"What is this?" Aditya, Noah, Alicia and Sylvie, all four had a look of shock and surprise on their faces. Sylvie in her centuries old long life has never seen anything like this before.
The blackwood city that once stood proudly as one of the big and most developed cities of the Ethereal Empire was completely in ruins. The glory of the Blackwood city had become a thing of the past. There was no trace, no sign of the former developed city that once used to be the home of more than 1.7 millions of people.
What truly remained is the city's past glory and the sacrifice that the Ethereal Empire will never forget. This incident had become a scar to the Ethereal Empire's reputation. The Ethereal Empire, the strongest Empire on the Westnia had suffered a loss of 1.5 millions is a big very thing. If the strongest empire cannot defend against the horde of Fire ants, then what about other Empires? Just what sort of chaos the Fire ants had bought with them.?
While standing 150 meters above the ground in the cold night of winter, Aditya could smell the thick iron smell that was still lingering on the air. The Blackwood city, a city that stood for more than 500 years was destroyed in the matters of hours. The city that always has been protecting itself from monsters ambushes now had fallen with its 500 years of glory and pride. Just what sort of force did the 1.5 million people of this city faced?
The destruction had taken place not only in Blackwood city but also at the surroundings of the city. Even the surroundings areas were not spared. From the sky as the cold snow fell from the clouds as a small northern breeze cooled everything, the four people who were standing at the sky was experiencing various kinds of emotions.
Standing at the sky the goddess of wealth even though at this time she was being held by the person who is her husband in contract, looking down she felt nothing but coldness at this moment. Even the warmth of his body failed to give her any comfort. She just silently clenched her fist while looking down. The goddess will never forget what she has seen today.
Although Sylvie did not even knew these 1.5 million people who had died, she felt nothing but regret and anger. Sylvie is not a good woman. She is a woman who values her interest. But at this moment looking down, she felt her blood boil in anger. Right now she wanted nothing more but to rip the Fire ants heads. She was so anger that she was having a hard time controlling her emotions.
Before coming here, Sylvie was prepared to see something cruel and unforgettable. Sylvie has to admit that what she was currently seeing had exceeded her expectations. This was pure hell.
The most affected person was Noah. The young crown Prince who would soon become the next Emperor felt nothing but endless anger and thirst for blood seeing 1.5 millions of his people die. Leaving aside the huge number of resources and the wealth that the Ethereal Empire has lost from trying to protect the Blackwood city, the future Emperor felt his heart ache while looking down.
The future emperor had clenched his fists so tightly that his nails had dug into his flesh and was drawing out blood. He looked so anger that his body was violently shaking. The more he saw, the more his rage increased. As a result of his violent emotions, sparks of golden lightning was flickering around his body without him even knowing about it.
The most calmest one in the group was Aditya. He had seen worse things in the nightmare that he had almost 3 months. Looking at the dead bodies of the people, Aditya felt pity. Failing to protect the Blackwood city was no one fault. No one had expected that this time they were going to be attacked by 4th-order powerful Fire ants.
The 1000 meters area surrounding the Blackwood was also painted in crimson red color. There was countless corpses which were half eaten lying around the city. From the sky Aditya can see the human size big Fire ants silently eating the dead humans.
He can see the dead bodies of a mother and a son. Both were dead. But the mother's hand was holding the son's dead body close to her. Her body was slowly being eaten by two Fire ants. Both of her legs were already eaten.
In another part, Aditya saw the dead body of a pregnant woman. Whether it was young or old, whether it was women or men, weather it was humans or other races, no one was spared.
The blood of the 1.5 millions had painted everything in 1000 meters red. It was as if the green forest had turned crimson red. Heavy smell of iron was in the air.
The fire ants ate continued eating the bodies of elders, young ones, children, women and men.
The whole Blackwood city was now had become a ruin. The city walls that previously protected the citizens had collapsed from many sides. There were large cracks and holes on the 15 meter tall city walls.
Almost all the houses, buildings inside the city was destroyed. What remained was debris, pebbles, dust, and shattered glasses. Half eaten bodies with their skeleton exposed was left to root. There were many people whose eyes were still open. Looking at their eyes, one can see the terror that they experienced before having a cruel death.
In front of the city, there were hundreds of small and big craters which showed how fierce the entire battle must have been. In some of the craters, there were dead bodies of the Fire ants and also the dead bodies of the soldiers and the adventurers who bravely fought to protect and also to defend the city.
What was shocking and most surprising is the fact that the dead bodies of the Fire ants were being eaten by other fire ants. It seemed the Fire ants did not care who they were eating. As long as they saw a dead body, they would start eating it.
Even in the cold winter, some of the buildings were still burning. The castle of the City lord was also destroyed even the scope of repair.
Looking at everything from the sky, Aditya knew that the Blackwood city was truly lost. The city cannot be rebuild even if they managed to kill all the fire ants. There were still hundred thousands of bodies that was directly buried under the buildings and houses. Also the fire ants who had finished eating was now could be seen digging.
When Aditya looked at the other side of the city, he saw that countless numbers of fire ants were dragging the dead bodies under the ground. It seems the ants had dug the ground and made a underground network system. Aditya is not sure how deep or how big or how large this underground tunnel system was.
In his calculation he estimated the number of Fire ants that was currently in the Black wood city and the area surrounding it was above millions. While he is not sure how many Fire ants were hiding in the underground tunnels. But judging from the Auras inside the tunnel, the number of Fire ants that attacked the Blackwood city should be above a few millions.
"Just how did this huge number of fire ants went unnoticed for this long?" Noah asked in a choked tone. He was barely holding his anger.
Every few weeks, the city lord was ordered to sent a group of 1000 soldiers to check the magical monster activities in the outer region of the Heavenly Hemlock Forest. Noah believed that this huge number of Fire ants shouldn't have been went unnoticed by the exploration team.
"According to what I know, a fire ant queen can lay up to 800 eggs per average day. While this number can increase up to 3,000 during Peak season. While it takes around one or two weeks for the eggs to hatch. So how is it possible for an ant queen to hatch million of eggs?"
"Maybe the fire ant queen has mutated."
"What" Noah, Alicia and Aditya. The trio looked at Sylvie in shock.
"Back in my home town I have read that there is a 0.010% chance that an Mutant Fire ant queen can be born. A mutant fire ant queen can break the limitations and can reach higher orders as long as its given enough time and resources to cultivate."
Sylvie then looked down at the abnormal sizes of the fire ants and felt that her theory is true.
"What's more frightening is that the queen can give birth to other Mutant fire ants. Each mutant fire ant is big as a human size. Unlike a normal ant queen, the mutant fire ant queen can give birth to 15,000 to 20,000 eggs depending on the availability of the food supplies. Not only that the queen has the same intelligence as a human so it can think and make decisions for its entire colony."
"If the mutant ant queen really laid 20,000 eggs per day, in just 30 days it would have 600,000 mutant fire ants. But that does not explain why the Mutant Fire ants managed to become so powerful in such a short time. There has to be some other secret." Inwardly Aditya cannot express how shocked he was.
"So the reason why the Mutant Fire ants attacked the city....."
"Is because they were hungry. They needed enough food supplies to for their entire colony which is only expanding with each passing day." Noah felt gloomy while saying these words. To think 1.5 million of his citizens were killed just to become Mutant fire ant food.
Aditya looked at the mutant fire ants that were currently dragging the dead bodies inside the tunnels that the other mutant Fire ants worked to create.
"If the ants are truly hungry, then it won't be long before the ants attacks the Rose Hill city. I think that the ant queen might divide its forces and goes on to attack other cities which are located in the west and east."
"Around 200 km to the west, the borders of another Empire lies. Even if the mutant fire ants heads in the direction of south, the Ethereal Empire does not has to worry too much. But I am concerned about the cities that lies in the east."
"In short, we will have to defeat this huge colony of the mutant fire ants to solve all of our problems." Aditya felt that a big part of the fire mutant ants are still in the outer region of the Heavenly Hemlock Forest hunting any magical animals that these mutant ants found. The total number of mutant fire ants might be above 10 millions or maybe 20 millions. This time the threat was just too big.
"We cannot waste our time here. Unless we want another city to fall which would cause the deaths of millions, we will have to go back and inform this to father." Everyone agreed with Noah's words. This time the threat was too big.
"Let's head back." As much as everyone wanted to fight the mutant fire ants, they currently had no time knowing the threat that was hovering above Ethereal Empire. If this threat is not dealt in time, the whole Ethereal empire can fall.
"Humans, I don't you will be going back."
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