Read Novel Full Chapter 949: Queen
Chapter 949: Queen
Since he had asked Arcanine to slow down, Julian spent about half an hour traveling from the forest to the desert. What entered his sight was an endless expanse of sand.
Moreover, the temperature here was noticeably higher.
Arcanine actually liked this environment a lot. If Julian hadn't been sitting on its back, it probably would have already rolled around in the sand.
After Julian entered the desert, two of the ten red dots on the Dowsing Machine grew larger.
One of them was already at the level of an Ultimate treasure, while the other was nearing the level of a sub-Ultimate treasure. The two dots were also quite close to each other.
"Head that way."
Julian patted Arcanine's large head.
He would first dig up the treasures. As for the unknown Pokémon Metagross mentioned, he would look for them later.
Soon, Julian arrived at the treasure's location.
It was right beneath his feet.
It seemed he would have to dig down again. Many Ultimate treasures were hidden deep in mountains, underground, in magma, or beneath ice and snow. Finding them relied not only on experience but also heavily on luck.
Of course, strength was also necessary.
"Steelix!"
Julian sent out his excavation specialist.
"Dig."
He pointed at the ground beneath him.
Steelix: "Got it."
Rustle, rustle—
But just then, pits of quicksand suddenly appeared around Julian. Even beneath Arcanine's feet, the flowing sand tried to drag Arcanine down.
Unfortunately, the difference in strength was far too great.
Arcanine simply looked curiously at the Pokémon in the center of the quicksand trap beneath it.
Durant: 'What's going on? Why can't this guy be pulled in?'
Then Arcanine stomped directly on Durant's head, and the quicksand trap vanished.
"Ssss, ssss—"
The Durant pinned under Arcanine's foot kept making sounds—likely a cry for help.
Because as soon as the surrounding quicksand traps heard the sound, more and more Durants immediately crawled out.
"It's them?"
Julian looked at Metagross.
Metagross nodded, confirming that these were indeed the unknown Pokémon it had seen.
Julian's expression showed a bit of disappointment. Durant, a Bug/Steel-type Pokémon, had decent strength, but it was not the kind of Pokémon he needed.
However, insect-like Pokémon like this shared a common trait: they lived in large groups.
Now, over a thousand Durant had gathered around Julian. Among them, a few clearly exuded Elite aura and were noticeably larger than the average Durant.
With such a massive group of Durant, there was likely a queen present.
A Durant queen was just like a Beedrill queen; only when a colony reached a certain size would a ant queen (or bee queen) be born.
Even though Beedrill were weak, in the wild they were one of the things rookie trainers least wanted to provoke. Because Beedrill lived in groups—sometimes a dozen, sometimes hundreds or thousands; some secret realms even had Beedrill swarms of several hundred thousand.
Once the numbers reached a certain point, a qualitative change would occur, and the chance of strong Pokémon appearing would also increase.
The same applied to Durant.
Currently the number of Durant had already exceeded two thousand and they were still continuously pouring out.
"Ssss, ssss—"
The Durants kept making noises, trying to drive out the intruder, Julian. Their goal wasn't to rescue the companion pinned under Arcanine's foot; although that seemed heartless, that was one of the reasons a colony could survive and grow stronger.
"There should be a queen ant underground. Pull it out."
Julian said to Steelix. Seeing so many Durant, he had gotten another idea.
As Steelix burrowed underground, it wasn't long before the Durant above ground showed drastic changes in their expressions. The next second, they all burrowed into the ground.
They had received the message: the queen was under attack.
The entire Durant colony consisted of the offspring produced by the queen. As long as the queen was alive, the Durant colony would never disappear.
As the saying went, "Enough ants could bite an elephant to death."
But that simply didn't apply here.
Even if the Durant bit until their teeth broke, they wouldn't be able to pierce Steelix's defenses.
After not even five minutes, Steelix returned to the surface with its tail wrapped around a Durant Queen over four meters long.
An average Durant was only about thirty centimeters in size, but the queen before him was over four meters long, with an abdomen alone measuring three and a half meters.
Its abdomen was extremely large and continuously wriggling.
Although the Durant queen was the ruler of the entire colony, it was also a production machine.
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Pokémon: Durant (Bug/Steel) [Queen]
Level: 83
Potential: Blue
Ability: Swarm
Held Item: None
Gender: Female
Moves: Sand Attack, Fury Cutter, Vice Grip, Metal Claw, Beat Up, Bug Bite, Bite, Agility, Dig, X-Scissor, Crunch, Metal Sound, Entrainment, Iron Head
TMs: None
Egg Moves: Iron Defense, Guillotine, Struggle Bug, First Impression
Note: The Queen of the Durant colony. Weak in combat. Can produce one Durant egg every thirty minutes.
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Such a bloated body—let alone fighting, even moving was extremely difficult for it.
Producing one Durant egg every thirty minutes meant forty-eight eggs a day.
For other Pokémon, the time required from egg conception to laying was at least three to four months. For pseudo-legendaries, it could take several years or even over a decade—but this Durant queen needed only thirty minutes to produce an egg.
Most Bug-type Pokémon shared a few common traits: fast reproduction, rapid growth, quick combat readiness, low potential, and short lifespans. Durant, Beedrill, and Butterfree were among the most typical examples.
The Durant Queen in front of him had already reached the Pseudo-Champion level, and its lifespan was at least four to five hundred years. If it wasn't for being a Bug-type—if it was another typing—at this level, living for a few thousand years wouldn't have been an issue.
The Durant Queen was terrified. It could sense that the Steelix before it could easily destroy it and its entire colony.
The surrounding thousands of Durant, with their queen captured by Steelix, dared not make any moves. However, if the queen were to issue an attack command, they would charge forward without regard for their lives.
The queen's control over the entire colony was absolute. If it wanted a specific Durant to die, that Durant would kill itself on the spot.
"Your nest sits atop a mineral vein. Have your subordinates dig up all the minerals beneath it."
Julian walked up to the queen, stopping just half a meter away—a distance close enough for the queen to swallow him whole in one bite.
But it didn't dare. Its instincts told it that doing so would absolutely lead to death.
The queen nodded in agreement.
There was indeed a mineral vein beneath the nest. While they didn't feed on rocks or metals, the energy radiating from the vein made them feel very comfortable, which was why they had built their nest here.
Perhaps it was precisely because of this energy that the Durant queen had continuously broken through its own potential and level, reaching the Pseudo-Champion tier in less than a hundred years and producing so many offspring—for as long as it lived, the colony would never die out.
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