Post-Apocalyptic Dispatch Society

Scrit! Scritt!

A queen ant wandered out of the Pitcher Plant Forest, kicked out of its nest when a new queen emerged into power. Unlike other queens of its species that gave in to their fate and were turned into nutrition for the brood, this queen fought for herself, making it out alive.

Following that, it had ventured out of the Pitcher Plant Forest, walking towards the shore when it came across a feather. The feather brimmed with Nacre, an energy type it didn't consume usually.

After all, it always consumed the corruption before digesting part of it before converting the rest into a pure energy source to be fed to the Pitcher Plants operating with Nacre.

It was hungry and somewhat injured too, therefore didn't hesitate before beginning to eat the feather. The feather had pierced through the belly of a twitching insect.

It was a Homing Feather while the insect was released by Yulna. The energies in both had cancelled out each other to result in such a scenario. They were gradually on the verge of disappearing but the queen ant chanced upon it before then.

The feather had already lost most of its structural integrity and hence was easily bitten and consumed by the queen ant who then proceeded to eat the dying insect too.

As it had been its usual work, she dug out a tiny tunnel in the ground to rest after eating her fill, consuming the feather and insect in batches before it was entirely cleared out.

Once it went through the food resource, the queen ant ventured forth, chancing upon more feathers pierced through the insects. The shore was filled with them.

This was because Yulna and Rhizen were still fighting somewhere far away, the resultant of whose attacks were washed by the sea waves onto the shore where the currents brought them.

The queen ant spent days along the shore, surprisingly managing to stay alive every time the shelled creatures exited it and marched into the desert.

Even it had no idea of what its life entailed beyond this point. But as it had a strong will to live, it pressed forth, continuing to survive with all its power. On one such day, it chanced upon the corpse of a human, one sporting green hair that only had a single parting at the forehead.

It was a Stage 1 Blight Human.

He was severely injured, on the verge of death, lying unconscious, brought to the location by the water currents. If he wasn't treated, he was bound to die in an hour or two.

There was a large gash on his stomach through which blood leaked. Despite the strong vitality he possessed thanks to his ability, his body wasn't able to heal fast enough.

The queen ant exited the ground right at this moment, faintly different from before, significantly more evolved than the other queens of its ant race. After all, it had been consuming the abilities created by Yulna and Rhizen, having adapted to consuming such energy-rich items to survive, something other ants had failed many times.

The ant queen was about to find another feather to consume when its feelers smelled the scent of something delicious wafting towards it, proceeding in the respective direction to chance upon the Blight Human.

It climbed on the Blight Human's stomach, barely spanning a size of two centimetres, arriving at the gash on his stomach as that was where the delicious scent wafted out from.

With that, it gradually dug a tunnel through the gash, making its way through the layer of flesh. The severe pain had already made the Blight Human's brain cut off all pain receptors in the area. Therefore, he didn't feel the ant queen's actions.

Though, he was already unconscious in the first place, seemingly unable to regain consciousness any time before death. This meant free reign for the ant queen.

Ants were able to detect vulnerable prey. Generally among humans with a strong case of diabetes, they might wake up one fine day, noticing the flesh on a part of their body had disappeared. As they couldn't feel any pain, they failed to sense the working of the ants that ate through a part of their body overnight.

Ants were the most vicious creatures with an invasive nature. The ant queen was an amalgamation of that, directly making her way to the source of the delicious scent.

It was a tiny blob, seemingly no bigger than a minor tumour, spanning a few millimetres in diameter. It was the Blight Human's Origin Space.

The ant queen's antennae lightly tapped on the Origin Space before she opened her mouth and swallowed the tiny entity before her.

"Argh!" The eyes of the Blight Human shot open before it felt like his entire vitality was stolen. His body aged rapidly and turned into a rubbery mess, deflating in a matter of minutes. He died immediately after.

The ant queen exited his body, cleaning itself of all blood before fainting soon after. The Origin Space should have originally vanished by now, crumbling automatically upon the death of its user.

But whether it was due to Rhizen's Homing Feathers or Yulna's insects that she consumed, or whether it was its inherent nature to consume the Pitcher Plants and filter out the corruption in them, the Origin Space didn't vanish.

Instead, it was gradually being digested by the ant queen, losing all its corruption before turning into a pure energy substance.

The ant queen lay there, unconscious for two days before getting up with a start, staring in surprise that its body now spanned a size of ten centimetres, a hulking form as compared to before.

But strangely, it was stable, now sensing a mysterious Origin Space in its abdomen. It couldn't understand what that was about as it made its way along the shore, as usual, eating up feathers and insects like usual.

Unlike before, irrespective of how much it ate, the ant queen didn't feel satiated, unable to understand this alien feeling as it continued to eat before soon, it cleared out the entire shore.

It had only been a few hours since it had begun eating them, so the speed was startling, to say the least. Right as it was about to look for more food to consume, the shelled creatures exited the sea once again.

But unlike before, the ant queen didn't go into hiding as it dug a trap and waited at its bottom after covering its surface.

The tunnel spanned a depth of a metre, not too big but served as a trap. As the stream of shelled creatures rushed through the desert, one of them set foot on the trap, stumbling into it when immediately, the mandibles of the ant queen pierced right through the gaps of its armour, targeting its head.

The shelled creature struggled to escape, thrashing about as the ant queen suffered injuries as a result. But as its ambush was perfect, its mandibles continued to sink deeper and deeper into the shelled creature's face before eventually killing it.

Beaten and bloody, the ant queen was exhausted. But it had won the battle, reaping the rewards as it began to devour the shelled creature.

The moment it did so, the ant queen felt satiated as something within it changed. The Origin Space in its abdomen contained neither Nacre nor corruption, but a pure form of energy, swirling around like mist within.

The mist gradually took the shape of eggs, similar to what happens in its abdomen. But now, the organ to fertilise and create eggs was fused into the Origin Space where this was happening as hundreds of eggs began to slowly form.

This was why the ant queen never felt satiated until now. But the moment the eggs began to form, it felt hungry once again, hunting the shelled creatures slowly, one after another.

The more it hunted and ate, the faster it grew, shedding its skin soon after to emerge with a brand new, uninjured carapace. Moreover, its mandibles had grown sharper, evolved to hunt the shelled creatures better.

Days turned into weeks before the eggs in the Origin Space finished growing. The ant queen had already dug a large enough chamber underground, laying down the eggs there, watching them hatch immediately.

Usually, there would be a brood to tend to the larvae. But, things were different in the ant queen's case. As the eggs were nurtured within the Origin Space with a steady supply of energy, they had already been growing within their eggs.

And now, the moment they hatched, they were adult ants, each spanning a size of ten centimetres. The ant queen was a metre in size now.

All the birthed ants were soldier ants that exited the chamber to fight against the shelled creatures. It was a tough war on both sides, leading to losses on both ends.

One of the soldier ants won the fight, beginning to eat the shelled creature. The food wasn't stored in its stomach though but was directly sent into the ant queen's Origin Space.

A mystical connection had been established between the queen and its brood as whatever they ate ended up in the Origin Space, becoming nutrition for more eggs while the corruption was converted into pure energy that funnelled back into the bodies of the soldier ants, healing their injuries.