Gourmet Hunter - Chapter 404 (Patreon)

Chapter 404: Cognition

Suddenly, around the sand thieves, a dozen or so streams formed from a mass of ants appeared, with their position just a mere hundred or so meters from flat ground.

Seeing the true nature of the red streams up close, the sand thieves felt their bodies turn cold and their scalps tingle.

Countless red ants, each the size of a palm, piled together, falling down like waves crashing on them, immediately creating a large gap.

The sand thieves who were hit made no sound and were drowned by the swarm of ants. The remaining sand thieves, seeing this, screamed in terror and turned to run wildly.

The already shattered mindset from being defeated by Luo earlier was now worsened.

There were simply too many ants. After erupting from the ground, they quickly gathered into a huge red carpet, chasing after the fleeing sand thieves.

Luo stood on the flat ground at the edge of the grassland, coldly watching the sand thieves being hunted by the ants, feeling no emotion in his heart.

On his way to the grassland chasing the sand thieves, he had seen many mutilated corpses. Although he knew the sand thieves were ruthless, seeing those bodies made him realize he had underestimated them.

"These are army ants, but much larger," Luo observed the red wave of ants. With his excellent eyesight, he could see the ants' appearance clearly. He had read about army ants in Linne's books and made his judgment based on that.

Protruding black eyes on their heads, jaws clashing continuously, occupying a third of their body size, sweeping over the sand thieves, leaving behind only clean skeletons.

Flesh, hair, clothes, weapons... nothing was left.

"Why are army ants here?" Luo wondered. Not only were they five to seven times larger than regular army ants, but their behavior of staying in one place was also against their nature.

"Get away!"

The sand thieves, entangled by the army ants, swung their sharp blades in despair, doing futile efforts.

Two hundred meters was the distance they needed to reach the flat ground. Despite the looming danger, they preferred to face Luo than the terrifying number of ants.

The swinging blades managed to kill some ants, but the resulting screams were abruptly cut short.

As a bystander, Luo watched this horrific scene calmly, feeling that this was the ultimate punishment the sand thieves deserved.

The ants' advantage was in their numbers, although their defense wasn't impressive. The desperate sand thieves could kill many ants, and the dead ants were consumed by their own kind.

Luo observed the rapidly decreasing number of sand thieves while keeping an eye on the ants' movements, memorizing the information.

The sand thieves frantically fled, reducing their numbers by half after a hundred meters, and by another half when they were fifty meters away from the flat ground. When they were about to reach it, only three to four hundred remained.

"Thank you for your hard work," Luo coldly remarked to the escaping sand thieves. He then expanded his domain, pushing the nearly escaped sand thieves back.

"No!"

The sand thieves were thrown back towards the chasing ants, screaming desperately mid-air before plunging into the ant swarm, their voices abruptly silenced.

In just a few blinks of an eye, the remaining three to four hundred sand thieves vanished into the surging red swarm.

Thus, the three thousand sand thieves led by Gerrot were completely annihilated in the forbidden zone.

After devouring all the sand thieves, the ants did not step onto the rocky flat ground. They clustered at the edge of the grassland, their antennae constantly twitching, quietly observing Luo who stood a meter away from them.

Luo silently watched the countless ants up close, understanding why Salin and the others couldn't leave. With such aggressive army ants blocking them, they indeed had no chance to escape.

"If I use my domain, I can ignore the ants and cross the grassland, but I must shrink the range, or else my nen will be consumed too quickly. Maybe I won't be able to maintain the domain until reaching the mountain path," Luo thought.

If he wanted to leave, this swarm couldn't stop him. But to ensure his nen could last across the grassland, he had to shrink the domain, which meant he couldn't take many people, and those he took must be fast.

The army ants stared at Luo for a moment before retreating like a tide, quickly disappearing, leaving behind a green grassland and over a thousand human skeletons.

They didn't eat bones, didn't harm grass during their march, but would ruthlessly consume their dead kind. This was the nature of army ants.

Luo watched the peaceful grassland for a while before turning back to the settlement.

The ancient city had been invaded by thousands of sand thieves, causing rivers of blood and extensive damage to many buildings.

When Luo returned to the settlement, Salin and the others were cleaning up the aftermath, moving corpses to a central place, separating sand thieves' bodies from their own.

Whether it was the oasis in the desert or the ancient city within the forbidden zone, water resources were extremely scarce and precious. The blood on the stone pavement couldn't be washed off.

The survivors, though fortunate, were deeply saddened by the loss of hundreds of companions they had spent days and nights with.

Seeing Luo return, Salin put down her work, approached him, and asked, "What about the sand thieves?"

"All devoured by ants," Luo replied.

Salin was silent for a moment, then said in a low voice, "A fitting death for them."

"Yes," Luo responded softly.

"Come help," Salin didn't ask more, knowing Luo must have witnessed the horror of the ant swarm and realized he had to settle here and become one of them.

Luo helped move the corpses and used his ability to expel the blood from the settlement.

A few minutes later, the black smoke that was the black cat floated from a direction, flying straight towards Luo. It transformed into a black cat mid-air, swiping a claw at Luo's head.

"You bastard!"

The claw couldn't harm Luo.

"What's wrong?" Luo looked at the black cat with a puzzled expression.

Seeing Luo feign ignorance, the black cat gritted its teeth and asked, "Why did you throw me out?"

Luo suddenly reached out, grabbed the black cat in its physical form, and seriously said, "I forgot. Maybe I'll remember if I throw you again."

"Don't!"

The black cat had just spoken when it was thrown out again by Luo, disappearing like a shooting star.

An hour later, after everyone's efforts, the sand thieves' bodies were piled up like a small mountain, while their own bodies were laid out in rows.

The people in the settlement looked at the ground covered with corpses, silently.

The elderly, women, and children who returned shed silent tears.

This group of adventurers, once full of exploration spirit, had all their edges ground off by life in the forbidden zone.

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