Arriving at their home, Compass Carburettor watched the figure of the cobra slumped on the bed in the bedroom, bored. Upon his arrival, it became excited, slithering towards him before leaping onto him.
"Uncle Spirit! I have become overpowered!" It shouted through telepathy, using its tongue to poke his nose.
"Don't lie," Compass Carburettor shielded his face, "Overpowered my foot."
"I don't have a foot though…" The cobra retorted before coiling around him, making him resemble a dumpling due to its size. The weight made it hard for him to move as grunted a little, telling it to move away. But, the cobra remained adamant.
'Where did this weird creature come from?' He sighed, feeling a headache, walking into the living room to see a small hole on one side. And, standing before it was a row of ants, remaining immobile.
"How's the status of your nest?" He asked, noticing the nest exude silence in response. A couple of seconds later, followed by a minor tremor, the ant queen walked out, gazing at him as it cluttered its mandibles.
"Lord Spirit, I have amassed an army of ten thousand. And among them, seventy have grown one horn while my royal guard consists of five ants with two horns." The ant queen replied, "And, our hunts have been pretty successful, netting us 220 pearls as of now."
"Great work out there." He nodded, grabbing hold of the bag that a couple of worker ants brought out. He peeked into it, seeing it filled to the brim with pearls, grinning in response.
He was making use of the ants for all purposes. Their first task was to kill other mutated beasts and bring their respective pearls. As for their corpses, some of them were reserved for the cobra and his Haggon form.
The rest were used for the growth of the ants. Moreover, Grisha was using her Vitality Bowl to condense food for the ants. Thanks to this, their growth had been tremendous.
The current numbers were despite the countless sacrifices that had been made while killing the over two hundred mutated beasts and horned ants, not to mention the general populace of ants and grass that they fought against daily.
After all, their nest was invading the nest space of other ant colonies, hence sparking a war. As for the grass, it needn't be said. They were natural enemies.
The ant queen had reached the peak with two horns, looking like it might grow a third horn anytime soon. And seeing as to how it was busy, Compass Carburettor gave it curt instructions, "Get ready to mobilise them. We'll be waging a war against some terrifying foes next."
"Yes, Lord Spirit." The ant queen nodded. For the ants, no number of losses mattered as long as the colony was functional. It just wasn't in their genetics. So, the ant queen didn't even bat an eye to his claim of a war, not that it had eyelids in the first place.
As it retreated into its nest to begin preparations, Compass Carburettor gazed at the mosquito that hovered before him, having reached the size of a football. Moreover, it too had grown two horns, having become way stronger than before.
It acted as the scout, observing everything that happened in their surroundings, selecting enemies that the ants could target.
Buzzing constantly, the mosquito relayed some news through telepathy, "The man you told to keep an eye on had already reached his destination. And, five enemies are heading towards that house as we speak. All are taking individual routes."
"Thankfully, they won't be able to group up, at least, not the System Hosts." Compass Carburettor sighed in relief before saying, "Alright, keep me posted on everything. Continue praying to me without rest while you are observing them."
"Yes, Lord Spirit!" Leaving behind its reply, the mosquito flew out and disappeared. Countless mosquitoes were flying in the air anyway, constantly, in every place. So, its presence wouldn't seem odd.
And since no Mental Energy would be generated by it towards the System Hosts, its actions wouldn't be discovered.
"Uncle Spirit! Uncle Spirit! Something is happening to me!" Suddenly, the cobra shouted. Even though the volume of its voice was the same as usual in telepathy, there was a sense of fear this time.
Activating his boots, his figure flashed, arriving before the cobra to see it flailing around in fear as it said, "I thought my third horn had finished growing, but suddenly, this happened to my first horn."
If it could shed tears, it would have poured out a torrent by now as it arrived before Compass Carburettor, flustered.
"Calm down, let me check," Saying so, he observed its head, gazing at its first horn, frowning when there was a crack on it. The crack only seemed hairline, but within a couple of seconds, it widened, spreading further through the horn, causing the cobra to break down into tears.
"This…" Even he wasn't able to understand the cause, noticing the cobra's presence beginning to diminish sharply. From possessing a presence on par with three-horned mutated beasts, it had already dropped to two-horned mutated beasts' level.
And that wasn't all, it didn't show any signs of stopping, continuing to drop as it reached the level of a one-horned mutated beast.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
By now, all three horns had begun to crack as the cobra was unable to handle it emotionally, only uttering sounds like a broken cord. And in reality, its hisses lacked any strength.
"Did you eat something weird recently?" Compass Carburettor asked in alarm, for the cobra's situation had become pretty severe.
"What do you mean by weird? No!" The cobra continued to cry before it thought of something, saying, "I just discovered the box of snakes that you had hidden secretly and since I was pretty hungry, I ate them."
"My box of snakes…?" Compass Carburettor was confused for a moment before his face paled, "You damned idiot! Those aren't snakes!"
The ones the cobra called snakes were the Spydragons that he had been creating over the past month. And, it had directly consumed them all.
Without the Skill of Body Resurgence, Darble wasn't something that could be digested. Ingesting such a large amount of them was akin to poison.
"Shit!" He scowled, hurriedly calling for Grisha as he took out an Armament, activating it as he said, "I'm going to remove all the Darble from the cobra's body now. Focus on healing it so that it doesn't die!"
