several razor-sharp shadow blades that shot toward the queen.

The sound of the shadow blades cutting through the air was extremely faint—but when they landed on the queen’s body, the sound was far less subtle.

Thwack—thwack—thwack—

This was a probing attack.

She wanted to see whether this Anomaly still had any hidden tricks.

A Rank-3 Anomaly surely couldn’t be this limited.

But it was nothing like what she had been wary of.

The shadow blades sank into the queen’s body, slicing through the yellow-white fatty tissue.

Pale yellow fluid seeped from the wounds, slowly trickling down the folds of her massive abdomen.

The queen let out a pained hiss, her upper body twisting frantically, her mandibles snapping uselessly.

But she did not fight back. She had no hidden tricks. She could not even manage a proper dodge.

A queen in this form, in truth, held a Rank-3 designation but had no way to bring Rank-3 power to bear.

In terms of threat alone, she was far below even the Killer Ants downstairs.

At least the Killer Ants could run, could leap, could slash with those sickle-like forelimbs.

But this queen before her...

She could hardly even move.

As long as Pandora did not actively approach the queen’s enormous mandibles, she was completely safe.

Having confirmed that, Pandora did not approach, nor did she intend to move.

She simply stood at the corridor entrance, keeping her distance, using the shadow blades shaped through Umbral Weaving to steadily bleed the queen dry.

Of course, calling it “blood” was generous—most of it was really...

A mixture of oil, fat, and even egg white.

It gushed from the wounds with a thick, viscous quality, slowly spreading across the ground, giving off a sweet, sickly scent.

The injured queen could only rage impotently.

She raised her terrifying upper body—grotesquely small against her massive abdomen—writhing frantically, clamping her mandibles with a sound that set one’s teeth on edge.

But such efforts posed no threat to Pandora three meters away.

Pandora was not, in fact, underestimating her opponent.

No matter how weak, this was a Rank-3 like herself—and a special-form Rank-3 at that.

Anomalies of this form often meant some kind of extreme specialization, perhaps an ability far beyond the norm in a particular domain.

What if she was only feigning weakness, waiting for Pandora to reveal an opening, and then she would summon the Borer Ant army to overwhelm her in a single wave?

Those insects disguised as walls—if they swarmed from all directions at once, even Pandora would find it troublesome to deal with.

Or perhaps a hidden Killer Ant legion could appear at any moment?

Maybe in some unseen corner, more Killer Ants were gathering, waiting for the queen’s command...

Pandora remained extremely cautious, never lowering her guard.

The shadow blade assault never paused, but a considerable portion of her attention remained fixed on the surrounding environment.

However.

It was not until the queen was on her last breath that Pandora truly confirmed it—

The queen really had nothing left.

She herself was all she had.

Pandora found this somewhat unbelievable.

Especially when it came to the Borer Ants.

They were right there, busy at the egg mound nearby, orderly and methodical, each one occupied with its own duty in clear division of labor.

Yet they showed no reaction whatsoever to Pandora’s attacks on the queen.

Even when the queen cried out in agony.

Even when that enormous body was riddled with holes, yellow-white fat and dark red fluid mixing together as it seeped from countless wounds, pooling on the floor into a viscous, sticky puddle.

The Borer Ants simply kept carrying the ant eggs, as if the queen’s life or death meant nothing to them.

As if...

They did not even recognize the queen being slaughtered before them.

This was strange.

The queen, for some unknown reason, seemed to have lost her ability to control the colony...

Pandora frowned.

But she was not a member of the ant colony; she could not parse the detailed workings of the pheromones in the air.

She was no ant expert, either. She could not understand what was happening here.

Was it a problem with the pheromones? A problem with the queen herself? Or was something else interfering with communication within the colony?