"How is it that all the ants are being attracted here?" Tang San asked. "The outer part of the forest was mostly intact."
"The ants aren't very intelligent, they only eat everything in their path, focusing on the highest vitality that they can find" Lingling explained "All the spirit beast enough intelligent to be commanded had joined here. We are a big lamp attracting bugs as there's no higher vitality that the reunite here. Keeping us here, we entered a stall, they are so focused on us that they don't try to go out. At least for now as if their number were to grow enough they will expand their area of influence. As of now, they are focused on us and Hei Qi."
"Hei Qi is also cooperating?" Bai asked surprised.
"Not cooperating, but helping. He is staying in his domain, last time that we know of him, he was holding the ants."
"How long can you keep up?" Bai asked worriedly.
"It depends." Lingling answered "The number of ants is slowly increasing, but we can hold without matter the number of them. The problem is if they decided to attack with all their strength. In that case-" Lingling shook his head "I don't know."
"How could all of this happen?" asked Xiao Wu worriedly.
"A fucking ant ate Mei's Rose!" from the ground a red-violet rose sprouted, from it a woman surged, it was the one that stood next to the Life Tree.
"M-mei?!" now that she was close, Bai could recognize who she was. She was Hua Mei the queen of the Flowery Garden "What happened to you?"
"It's the effects of losing the Black Rose" Bi Yi explained "She wasn't only its guardian, her own life was linked to it. Once it disappeared her vitality dropped."
"If it weren't for Lili, Mei would have died!" Mei shouted "An ant dug its way towards Mei's garden. It was so underground that Mei didn't detect it before it was already too late. It had eaten the Rose and ran away."
"This was when you left, Bai" Lingling explained "That attack to the forest was Mei trying to search for the ant. I used my powers to root her with me, Mei vitality was damaged but at least she is alive. Her change is due to her losing vitality. After that event, the Fifteen Ton Ant started mutating. They are the spirit beast with greater numbers, quickly affecting the forest's life. They became stronger and their huge number increased even more along with their appetite. Before we could react, another great treasure was eaten, the one at the Gem Statue. This changed it all."
"The ants became even stronger" Continued Lingling "A casual 10 years being able to easily devour any 100 years beast. They developed an aura like-domain that weakens any attack at them, absorbing part of it. Then Di Tian acted."
"He was furious and wanted to do it alone." Bi Yi said with sad tears in her eyes "Tian attacked the anthill all alone, destroying all the ants in his path. The problem was their leader, Tian fought against 3 of them who were over 200.000 years old. He was stronger but fell under a surprise attack by a 4th and stronger ant. This ant bit his right arm, absorbing a great deal of his spirit energy. Even after separating Tian continued to lose energy so he was forced to retreat. His injury is special even me or Lingling can't heal it. The most that we could do was stop the leaking of energy, he is unable to use his right arm now."
"That dragon always too full of himself" Mei complained "If he would have reunited all the Lineage before, we could have vanished the ants all together."
"After that, we lost the Venomous Swamp." Bi Yi sadly said "It was too late since then. Their numbers are too high and even if we use all our means to break through them, our strength might be insufficient with Tian weakened and they becoming stronger. Following Tian's words, any beast under 100.000 years will only be devoured by them, against their leader it will only be useful beast older than 200.000. Only having 4 capable of fighting, we risk being swallowed by them. It's too risky, even if we win, we might not be able to recuperate."
"Only 4?" Asked Xiao Wu "There should be more beasts capable."
"The only capable to fight against their leaders are Tian, Zi Ji, Duskgold, and Scarlet Mastiff. Plants spirits are very weakened without any near plant to control and Evil Eye's mental attack do not work against them. Even create the opportunity of a fight, countless beasts shall die. So we decided to focus all our strength in one place that we were sure to be able to defend" Explained Bi Yi "We choose the one with the highest vitality, Lingling's Life Tree, and abandoned the Star Lake to be devoured by the ants."
"Thanks to Lili, Mei and Greeneye can continue forever fighting without tiring out and keeping most of the ants at bait" Mei said "Even if we can't move from next to Lili's tree. Not that it annoys Mei, Mei likes it."
"Now I understand why are you are so important, Lingling" Bai said "You're essential for them without you, this fortress will fall. Normal that Di Tian was so angry at you" Bai stopped for a second "Thanks, Lingling. Truly thank you. You risked all of this to save us, if you were to have died, it would have been the end."
Lingling made a difficult smile "You're my best friend, I can't abandon at your death if I can do something to stop it." She made a downcast expression "Now I will be caged at praire. Before you ask, this body" She signaled herself "It's only an avatar made of plants to communicate, I can use my power with it. The same is for Mei that her real body is near my spirit with Myriad."
"Cough!" Bi Yi interrupted "If the ants' leaders attack this place, we have high possibilities of winning them with all collaborating" Bi Yi explained "However, they didn't seem to leave their anthill. If it passes enough time the ants will expand over the forest. If they absorb a lot of energy, we don't know if we would be able to continue stopping them."
"Humans won't be able to defend against them" Tang San said. "They won't cooperate with each other before it's too late."
"Gods" Bai said "It all reduces if a god will appear before it's too late" Bai turned to San "How much time will you need to reach godhood?"
San made a difficult face "I need to help to stop this crisis as a test, so it's impossible to reach one before solving this"
Bai made a thoughtful face (The safest should be to keep the ants in check and wait for someone to reach godhood. Renxue won't need too much time before she ascends, but this way Mayi will die and the continent will be for Renxue to take.)
Seeing his face, Lingling stepped forward "Bai, about Mayi. She is-" "The leader of the ants?" Bai interrupted "At least she is the one that controls all of them. Thinking about that she should be the one who started and the strongest ant."
Lingling was surprised by Bai's deductions "How did you know?"
"Mayi and I were 100% spiritually compatibles, I can feel Mayi's spirit from the ants. It's very diffuse and strange, but I am sure that I can sense her" Bai explained "Maybe I can reason with her" Bai said for himself. (Why Mayi is acting like this? It must be something about Slaughter City. I need more time to decide a plan).
"Now, you understand our crisis" Bi Yi said "As Lingling's friend you can stay here, but better not do anything. Beasts are suspicious of humans by nature." She was right. Since Bai's group appeared at the Wall, a great number of spirit beast didn't stop observing them with anger or contempt. If it weren't that they were with Bi Yi some of them would have already attack "If you excuse me" Bi Yi said returning inside, her legs were trembling.
"Yi had grown always too protected" Mei explained "She isn't good with death, so she suffers even seeing ants die."
Bai's group could understand her. Even for people used to killing, it wasn't a place where you want to stay. Outside it was truly hell.