111 Insect Commander

[You have devoured a war insect soldier corpse, body size +0.1cm, and your speed has slightly improved.]

Seeing the system hint, Ning Shi was overjoyed but also very confused.

“The captain had grown about 1cm after devouring two war insects, so why did I only grow 0.1cm after devouring one insect?”

[Devour will allow the body of the war insect to grow. The smaller the growth, the stronger the foundation.]

After getting the system’s answer, Ning Shi no longer hesitated and used Devour on all the war insect corpses on the ground.

[You have devoured a war insect soldier corpse, body size +0.1cm, and your defense has slightly improved.]

[You have devoured a war insect soldier corpse, body size +0.1cm, and your Spiritual Power has slightly improved.]

…

[You have devoured 20 war insect soldier corpses. Your skill, Devour, has been upgraded to Tier 2.]

[Devour, Tier 2: You can devour the corpses of war insect soldiers and captains to strengthen your war insect body. Note: This skill can only be used when you have transformed into a war insect.]

With the upgrade of his Devour skill, Ning Shi’s speed of devouring the war insect corpses increased.

After devouring another 82 war insect soldier corpses, Ning Shi’s war insect body had already reached 12cm in length.

Then, Ning Shi stabbed his spike into the war insect captain’s corpse.

[You have devoured the corpse of a war insect captain. Body size +0.5cm, speed slightly improved. The war insect captain gene has been collected. You have been upgraded to a war insect captain.]

Ning Shi’s insect body was now close to 13cm in length. Not only was his defense now stronger, but his flying speed had also increased by at least 50%.

Looking at the tattered azure insect corpses on the ground, Ning Shi put them all into his game backpack with the principle of not wasting anything.

With the Devour skill plus his realization that the azure insect was not a big threat to him, Ning Shi had no intentions of leaving the insect world for the time being.

Instead, he immediately flew back to the nest because he received a brainwave command in his mind.

“Lieutenant No. 74, Captain No. 3514, gather near the Level 4 Life pool!”

Ning Shi guessed that after he devoured the captain, he took its place because he collected its genes.

Therefore, he received the brainwave command.

The war insect tribe had a strict hierarchy, and their life pools were divided into four levels.

War insect soldiers were born from the level 1 life pool, captains were born from the level 2 life pool, lieutenants from the level 3 life pool, generals from level 4, and the insect commanders were born from the battles between the generals.

Other than the insect commander being promoted from the generals, rank promotions did not exist for the other war insects.

If a war insect was born a soldier, it would die a soldier. The iron rule of obeying the captain’s orders was implanted in the genes of the soldiers.

After becoming the captain, Ning Shi thus received brain wave instructions from the lieutenant and could not help but want to obey.

This was the instinct of the war insect’s genes and blood. Fortunately, he was not a creature born from the Life Pool.

With a flap of his wings, Ning Shi flew to the gathering point based on his memory.

The level 4 Life Pool was huge, in the shape of a bird’s nest.

In the pool, a red gel-like substance boiled, and from time to time, some bubbles would surface. The whole scene looked quite disgusting.

At the edge of the pool, war insect lieutenant No. 74 was crouching under the steps.

The war insect lieutenant’s body was more than a meter long!

Around it, thousands of war insects, ranging from one to three to four meters long, were crawling under the steps as well.

At the edge of the pool rested 11 bigger insects, if they could still be called insects.

Each of them was more than 10 meters long. Obviously, they were the war insect generals.

Compared to insects, the war insect generals might seem more like terrifying exotic beasts.

Ning Shi folded his wings and quietly sneaked into the team of more than a hundred thousand captains.

More and more war insects were flying over, and the number of captains, lieutenants, and generals increased.

All the insects crouched on the ground quietly, waiting for the commander.

Ten minutes later, all the war insects had arrived.

Then, a terrifying pressure appeared in the cave, and a huge figure slowly crawled out of the level 4 Life pool.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The cave trembled terrifyingly.

A 100-meter-long war insect stood above the Life Pool.

With cold and emotionless huge pupils, a body full of spikes, and slender limbs, this was the insect commander of the war insect tribe!

Ning Shi finally understood why the caves where the war insects lived were so huge.

All of this was to make the insect commander comfortable.

The spikes on the insect commander’s head were more than five meters long, glowing with a cold light, and releasing a great amount of pressure.

Ning Shi felt great fear. He almost lost control of himself and flew away out of instinct.

At the critical moment, his tyrant body’s resistance came into effect. He managed to not be controlled by fear and successfully resisted the urge to run away. Instead, he quietly blended in with the swarm.

Strictly speaking, the war insects’ extreme physical and elemental defense was very effective against Ning Shi. After all, his spiritual power attribute was not high enough, so he could not do much to the war insects.

Perhaps only methods like the sword intent could cause some damage to the war insects.

Ning Shi was under much more pressure facing the insect commander than facing the Taikoo Red Dragon, Ilya. However, this didn’t mean that the insect commander was stronger than Ilya.

When Ilya met with Ning Shi, her attitude was gentle and she harbored no ill intentions. She had restrained her strong aura.

In contrast, the insect commander didn’t hide its power as a top-grade predator, and Ning Shi was now a war insect. His bloodline and genes were suppressed by the insect commander.

If he transformed into a Thunder-armored Tyrannosaurus or back into his main body, Ning Shi would not have been frightened by the insect commander.

It was a pity that he could not use his insight technique to detect the insect commander’s strength.

Ning Shi was just thinking when a wave of information was transmitted to his mind.

The insect commander sent out the information: “We’re being eaten away by the azure insects. If this continues, we’ll definitely lose. Today, we will gather the tribe and attack the nest of the azure insects. The captains will command the swarm to hold back the main force of the azure insects. Generals and lieutenants, follow me and break into the nest together to destroy it.”

“If we can successfully destroy the nest, the azure insects would thus lose their source of soldiers and would be defeated without a doubt. If the attack fails, I’ll devour you, all the Life Pools and black crystals, and try to break through to the insect king. As long as I become the insect king, the race can continue to reproduce, and the glory of the war insects will once again shine on the Insect Continent!”

With that, all the war insect generals let out vicious roars, “For the insect commander! For the war insects! Battle! Battle! Battle!”

Then, all the war insects began to roar, “Battle! Battle!”

Ning Shi was caught in all the chaos.

He felt quite unlucky. He had just sneaked into a war insect tribe and had not had time to get any information before he encountered a tribe war between insect tribes.

If the war insects could destroy the nest of the azure insects today, then he could continue to hide and develop in the war insect tribe. However, if they failed, he would have to face the insect commander’s devouring.

At that point, Ning Shi could only slip away.

He had considered summoning Ilya to kill the insect commander, but when he thought about the insect king that the insect commander had mentioned and the unknown situation in the insect world, he gave up on the plan.

He had to keep a low profile this time and figure out the situation in the insect world first.

It was a pity that the wisdom of the war insects was generally not much, so Ning Shi could gather less information.

Now, he knew that there was an insect king in the insect world. The birth of the azure insects was different from the war insects such that they relied on their hive. But the resources the two tribes needed should be the same, black crystals.

Otherwise, there was no need for the azure insect to fight the war insect to death.

After the insect commander finished conveying its command, the war insects scattered. Lieutenant No. 74 saw Ning Shi’s 13-centimeter figure and asked, “Captain 3514, why did you devour your soldiers without command?”

Just as Ning Shi was about to explain the matter of the azure insects, Lieutenant No. 74 said, “Hurry up and go to the level 1 life pool to get some soldiers. With your current strength, you can command 1000 soldiers. Go!”

This was the way war insects worked. No superior would suspect their subordinates of doing bad things, and neither would they listen to their subordinates’ explanations.

Ning Shi flew to the side of the level 1 life pool. The losses caused by the war these days were relatively huge, and many captains were lining up here to get their soldiers.

Fortunately, the storage of black crystals of the war insects was sufficient, so new war insect soldiers continued to fly out of the Life Pool.

After waiting for a few minutes, Ning Shi had 1000 war insects following him. These insects were only 2cm in size and flew obediently behind him.

Ning Shi communicated with the new war insects and found that these war insects were quite magical. Although they were not very intelligent, they knew whatever they needed to.

“No.1, how big is the Insect Continent and how many types of insects are there? ”

“Captain, I don’t know the size of the Insect Continent, nor do I know the types of insects. I only know that when I was born, there were 1412 advanced insect tribes and 18 kingly insect tribes, while the imperial insect tribes have long disappeared.”

“What’s the war insects’ class?”

If it was a human, Ning Shi would have been caught as a spy for asking such a question, but the war insects did not have such thinking.

No.1 would not be surprised by Ning Shi’s question. It only knew to obey.

“Captain, the war insects were once a kingly insect tribe. They were later defeated by the brain-eating insects, and the survivors fled in all directions, scattered all over the continent. Since then, there has never been an insect king among war insects. The supreme commander now is the insect commander, so we are now an advanced insect tribe.”