Chapter 48
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 48
Chapter Title: Era of Upheaval (4)
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‘It’s a race against time.’
Jin-hyuk watched as Asmodra and the Great Hive devoured the new prey he had provided, absorbed their abilities, and began producing new variants. His instincts told him as much.
It would take several days or more for these new variants to emerge and for the Great Hive’s reinforcements—including them—to reach the Nomad Hive.
On top of that, transporting the prey already secured by the Nomad Hive back to the Great Hive would consume even more time.
Naturally, it would take far less time for Urmark’s orc forces to dispatch troops and wipe out the remnants of the Nomad Hive.
[Asmodra demands that the Nomad Hive evacuate to recover their strength]
Asmodra, already sensing some imminent danger, ordered the Nomad Hive to evacuate in order to close that time gap.
During the few days that followed—while the Nomad Hive fled and engaged in a fierce chase with the orcs—the newly awakened larvae consumed suitable prey and emerged from their pupal stage as new variants.
[Asmodra judges that swift reinforcements are the top priority]
“...They’re huge.”
Jin-hyuk let out a small murmur of admiration as he beheld them.
In terms of sheer body length alone, they surpassed even the hornet ants, making them the largest variant in the hive.
Their heads were unmistakably ant-like: massive heads typical of spiky-helmeted variants, adorned with sharp, sturdy mandibles.
Their thick torsos, equipped with wings and legs, were encased in rigid exoskeletons, and at the end of their elongated abdomens protruded stingers like those of hornets.
But what stood out most were their enormous wings. Veins pulsing with Demonic Power and mana coursed through the two pairs of wings, each larger than their bodies.
These variants, specially nurtured in isolated chambers since their larval stage, had fully inherited their flight capabilities.
‘They plan to fly ahead first and buy time, huh?’
The ground forces moved out alongside them, but these massive variants unfurled their gigantic wings in unison and took to the skies ahead of the rest.
Despite their fighter-jet-like bulk, the Demonic Power they had devoured filled their bodies, granting them the full prowess of dragonflies.
“Monsters... monsters in the sky!”
Dozens of these beasts streaked across the post-rain cleared skies at tremendous speeds, appearing before the orcs who had barely breached the Nomad Hive’s defensive line—as yet another form of despair.
“What in the... Aaaagh!”
“Something’s falling from the sky!”
The orcs had no time to gape dumbly at the shocking arrival of these new foes.
Something began plummeting from the skies—low enough now that orc javelins or arrows couldn’t yet reach, but close enough to strike terror.
And it wasn’t something they could simply dodge.
“Poison... the venom... Koff...”
The moment these aerial drops hit the ground, they burst with a pop, spraying corrosive venom and toxic gas in every direction. Orc flesh sizzled on contact with the venom, while the gas invading their lungs choked the life from them.
These living bombs were honeypot ants enhanced to the extreme with the abilities Jin-hyuk had granted—except their swollen abdomens brimmed not with honey, but with the vicious venom of bullet ants.
Though the dropped honeypots—no, poison pots—exploded on impact and died instantly, such sacrifices meant nothing to the ant hive’s members.
As long as they could take the enemy down with them, that was enough.
Their gruesome corpses would simply be recovered and repurposed as nutrients for the hive.
Even orcs who had shielded themselves with barriers and earth shamanism against bullet ant and venom ant toxins couldn’t cope with the biobombs from above. They collapsed screaming here and there.
“No. This can’t be happening!”
Dgon, witnessing the entire scene, cried out in anguish as their hard-won momentum was shattered in an instant by the massive airstrike.
Victory had been so close.
He had been startled by the queen ant’s combat prowess, but if he amped up his divine spear’s output once more, he could surely decapitate her.
He couldn’t fail his mission after coming this far.
“D-Dragon?”
But then, after one of them dumped its poison pots from midair to rescue the queen, it flared its massive wings and charged straight at Dgon.
He muttered the word without thinking.
A phantasmic species said to have vanished from these lands long ago, leaving only similar lesser beasts behind.
It wasn’t a true dragon, of course, but to Dgon—the first orc facing one—it felt every bit as oppressive.
“Dragon Ant... Dragonant. Nice name.”
Jin-hyuk, watching the spectacle, murmured softly to himself.
That was when the variant Dragonant clamped onto Dgon’s body with its powerful legs and hauled him skyward in one swift motion.
“Retreat... retreat!”
“No! Their queen is right there in front of us!”
“Even the great chieftain has fallen. There’s no way out!”
The tide of battle flipped in an instant.
The orcs, who had moments ago charged bravely with surging morale, now milled about in panic, bereft of unity.
When Dgon himself had led the charge, vaporizing countless ants with his divine spear’s might and shattering their defenses, victory had seemed assured.
But failing to kill the queen in one blow—and the sudden aerial assault by the airborne Dragonants—changed everything.
[The subordinates hope for the total annihilation of the enemy]
The more the remaining orcs faltered in judgment, the tighter the ants squeezed their throats.
The Dragonants were merely hasty aerial support.
The Great Hive’s ground forces were already marching through ant-exclusive tunnels forged days ago.
Soon, they would emerge from the rear, encircle the panicked orcs, and hunt them down.
But Dgon—the one meant to rally them—was locked in a deathmatch with a single Dragonant high in the sky, his fate unknown.
He sacrificed an arm to its jaws that could crush armor, but with his divine spear in his other hand, he shattered and pierced the Dragonant’s chest.
“U... Uwaaaagh!!”
Yet even as it did so, the Dragonant had ascended to heights where the ground looked dizzyingly far below.
Dgon plummeted with a final scream—his survival and condition impossible to confirm.
‘Brutal.’
Jin-hyuk watched the Dragonants swoop down, snatching two or three orcs at a time with their powerful legs to crush their skulls or hurl them to fatal falls. He sighed and zoomed out the screen.
Beastkin or not, cruelty was cruelty.
With their command and momentum broken, all that remained was the ants’ indiscriminate slaughter and hunt in their grand counterattack.
The orc legions—now facing a pincer attack from the Nomad Hive surging out en masse and the Great Hive ants appearing from behind—collapsed like hunted prey in utter devastation.
[Abundant prey. Asmodra is satisfied]
The spoils were tantamount to another massive haul of resources.
Enough to fully restore the hive—and then some.
‘The reactions are just as expected.’
The moment victory was all but sealed,
I checked the Divine Community while watching the pursuit force—including the variant Dragonants—relentlessly hunting down the fleeing orc remnants.
As expected, it was in an uproar.
This was the usual chaos every time the ants I’d aided unveiled a new variant.
[Asmodra orders half the prey surrendered. The Nomad Hive queen tries to refuse, claiming there’s too much, but unable to ignore the Great Hive’s aid, she ultimately yields half the spoils to the Great Hive]
“What a bunch of clowns.”
I chuckled at the popup notification.
With two entities now developing rudimentary egos—faint though they still were—we were witnessing scenes like this.
The two queens quarreling, each insisting her own thinking was correct.
Of course, Asmodra held far higher rank.
Her evolution was far more advanced, she was the queen of the Great Hive (superior to the Nomad Hive), and above all, the first to receive a name from me.
[Through this incident, the Nomad Hive queen awakens to something new: killing and hunting enemies herself]
In contrast, the Nomad Hive queen was evolving in a vastly different direction from Asmodra.
Despite being a queen, she armed herself and fought on the front lines.
Unlike Asmodra, who resided in the safest core of a massive nest, this queen roamed the wilds endlessly with her kin—a decision born of that nomadic life.
Without that armament, she would have been slain instantly by enemies wielding that absurd divine spear.
And according to the latest notification, she was growing intrigued by it.
[The enraged queen ignores the hive’s pleas and takes flight]
“St-stop... Uwaaagh!”
The moment the enemy leader was taken out by a Dragonant, the Nomad Hive queen—unable to contain her fury and excitement—charged out herself, swinging the hooked claws on her back wildly to massacre a horde of flailing orcs.
The orcs hadn’t anticipated the queen joining the fray either, and in their shock, they were trampled underfoot.
After rampaging for a while—perhaps savoring the thrill of battle for the first time—she was now quietly laying eggs while pondering it further.
My guess was that the Nomad Hive queen would soon offload her laying duties to surrogate queens, just like I expected.
The stronger her ego grew, the less she could endure a life as an egg-laying machine.
But I had a hunch she’d channel that hard-won freedom in a direction utterly unlike Asmodra’s.
‘That whole region is entering an era of upheaval. Just like ours twenty years ago.’
In the short time since the ants appeared, so much had changed.
The forests of untamed frontiers, once dotted with scattered goblin villages amid swarms of beasts, had become the ants’ stronghold—riddled with colossal nests and mushroom farms.
The northern lands, where southern human forces and orcs skirmished, were falling to the ants, turning into nests as well. Displaced humans retreated further south, erecting barriers to barely hold their peninsula foothold.
Orcs, once living in tribal units, had parts of their territory ravaged and their numbers culled en masse by the ants, forcing them to unite around deities as reluctant focal points.
The pattern was all too familiar.
It mirrored the chaos that began when those monsters first appeared on this land all those years ago.
‘Can’t argue with being called an Outer God.’
Now I knew the truth hidden in the cosmos.
The interdimensional monsters pouring through gates were subordinates created by an Outer God named Nezarehel. And the hunters awakening en masse alongside the system? They were the Deities of the Divine Net intervening to thwart the Outer God and select Earth’s master.
What Nezarehel had wrought from beyond the veil of order was no different from what my ants were doing on Edelion.
The Era of Upheaval. An age of great loss and transformation. That’s what we called those twenty years.
Just as Nezarehel’s minions reshaped the world’s rules and face, the ants were gradually remaking that side too.
‘...For now, I’ll keep elevating my Deity rank using the ants. That way, I can claim the whole of Earth as mine.’
Earth currently had no ruling Deity to claim the planet as their domain.
It was a blatant higher world, home to billions of sapients thriving on their own civilization without Deity aid.
No wonder the Deities who constantly griped in the community about having to pioneer worlds with primitives were losing their minds.
But as someone born and raised on Earth, elevating my Deity status would let me pose as its long-vacant lord—unlike those outsiders.
‘And I’ll make the ants far stronger than they are now. Then, we’ll strike back at Outer God Nezarehel and drive them out.’
The ants crave battle. Eating and evolving is their very reason for being.
Probably forever. So I’ll keep enabling that.
But as long as I’m around, I won’t let them endlessly repeat mindless destruction.
Instead, I plan to show them another path.
Ones who can fight and devour without end—and ‘win.’
“This is all there is to it, anyway.”
Having such concrete goals made sorting out my thoughts far easier.
Just a few months ago, I’d been a mere civilian. Now, I was changing too.