Chapter 281: This, is this the queen ant?

Chi Yao took out a staff that had been stored in the storage space for a long time. It was the Ice Mirror Staff of the contractor Bing Ling in the previous world.

Chi Yao tightly grasped the staff made of ice crystals and injected 640 mana points with a thought, opening the Ice Mirror Realm of maximum intensity.

In the swamp where fossils turned into mud, the fire ants opened their burning bodies one after another, heating their shells to a very high temperature to break free from the mud.

Chi Yao used the Ice Mirror Staff to release the Ice Mirror Realm of the maximum intensity. Under Chi Yao's meticulous control, the originally circular domain was like a fan-shaped spurt out, completely covering the area where the fire ants were. The pure white ice mirror spread out, bringing severe cold to the area.

Under the influence of this "Simple Domain·Ice Mirror Realm", the originally stuffy cave almost instantly turned into a harsh winter with temperatures of minus 20 to 30 degrees Celsius!

The sudden change in environment, the transition from scorching heat to bitter cold, the fire ants were trapped in the solidified soil, and their shells could no longer hold on.

"Crack, crack, crack—"

The crisp shattering sounds rang out one after another, like an endless symphony.

You can see fine cracks appearing on the carapace of the fire ant, and these cracks are still spreading and expanding, almost covering the entire body.

In the fully expanded world of ice mirror, the freezing wind blew towards the fire ants that were trapped in place, forming a trace of frost on their bodies.

The bright ice mirror climbed up the moment it touched the fire ants' bodies, and the cold ice power penetrated deep into their bodies along the cracks in their shells, extinguishing their fiery life cores and turning them into lifeless ice sculptures.

"Hu——" Chi Yao took a long breath. Using this kind of domain-type skill consumed a large amount of mana at one time, which was a big burden on the body. Moreover, this was with the help of the effect of the staff itself.

It can be seen that the originally snow-white body of the Ice Mirror Staff has become almost transparent. The ice energy stored in the staff has been consumed in the previous explosion. If you want to use it again, you have to wait for a twenty-day cooling period.

Tonino Harvey, Johns and others were stunned and speechless, especially when they saw Chi Yao use a smooth combo to kill nearly twenty fire ants and nearly fifty red fire ants.

Chi Yao waved his hand to collect the five blue treasure chests and ten green treasure chests that had fallen. Seeing that everyone was still standing there, he immediately scolded them.

"What are you daydreaming about? After the fight just now, the queen ant must have discovered our location and will definitely send troops over here."

"The nearest group of fire ants is just a few dozen meters away from us. We haven't completely broken out of the encirclement yet! Why don't we hurry up and leave!"

Chi Yao's loud shout made everyone wake up immediately. They quickly followed Chi Yao's pace, continued to move forward, and broke out of the encirclement of the fire ants.

Tonino Javier took a few steps, accelerated to Chi Yao's side, and asked.

"Second brother, can you still use that freezing move you just used? With this move, we will be much more confident in dealing with the queen ant!"

Chi Yao shook his head slightly and spoke in a low voice, controlling the airflow around him so that Johns and the others would not hear.

"It can't be used anymore. This is a very costly move."

"We had no choice but to use it just now in order to break out as quickly as possible. If we were delayed, we would most likely be surrounded by more than three teams at the same time. By then, it would be difficult for us to escape even if we wanted to."

Tonino Harvey nodded solemnly and replied.

"Okay, second brother, adjust your condition as soon as possible, and let me handle the difficulties on the road!"

After the two finished their conversation, Chi Yao looked at Johns and others behind him and gave instructions.

"Jack, divide up all the explosives you have and have Johns and the others place them in various places in the tunnel for you. When the red ants catch up with you, detonate them!"

When Jack heard that he could explode to his heart's content, he blinked happily and cheered.

"Haha! Explosion!"

"Great! Hehehe, Your Highness, just leave the matter concerning the explosion to me! No need to trouble Johns and the others!"

"I guarantee that as long as those ants pass by, the fuse will explode immediately!"

Jack took out one after another of the strangely shaped explosives from his backpack. There were square, spherical, round, and even triangular ones!

Jack quickly set the parameters of each explosive and threw them directly into the passage behind him!

He threw explosives along the way as the group walked and ran. When the explosives in his backpack were used up, he took them out from his clothes. If the clothes were gone, there were still pockets. There were at least two hundred explosives scattered around. I really don't know how Jack could fit them all. Chi Yao even suspected that he was carrying a "storage space" exclusively for explosives.

After throwing the bomb, Jack had a look of satisfaction on his face, and even an expression as if he had no regrets in death.

After advancing several hundred meters, Tonino Harvey dealt with several fire ants that came back to defend themselves on the road. He seemed to have found the trick, and could hit the fire ants' weak points more accurately, causing a shock effect and then breaking their defense with one strike.

Chi Yao also sensed that two hundred meters ahead he saw a huge underground cavity with a large number of stable structures. These were definitely not naturally generated but were man-made.

Nearly sixty incandescent fire ants and over a hundred red fire ants gathered in the cave. There was no need to explain what it meant to have so many incandescent fire ants and red fire ants lined up in an array guarding the entrance of the cave!

This hole is where the queen ant is, and it is also the center of the ant nest!

Tonino Harvey, Johns and others also saw the huge hole at the end of the tunnel, and the densely packed fire red ants at the hole were opening their ferocious jaws, ready for battle!

Compared with the previous formation, the fire ants were arranged at the rear, seemingly becoming long-range output, while the larger number of fire red ants were arranged in the front row to act as cannon fodder.

Looking at the astonishing number in front of him, Chi Yao's face looked a little ugly. He had expected that the queen ant would leave part of the team to protect herself, but the number of this guard was still a little beyond Chi Yao's expectations.

This number of guards alone means that the actual total number of the ant colony is even greater. Anyway, the original data given by Tonino Xavi was 500, which is much more!

Chi Yao couldn't help but glance at Tonino Xavi. This guy's wrong information led him to make a misjudgment.

Tonino Xavi was obviously unaware of this. He just looked at the numerous fire ants in front of him with an embarrassed expression.

Tonino Harvey looked at Chi Yao and asked.

"Brother, I didn't expect there would be so many of them. If we just rush in, I'm afraid it will be dangerous."

Chi Yao held the reverse luck, leaned against the rock wall above him, and said calmly.

"Then let's take a detour!"

"Detour? How to detour?!"

Tonino Harvey had a look of surprise on his face. Before he could finish his words, he discovered that a passage had quickly opened up above Chi Yao's head where the reverse luck was blocking it. There were also several stepping stones thoughtfully set up on the passage.

"Follow me!"

Chi Yao let out a low cry, jumped up, and jumped directly into the hole above his head.

The remaining Tonino Harvey, Johns and others looked at each other, but soon the restlessness of the ant colony not far away broke their concerns, and they immediately followed Chi Yao's pace and rushed into the passage above their heads.

Chi Yao forcibly opened up a passage in the hard soil affected by the Yuanyang Stone vein, and led everyone around the side of the cave to the top.

Tonino Harvey originally looked worriedly at the path the crowd was taking, fearing that the fire ants would catch up with them, but they didn't.

Chi Yao understood what Tonino Harvey was worried about, and he spoke up.

"Don't worry, they won't catch up. I roughly guessed how this 'Queen Ant' detected us and how she commands the ant colony."

Tonino Harvey asked immediately.

"What did the queen ant use?"

Chi Yao waved his reverse luck to remove all the soil in front of him, and the hole just now appeared in front of everyone. Chi Yao led them around in a circle and dug a road from the top in another direction.

In the cave, the fire ants and red fire ants that were originally guarding the cave entrance were busy around the center of the cave. However, in the center was not the huge queen ant that was constantly laying eggs as everyone had guessed.

Instead, it was a strange object in the shape of a triangular pyramid, covered with strange patterns and even flashing red light.

Tonino Harvey and Johns couldn't help but exclaim.

"This, this is the queen of the Fire Red Ant Colony?"

Chi Yao knew that Tonino Harvey and Johns could not think of anything, but in Chi Yao's eyes, this triangular pyramid was a signal base station, or a host, and the remaining fire ants and red fire ants were all slaves, completely controlled by the host!

Chi Yao's guess was correct, the red fire ants were man-made mining tools, there was no queen ant at all, there was only a host that controlled all the slaves!

　Second update.

　　Well, I ended up writing a little too much. I have to end my mining trip tomorrow.

　　Also, the Ice Mirror Staff mentioned in this chapter is not a deus ex machina. It is mentioned in the chapters "Field" and "Buying a Staff".

　　It's just that I forgot to write about the scarlet card in the unboxing session before. It was opened from the scarlet card, emmmm, and now I have made up for it in "Chapter 74: Energy Master".

　　The total word count is almost 5,000 again this day~~.

(End of this chapter)