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Antnihilation was almost guaranteed till a new queen ant was found. Yet, under the rarest of circumstances, and with the slimmest of possibilities, a Black Blood Ant might mutate into a queen ant. Once the nest had a new queen ant, then all the chaos would vanish. And all the bloodshed would stop with the ants having found a new target to swear their fealty to…

What I wanted to confirm was whether or not Mother Black Ant could replace the command of that disobedient Black Blood Queen Ant.

I raised my hand and fired a bone spear, piercing the brain of the Black Blood Queen Ant, nailing its disgusting head to the ground. Yet the lifeforce of a Black Blood Queen Ant was extraordinarily strong, even with a spear sticking through its head, it still managed to stay alive.

“Chitt…cchhitt…chit…”

Using the last of its life, the Black Blood Queen Ant let forth one last cry. Though it wasn’t a loud chitter, it was surprisingly enough for all the ants to hear.

The ants immediately ceased their brainless charge into the flame wall, instead turning around to furiously scatter in all directions.

‘Hmph, you think you can get away from me so easily?’ With a single thought, the Shadow Demon Guardian was off at the speed of light. Focusing my will through it, I summoned forth my Nether Flames around its legs as it sped through the air, creating a ring of fire around the ants. Wherever its shadowy feet touched, a meter wall of flame would roar to life, incinerating any ant that dared to cross its fiery boundary, leaving naught but the soul intact.

“Go on then.” I eyed a slightly lost Mother Black Ant. “Try and see if it works, if they will listen to you, all the better.”

“Understood…Masterr….” Mother Black Ant gingerly wiggled around the corpse of the recently deceased Black Blood Queen Ant, and with the fastest speed it could muster, approached the headless chicken that was the ant swarm. Because the majority of the flying ants were already dead, these landbound ants were basically trapped by the Nether Flames.

“Baby, recall that Flame Wall of yours for now, let Mother Black Ant go in and have a try.”

“Okay.” She obediently recalled the wall before flying up in the air and perching herself in her favourite position, my shoulders…

To prevent any sudden attacks on Mother Black Ant, I had my Shadow Demon Guardian protect her as she stepped past the charred boundary of Mo Na’s extinguished flame wall. The moment she did so, a portion of the ants near to her immediately charged. Pincers clicking loudly, they fiercely waved their heads as they prepared to close their scythe-like pincers around her, as if this fight had just turned personal for them.

Yet the Shadow Demon Guardian would have none of that. Floating above Mother Black Ant, it transformed both its arms at the speed of light and deflected any that tried to approach her with a huge swing. With its imperceivable speed and frightening strength, all the whipped ants fell to the ground dead…

With its protection, Mother Black Ant was able to easily find her footing amongst the chaotic ant swarm. She continually chittered to the ants, trying to persuade them to switch sides. Unfortunately for her, her cries only served as a beacon for more ant attacks.

This continued on for a long time till finally all the ants were either incinerated by the Nether Flames, whipped to death by my Shadow Demon Guardian, or dead because of in-fighting…to think that not a single one of them was willing to join us…

‘Unthinkable, crazy even…that swarm was in the hundreds of thousands and not a single one of them was afraid of death…or perhaps their simple brains didn’t even possess a concept of cowardice to begin with?’

‘What a stubborn race…idiots.’

With no other choice, I could only back off from this failed plan and proceed with the soul harvesting. Of the dead, only those of the rank Soldier Ant and above left behind a complete soul. The soldier ants naturally accounted for the bulk of the souls, numbering in the tens of thousands. Faced with such a huge bounty, it almost felt like a shame to eat them all now. If possible, I would have preferred if some were brought back to the palace.

One reason for that was my need to finish the research on golem production as soon as possible. Although we had the schematics, that didn’t mean we could completely replicate the golems either. We still needed a lot of time to research the details involved. That meant I needed a quiet environment to work in, one with sufficient food to sustain myself. That was exactly what our bounty was for. With so many souls available, I could probably sustain the research for a long while as long as I ate sparingly.

Naturally, all that was only possible if we could store the souls for long periods.

“Yo~ my dear little brother, aren’t you overthinking matters here. Since you aren’t hungry, and those souls aren’t even that tasty to begin with, how about your big sister here help get rid of them for you?”

One to always appear at opportune moments, Ferti’nier appeared once more to stick her finger in the proverbial pie. As long as she was in an awakened state…without any doubt whatsoever…this blasted Devil queen would love nothing more than to take advantage of me…

‘Ferti’nier, do you understand how much trouble we are in right now? We need to crack the method of golem production and create a production line in the shortest time possible. These souls, they are just what we need…’

“So do you have a method of storing them?” She immediately shut me up with a single sentence. “Once a soul is exposed to air, it won’t survive long without starting to dissipate -Purgatory doesn’t allow any soul to become a Vengeful Soul. Even if you’ve thought about trying to preserve them, I bet you don’t have the method, am I right?”

‘That’s true…but there’s no way a person like you who almost established her divinity wouldn’t have such a method! Don’t think I don’t know that souls are the most favored form of currency amongst Devils!

“Hohoho, your big sister does in fact know the method of creating a Soul Phylactery. Seems like my dear little brother has gotten smarter.”

‘Hmph, don’t think that bit of flattery will fool me.’

“But why should your big sister give you the method of creating a Soul Phylactery?”

‘Blast it all, let’s make something clear here: you’re the one staying in my body! It’s one thing that you haven’t ever paid any rent, you should at least give me some benefits!’

“And how is giving you benefits any different from paying a rent? Either way the idea is to be a freeloader, so whatever is easiest works best.” Having said that, her tone then took a sharp turn. “It’s not like your big sister over here even wanted to stay in a man’s body, she wasn’t even willing in the first place!”