I lay on a dead branch, lazily basking in the sun.

It's morning, I'm not hungry right now, and I don't have the motivation to hunt for a while. Fresh from the underground lair and still a little stiff, I needed the heat of the sun to help me recover my body quickly.

Whenever I have this kind of free time, I recall, it's a habit. But most of my relatives don't seem to like it, they think it's a daze, a waste of time and energy, and they tell me that only lazy males spend their days in a daze.

Male ants are slackers, waste, parasites, I think so too.

In contrast, I, a mighty warrior, is the revered presence of the kin.

I was born in the spring, but I didn't catch the season, and I didn't break my pupae until it was already hot.

There are not many old relatives left in the spring, and they tell me that there is a cold and terrible white season before spring.

But I haven't seen it, and maybe I won't, after all, valiant warriors often don't live long.

Still, at least I like the season now, warm and cozy.

I am a warrior, and my upper jaw is larger and longer than that of other relatives, curved upwards, and its sharp beak pointing straight to the sky.

This is my weapon, and I use it to hunt for food, and to kill our neighbors who are arguing with us.

I love the thrill of sneaking behind my target and suddenly jumping and stabbing because I could see the fear in their compound eyes at that moment.

As a brave warrior, I would go hunting or fighting every few days with my clan, and I was lucky to have survived the constant battle.

The targets of the battle are both neighboring kindreds and some "outsiders".

Thinking of these outsiders, I unconsciously wiped my roof with my antennae, thinking of a delicacy.

According to rumors from the old relatives, these black, small, dumb-headed, but also vicious outsiders came here last year.

Like the old enemies of our race, the polluted degenerates, these ants who are not part of our race are our enemies.

This hostility is much higher than rivalry between neighbors of the same group.

When I first broke out of the pupal this year, my tribe attacked these black outsiders along with several neighboring tribes.

It doesn't take any reason for us to hate these outsiders and not like them coming into the places where we have lived for generations.

Be sure to kill them all!

However, these black aliens are also very powerful, and although they don't have the sharp palates, powerful bounces, and huge compound eyes that we have given us, they always gather together to fight.

I watched as one of my clan's fierce warriors jumped into their ranks, knocking over and killing several outsiders in an instant with his jaw. But the next moment, she was crawling all over her body by a dense crowd of outsiders, crushed to the ground, and never got up again.

The battle in the spring was lost, the outsiders were strong, and several of our tribes lost quite a few valiant warriors.

So we retreated.

Defeat and retreat are no big deal, if you can't fight, you should run, but we will definitely drive away these outsiders. In the depths of the mountains, there are countless tribes of our kindred, who may support us as they did against the Fallen.

Moreover, the smell of aphids brought by outsiders was really good, and I licked the roof of my mouth with my tentacles again.

I've eaten aphids, but the ones in the wild are too sporadic and shriveled, and they taste a little sweet, but not enjoyable.

But the last time I attacked a lone outsider, I killed it, and found that there were countless aphids next to it, and these aphids were crystal clear, green, and chubby.

It was the most delicious meal I've ever had, and as soon as I bit into it, the chubby shell of the struggling aphid burst open in my mouth, and a sweet taste hit me in an instant, and the pleasure from food was even stronger than when I killed an enemy.

On that day, a few of my relatives and I ate all the aphids here.

Although then our tribe had to migrate under the attack of outsiders and left the place where they had lived.

But this delicious memory is deeply remembered. Next time, when will the hordes attack these outsiders again? Sooner or later, there will be aphids to eat!

Our tribe now lives on top of a barren hill, which was taken from a tribe of the same tribe after migration.

Maybe it's because it's so barren, the grass doesn't grow much, and there's only rocks everywhere. Perhaps the neighbors who were well-off did not feel worthy of fighting to the death with those of us who had fled and were therefore so fierce, they easily ceded this place to us.

But there are so few prey here, and with the losses we had in attacking outsiders before, our tribe now has less than a hundred members, only two-thirds of what it was in its prime.

I was comfortable in the sun when I felt my body touched.

Looking back, I saw a relative's queen ant beside me.

She was about the same length as me, but had a more convex back, a base of wings that had fallen off, and a thick back belly.

I know her, she and I both broke the pupal this year. But she is a female ant, and I am a worker ant warrior, although they are also a fierce hunter and a nest, but her status is more noble than mine.

She's more advanced than me, not because she's better at fighting than me, and even because everyone says the queen is wiser, I don't think she's much smarter than me.

Just because she's a queen, she can lay eggs. Although I can, the tribe stipulates that only queens can have offspring because of their high status.

I'm a little confused by these rules. But this queen and I are familiar with each other, we have acted together when attacking outsiders, and we have eaten delicious aphids together.

She told me she was hungry, but the two of us had just killed a cricket together last night and ate its soft belly and smooth entrails.

Although the cricket was small and had less to eat, I wasn't hungry, but she was hungry.

No wonder, I looked at her bloated belly. She's been laying eggs lately.

In the entire tribe, only those five queens can lay eggs. Without food, they cannot lay eggs, which are the hope of the tribe for the future.

The hills are so barren that the queens lay very few eggs, and sometimes the eggs laid are eaten by the hungry queens themselves.

I can't help but rejoice that I was born at a time when food was abundant, otherwise I probably wouldn't have been able to break the pupa against.

Although the valiant warrior is not afraid of death, I still feel worse when I see the eggs of my relatives who have been eaten, even worse than when I am hungry!