Chapter 352: Decapitation Plan

This was because only at this ratio could the food gathered by the worker ants while foraging outside each day provide enough supplies for all the ants in the nest.

From this, it was clear just how many resources the soldier ants consumed.

Since ancient times, maintaining an army had always been an expensive business. This was true for humans, and it was true for animals as well.

Therefore, Joo Joowon did not believe that the appetite of transcendent ants would be the same as that of ordinary ants. So if he wanted to make use of Gaemi, even if he ignored the issue of how long it would take for its soldier ants to fully develop, the resource consumption alone would already be extremely serious.

Hwi, however, was different. At least his return on the investment was clearly visible.

When Joo Joowon had remained hidden until the very end, he had seen the true form of the red mist boss. This meant that it could be damaged by physical attacks.

If the other party had instead been an existence similar to the earth fire, then Joo Joowon would not have continued considering Hwi. He would have chosen to increase his other combat forces instead.

But things were different now.

At present, Hwi was the strongest combat force Joo Joowon had, possessing both physical and Mental Power-based offensive methods.

If Hwi became strong enough after coming out of the Energy Pool, then they could choose to assassinate the red mist boss.

However, Joo Joowon understood very clearly that using his own weakness to attack the enemy’s strength was an extremely foolish thing to do.

The number of red mist zombies was clearly displayed right there, and creating red mist zombies was not particularly difficult. The "materials" were all obtained by the red mist boss for free from Hwarim Nature Reserve. It did not need to spend its own resources to cultivate them. It only needed to snatch existing zombies and bring them back to transform.

Joo Joowon’s side, however, was different.

Not only did he have to find ways to obtain his own resources, but because the creatures in his territory had not been completely dataized, they would also encounter cultivation bottlenecks when trying to increase their levels.

Therefore, trying to use overwhelming numbers to fight against the red mist boss would be nothing more than using his own weakness to clash head-on with the enemy’s strength.

It was unrealistic, and simply too foolish.

Now that he knew the boss was staying deep within the red mist, he at least had the foundation needed to carry out a decapitation plan.

At that time, Hwi would serve as the main force, while Joo Joowon and Byeol would interfere from the side. As long as they could catch the enemy off guard, move quickly enough, and unleash enough power, it might not be impossible to successfully assassinate the red mist boss despite being surrounded by enemies.

To put it simply, those Elite Zombies were defective products too. Their actual combat ability was not particularly high. It was indeed difficult for Joo Joowon and Byeol to kill them, but protecting themselves among them was still relatively easy.

Of course, plans could never keep up with changes. Joo Joowon had already become accustomed to all kinds of unexpected developments appearing in his life. So his idea might not necessarily succeed.

However, no matter how low the success rate was, it was still somewhat higher than relying on Gaemi.

After all, unless Gaemi could form her own army in a very short period of time, the resources consumed would not be too great.

During a fight, the ants would inevitably suffer heavy casualties, and those that managed to survive and return would not consume that many resources.

But this was impossible.

When Joo Joowon had appointed Gaemi to her position, he had already discussed everything in detail with her. For Gaemi, artificially accelerating the growth of ant eggs was simply not a worthwhile trade.

The amount of energy required to artificially mature a single ant egg was enough for Gaemi to lay one or two hundred eggs. Once those eggs hatched naturally, the role they could play would definitely be greater than that of an artificially matured ant.

But this required time. Under normal circumstances, it would take at least a month and a half for her army to fully take shape.

A month and a half was indeed too long for Joo Joowon.

Moreover, if he wanted to use sheer numbers to deal with the red mist zombies, considering their ability to resurrect, the ants would need to produce at least one million individuals as a starting point. Even that number might not be enough.

Ants were a late-game type of army. If Gaemi were like a necromancer whose skeleton monsters could keep increasing in number as they fought, Joo Joowon would not hesitate at all. He would immediately go to the Player Forum and other places, spend a large amount of resources, and first pile them into Gaemi’s level before worrying about anything else.

But Gaemi was not like that.

The help Gaemi could provide in the short term was limited. With the resources in his territory still scarce, it naturally would not be given priority when it came to resource allocation.

However, since Gaemi wanted to use the Energy Pool now, Joo Joowon was not so unreasonable that he would refuse to let her use it.

No matter how much energy breaking out of the cocoon consumed, it could not possibly require an amount of energy comparable to what Hwi needed to break through.

If he really ran out of resources later, he could go to Hwarim to search for Elite Zombies or purchase resources from the game shop. In any case, things would not reach the point where he was completely trapped with nowhere to go.

At least judging from the red mist boss’s current situation, they still had time to develop.