"I can't tell if my foresight is complete trash or useful."
A ant said scratching its foreleg with the rocky wall around it, As the ant was End someone who had just reincarnated into this world after being unfortunate to have fallen from a cliff while being chased by bees.
End was born into a colony of insects, with his unique body that mimics a creature has a sleek, armored exoskeleton with sharp, angular designs resembling a wasp or mantis, and it emits a sense of power and menace.
Its body is primarily gold, with bright white, blade-like wings and red glowing accents on what seem to be its eyes or sensors near the head.
End could help but place a Golden liquid is dripping from its legs, splashing onto the ground and glowing vividly against the dark cave-like background.
This was the golden honey created by the insect ant race, it was a unique food that seemed to be what made them unique but that was End's thought as he felt bored and exhausted.
He had been trapped in this cave seen the first time he was sent into this world making him unusually nervous about everything and anything. Even a small sound would make him as alert as a scared deer.
However even qith all that, he was actually hiding as he was running from his duty that most golden male ant was suppose to be doing, naturally he was meant to be in the queen's chamber help her out in breed.
"Just a little more."
End thought as he couldn't get caught because the minute he did, he would be bought to breed with the queen which is normally known to make the male abdomen to explode and died from.
He couldn't think or want to every experience such a disaster and died.
He tilted his head, watching a cluster of smaller worker ants passing nearby, dragging chunks of moss and bits of fungus. They were smaller, darker — their chitin a matte brown, their bodies rigid and precise. Every movement was a perfect pattern of duty. They didn't think; they didn't dream. They existed for the colony.
How different I am from them, he thought, an odd pride stirring inside him. But it quickly disappears as a thought appear.
"They can freely moving around but I can't."
He extended one leg, letting it brush against a nearby wall. The vibrations of countless footsteps resonated through the soil. There were thousands of them — millions, maybe — working tirelessly above and below.
And yet, End stood apart.
Sometimes, the workers would pause briefly when passing him about seem suspicious about his appearance, but due to many ant lacking eyesight and only using the tentacles to identify he could trick them.
He found it… annoying.
Perhaps it was arrogance, a leftover emotion from his human life. Or something else but he find it annoying to by hiding for something as stupid as any ant. However he could make any mistake or he would be cooked.
But even as pride swelled in him, another thought surfaced.
He had never seen the surface. Not yet. The colony's lower chambers were his world. The tunnels, the eggs, the workers, the soft hum of the Queen's song — this was all he knew right now.
The Queen's pheromone patterns forbade it. No male left the colony without permission. No golden one had ever been allowed to leave. But as someone with intelligence he could be controlled by the weak instinct of insect.
"Maybe, if I could find a way to gain my human body after, I get to the human race camps."
"I maybe by also able to go back home to where my parent are....."
His thoughts were interrupted by a faint tremor in the soil.
He froze, antennae rising.
A pulse of pheromones spread through the chamber — faint, rhythmic, familiar. It was the scent of the Forager Teams. The workers sent to hunt and gather.
They were returning.
A wave of satisfaction pulsed faintly through the pheromone channels — a collective hum of success. The workers were coming back laden with food, perhaps even prey rich with Aether.
End relaxed slightly.
He could finally steal some food and pretend he was helping while enjoy the profit of doing absolutely nothing.
And yet, as he waited, something… changed.
The air shifted.
A faint, unfamiliar vibration rippled through the soil beneath his legs. A subtle, uneasy tremor that didn't belong to the rhythmic march of the foragers.
End's antennae twitched sharply. His instincts — sharper than any other ant's — screamed in warning.
He focused, extending his aetheric sense outward. His perception stretched like invisible feelers, tasting the air, reading the traces of energy that seeped through the tunnels.
What he felt made his chest tighten.
Something was wrong.
The returning workers' pheromones — the pattern was distorted. Chaotic. Tainted with panic and blood.
The scent of danger.
He rose quickly, his golden wings flickering faintly in the dim light. His body tensed, muscles coiled.
From the far tunnel, the first of the foragers emerged — staggering. Her chitin was cracked, dark liquid oozing down her side. She released a broken, desperate pheromone call that flooded the air with alarm. Behind her, more followed — injured, limping, dragging their ruined limbs.
End felt his pulse quicken. The entire chamber began to stir as the distress signal spread. Worker ants halted their duties, turning toward the entrance, their antennae twitching in confusion and fear.
Then came the smell.
A foul, acidic stench that burned even through the thick air — the scent of a predator.
End took a cautious step back, his eyes narrowing as faint vibrations grew stronger, closer.
Something was coming.
Something big.
His instincts screamed again — louder, sharper, primal. Aether surged through his veins, his golden scales shimmering faintly as his body prepared for battle.
The tunnel darkened as shadows flickered within it.
A massive, jagged shape appeared — crawling, dragging itself through the narrow entrance. Its body was slick with aetheric slime, its mandibles dripping with the scent of death.
The workers shrieked in pheromone panic, scattering as the creature forced its way through the tunnel. The wounded foragers collapsed, crushed under its weight.
End's thoughts raced.
What is that?
His body trembled — not in fear, but in anticipation.
For the first time since his rebirth, the world had stopped feeling safe.
And deep within him, something stirred — a forgotten instinct, a buried thrill.
His Aether flared, coating his wings in a faint, radiant glow. The soil beneath him cracked slightly from the pressure of his power.
The ant looked ready to attack but also confuse, they suddenly with a burst of force ant could be seen appearing, as they didn't hold back and attack anything they see.
"Is another ant colony attacking."
End thought but he felt that was not the case as he got a closer look at the ant, they all had the same identical appearance and scent with the ant colony, but their head was flat and fungal was growing on it.