That night, before dawn.
While most of the workers were still asleep, the soldiers quietly arrived. They searched all the uninhabited caves and made a list of the workers who were not there that night.
The number of people was greater than expected; workers and civilians, along with soldiers, already accounted for a quarter of the total population, and they were all young and middle-aged.
Looking at this data, the captains of the soldiers and civilians also fell into deep thought.
"If a conflict breaks out, it will be a lose-lose situation." Saman looked at the most stubborn people, until they avoided his gaze.
"Understood, we'll cooperate, for now."
Soon after, a group of soldiers and civilians set off for the sacred tree.
The sacred tree is not far from the anthill, and has been sheltering the anthill from wind and rain for many years.
Long ago, before the gods descended, the sacred tree provided them with shelter. Today, the roots still retain the caves left from that time, which are interconnected and larger than the entire anthill.
"Why did we abandon the sacred tree back then?" a young soldier asked, puzzled.
"In the summer, the cave is at risk of being flooded by rain. But the place where we live now has a drainage system, and excess rainwater will run into the ground."
The soldiers and civilians, carrying torches, carefully entered the area beneath the tree roots and discovered many animal carcasses (mostly insects). They were all burned, and nearby were remnants of fire and cooking utensils.
"They've lived here for a long time." The soldier dropped the fragile beetle shell in his hand.
The food available to the laborers was barely enough to keep them alive. In order to consume more food, they chose to gather fruits and animals themselves to obtain sufficient starch, protein, fat, and other nutrients.
This wasn't a one-time thing, nor a year or two ago, but no one noticed.
"Perhaps someone discovered it, but their choice was to become an accomplice." The treatment of workers and civilians was so poor that they would make such a choice even just to survive. As for soldiers and civilians, perhaps their basic needs were met, but they were still bound by the system.
These two groups of people reached a consensus.
They continued on and found the place where the workers were making tools. There were many broken stone shards, bone fragments, clay, and other things on the ground. They even found fresh footprints.
"Here!" The captain suppressed his nervousness and led his men following the footprints.
As they walked to a fork in the road, thick smoke suddenly billowed out of the cave, causing them to cough, their eyes to sting, and their throats to feel very uncomfortable.
Accompanying the thick smoke were arrows, the same ones used to kill the nobles yesterday. The workers and laborers hid in various corners of the fork in the road; these were traps they had deliberately set.
"Enemy attack!" the captain shouted, pulling out a horn.
The workers heard the mournful sound of horns, which resonated within the cave.
As the white smoke gradually dissipated, they saw that the besieged soldiers and civilians had somehow gathered together, each holding a shield, which formed a hemispherical shape. They had been shooting for half a day, but only a few soldiers and civilians had been wounded.
That's not all. From the direction they came from, a brand new group of soldiers and civilians, fully armed and with wet face towels covering their faces, appeared. They were the second group of soldiers and civilians, and the real backup.
The workers at the crossroads gripped their weapons tightly; were they about to fight to the death?
The second group of soldiers and civilians split into two teams. A tall, leggy man in a white uniform walked over and said:
"Do you want to break the God's blockade and usher in a completely new era?"
His voice was clear and pleasant, but it startled everyone.
"In this new era, we no longer need to painstakingly search for black stones to obtain food, we no longer need to miss seeing our own children, we no longer need to be driven away as soon as we grow old and weak, and we no longer need to humbly kneel before those of higher rank to beg for forgiveness."
A sneer came from the shadows: "Who are you, spouting such nonsense here?"
"I am the person in charge, here to negotiate and seek cooperation. Since things have come to this worst, why not trust me this once?" Saman took two steps forward, opening his arms; he held no weapons.
The workers naturally did not believe such words, or at least not entirely.
But what can you do if you don't believe it? Their soldiers are standing there, proud and imposing, and if a fight breaks out, both sides will suffer huge losses.
"We killed the nobles!" the workers shouted.
"I know," Saman said. "You just want to end this kind of life. Am I right? Shuno, you can't bear to see them die because of this infighting, can you? Was that your original intention in forming this team?"
Saman said a lot. In order to force out Shuye, who was hiding in the shadows, since she was leading the rebels, taking her down was the only way to completely eliminate the threat.
"You can go back to your original position, and so can your subordinates; we have the same goal."
"Tell me, what is our purpose?" A woman's voice came from the depths of the cave.
Saman chuckled. "I'm tired of this life where I can only survive by kneeling and praying to the gods."
He didn't say it directly, but the meaning was clear: he wanted to overturn the trap set by the so-called gods.
Before the descent of the gods, there was no such clear distinction between workers and soldiers, because their genes were the same. Workers could give birth to soldiers, and soldiers could give birth to workers.
The terms "workers" and "soldiers" are divinely bestowed, as are these concepts. Overthrowing the gods means also overthrowing this identity.
"Very good." Shuye emerged from the darkness, followed by many soldiers, civilians, and workers. "Prove it to me."
"You will see it in four days."
When Saman saw that they had come out on their own, he didn't bother to find out whether they believed him or not. He told his subordinates and prepared to call a retreat.
"Clean this place up, I need it." It's such a waste that such a good place has been wasted for decades.
"Boss, even if we can get away with the fieldwork, what's the point of calling these workers back?" his deputy asked in a low voice.
"After all, we haven't lived outside for many years. We don't know what we can eat or what we can't. These workers, on the other hand, have some experience." They will eventually have to break with advanced civilization, so it's better to be prepared now than to be unprepared.
Saman left the cave beneath the tree roots. He glanced back at the sacred tree, and something seemed to flash across its canopy.
Ren Yifei sat on a soft, tender branch with a cloth wrapped around his waist and his upper body bare. In his hand was a water bag with a rolled-up leaf, filled with dew collected overnight.
He carefully drank a little, and his body swayed with the tender branches, his transparent wings fluttering back and forth.
Ren Yifei has two pairs of wings on his back, the upper one is larger and the lower one is smaller. They are completely transparent, but they will flash with starlight when they flap.
Combined with his current physique, he always reminds people of creatures like elves.
When he was in the anthill, he didn't feel small; the main objects of comparison were all designed for his size. But once he stepped outside and into the natural environment, he immediately recalled the fear of being dominated by blades of grass.
Ren Yifei had been sitting on a branch, enjoying the wind for half the night, and he wanted to sit there and wait for the sunrise.
Below is the anthill, but it's so high up here that unless someone has eagle eyes, they won't be able to spot it.
There were actually some fruits growing on the tree. For some reason, even though he didn't recognize them, his body instinctively told him they were edible. He also discovered some traces of human habitation.
On the thick branches, he found many man-made wounds, suggesting that someone had once built nests there. They also carved flowers, birds, insects, and fish into the bark, recording history.
He examined the rough carvings and drawings, which seemed to have been made before the divine descent.
A huge queen, but definitely not as big as the one on the sixth floor, blessed the newborn child. People with horns and without horns, with ears and without ears, knelt below, offering food and precious items.
"..." It seems that the former queen was a combination of a primitive society chieftain and a shaman.
Besides the large, wingless queen, there is also a winged nobleman in the painting, who stands in front of a prostrate man and stretches out his hands in a gesture of 'release'.
Above the kneeling man, many images appeared.
They're acting strangely; it's obviously not a serious activity.
Because of poor preservation, only a few bark paintings remained. Ren Yifei found them uninteresting, so he lay on a branch to observe what was underneath.
Humans were coming and going under the tree. Looking down from the branches, they really looked about the size of ants, densely packed and lined up in neat rows.
Anthill, the name of the copy has never been wrong.
Having twice broken into the fourth level, Gu Cheng is probably now on the dessert player's must-kill list.
The story of Gu Cheng can be considered to have come to a close, and it's time for 'Jiang' to reappear. The excuse is readily available; the player 'Gu Cheng' feels that not killing 'Jiang' would be more beneficial, so he lets him go.
The only troublesome thing is these wings on his back. Ren Yifei turned around and glanced at the beautiful, transparent wings, which looked like a gauze cape when they drooped down.
That's alright, I can just find a cloak to put on and cover the wings, right?
After waiting for a while, the sky turned a pale white, and Ren Yifei sat on a branch, gazing at the horizon.
A pale orange-yellow hue has recently appeared, like a golden line that cuts through the sky and earth. White clouds and green mountains rise and fall in the orange-yellow, and a red sun leaps out.
One step, two steps, three steps, and I jumped in front of him.
The air here is so fresh, it feels like he could reach out and touch the sun.
A gentle breeze blows, and the raindrops nimbly slip through the gaps in the leaves, making a crisp and melodious whistling sound. The leaves are also swayed, and the raindrops fall, making a pitter-patter sound.
Ren Yifei held up a leaf umbrella, but dew still fell, running down his back and wetting the fabric covering him.
"Hiss." The morning mist was really cold; he shivered.
"Alright, wish fulfilled." Having watched the sunrise, today is another day full of energy. Ren Yifei grabbed both sides of a huge leaf with both hands and leaped down from the branch.
The wind lifted the leaves, and it lifted him too, and he drifted slowly toward the ground.
The undulating mountains in the distance, the sun breaking through the clouds, the colorful morning glow... and the nearby grass covered with glistening morning dew, the unknown insects fluttering about, and even the lovely flowers with their soft blushes, all shrank into his eyes.
The leaves carried him on a journey through the wind, before gently and softly landing on a flower in full bloom.
With pale yellow stamens and deep purple petals, like a daisy, he sat on the stamen, shaking off a lot of pollen.
"Achoo, achoo." Ren Yifei covered his face and sneezed, not noticing that the flower was bending more and more under his weight. Finally, he fell off the bent flower and landed on a blade of grass whose neck was bent by the heavy fruit. He slid down the grass stem and 'whoosh'ed to the ground.
"Achoo!" This time it wasn't because of pollen, but because of the weather.
The ground was a bit colder than the trees. Ren Yifei quickly took off the cloth wrapped around his waist, put it back on, and covered his wings completely.
He looked around and realized he had drifted far away. He was still some distance from the big tree, and even further from the anthill.
The workers had already left their lair and, as usual, went out to search for the Black Cube. Ren Yifei didn't want to disturb them, so he hid behind a blade of grass.
The workers wore smiles, seemingly unaware of the harrowing events that had unfolded there the previous night. Ren Yifei avoided their path and headed towards the 'swamp' they had been in.
Ren Yifei always remembered that area as a swamp, but from the treetop, it looked like a muddy puddle filled with water, surrounded by the shade of the tree's canopy.
He quickly found the remote mud pit and the markings he had left earlier.
The swamp is calm; no matter how much it has swallowed, it remains quiet.
Ren Yifei glanced at the swamp and found Jiang's clothes and shoes, which had been buried there before, behind a large rock.
The clothes had been sitting for two days and smelled damp, but he still changed into them immediately. Even though the fabric was tattered, it was still something a laborer couldn't afford to wear.
Such details are one of the keys to the performance.
"Rustling." A sound came from the bushes. Ren Yifei's ears perked up. He reached out and crumpled Gu Cheng's clothes into a ball, stuffing them into the crack between the rocks and filling it with pebbles.
Just as he finished doing all that, and made a coughing face while covering his mouth, the movement in the bushes became obvious. A person slid down from the grass: "Jiang? You're still alive?"
Ren Yifei seemed startled and jumped up to run into the bushes.
"Jiang! Wait!" The man rushed over and grabbed Ren Yifei's collar. "They said it's alright now, don't run away."
Ren Yifei turned his head: "Let go. Don't you know who wants my life, who wants to die with me?"
"The person in charge said personally this morning that no matter what the reason, they will let bygones be bygones." The person holding Ren Yifei wouldn't let him leave.
Ren Yifei was stunned, staring at him blankly, hesitant. After a long while, he asked, "Are you telling the truth?"
"Really. They even mentioned your name."
Ren Yifei: ...
For some reason, the sudden news that the person in charge knew his name made me suspect a conspiracy. This feeling intensified, especially considering that Saman, with his astonishing observation and analytical abilities, was behind him.
Jiang's true identity must be a huge trap.
However, Jiang's fighting prowess was undeniable, so there was no way he could leave. Ren Yifei was dragged back reluctantly. As expected, they didn't make things difficult for him; seeing that he wasn't feeling well, they even draped a blanket over him.
"Our leader will be here soon," the soldier who was hosting him said with a smile.
A moment later, a smiling soldier arrived, dressed in a white coat, and spoke politely: "Could you tell me what Gu Cheng said to you back then?"
"..." Ren Yifei looked at him and hiccuped nervously.
The author has something to say: pitiful, helpless, and weak.
Ah Fei: It's my turn to perform again.