Volume One: The Soul-Guiding Gourd and the Soul-Igniting Lamp Chapter 82: The Colossus

Inside the Well of Gods and Demons.

The three stood back-to-back, their eyes darting cautiously around the darkness, their surroundings illuminated only by the flickering glow of a fireball. The air was thick with the scent of dampness and decay.

In the distance, two eyes gleaming with a sinister black light watched the intruders with hungry curiosity...

“Brother Xiao, do you have a plan?” someone asked.

In response, Xiao Yulou, exuding the aura of an immortal sage, took the initiative. With a sudden movement, he pointed his sword into the shadows.

With a swift sound, the fireball—large as a watermelon—shot forth, lighting up a massive black pillar bristling with fine, spiky hairs. On closer inspection, it was clear this was not a pillar at all, but rather the leg of some monstrous creature!

The three men shuddered in terror, their bodies tensing with shock.

As Xiao Yulou skillfully redirected the fireball, the shifting light allowed them to glimpse only fragments of the monster, as if the three were blind men feeling out an elephant.

Before them loomed a colossal creature, over twenty meters tall, towering over them with a predatory gaze.

In a heartbeat, Xiao Yulou gritted his teeth, unleashing all the mystic energy within him.

With a thunderous roar, the fireball grew impossibly large—its diameter rivaling the front of a high-speed train.

Bathed in the fierce flames, the trio finally saw the beast in its entirety: a titanic arthropod, more than twenty meters in height.

Pausing the scene, they could see it was—no, this thing was—a gargantuan black worker ant. Surrounding it were gigantic, otherworldly plants that reached skyward.

Examining the creature, they saw its jet-black body was covered in steel-like bristles, glinting in the light. Its three pairs of slender legs resembled the massive columns of a temple, supporting its monstrous bulk.

Its head was adorned with a pair of antennae, as thick as smokestacks, twitching ominously in the air. The creature’s enormous, glistening eyes sparkled with a tempting luster—if one could pry loose such a gemstone, it would surely be worth a fortune.

Its deadly mandibles gleamed with a cold, metallic sheen, the interior lined with countless razor-sharp teeth, all slick with yellowish saliva.

This monstrous black ant, it seemed, had developed a keen appetite for the three humans at its feet.

At this moment, the black worker ant exuded an aura of invincibility, as if it were a beast capable of destroying the world itself.

“Ants belong to the phylum Arthropoda, class Insecta, order Hymenoptera, family Formicidae. There are over 11,700 known species worldwide, in 21 subfamilies and 283 genera, with more than 600 species identified in China alone. Recently, a new species capable of asexual reproduction was discovered. Ants can live for weeks to several years—workers for three to ten years, queens for even longer. A colony can survive in one place for years, even decades. (Note: termites are not ants.)

Generally, ants are small, their colors ranging from black, brown, yellow, to red. Their bodies are elastic and may be smooth or covered in fine hairs. Their mandibles are developed for chewing, their antennae are elbowed and segmented, and their abdomens are constricted, sometimes winged. Their forelegs are adapted for cleaning their antennae.

The external structure of an ant consists of head, thorax, and abdomen, with six legs. Their eggs are about 0.5 millimeters long, milky white, and irregularly oval; larvae are worm-like and translucent. Worker ants are tiny, about 2.8 millimeters long, brownish yellow, and hard to spot individually. Males and queens are larger, the latter reaching 6.2 millimeters, with swollen abdomens and heads and thoraxes of a brownish yellow hue. Common indoor ants include the tiny yellow house ant.

Ants are highly social creatures, possessing the three hallmarks of sociality: they care for their young cooperatively, have clear divisions of labor, and several generations overlap within a single colony, with the young sometimes caring for the old.”

Ants are master builders, their nests divided into numerous chambers each with a specific function. The nests are sturdy, safe, and comfortable—crisscrossed with intricate passageways, surrounded by earth, and equipped with storerooms for food. The ventilation is excellent, keeping the nest cool in summer and warm in winter, preserving food for long periods.

Ants are renowned as architects of the animal kingdom, excavating their burrows grain by grain and constructing elaborate underground cities. Unless the soil dries out completely, the original structure of the nest remains intact.

Such basic facts about ants flashed through Li Hetang’s mind, yet the creature before him was over twenty meters tall—was this even the world he knew? Truly, the Well of Gods and Demons was beyond comprehension!

Play resumed.

The fireball, now the size of a train engine, hurtled toward the terrifying ant.

With a snap, the monstrous black ant simply swept its antenna, effortlessly dispersing Xiao Yulou’s prized fireball. Sparks burst in the air like fireworks, but neither Gu Mo, Xiao Yulou, nor Li Hetang were in any mood to appreciate the spectacle.

With a roar, the giant ant opened its jaws, unleashing a deafening bellow accompanied by a foul, putrid wind.

There was a dull thud as Gu Mo, shrouded in ghostly blue flames, drove his ruler into the earth. Xiao Yulou, meanwhile, activated a golden tortoise shield and stood his ground, invoking a technique to anchor himself in place.

The noxious gale swept toward them like a hurricane. Li Hetang, frailest among them, was lifted off his feet.

Clinging desperately to his companions’ shoulders, Li Hetang floated like a trembling scrap of plastic in the storm.

“Damn it! Who keeps such a hellish thing?” he cursed, fighting the urge to vomit.

Gu Mo, flames roaring around him, cursed back. “Shut up if you don’t want to die from this wind!”

Li Hetang could only grit his teeth and hold his tongue.

At last, the tempest ceased. With a sharp movement, Gu Mo yanked his ruler from the earth.

A split second later, both he and Xiao Yulou, pale with fear, turned and bolted, not daring to look back.

Li Hetang, just landing on the ground, was still in a daze. His hair stood on end like the spines of a sea urchin, his mind blank with terror.

The black ant took a step, its three massive legs shaking the earth with a seismic rumble.

“Oh, hell, oh hell, oh hell!”

Li Hetang’s face was ashen as he turned to flee, tears of humiliation streaming from his wide eyes, his mouth spewing curses.

“Xiao Yulou, Gu Mo, damn you both!”

In the distance, the fleeing Gu Mo and Xiao Yulou glowed in the darkness—one wreathed in green light, the other in faint gold—like two beacons in the night.

Beneath their feet, the ground was paved with gleaming square stones, scattered among the soil like dazzling jewels.

With the monstrous ant thundering after them, there was no time to marvel at their bizarre surroundings. For now, Li Hetang’s sense of direction was at least leading him away from death.

The black ant pursued them relentlessly, enraged by Xiao Yulou’s intrusion.

After several minutes, Li Hetang, gasping for breath, found himself catching up to his companions, though moments before he’d been far behind.

Consider this: Li Hetang was, after all, a bona fide “king of soldiers,” while Xiao Yulou, despite his mystical prowess, had never trained his body, and Gu Mo—well, his physical fitness was a joke.

Thus, even burdened, Li Hetang was naturally faster.

As they fled, the three were beset by an ever-growing sense of peril, the torment in their hearts intensifying.

Suddenly, Li Hetang shouted, his eyes bulging, “You idiots! Turn off those damn lights!”

Xiao Yulou was momentarily confused, but Gu Mo instantly extinguished his ghostly flames.

Still, the black ant thundered after them—and how could two-legged creatures ever outrun one with six?

A moment later, sweat pouring down his face, Gu Mo snarled at Xiao Yulou, “You moron, put out the golden light!”

Xiao Yulou immediately focused his mystic energy into his eyes, and the mysterious ghostly pupils appeared once more.

Now, plunged into darkness without the golden or green light, the three ran blindly, like headless flies, fleeing in a straight line.

“Ow!” Xiao Yulou screamed, his voice piercing the gloom.

Before the others could react, the ground vanished beneath their feet, and all three plunged into a river of viscous green liquid.

Splash—

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