Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 546 Black Spring
When the minute was up, only 35 cars remained in place, with nearly a third of the people choosing to retreat.

"Keep up." After saying these two words, Nagano Soya started the machine.

The White Tiger mech is equipped with hidden wheels on its feet, as well as jet cushions. Even without the aid of thrusters, it can easily reach a speed of 100 kilometers per hour on flat terrain. A speed of 140 kilometers per hour is achieved simply by maintaining a relatively aerodynamic posture and having two to four auxiliary thrusters provide some thrust to the mech at minimum output power.

But for hunters and mercenaries, 140 kilometers per hour is not the maximum speed of a vehicle—with the performance of their modified vehicles, they can basically reach more than 200 kilometers per hour... At this speed, the decisive factor in whether the vehicle will overturn is no longer the skill, but the luck of the passengers.

If the car runs over even a slightly larger rock, it will lose control and fly off the road... At this speed, if the passengers inside are not infected individuals with high-level physical enhancement memes, their chances of survival are basically zero.

Nagano Soya seemed to have considered this problem as well, and directly increased the output of the air cushion jets under the feet of the machine. Combined with the energy shield on the surface of the machine, wherever the White Tiger passed, all the stones and clods of earth on the ground would be crushed and turned into an absolutely flat road.

"Is this the territory of the flesh-eating ants...?" The accountant, driving a heavy trailer, looked at the cracked, dry land around him and forcibly suppressed his inner tension.

There are many holes on the ground, like those poked by chopsticks. Whenever a wheel rolls over these holes, a rustling sound comes from inside them.

At first, the sound was very faint and was directly drowned out by the sound of the vehicles. But gradually, the rustling sound became louder and louder. It was not just a simple change of direction, but also accompanied by a slight vibration of the ground. It was as if countless flesh-eating ants would swarm out of these holes at any second and engulf the entire convoy like a tide.

A faint sense of fear slowly crept into everyone's hearts.

"Hiss... Is that the sound of flesh-eating ants?" a hunter said, baring his teeth. "Damn, it's chilling... I don't even want to think about how many flesh-eating ants are lurking underground..."

“The meme monitoring equipment has exceeded its limit.” Another hunter sitting next to him looked at the dashboard with its numbers jumping wildly. “There are too many… and each flesh-eating ant is an independent meme fragment, so the instrument can’t measure the exact number of flesh-eating ants at all.”

"Forget about the quantity, let's think about when these bugs will crawl out!" the driver said without turning his head. "Damn it, all I want to do right now is get out of this hellhole!"

"Any empty bottles? Bring me the gasoline can!" The hunter in the back seat casually shoved the memetic monitoring device under his seat. "Whether it works or not, let's try anything!"

After the rustling sound reached a certain level, the air suddenly fell into a brief silence, and then black "spring water" began to gush out from these dense holes!
To be precise, it wasn't a spring, but a "swarm" of flesh-eating ants less than a centimeter in diameter!
These flesh-eating ants were pushed into the air, more than ten meters above the ground, by the immense pressure, and then, to the horror of the hunters and mercenaries, they fell like a torrential rain.

The crisp knocking sounds kept coming from the roof of the car. The two hunters, each holding a mineral water bottle filled with gasoline, exchanged a glance and saw fear and confusion in their companion's eyes.

Previous information about flesh-eating ants only mentioned that they would emerge from the "ventilation holes" of their nests to attack humans and vehicles, but it never mentioned that they would use some kind of underground gas pressure to launch themselves into the air and then attack intruders from above.

How are we supposed to deal with this?!
More terrifying than the crisp knocking sound was the sound of the flesh-eating ants' mouthparts slicing and digging into the metal. More than 90% of the flesh-eating ants that landed on the car roof were either swarmed away or rolled off the sides of the roof, but the remaining 10% used the barbs at the ends of their segments to firmly attach themselves to the roof and began to devour the metal material. Almost every car was covered with black flesh-eating ants, looking from a distance like glutinous rice balls rolled in black sesame seeds. The only car that remained clean was the White Tiger that was clearing the way—the flesh-eating ants that landed on the White Tiger were instantly burned to ashes by the energy shield, leaving not even a trace.

"Boss!" The accountant on the heavy trailer looked at the flesh-eating ants feasting on the windshield and felt a pang of despair—these ant-like creatures had even included glass in their diet, in addition to flesh and metal.

"I'm doomed! Boss, don't worry about us. Before these bugs eat me, I'll hand you the spare ammo and energy cubes from the trailer! Take them and get out of here!"

As the accountant spoke, he reached out and grabbed a control lever located under the steering wheel. A mechanical arm at the rear of the trailer, which had been folded up, extended, and the grappling hook at the front of the mechanical arm lifted two metal boxes, each about one meter square.

Before the robotic arm could hand over the box, the robotic arm, which was also covered with flesh-eating ants, suddenly let out a groan of unbearable strain. Then, the entire robotic arm lost all its strength and crashed heavily to the ground.

With a loud bang, two metal boxes crashed onto the shelf, deforming the I-beam steel shelving.

"Damn it!" the accountant couldn't help but curse. "The liquid control system for the robotic arm has been chewed up by these bugs!"

By this time, the white tiger had slowed down. It rested one hand on the side of the heavy trailer, while the fingertips of its other hand spewed out high-temperature flames as it cleared away the flesh-eating ants wrapped around the trailer's cab—Nagano Soya seemed unwilling to abandon his loyal subordinate.

“Boss, it’s no use… The undercarriage is crawling with flesh-eating ants… They’re everywhere.” The accountant gripped the steering wheel with one hand, the other already holding the pistol at his waist. “It won’t be long before they gnaw through the outer steel plate and crawl into the cockpit… I know what awaits me… Boss, you should just leave!”

The accountant glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that the situation in the convoy behind them was even worse. Many vehicles had collided with each other, and there were numerous overturned, overturned, exploded, and caught fire. There were very few vehicles still following closely behind them... But even those few vehicles were covered with swarms of flesh-eating ants.

The destruction of the entire convoy was only a matter of time.

No one could have predicted that the flesh-eating ants would launch an attack on the convoy in such an unbelievable way.

Hysterical curses and intermittent screams came through the communication channel, and the chilling sound of ants devouring flesh could be faintly heard.

The accountant sighed, raised his pistol, and pointed it at his temple.

(End of this chapter)