Ravian fell silent because he had no excuse to offer... but he was sure that the ants and all monsters hate the smell of the stinky mushrooms...
This is what his father had told him... so his father was wrong? Or is the smell of these mushrooms not bad enough?
Or could there be another reason? A reason that made the ants have no choice but to enter here...? A reason that made the ants not dare to turn back?
Does that mean something has trapped them here?
Lian looked at them with Night Eyes. The world around him became clearer.
The colored mist was no longer an obstacle. The movement of every leg, every antenna, and every small contraction in the ants’ bodies became clear to him.
Something was wrong. The ants were not looking at them.
A few Workers passed so close that their jaws could have reached Nemi’s feet, but they didn’t even turn their heads.
One of the Soldiers passed by the corpse of an ant that Lian had killed moments earlier, without reacting to the smell of blood.
Some were being crushed under the feet of their own kind, some were entering small cracks in their haste and falling.
There was no order in their attack.
This was not the behavior of predators chasing prey.
"They are not after us anymore. It seems something here has terrified them and disrupted their order." Lian said quietly.
"Huh? What could scare a whole colony? Is there something more terrifying than them here?" Sera, who was still breathing heavily, looked at him.
Lian did not answer immediately. The monsters had not shown fear before entering this place. He looked into the distance, as if the ants had noticed something and were rapidly moving away from the point they had entered from.
Could there be something there? Or had they sensed something?
Whatever it was, he was sure the ants were no longer after them... but rather they had just noticed something that made them want to leave this place.
He stared into the darkness behind the colony. No monster could be seen, no shadow was moving among the roots, but the ants’ behavior could only mean one thing.
"They are running away."
"From what?" Ravian quickly turned his head. He couldn’t understand what this massive colony might be afraid of or want to run from.
Lian did not answer.
Because at that same moment, Predator’s Instincts exploded in his mind.
The warning did not come from behind. Not from the sides, but from below: directly beneath their feet.
And it was extremely close! Very, very close!
"Damn it!"
"Get away from the ground!" Lian shouted.
The soil split open.
A round opening opened beneath one of the Workers.
Before the creature could react, a white, thick, and fleshy root shot out from the depths of the ground.
The root wrapped around the ant’s body, the Worker’s legs were slammed into the soil.
Its jaws opened and closed wildly, but the root pulled it into the opening with a violent movement.
The soil closed over its body, only one antenna remained outside for a moment, and then that too disappeared.
More openings opened on the ground’s surface, dozens of white roots emerged from all sides.
One wrapped around a Soldier’s leg, another pierced a Worker’s abdomen.
The third passed through the group of ants and pulled several bodies together like beads on a string.
At that same moment, the massive mushroom on their right moved. Its cap rose, but beneath it, there was no flat or bladed surface.
Hundreds of small, ring-like teeth opened inside a round opening. The opening opened with a wet sound, and the roots pulled several ants toward it.
The mushroom swallowed the armored bodies all at once.
The ring-like jaw closed, and the sound of shells crunching was heard from inside the stem.
"The mushrooms... are alive?" Nemi stepped back in fear.
"Not just alive, they are predators!" Ravian was staring at them.
The yellow and green mist suddenly became thicker. The caps of dozens of mushrooms trembled at the same time.
Clouds of toxic spores were released into the air, the surrounding space turned into a sea of colored vapor within seconds.
Sera took a step, but her knee bent, she placed her hand on the mushroom’s stem to keep from falling.
Nemi coughed twice and knelt down. Ravian also sank his spear into the ground.
The flow of mana around his body trembled several times and went out.
"This smell... it disrupts mana."
Lian held his breath. His body showed more resistance. Poison Foe had increased his resistance to this mist.
But he was not completely immune. A burning sensation reached his lungs, his vision at the edges was slightly blurred.
"Damn you Ravian, what kind of hell did you decide to bring us to?" He regretted having called that boy a tracker.
He immediately took out an anti-poison potion from his storage and consumed it.
[Poison resistance +5%]
Without hesitation, he took out five more from his stock of forty and consumed them. His condition gradually stabilized.
But they didn’t have much time. Their surroundings had turned into a three-way battlefield.
Crimson Needle Soldiers clamped their jaws on the white roots.
The roots were cut off, and a yellow liquid sprayed from their tissue.
The larger mushrooms were swallowing Workers.
The ants were climbing up their stems and piercing the soft tissue under the caps with their stingers.
Toxic spores were swirling in the air like living mist. The soil was rising and falling under the pressure of the roots.
One of the openings opened right under Ravian’s feet.
Lian pulled him back.
A white root shot out from the soil and split the exact spot where Ravian’s foot had been a moment before.
Ravian looked at Lian with gratitude upon seeing this scene. This man had saved him once again!
"I thought that bird’s nest was dangerous, it seems I was wrong."
This forest had a different way of killing for every type of predator.
"We have to get out of here, right now!" Sera said with difficulty.