Chapter 393: Chapter 385: Fire Poison _1
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Even a nest of ordinary hornets has its strong female ‘guards’.
In addition to this, there are scout wasps responsible for standing guard and searching for bee nests.
Larger bee colonies may even have ‘nanny bees’ specially dedicated to nurturing the young.
There’s an interesting phenomenon among hornets; some females will lay eggs in secret. As long as their actions go unnoticed, their eggs are raised together with the rest.
But if they are discovered, those hornets that laid eggs in secret face punishment, and may even be expelled from the colony.
This kind of situation generally doesn’t occur among honeybees when there isn’t a loss of the queen.
These fire bees belong to a special species of bee.
In Qin Niu’s eyes, they can only be considered as a general special species; they are even slightly inferior to the Steel-winged Wild Bees bred by the Green Demon.
Having already obtained Green Demon Bees that are a hundred times stronger than Steel-winged Wild Bees, how could Qin Niu covet this group of fire bees?
He may not covet them, but they can be kept to enrich the bee species in this great mountain.
He has already released some of the Steel-winged Wild Bees he captured into the mountains.
If the Steel-winged Wild Bees could interbreed with the fire bees, it’s possible that a new species of bee could evolve.
“It’s a pity the fire bees are a bit weak, otherwise it would be nice to get a male to be the ‘husband’ for the Green Demon Bee.”
Qin Niu looked at the giant fire bee and felt a hint of regret.
Finding a male bee for the Green Demon Bee was to enable it to produce more exceptional offspring.
The standard was: better none than substandard.
“Fourth, lead the ant swarm to take control of these giant fire bees!” Qin Niu issued the combat order to the ant swarm.
With his current Insect Master strength, dealing with these few giant fire bees was really like child’s play.
“Roger that!”
Fourth had long been itching to join the fray.
It is a War Demon Ant, which by nature is extremely bellicose.
It is in its instincts.
Several giant fire bees dived at the War Bees at great speed, launching an attack.
They had explosive force that was very shocking, and as they neared the War Bees, they were able to flap their wings and release a faint white smoke from the glands under their abdomen.
Then, through the flapping of their wings, they would create a smoky attack.
Qin Niu thought that this smoke was probably absorbed from above the magma where they lived in rock caves for a long time.
It is akin to being stored within their bodies for use against enemies.
It could be seen as a special skill they evolved.
Thus, he believed that this smoke was most likely intended to confuse the vision of the War Bees and did not have any other harmful effects.
However, he soon realized that he had assumed too simply.
One of the War Bees was unable to dodge in time and came into contact with the smoke sprayed by a giant fire bee. Its body immediately experienced severe pain, and it plummeted straight to the ground.
The frenzied giant fire bee was about to finish off that War Bee.
“Fourth, act quickly.”
Qin Niu quickly gave the order.
In terms of speed, mental attacks were definitely faster.
The five giant fire bees were subdued in an instant.
Fourth is now extremely powerful. The number of Puppet Ants had also increased by more than a thousand.
And the grades of some reached Grade Five.
The majority were Grade Four.
This also means that they could control even higher-level insects.
The five giant fire bees flew in a line.
Qin Niu took out a large Metal Bug Canister and directly had them fly in a row into the canister.
Then, he captured the entire nest.
“Could the smoke sprayed by these giant fire bees be poisonous?”
Qin Niu walked over to the War Bee that had been affected, bent down to pick it up, and brought it close for careful examination.
It was not dead, but it was in very poor condition.
Its legs were curled up, its wings trembled slightly, and its body was constantly shaking.
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It constantly spat out a sparkling dark red liquid from its mouth.
It seemed as if it was coughing up blood.
In fact, if a bee were to actually cough up blood, it would be a colorless liquid, or perhaps carry a slight milky hue.
This War Bee spitting out dark red liquid indicated that it had been poisoned.
Whether it had been poisoned by consuming smoke or simply by coming into contact with the smoke was still uncertain at this stage.
“Black Spider Gu, get to work!”
Inside Qin Niu’s body lived a Black Spider Gu, which was known for its love of all poisons.
It welcomed any kind of poison it encountered.
Moreover, the more toxic the poison, the more it enjoyed it.
“Have a taste and see, what kind of poison is this?”
Qin Niu commanded the Black Spider Gu to consume the dark red liquid spat out by the War Bee.
It really did eat every last drop without leaving any behind.
“Fierce in nature, it can make the blood circulate rapidly in an instant, while also causing intense pain in the body and dizziness, it should be a fire toxin.”
The Black Spider Gu performed an identification of the poison.
It was more like a wine taster.
Able to discern various venoms.
“Is this poison lethal?”
“Not lethal, the poisoning will subside on its own after spending some time in a cold place.”
The Black Spider Gu was quite intelligent, and since its birth, it had been living within humans. Communicating with it was not at all arduous.
After hearing this, Qin Niu stopped worrying about the poisoned War Bee.
He was very interested in the evolved fire toxin of the Giant Fire Bee.
It was likely completely opposite to the Corpse Bee’s corpse toxin.
The corpse toxin was sinister and cold, creeping into the enemy’s body slowly with a long onset time. The fire toxin was domineering and fierce, with an extremely short onset time, causing one to collapse upon contact.
The venom of the Green Demon Bee had already mixed with the corpse toxin of the Corpse Bee.
Because his Green Demon Bee had devoured a Corpse Bee’s egg during its incubation process.
It wasn’t merely consumed, but the two species had merged to form a new kind of bee.
This was a successful experiment conducted by Qin Niu based on insect-rearing practices.
Now, the Green Demon Bee was stronger than the original second-generation Green Demon Bees bred by the Green Demon.
If the Green Demon Bee could assimilate the advantages of the Fire Bee, would it rise to an even higher level?
When the time came, once the Green Demon Bee had laid eggs and hatched new Green Demon Bees, he could use the Ancient Banyan Tree Blood to help them achieve another significant upgrade.
By a conservative estimate, this could elevate the Green Demon Bee’s grade to Grade Seven.
After all, the queen bee was currently only Grade Five, so there was definitely a lot of room for growth.
After Qin Niu used his ant swarm to capture these Fire Bees, he was able to continue further into the depths of the cave.
This cave was much deeper than he had imagined.
He had thought it would be impressive if it were just tens of meters deep, but now, after delving over two hundred meters, he still couldn’t see the end.
Along the way, Fire Bees would intermittently burst out from nowhere.
However, he didn’t see their nests anywhere.
This made Qin Niu very curious, where did these Fire Bees actually live?
He began to observe carefully, wanting to see where exactly the Fire Bees were emerging from.
Soon, he made a significant discovery.
The Fire Bees were coming out of some crevices in the ceiling of the cave.
Could it be that they didn’t live in groups, but rather lived alone?
It didn’t seem like it!
Some bees do choose solitary living, such as the Bear Bee and the Spider-eating Bee, among others.
If these Fire Bees were solitary, why did they fight in groups? They also seemed very united, and their actions were in perfect sync.
Based on their behavior, they should undoubtedly be social.
This was a bee species never seen before, so it wouldn’t be right to compare their habits too closely with those of wasps.