Tord was allowed to stay inside the main building with Reign and the others, at least for now.
The young man was talented and strong, and Reign would definitely not mind having him join the territory, but mentally, he was wrecked. Regaining all of his memories worked both for and against him, Tord now knew exactly what had happened, but the price for knowing that was not a small one.
With him having the knowledge of what had happened, his entire life had changed. Everything he had been doing up until that point was living and training for the organization. He was the only disciple of the leader and the one everyone expected would take over the organization in the future.
He had devoted his life to the organization, only to now remember that it was them that had taken everything from him. The organization and the leader were the ones that had destroyed his previous life before altering his memories and making him a zealot that was prepared to do anything for the organization.
They let Tord settle down in a room before leaving the building. Reign and Wolf had thoughts about things, and for now, there was not much they could do.
Beast was fine, but he needed more time to regain consciousness. Until that happened, the only thing that the trio of Reign, Wolf, and Greenie could do was go to the mountain range.
With their current strength, they would certainly be able to go deep inside the mountain range and finally uncover just what has been happening deep inside.
Of course, without the rest of them returning and them improving their strength a bit, they wouldn't risk going too deep and getting surrounded by all sides. Reign and the others merely wished to go and inspect the depths of the mountain range that they had in the past been unable to come close to thanks to all the demon bases nearby.
Not only were there hundreds if not thousands of demons there, but the Tier IV demons were also present. With their incredible strength, Reign and the others had previously not been able to come close, otherwise only death would await them.
Right now, however, was a different story. With the three of them all being Tier IV beings, they were confident that even if the demons dared attack them, they would be able to at least flee. Of course, since they knew that the demon tribes were all scattered around and no base was close to one another, Reign and the others heavily doubted that the demons would even dare to attack them since the number of Tier IV combatants in one base was very small, and even though the demons were lucky recently and had some new Tier IV demons joining their ranks after managing to evolve, a tribe would still find it a bit tough to go against 3 Tier IV beings at once.
Not to mention that Reign, Wolf, and Greenie were not 3 normal Tier IV beings, which further made things difficult.
The trio made their way toward the portals before going to the first mountain. Even though Reign and Wolf had previously found New York, and Reign had already notified Shadow's father about it, there was still no way of getting there.
The way to New York was a simple one, cross the ocean that stood between the landmass they were at and New York, which was much easier said than done considering the fact that incredibly powerful sea creatures stood between them and New York.
The serpent they had seen coiling around the Statue of Liberty was more than powerful enough to defeat any of them, and god knew just what other kinds of monstrosities could be found in the sea.
Even with this now relatively high strength, Reign knew that he would be powerless when faced against a sea monster in the sea, where his movements were limited and he wasn't able to fight with 100% of his power.
The moment Reign and the others arrived on the first mountain, however, they had to stop as one of the players that frequented the underground city and fought against the ants in order to increase his level came from the portal right after them.
"Boss, boss!" The man shouted as he ran toward Reign and the others.
"There's trouble boss, below the underground city, there's something happening there, we don't know what, we got no idea what is even happening!" The man started shouting and talking quickly, making it impossible for Reign to fully understand him.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Wolf suddenly said as he made the man stop talking.
"Calm down fist, take some deep breaths, and come with us back to Doncaster and the underground city and tell us everything along the way, alright?" Wolf asked the man who nodded to him before taking a couple of deep breaths.
"So, what's happening?" Reign asked the man as they went through the portal.
"It's the queen, I don't know what happened, nobody does, but she suddenly got encased in some sort of white cocoon, and it's shrinking." The man said with a worried expression on his face.
The ant queen was very important for the territory as she laid eggs and made it possible for them to have so many ants to fight against. Of course, she needed a lot of nutrition in order to lay the eggs, so the adventurers always brought carcasses with them and left them in the caves below the underground city.
They had quite a good relationship with the queen, they brought food for her and her brood, while she made more of the ants and gave them all exp. If something was to happen to her, however, then the consequences would be dire.
Without the queen, there would no longer be any ants present, and the largest and most used farming area that the players used to hunt and increase their levels would be gone. That would slow down the increase in levels when it came to those who were Tier I and Tier II, and nobody wanted to see that happen.
Of course, it wasn't as if Reign and the others didn't expect something to happen to the queen sooner or later. She wouldn't just lay eggs for all eternity and one day, something had to change. Either she would die out of old age, one player might kill her in rage, she might leave her habitat and start attacking the players, forcing them to kill her…
But Reign didn't expect her to get covered in a cocoon, which usually happened when a being was going through an evolution. Hearing how the cocoon was getting smaller was not a good thing for Reign as that meant that the queen was also becoming smaller.
He wanted the opposite since a bigger queen would be able to lay more eggs right away and could spawn even more ants, leading to an increase in the ant population.
It didn't take Reign and the others long to get to where the ant queen was. There were a couple of ants around her, most noticeably the two 2.5 meters tall and 6-meter-long Majors that were at the peak of Tier II each.
The caves below the underground city were massive. Even the tunnels connecting the caves in this cave network were incredibly large and even a car would be able to pass through the tunnels.
Reign stared at the cocoon while the ants stood close to him, but none of them dared to even touch him. They could sense the immense power coming from inside of him and knew that they would die immediately if they tried doing anything to him.
As Reign and the others stared at the cocoon, which was getting smaller and smaller by the passing minute, a change finally occurred after about half an hour.
pαndα`noνɐ1~сoМ The cocoon had already stopped any movement and had dried out completely. The white cocoon became gray and Reign and the others could sense a weak heartbeat coming from inside of it.
The heartbeat slowly became more and more powerful until finally, the cocoon cracked. More and more cracks showed up before the cocoon suddenly cracked open. The cocoon was blasted away and turned into dust while the queen showed herself to Reign and the others.
Each one of them had their eyes opened wide and gulped as a girl that was seemingly about 20 years old showed herself to them. She wasn't human, one would immediately see that thanks to the 4 eyes she had, the two mandibles that were sticking out from her mouth, and thanks to the fact that her hands and legs were purple and hairy.
The ant queen stared at them before suddenly bowing toward Reign while her mandibles went back inside her mouth.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, honored guests." The queen suddenly spoke as Reign and the others once again widened their eyes in shock. Seeing her human appearance was shocking, and even though her talking shouldn't really surprise them at this point, it still did.
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