Laws of the Insect Hive - Chapter 57

After ten minutes, System climbed out of the snow with his tentacles.

When looking around, although the snowfall had stopped, the whole world was covered in white snow.

The tree branches above his head cracked due to the accumulated snow and the blow of chilly wind. Seeing this, System used his tentacles to move his body to a safe side so that the branches would not crush his body once they were broken.

While he was moving his body, System, who had crawled out of the snow, finally had a thorough look at what he looked like now.

His body appeared very disproportionate due to his smaller abdomen and was only about 17 centimeters. The exoskeleton and wings covering the top of his body had all disappeared and become bare. His antennae seemed to have regrown, but they were only half of their original length and very fragile.

His shattered right eye had grown back as well, but all System could see was a blurry light. Probably, his blind eye would grow back soon.

The strangest thing about his body was the dozen or so tentacles that had grown at the place of his original foot limbs.

His appearance was so ugly now that if he himself did not say anything, no one would believe he was a grasshopper. In fact, even if he did, it would be hard for others to believe.

System felt the icy wind blowing through the forest for a while. Although the temperature on the ground was a bit lower than in the snow, it did not affect System’s body much.

[Color Change Camouflage] activated!

The color of System’s exoskeleton gradually became lighter. The rest of his body slowly turned into a slightly grayish-white color except his brown tentacles, acting as his protective color.

Due to System’s light body, he would not get stuck in the snow by controlling his tentacles to move. Thus, walking on the snow surface did not take him much effort.

After trying to walk on the snow for a while, System stretched his body and reached out his tentacles to climb on a nearby tree.

Unlike his foot limbs, there were no tiny barbs on his tentacles, making it a little more difficult for him to climb trees.

However, System had many tentacles now. Fifteen tentacles full of power and varying lengths were enough for System to accomplish many things.

The shorter ones could be inserted into the bark gaps to act as support, while the longer ones could wrap around the trees directly to help him stabilize his body.

After getting used to climbing with his tentacles, System found that it was convenient enough to climb with them, even though they were not as good as his barbed foot limbs and bouncing thighs.

With half an hour of practice, System was even able to move like an ape between the branches of different trees, like playing on a swing while using his other tentacles to pick up frozen leaves and eat them.

…

The forest had changed greatly after the snow, but by comparing the recordings in the [Tools Menu], System still managed to locate himself.

He was now about three kilometers away from his temporary nest, and at his current speed, he estimated that he would be able to return after a dozen hours.

System was worried a lot about Shava and his other ants. The food stored in the temporary nest was enough for them to eat for a long time, but the forest was too cold.

The heavy snow had an even stronger impact on the forest than the heavy rain System had experienced. The only sound in the forest was that of the bitterly cold wind colliding with the branches of the trees, and System could not hear any sound from insects.

Aside from an unknown bird flying over from afar, System could only see some tiny footprints on the snow, which were probably left by creatures like rabbits or mice.

It seemed that even though the heavy snow had caused a fatal impact on insects, it did not affect these small rodents too badly.

System followed these footprints for a while, and through his observation, he found that the footprints’ owner was not very big, and he could try to hunt it.

However, after following the footprints for a while, System found nothing. The footprints came to an abrupt halt at the roots of a tree. It seemed that the footprints belonged to a squirrel that was able to climb on the trees.

Fortunately, as a result of this hunting, System found a surprise—a frozen spider.

This black spider was curled up underneath a branch of a tree and looked like it was frozen to death while hiding from the blizzard.

System used his tentacles to tear the spider’s abdomen into small pieces and put them in his mouth to chew.

He thought that this kind of frozen carcass would be tough, but it actually tasted similar to a fresh spider. The spider’s soft abdominal flesh would melt in his mouth with just a little bit chewing, just like eating an ice cream.

As he swallowed the spider, a warm current coursed through System’s stomach. This nutrient-rich flesh restored his strength a lot.

System tore the spider’s carcass apart, but he hesitated for a moment. Then, he also tore off a small piece of its venom gland and put it into his mouth.

Eventually, the spider’s venom glands did not harm System but rather made his body feel very comfortable. Its rich coffee flavor invigorated System, making his sensation of the surroundings clearer.

…

System ate the spider’s carcass slowly without wasting a single bit of it. He even swallowed the unpalatable fluff on the spider’s body surface. And as System swallowed the last piece of flesh from the spider’s carcass, his body trembled slightly, and [Instinct] suddenly brought him a restless feeling.

System used his tentacles to rotate his body, and a black bird with its wings spread out around half a meter appeared in the thousand-meter-altitude in the direction of his blind eye.

This black bird had a pair of sharp claws, an eagle-like beak, and a pair of glazed eyes.

System knew that this carnivorous black eagle had spotted him.

Using his tentacles subconsciously, System decisively moved directly below the branch, hiding his body from the bird in the sky.

But it was not long before he went out again and exposed himself to the black eagle’s view.

Due to the ability of [Ultrafast Digestion], the spider’s carcass was quickly digested in his abdomen shortly after it was swallowed and used to restore his health.

System stared at the black eagle in the sky, and his mandibles started drooling unconsciously.

The black eagle might be trying to prey on him, but he was hungry too…

A dozen tentacles that varied in lengths, coupled with the [Corrosive Slime] and his newly acquired [Frost Cold Breath], gave System the courage to fight with it.

And his [Instinct] was just sending out some restless warnings, but not the nervousness of imminent fatal danger.

For some reason, System felt that the black eagle could not defeat him, and he had no explanations for it. Most likely, it was just his gut feeling.

If one party had to die in battle, then it would be the black eagle.

System shook his tentacled, moved his body to a prominent place in the woods, and kept shaking his body.

Apparently, the black eagle spotted him again, and soon, plummeted from the sky at high speed toward his direction.

System noticed that he was drooling even more…

Except for the two tentacles wrapped around the branch, System extended his remaining tentacles in the black eagle’s direction, shielding his body.

As the black eagle lowered its claws, System’s tentacles that shielded him acted like a rubber band or a spring, blocking the bird’s claws from his body.

The black eagle’s claws did not touch System’s body. He flew up as the claws and tentacles touched, while his mouth spewed out a cloud of brown colloid, as well as a cloud of ice-blue breath…

The brown colloid traveled at a faster speed and hit the black eagle on its head first. System directly controlled these colloids to move toward its eyes!

The frosty breath spewed by System followed, and a layer of visible frost appeared on the black eagle’s head…

[Corrosive Slime] had a big conflict with [Frost Cold Breath]. System found out that when [Frost Cold Breath] was spewed onto the slime he spat out, the slimes would freeze and stiffen, losing their ability to move.

However, that did not matter anymore…

Although these two abilities were conflicting, the black eagle was still significantly hurt, dropping from the sky and fluttering incessantly on the snow a short distance away. Apparently, System’s sudden attack caught it off guard.

Upon seeing this, System moved over immediately with his tentacles.

He first wrapped two of his longest tentacles around the black eagle’s wings, making it impossible to fly, and then used more tentacles to wrap around the joints in various parts of the eagle’s body. As the dozen or so tentacles went around its body, the black eagle’s fluttering motion in the snow became smaller and smaller…

System spat [Corrosive Slime] at the black eagle’s head again and controlled the colloids to move towards its mouth.

System wanted to suffocate it by blocking its throat with the sticky colloid!

As time passed, the black eagle struggled more vigorously from suffocating, and just as System was about to kill it so that he could have a good meal, his [Instinct] came back with a strange feeling.

An ice-blue light pillar of the thickness of a human finger suddenly came from the sky.

This ice-blue light pillar penetrated System’s body and froze the black eagle beneath him into a lump of ice, but his body was not affected in the slightest.

System noticed an ice-blue light ball with the size of a baby’s fist floating in the sky two meters away from him. The ice-blue light pillar just now clearly came from it…