In the central part of the Southern Wilderness, the red ant tribe.
"The harvest this time is too little. It's not even enough to feed myself, let alone bring the prey back to the tribe."
"Stop talking, I'm so hungry. I haven't eaten much in the past two days."
"I'm hungry too..."
In the forest outside the red ant tribe, a hunting team walked toward the tribe dejectedly. Except for two animal skins, they did not bring back any food.
Everyone in the hunting team is sallow and thin, and they are obviously often hungry and malnourished. They look even worse than the people in the small tribe.
At this time, a group of red giant ants walked past in a line from a distance. They used their strong mouthparts to hold some fragments of food, and the line was very neat as they walked.
Originally, the tribesmen were very friendly to the totem gods' fellow tribesmen, and even treated them as friends of equal status.
However, when the people in the hunting team saw these red ants, something was wrong in their eyes, with a hint of disgust and even hostility, but they did not dare to show it too obviously.
After the red ants walked away, a young hunting team soldier whispered: "It's all because of these giant red ants that they have robbed all the food around the tribe."
When the leader of the hunting team heard this, his expression suddenly changed. He grabbed the soldier's collar and lowered his voice: "Shut up, you can say such things? Are you looking for death?"
The young warrior stiffened his neck and said, "What I'm telling you is the truth! The number of red giant ants has long surpassed ours by countless times. They can crawl far and eat more. When they encounter food, they all move back to the ant nest."
Go and leave nothing for us, causing us to be hungry all the time."
When the leader of the hunting team heard these words, he was so angry that he wanted to slap him.
However, when he turned around and saw the members of the hunting team, he found that they all obviously agreed with the young warrior's statement. Everyone was silent and staring directly at him, which made him feel scared.
The leader of the hunting team slowly put down his hand and persuaded in a very low voice: "There are some things that you know in your heart, just forget it. You must not say them out unless you want to betray the Red Ant God and the tribe!"
The words "Betrayal of the tribe" were like a bucket of cold water poured on the heads of everyone in the hunting team, causing the anger and excitement in their hearts to instantly turn to ice.
As tribal people, they have lived in the tribe since childhood, grew up listening to various legends and stories of the tribe, and have an extremely strong sense of belonging and honor to the tribe.
Betraying the totem god and the tribe is not only emotionally difficult to accept, but the price is also unbearable for them, because it means they will lose the power of the totem, lose their home, and even lose their lives.
The leader of the hunting team continued to persuade: "Let's go, go back to the tribe first, and we will think about food later."
After saying that, he took the lead and walked towards the huge ant nest-shaped building.
The other soldiers looked at each other, and finally followed them back as if resigned to their fate.
But this does not mean that they have forgotten this matter in their hearts, they just hide their anger deeper.
In fact, not only this hunting team encountered such a situation, but also the entire Red Ant tribe encountered the same dilemma.
Although it doesn't snow in the central part of the Southern Wilderness in winter, the temperature drop is inevitable, and all kinds of animals and plants still follow the laws of the four seasons.
This means that after winter, the food available in the forest will be significantly reduced.
In the absence of much food reserves, the reduction of food, coupled with the plunder of giant red ants, caused the entire red ant tribe to often go hungry.
When the most basic living conditions were threatened, the people of the red ant tribe developed great resentment towards the giant red ants that reproduced crazily and competed with people for food.
As time goes by, this resentment will accumulate deeper and deeper until it suddenly breaks out at a certain opportunity, causing unforeseen serious consequences.
What they don’t know is that this opportunity will come much sooner than most people imagine!
…
The ninth year of the Vine Tribe, early December.
A highly respected old warrior in the tribe passed away. According to tradition, his body will be sent to the depths of the ant nest, and his soul will always be with the red ant god.
For the people of the Red Ant Tribe, this was originally a supreme honor. However, during the funeral, an accident happened!
A red giant ant didn't know whether it was extremely hungry or just used to eating. It didn't even wait for the corpse to be carried into the ant nest, and directly ate a piece of meat from the deceased while waiting!
This old warrior had a very high prestige in the Red Ant tribe, and many tribesmen attended the funeral.
When everyone saw the giant red ants eating the old soldier with their own eyes, they suddenly exploded.
Someone shouted in horror: "The giant red ants are eating people, the giant red ants are eating people!"
Some family members threw themselves on the deceased, crying and shouting: "Grandpa Yangjiao..."
There were many people who looked at the miserable corpses and clutched the spears in their hands. The anger in their hearts soared rapidly, gradually burning their reason.
Especially when thinking about the giant red ants that usually rob food and make everyone starve, the resentment that has been accumulated in everyone's hearts for many days is almost about to explode!
"Kill this man-eating demon!"
Someone in the crowd shouted angrily, and instantly ignited the huge powder keg.
"Whoosh!"
A spear quickly stabbed at the man-eating giant red ant, followed by a second, then a third...
Although the red giant ant had a hard shell, it was unable to withstand so many angry warriors. Before it had time to resist, it was smashed into a sieve and died miserably next to the old warrior's body.
"hiss!"
The tragic death of their companions angered the surrounding red giant ants who were watching. Under the command of the largest red giant ant, they began to spray formic acid at the soldiers, and then pounced on the soldiers with their fangs and claws.
The battle between humans and red giant ants started instantly. Countless warriors fought to the death with the familiar red giant ants. The entire tribe fell into chaos in a short period of time.
"Stop, everyone, stop!"
"Stop fighting!"
The leader and the shaman of the red ant tribe shouted at the top of their lungs and tried hard to separate the tribe from the giant red ants and make them stop fighting.
However, those tribesmen have long had deep grudges, and now they are even more murderous. How can they be stopped?
Not to mention those giant red ants. Their IQ is limited and they can't command anyone except the queen ant. When they fight, they kill without any scruples.
Originally this was just an accidental behavior of a giant red ant, but it ended up triggering turmoil in the entire tribe.
Faced with the chaotic situation, the leader and the witch of the red ant tribe were so anxious that they didn't know how to stop the battle.
Especially the leader Gu Li, he clearly knows that the current red ant god is not their original totem god at all, and he also knows that the living space of the tribe is getting smaller and smaller by the giant red ants, making it more and more difficult.
In the current situation, he actually wanted to lead his tribe to fight hard and completely overthrow the rule of the red ant god, but his reason told him that this was simply unrealistic because the gap in strength between the two sides was too big.
For a moment, Gu Li fell into extreme struggle and pain, not knowing what to do.