Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 438 The Queen Ant’s Request

After a dizzying moment, Mike and others appeared in a dark, humid environment.

Mike reacted quickly as soon as he landed. A layer of transparent shield silently covered them.

This was a completely instinctive reaction on Mike's part, but it caused serious distress to someone at the scene.

"My Lord! Woohoo! You're finally here... bang... ah!"

Hearing this series of familiar voices, Mike and others lit up their wands. When the light reappeared, everyone saw that they were now in a damp and closed cave. Not far away from them, the traitor from the Avery family was squatting on the ground, covering his nose with his hands and screaming.

"Did this guy hit the armor?"

Franklin asked with some confusion, and Mike and the others all looked at him with a helpless look on their faces.

Shaking his head expressionlessly, Mike silently expanded his mental power. Through the perspective effect of magic perception, he could clearly sense that the cave he was in now was actually a super-large underground space transfer station. With this cave as the center, there were a large number of paths leading to various places. This made Mike worried. You know, they are now racing against time and have no time to explore this cave bit by bit.

Just when Mike and others were in trouble, a strange thing appeared silently in Mike's perception.

"The Upside Down Golden Bell!"

Mike almost instinctively shot a hanging bell towards the direction where the thing was.

Mike's spell flies at an extremely fast speed, and there is no trace visible to the naked eye. It hits the enemy almost the moment the spell is recited.

Franklin and Benjamin also realized that someone was invading. They both held high their wands that were constantly emitting light and slowly approached the enemy vigilantly. They did not finally breathe a sigh of relief until they saw the true face of the hanging enemy.

"Mike, it's just an ant, but this ant is a little strange. It's different from the soldier ants and worker ants we saw before. It actually has wings!" Benjamin reported what he saw, but he suddenly became excited halfway through, "Wait, Mike! His behavior is very strange, it seems like he is using sign language to talk to us!"

Mike's expression became a little strange after hearing this. He asked with some certainty:
"Are you kidding me?"

"No! I swear, he was gesturing. Damn it, does anyone here know sign language?"

Mike and the others naturally didn't know sign language, an extremely niche language, but Benjamin's words still aroused Mike's curiosity. He and Arthur strode over and saw a huge ant with a shiny black body and wings on its back being thrown away.

His situation was very strange. He neither struggled nor showed any intention of attacking Mike and the others.

He was just hanging there quietly, gesturing with the pair of slender tentacles on his head and the pair of forelimbs on his abdomen.

Seeing this, Mike and the others looked at each other, all at a loss.

Finally, Mike pulled over the traitor who was still covering his nose on the ground, pointed at the ant and said:

"Do you understand?"

"Um, this... this he seems..."

"get out!"

Kicking away the traitor who obviously didn't understand but wanted to make up some information to fool him, Mike decided to use the dumbest method.

"The golden bell fell to the ground."

As the spell was recited, the flying ant suspended in the air fell to the ground with a thud.

Benjamin and others on the side all raised their wands and pointed them at him. As long as he showed the slightest sign of wanting to attack, a cruel death would be waiting for him.

But that ant was obviously different. After landing, he first slowly stood up and knelt on one knee in front of Mike. Then he stood up, nodded at Mike, and pointed his finger to a dark passage in the cave.

"Is he... giving us directions again?"

Arthur said this in disbelief. Even now he still couldn't accept that a mere ant could have such high intelligence.

Franklin was obviously not as hypocritical as him. He stared at the ant, but slowly moved towards Mike and said:
"Should we believe him?"

Faced with Franklin's question, Mike remained silent.

He looked at the flying ant's expressionless face covered by its shell, and its large dark eyes reflecting the light, and finally said:
"Let's go with him. We don't know the right way now anyway."

As soon as he finished speaking, Mike took the lead and walked towards the passage pointed by the ant.

Seeing this, Benjamin and others behind him followed.

There was no way, Mike was their boss. Although they still felt deep down that something was not right, since their boss had spoken, they could only follow.

When the ant saw Mike walking in the direction he pointed, it clapped its paws excitedly, then flapped its wings and came in front of Mike, beginning to lead the way for Mike.

Under his leadership, Mike and others turned one corner after another and passed one fork in the road after another.

During this time, Mike left unique magic marks at every fork in the road. If they hadn't done so, given the complexity of this underground passage, they would probably never be able to get out in their lifetime.

No one knew how long it had been, until Mike began to get impatient, a brand new cave finally appeared in front of everyone.

Unlike the previous dimness, this cave is very bright, and the light source that brings light here is the numerous luminous mushrooms growing wildly on the walls of the cave. The light emitted by these mushrooms individually is not very bright, but countless mushrooms combined together illuminate the entire cave.

But the most eye-catching thing in the entire cave is not the glowing mushrooms, but a huge figure in the deepest part of the cave!
It was a giant ant that was more than ten meters tall and almost reached the top of the cave. Its abdomen was extremely huge, almost occupying most of its entire body. Moreover, its snow-white abdomen was shining with a strange luster under the pale light around it, just like jade.

The front end of her body was not much different from that of a normal ant except that it was too huge. The pair of huge but blunt claws opened and closed left and right, making people feel inexplicably palpitating.

Mike recognized her true identity almost the moment he saw her - the queen ant!
In front of this super-large queen ant stood a human in a windbreaker. The human seemed a little unstable, waving his arms and roaring at the queen ant.

The flying ant that led Mike and others arrived at the cave and quietly came to a shadow not far from the queen ant.

There, densely packed with worker ants, soldier ants and flying ants.

Mike looked closely and saw that there was a hole-shaped device installed on the top of the cave far away from the shadow. Snow-white mushroom residues kept falling from it, and the job of the worker ants was to collect these mushroom residues as food for the queen ant.

'That funnel should lead directly to the huge mushroom residue pool on the first floor of the Ant Factory, and this cave should also be underground in the Ant Factory!'

After coming to this conclusion, Mike quickly withdrew his gaze, then raised his hand and quickly made two tactical gestures.

"Sneak, attack."

Soon, Mike and others disappeared from the spot, entered invisible state and walked towards the direction of the human wizard.

Along the way, Mike and his companions encountered large groups of crouching ants. They originally planned to go around them, but the rare flying ants among them seemed to have some kind of keen ability to break stealth. The moment Mike and his companions approached, they commanded other ants to make way.

Seeing this, Mike and others did not hesitate and followed the path made by the ants and got behind the man unimpeded.

……

"Lilith, I'm telling you, there's no benefit in going against us. We have at least a hundred ways to make you die without you even knowing how! So now, immediately, send out your ants to attack those invaders!"

Inside the cave, the human wizard looked extremely angry. He waved his arms desperately and roared at the huge monster above his head.

However, his roar did not receive any response. The huge monster just looked at him quietly. The constantly trembling tentacles and the strange black light in its eyes made him feel as if the other party was laughing at him.

This made him even angrier, and he pulled out his wand from his arms and pointed it at the monster above his head.

However, at this moment, a strange voice came from behind him.

"Good evening, Mr. Avery."

The human wizard's expression suddenly changed, and he turned around and wanted to attack backwards.

But it was too late.

"Expelliarmus!" "Hang the bell!"

Two spells were fired from Franklin's and Benjamin's wands at the same time, hitting the wizard on the left and right, causing him to fall to the ground and his wands to fly out.

Seeing this, the pair of antennae of the queen ant above his head trembled even faster, as if she was gloating at the moment.

Without any hesitation, after subduing the human wizard, Mike immediately pointed his wand at the queen ant above everyone's heads.

This action caused all the surrounding ants to riot. They swarmed over with screams, but they did not dare to actually attack Mike and the others.

As for the queen ant, the moment Mike pointed his wand at her, she froze as if she was cast under a petrification spell, and the pair of antennae on her head stopped trembling.

The scene became eerily quiet, and at this moment, a voice suddenly rose in Mike's heart.

"Dear wizard, please don't hurt me, we are friends."

It was a very gentle and young female voice, and it seemed to have some kind of magic. Not only did it penetrate the brain closure technique constructed by Mike and directly reach Mike's brain, but it also seemed to have some kind of soothing ability, making Mike feel a sense of peace for no reason.

Mike felt something in his heart, looked at the huge queen ant above his head and said:

"Is it you who's talking?"

"Yes, my friend."

"I don't think we are friends." Mike said sarcastically, his wand still pointing at the queen ant. "After all, this is the first time we meet."

"Oh, this really makes me sad. I thought we were already friends." A trace of sadness flashed across the huge queen ant's eyes in a very human way, and then she twisted her head and said, "But it doesn't matter. I think it's not too late for us to get to know each other now. Besides, I believe you will definitely be willing to be friends with me. After all, I have helped you a lot."

Hearing this, Mike shook his head and said:

"You mean the flying ant that led us? I admit that he did save me some trouble, but that's all. If you want to be my friend, this is far from enough."

"I noticed that you just used 'he' to refer to my guard. This is a good sign that we are having a friendly exchange. It means that you are a good person. I like that."

The queen ant seemed really happy. She waved her antennae happily, and a squeaking sound kept coming out of her mouthparts. After hearing the sound, the surrounding ants all quieted down and slowly faded away.

However, Mike remained unmoved and still stood straight.

"Well, powerful wizard, although you may not realize it, we have been helping you all the time. Don't you feel strange? Why is the defense of this secret place so weak? Those wizards didn't set up any sentries, but gathered in the building above our heads?
The reason is simple. It is not necessary at all. Because the brain of every ant in this secret place is connected to me, and I can clearly perceive everything they see. This is equivalent to all ants being my eyes. As long as there is an intruder, I will immediately notify the wizard upstairs and mobilize all my children to attack the intruder.

Do you remember the worker ant you met when you first came in? In fact, I had already discovered you at that time, but I did not do anything. Instead, I let the child lead you to your destination. Don’t you think that this is a great help? "

After carefully chewing on the words of the queen ant, Mike nodded thoughtfully, and then chuckled:
"I admit that this is indeed a great help. But so what? As I said at the beginning, even with your help, it will only take us more time to win. Besides, the reason you helped us is mainly to use us to get rid of your master, the Avery family, right? After all, their attitude towards you is not very good."

As soon as these words were spoken, the antennae on the queen ant's head, which had originally regained their liveliness, froze again, and the surrounding ants gathered together again. The dense rustling sound made people's hair stand on end!

(End of this chapter)