The pursuers also saw the flying knights in the air, and they decisively gave up the pursuit, turned and disappeared into the grass, and vaguely, the flying knights could only be sure that the enemy was retreating to the north.

In the next few days, more than a dozen secondary nests in the territory on the north bank of the Qing River in the entire Ant Alliance, from [Xinyang City] to the Black Forest region, received orders, and scouts were dispatched everywhere to search for this bold enemy.

The "Celestials" stayed behind to organize the pursuit, but the enemy was clever and scattered into three ways, and kept fleeing through the artemisia forest and grass, making it difficult for the flying knights in the air to track.

Artemisia grass, which originally covered the retreat of the protagonist and his party, has now become a shelter for the enemy when they flee.

On that day, the pursuing troops only surrounded and eliminated a group of enemy troops, and the male ants of the red fire ant and the male ant of the belly raised ant, which the protagonist asked to capture alive were not among them.

As night fell, in order to avoid unnecessary casualties, the pursuing troops chose to camp on the spot or go to the nearby side nest for the night, giving the enemy the opportunity to escape overnight.

And on the same day, after the protagonist returned safely to [Xinyang City], a bloody storm broke out in the city.

The news of the assassination of the Divine Envoy quickly spread throughout the lair, and at the same time as the news spread throughout the laid, along with the Praetorian Guards and the regular army of the Divine Envoy King's legion.

The mounds of the three families of bellied ants, burrowing ants, and Japanese black brown ants were completely surrounded, and no entry or exit was allowed, and the army entered them to search them on a large scale, and even controlled all the male ants and queens.

Since the Ant Coalition did not have an intelligence service and a gendarmerie, the Praetorian Guard and the General Staff of the Military Department took on this task on an ad hoc basis. They had to interrogate all the males and queens of the three tribes one by one, trying to find out if there were any complices of the attackers.

The ordinary professional ants of the three families of belly-bellied ants in the wild and in the nest were also ordered to stay in the designated place, and temporarily forbidden to contact the male ants and queens, otherwise they would be killed directly. The work of caring for the queen ant is also temporarily taken over by the big-headed worker ants.

At the same time, the area inside and outside [Xinyang City] was also turned upside down, and the ants of the Praetorian Guard and the Military Department Staff Office searched everywhere, not letting go of any clues.

Selected reliable worker ants of various races participated in this operation, and they had to identify the location of the protagonist's attack and all the pheromones inside and outside [Xinyang City], long-term and short-acting, hoping to find some clues from them.

This operation lasted for 4 days, and all kinds of information were gathered, and the protagonist finally understood the cause and effect of his assassination.

The mastermind of this assassination is the male ant of the red fire ant that the protagonist saw in the small leaf boxwood, he is from the northern paving ant empire, and is an elder in the remnants of the red fire ant kingdom who fled into the paving ant empire, known for his resourcefulness, and calls him "Wise Elder".

Also remaining in [Xinyang City] are the internal responses of the "Wise Elders", who confessed that the "Wise Elders" had secretly crossed the territory of the Leaf-cutting Ant Country last autumn and arrived in the Ant Alliance.

The other party secretly came into contact with some belly-raising ants, burrowing ants, and Japanese black brown ants in several secondary nests in the northern part of the ant alliance, and some of the male ants of these three families surrendered and were hired when the ant alliance conquered the red fire ant country.

Although most of the surrendered workers were sent to the canal construction site, some of the older males were also assigned to nests in various places, separated from the main army of the tribe, to prevent them from having any undesirable thoughts.

But the protagonist didn't expect it, but this gave these ants who cherished their old owners another chance.

The "Wise Elders" said that next year, the army of paving ants and red fire ants will send a large army to regain the lost territory, and if these "traitors" do not immediately "do it", they will be slaughtered as revenge. These former slave males, who suffered from "Stockholm syndrome", immediately bowed their heads.

The three clans of the belly-raising ants who set off a rebellion in the three sub-nests in the north after the beginning of spring today were bewitched by the "Wisdom Elders", but they didn't want to expose it so early, but planned to hide and wait for the Paving Ant Imperial Army in the north and the old master Red Fire Ant Army to respond when they went south.

However, the contact between the nests of the ant alliance is much closer than that of other ant countries, and the disappearance of the flying knight makes the ant alliance aware of the abnormality in advance, so that the rebels can only act in advance.

The "Wise Elder" did not stay in the north before the winter of last year, and after learning that some of the male ants of the three tribes of bellied ants had surrendered in the main nest of the Ant Alliance, he was bold enough to sneak in with a small number of guards.

The "Wise Elder" has the bellied ant people who are subordinate to him as guides, and these slave ants move on the bright side, and they themselves fall quietly behind, and occasionally encounter the guards to check and find no anomalies.

In this way, he walked all the way to [Xinyang City], and the "Wise Elder" successfully ambushed a male ant in the wild as an internal response.

This male ant is the one who lures the protagonist to the ambush site, and the protagonist thinks he's a bit of a thief when they first meet, so let's call him "Thief Eye".

"Thief's Eye" is the former slave of the Red Fire Ant Kingdom who surrendered to the Ant Alliance, and because of his good behavior, he was also given the status of a national of the Ant Alliance and a representative of the Ant Clan as a typical example.

But he has no real power, and on weekdays, he commands dozens of bellied ants to raise aphids and scale insects outdoors, doing miscellaneous work, and he has long been dissatisfied in his heart.

In the wild, he met the "Wise Elder", and immediately returned to the arms of the old master, and used the convenience of power to secretly bring the "Wise Elder" and his two guards into the ant mound of the bellied ant clan in [Xinyang City] and lurked.

The "Wise Elder" uses the hiding place as a secret base, and the "Thief's Eye" comes forward to quietly collude with the slave male ants of the former Red Fire Ant Country in the winter to strengthen his own power.

I have to say that although the Red Fire Ant Country treats slaves very badly, these slaves are loyal and desperate, and these male ants who are contacted by the "thief's eye" have all betrayed the ant alliance country that treats them well without exception and choose to support the old master.

It was also during the lurking period in [Xinyang City] that the "Wise Elder" learned about the political system of the Ant Alliance, although he didn't realize how irreplaceable the protagonist was for the Ant Alliance, but he felt that this Divine Envoy King was equivalent to the chief elder of the Elders of the Red Fire Ant Country.

The "Wise Elder" realized that if he could kill the Divine Envoy King, it would bring a lot of harm to the Ant Alliance, and it would be more conducive to the restoration of the Red Fire Ant Kingdom in the coming year than setting off a rebellion in a few side nests.

So, he and "Thief Eye" planned this assassination kill, pulling most of the rebels loyal to the Red Fire Ant Kingdom to the ambush site in advance, and "Thief Eye" lured the protagonist to take the bait.

A small number of rebels continue to lurk and wait for the arrival of future armies to come in handy.

The fake news that the protagonist was very attracted to and made the protagonist credulous believe the discovery of a large number of locust eggs was also determined by the "wise elder" based on the information he collected, which really moved the protagonist's heart.

The cunning of this "wise elder" can also be seen from this.