Chimera Ants are a Level A quarantine-designated species.
The terrifying aspect of this species lies in the Chimera Ant Queen's ability to consume other organisms and pass their traits to the next generation.
Thus, she deliberately ingests genetic material from stronger creatures, swiftly driving those species to extinction to ensure the long-term survival of her own kind.
Following this biological instinct, the Chimera Ant Queen continuously migrates based on her nesting requirements.
Once a location is chosen, the Queen tirelessly produces large numbers of Chimera Ant soldiers, along with Carpenter Ants for nest construction and Drudges for miscellaneous tasks.
When the Queen deems the soldier population sufficient to protect the nest, she focuses entirely on preparing for the birth of the 'King.'
During this period, the Queen's food consumption increases dramatically, eventually reaching staggering levels.
Initially, she might consume only twenty times her body weight in food, but this amount steadily rises to approximately three hundred times.
This means if the Queen preys on humans, at her peak feeding stage, she would need to consume three hundred people per day.
The gestation period for the King typically spans two months.
After the King's birth, the colony's hierarchy fractures.
The Queen remains in the nest, continuing to consume massive amounts of food for the next King's birth.
Meanwhile, the newly born Meruem embarks on travels, mating with various creatures to produce new Queens.
For any species to ensure survival, reproductive capability is the most fundamental requirement.
Chimera Ants are clearly exceptional in this regard.
However, when faced with humanity's comprehensive societal systems, the Chimera Ants' reproductive advantage instead makes them immediately conspicuous.
Not to mention sudden mass disappearances of people, even basic migration and settlement activities can hardly evade human notice.
It's important to understand that while humans permit the existence of magical beasts, they impose the highest level of control, including restricting their activity zones and enforcing extreme regulations against harming humans.
Given the Chimera Ant Queen's size and intelligence, she would undoubtedly be classified as a magical beast level threat. Combined with the Chimera Ant species' inherent habits...
If humans detected the Chimera Ant Queen's migratory behavior, they would undoubtedly eliminate her immediately.
In other words, for a giant Chimera Ant Queen to safely survive the initial reproduction phase, only two possibilities exist:
First, she could accidentally migrate to an Evil Enclave beyond human control undetected, relying on prey other than humans for reproduction.
Second, she could find a human society that simultaneously meets conditions like non-mechanized civilization, prohibition of information outflow, and indifference to mass disappearances, all without human awareness.
Expecting an alien species with no knowledge of humanity to accomplish this is virtually impossible.
But with external intervention, such 'coincidences' become remarkably simple.
Due to Beyond accelerating his plans, Pariston swiftly selected the world's most unique stage for the Chimera Ant Queen, namely, an autonomous region called NGL within the Mitene Union that fulfills all these stringent conditions.
Afterward, utilizing the convenience of Manipulation-type abilities, they directly implanted a segment of false memories into the Chimera Ant Queen's mind.
Then, using a teleportation-type Nen ability, they silently transported the Chimera Ant Queen into the NGL Autonomous Region.
Thus, the Chimera Ant Queen, having devoured Morena to rapidly self-heal, immediately began nesting and preying on various creatures in the forest near the teleportation point.
Under undisturbed conditions with abundant food, the Chimera Ant Queen, relying on its astonishing reproductive capacity, built a rudimentary nest at the forest center in just one week.
The order of the entire ant colony was also largely established.
But it wasn't enough.
To expand the hunting range, the Chimera Ant Queen continuously gave birth to Chimera Ant soldiers.
On the ninth day after the nest was built, countless Carpenter Ants crawled back and forth over the nest, releasing a mixture of feces and mud to expand the scale of the nest.
Simultaneously, squads of Chimera Ant soldiers spread out from the nest like swarms of locusts in all directions.
Among these squads, Peons were the majority.
They were on the same level as Drudges and were the most numerous.
Large-scale hunting operations largely relied on their numerical advantage.
However, in terms of genetics and combat strength, Peons only retained the genes of various forest creatures.
Thus, they had low intelligence and acted more on commands and instincts.
Nonetheless, the Chimera Ant Queen's size advantage was passed down to them, granting them the physical stature to confront humans head-on.
The next level above Peons were the Officers, who inherited both human genes and the genes of forest creatures.
Starting from this class, all Chimera Ant soldiers possessed distinct human characteristics, along with the crucial traits of humanity and intelligence.
Due to residual human memories, they were naturally able to master human language.
The structure of the Chimera Ant army was primarily composed of around 50 Squadron Leaders.
Each Squadron Leader commanded 4 to 5 Officers.
Under each Officer, there were 10 to 15 Peons.
That is to say, the size of a Chimera Ant soldier squad, including the Squadron Leader, typically ranged from 50 to 70 individuals.
The Chimera Ant Queen planned to expand the number of soldier squads to around 50, after which she would nurture Royal Guards, a class higher than the Squadron Leaders.
At that point, all efforts could be focused on the birth of the King.
Currently, the number of soldier squads in the nest was only 23.
However, with the expansion of hunting operations by the soldier squads and the presence of high-quality prey like humans, the Chimera Ant Queen, in an environment with extremely abundant nutritional resources, was expected to rapidly increase the number of soldier squads to 50.
Such a rate of reproduction and development was truly terrifying.
If the ant colony were allowed to devour all the humans in the NGL Autonomous Region, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Beyond, who masterminded this plan, was well aware of this.
Thus, to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control, an external factor was necessary to break the NGL's rule prohibiting information outflow.
This external factor was none other than Beast Hunters, whose work inherently benefits the natural environment.
As early as three years ago, Beyond had issued long-term commissions to amateur and professional Beast Hunters under the guise of biological surveys.
Afterwards, it was natural to follow this line of commission. When the plan began, these Beast Hunters were arranged to enter the NGL Autonomous Region under the guise of work at just the right time.
The mission of these 'pawns' was to promptly send information out of NGL before the situation spiraled out of control, allowing external nations to react and quickly form a proper extermination force.
To accomplish this step, the Beast Hunters couldn't be deployed too early, nor too late.
If deployed too early, external nations would swiftly take action against this biological disaster, effortlessly eliminating the threat in its cradle.
If deployed too late, once the severity of the situation escalated to a level that drew V5's serious attention, it would be difficult to undermine and reduce Netero's reinforcements while he was leading the resolution.
However, grasping this timing was no challenge for Pariston.
When the Chimera Ant soldiers began hunting humans on a large scale in the NGL Autonomous Region, Beast Hunter teams gradually entered the region.
Since the NGL Autonomous Region rejected mechanical civilization and publicly advocated for a return to nature, they particularly welcomed Beast Hunters.
Even most unlicensed amateur Beast Hunters could easily obtain entry permits.
Within just two days, nine Beast Hunter teams had entered NGL.
Among them, only three were Pro Hunters: Pokkle, Ponzu, and Barbara.
The three had obtained their licenses in the same Hunter Exam cycle and had similar professions.
Due to the nature of Beast Hunter work, each had formed their own teams.
After all, most Pro Hunters specializing in this field required teamwork.
Thus, whether amateur or professional Beast Hunters, they consciously formed teams.
This resulted in Beast Hunters operating in team units.
Moreover, different teams typically knew each other.
However, the reason Pokkle, Ponzu, and Barbara's teams converged in the NGL Autonomous Region was largely due to highly overlapping commission targets.
—--
NGL border.
Barbara led her team to this location.
"I didn't expect so many colleagues to come to NGL."
Before entering, Barbara already knew that four teams had entered NGL ahead of her.
Of these four teams, two were ones she had met while performing biological survey commissions in Kakin, and the other two were Pokkle and Ponzu, who had taken the same Hunter Exam as her.
"Haha, quite a few indeed came."
A team member chimed in.
Another member added cheerfully, "But the commission contents and areas are different, so there shouldn't be any competition."
"If it really turned competitive, who'd have the leisure to appreciate nature?"
"Hey, we're working here, not touring!"
"Ah, I was just saying, why so serious? No wonder you're still single in your thirties!"
"That's my active choice to be single, okay?"
"Oh~ is that so."
The team members bantered back and forth, the atmosphere relaxed and harmonious.
This was rather typical for Beast Hunter teams.
Everyone gathered together for the same purpose.
So after working together for a long time, relationships naturally grew more harmonious and deep.
Barbara glanced at her companions chatting and laughing, her lips curling upward, then handed the entry documents to the border staff.
"Stop the chitchat and hurry over."
After submitting the paperwork, Barbara turned and called out to her companions.
"Coming, coming!"
Her companions walked over with cheerful smiles.
Eagerly anticipating this commission, they remained utterly unaware of the consequences awaiting them beyond this border.
—--
A village in NGL.
"Haha, hunting humans is so much fun."
A squad of Chimera Ant soldiers was encircling panicked, fleeing villagers.
The village grounds were littered with mangled corpses of the elderly and children.
Judging by the state of the bodies, these soldiers weren't hunting for sustenance but purely reveling in the thrill of slaughter.
"Don't kill them all. If we miss our quota, we'll have to travel farther to capture more."
"Hah, what's there to fear?"
A Chimera Ant officer with elongated tusks, a hybrid of boar and human genes, bared his blood-stained teeth and laughed heartily: "Inferior creatures like humans are endless! We can easily meet our numbers!"
"You're getting carried away, Fergus."
Another officer with pangolin genes, clearly more focused on the hunting quota, expressed irritation at Fergus's pleasure-driven slaughter.
Fergus effortlessly impaled a fleeing villager with his sharp tusks. Sensing his companion's displeasure, he jerked his head violently.
Riiip...
The villager skewered on his tusks was torn in half.
Slimy organs splattered onto the ground as warm blood splashed across Fergus's boar-like face.
"As long as we meet the quota, what does it matter?"
He slowly stretched his fang-filled mouth into a gruesome smile through the bloodstains: "Besides, Lady Morena explicitly said we can slaughter humans to our heart's content. If you have a problem with that, you'd better scram to another squad."
The pangolin-hybrid officer named Casey immediately suppressed his retort upon hearing Fergus invoke their Squadron Leader's name.
He could only turn away, venting his frustration by slamming his scaly, muscular tail against the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
He then went to direct several Chimera Ant peons to quickly capture the scattered villagers.
To preserve food freshness, Chimera Ant squads typically used neurotoxins to immobilize humans during hunts, then brought them back to the nest.
They'd only be freshly butchered into meatballs when the Queen was ready to feed.
Fergus's brutal slaughter served no purpose beyond satisfying his own bloodlust.
Such wasteful behavior, destroying vast nutritional value, should never occur in Chimera Ant colonies with their massive food demands.
Yet after assimilating human genes, Chimera Ants also inherited humanity's darker traits.
The higher the proportion of human genes, the more pronounced these characteristics became.
And they even inherited memories...
While NGL presented itself as a naturalistic, non-mechanized autonomous region, it actually used this facade to conceal rampant drug factory construction.
So when Chimera Ants expanded their hunting grounds, NGL's dark-side militants naturally grabbed their firearms to confront these terrifying creatures.
Yet even with firearms, they remained powerless to avoid becoming food.
Thus, when the cruel nature of these humans was inherited through the birth of Chimera Ant soldiers, it naturally manifested in their daily behavior.
Judging from the personality traits of Fergus and Casey, the former was highly likely to have inherited the genes of violent criminals.
But regardless of whether their personalities were good or bad... When human genes gained dominance, the inherent leadership and discipline expected of ants would gradually diminish under the suppression of human nature.
However, for the Chimera Ant Queen, as long as her subordinate Chimera Ant soldiers could reliably carry out her commands, it mattered little what individuality or autonomy they possessed.