Anthony calmly rushed forward and stomped as well, using his control over the Aether element to render the icy attack into pure energy which he collected. He then jumped forward at at abhorrent speed the Icy Ravenous Bear could not follow and struck fiercely.
The bear was his in its right leg, sent flying through over 20 trees before coming to a stop. Its white fur that was matted with blood had shifted from the blood of its prey to its own red blood, causing it to feel fear.
Not only that but as it struggled to get up, it realized that the leg that was struck was broken and mangled, so it could not even rise to its feet. From arrogance and dominance, it felt endless fear as it sorely understood what it meant to be crippled in the wild.
Before it could think further, Anthony rushed over and smashed his bo-staff on its head, knocking the beast out. He then tied its body up and dragged it along as he looked for a place to settle himself and find out more about his surroundings.
He had a feeling his part of the trial would be the most difficult.
.................
Meanwhile, Darius had finally released Queenstar after a month of preparation and training for what she was to do next. Darius teleported her to the Oasis in the desert, the special space meant for reincarnators sent by Vena.
He gave her access to this area to set it as her homebase, something he could do with his won current authority. She excitedly zipped around the place and explored it while Darius planted some things that could help her later on.
"Remember, build your initial troops and let them spread out to the nearest villages and kidnap people. Turn those people into biomass and then create more troops and so on." Darius reminded with a smile.
"I wont tell you exactly how to plan your way into dominance, but I expect that by the end of the year, you will have the entire continent on tenterhooks." Darius added as he turned to leave.
Queenstar flew up and then nodded with a firm expression. "Don't worry father, I wont fail you."
Darius did not reply and fast traveled back to Safemoon. As for Queenstar, she watched the area where Darius stood for a while in silence and then buzzed as she returned to the cottage here.
Using her special ability as an Insect Queen, she birth her first 100 hatchlings who were only barely amateur stage bugs at level 1. They were tiny little beetles like things, but their ferocity was unmatched.
They dug into the sand and then rushed through the desert in different squads, entering the nearby villages and slowly assessing the place. Connected to the bugcloud of the queen, they were able to relay all information back to her.
Queenstar then followed the training Darius had given her, which included all the information from the bugcloud of the insect race as well as her own previous bugcloud before she died, and it was full of useful information and legacies.
As such, despite being mean little critters, the amateur bugs were calm and practiced. They took away women, children and avoided adult men, slowly dragging them through the sand back to the base.
When brought back, then were ripped apart by the bugs and turned into biomass which spawned more amateur bugs while those already there were slightly strengthened. However the bugs could not grow fast enough with the energy of such weak and unsparked humans.
Still, Queenstar's goal was not to rise in quality, but in quantity for now. As such, with the biomass she got, there came another 5,000 bugs who rushed out with the first batch or any settlement they could see with life.
They avoided monsters and beasts because they were above their paygrade, and their quantity was not enough to risk such losses.
Like this, they completed more than few rounds and turned the area within a few kilometers into a barren land of humans. Now the number of bugs surpassed 50,000 and then they began targeting weaker desert monsters.
Huge battles began occurring above and below the sands, causing the area to quake. Some bug groups were wiped out by their enemies in time while others won and began the feast.
Of course, everything changed when the first Amateur bug rise to the Journeyman Rank. The leap in power was palpable, and this bug was not just one. Others also achieved this upgrade and they began assisting the weaker bugs in beating up amateur monsters for them to consume and level up.
Soon, 50000 bugs turned into around 10,000 journeymen, and this was enough. Queenstar then had them hunt all the remaining amateur monsters around and drag them back to the oasis, where their biomass was used to create more bugs.
Over 150,000 Amateur bugs were spawned from this and they once again spread with out with the journeyman bugs in the lead. Almost nothing could stand in their way except adepts, but this was the starter zone of the continent, so how could such beings exist around here?
Over the course of the next week, thousands of amateur bugs were spawned and even more of them upgraded to Journeyman as their targets involved humans, monsters and both at the Amateur and Journeymen stages.
After a few days, the first Adept bug was born and the entire situation changed. Queenstar got more confident and spread her activities out wantonly, eventually attracting the attention of the higher ups of Ludo.
When they learned that an insect tide was brewing on their continent, they couldn't help but panic and call Darius. Darius naturally bluntly told them to handle it themselves with the resources he gave them.
There was no point investing in them if they cowered at every hurdle in their way.
Hearing this, they could only grit their teeth and meet the charge of Queenstar head-on.
Unfortunately for them, this was exactly what Queenstar wanted.
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