It would have been hard for him to forget the betrayal he suffered. In his past, there had been more than a few times he’d nearly died, and most of them were caused by a betrayal. He’d taken to lowering himself before others, presenting himself as non-threatening. If he wasn’t feared, or respected, as long as he didn’t show off too much wealth there should be no reason for others to wish to harm him. He’d been using this slippery persona for so long that when he finally stepped forward and took the position of a leader, he forgot how vulnerable it would make him, especially to his own subordinates. Like a fool, he’d trusted that the promise of profits and high positions would satisfy the cultivators in the Jade Horde. Even so, they wouldn’t have succeeded without first subverting the thousands of Hoplite soldiers.

The Hoplites are flawed.

Even without Guan Zhenyan pointing it out, he already had experienced enough pain because of it. He’d lost a friend because of his failure, and if it wasn’t for how useful they were, he might have already wiped them all out from his Inner World. Breeding creatures using the Mutate technique had multiple levels of intervention on his part and usually he relied on volume instead of micromanagement. Merely by starting the process a dozen or so times, the insects would usually end up with thousands of eggs. Of those thousands he let them grow up on their own and only then did he sort through them to pick out the most successful.

At least, that was his usual process. One of the exceptions was the Winged Snake Worm that he had developed from the bloodline of Ruanfu and King, when he was trying to gain their abilities. At that time he’d carefully guided the breeding process to ensure their natural abilities were passed down while also ending up with a mindless worm that would reduce the impact on his mind. The other had been the Emerald Hoplite Beetle, the very insect that he had bestowed with the Human Seal and decided to base a force around. For the Hoplites, the goal was merely to create an intelligent insect. Reptiles and Amphibians were naturally a bit stronger willed than insects, and ironically, he wanted his minions to be easy to control. It seemed like a good medium between worms, amphibians, and reptiles. From what he knew, the smaller and simpler a creature was, the more ridiculous their reproduction rates were. On the downside, such small and simple creatures usually had the lowest intelligence, so that’s why all he focused on for the Hoplites were improving their intellect.

For the new generation, he was going to take what he’d learned from the Array Ants as a guide and do more focused breeding in order to develop them into multiple castes. While the current Hoplites weren’t bad, he wasn’t going to allow any more of them to be released from the Inner World. Other than the Tiankong Retreat, in the Eightfold Kingdom border zone, the rest of the Hoplite Villages in the outside world were all known to the Jade Horde. That meant they all had to be lumped in with the Jade Horde as traitors. So, the first step was to alter their Behavioral Guides. Previously, they were highly loyal and obedient to their superiors. The plan was to create a hierarchy with himself at the top, but it’s too bad he completely overlooked the vulnerability he created by inserting other humans into that chain of command. The next iteration of Hoplite could keep the same system, but he would also add his own special directive to give him overriding control.

Guan Zhenyan confirmed his own ideas and so Sage started breeding a new insect into the next generation of bug soldiers. That of course being the Stonecutter Ant. He still hadn’t found a more powerful ant to use for a base, and the only insects he could think of with actual physical castes were ants and bees. Other large colony bugs might also follow the same rules, but ants could have an additional soldier caste so he chose to use the Stonecutter Ant rather than the Silverbee. He wasted a few more of his restricted resources and used the Inner World to accelerate their growth. The torture that Guan Zhenyan subjected him to became less and less distracting and it gave him more time to improve the new bugs.

It took some trial and error, constantly using Mutate upon new generations of offspring to shift the Hoplite from a Beetle into an Ant. Their resulting society also underwent a large restructuring. Previously, there were two different ant genders along with three generalized careers. After maturing and getting a partial Human Seal, they could choose to be workers, soldiers, or administrators. The administrators of course being only the most intelligent of Hoplites and eventually, they could become the elders that applied the partial Human Seals to their kind.

For the new insects, they would no longer be left to follow the normal human style of reproduction. This new race of demi-humans formed into far more unified colonies. Instead of just picking out the most intelligent Hoplite, a single Queen is the new lynchpin. Physically, there are three other castes, drones, workers and soldiers. Before, Hoplites had the choice to become a worker or warrior, but in the new system they were either born soldiers or they weren’t. Drones are the only fertile males and they live as a prince before mating and dying. Workers make up the overwhelming majority of the colony and can fill dozens of roles. Nursing the eggs and the immature offspring, attending to the Queen, gathering food, crafting clothing, building homes, handling administrative tasks, or pretty much anything else other than combat and breeding.

The most important, and most difficult to implement, changes were of course to the final caste: soldiers. They were going to make up Sage’s replacement for the Jade Horde, the force he’d use to get his revenge. For the most part, they were very similar to the original Hoplite. Appearing mostly human except for the emerald green exoskeletons from the elbow and knees down, and insectoid heads save for the tentacle mouths and mohawks of hair on top. Human, but with a bug-like head, hands and feet. The new version was the same, except for the addition of a bug-like rib-cage. There was now another layer of exoskeletal armor just like their hands and feet layered over their upper torso. Their stomachs and shoulders were still flesh like before, but they no longer had ribs and instead had armored chests. Additionally, the most eye-catching change was that they had two pairs of wings on their backs.

Sage already knew what his main enemy would be and he would be a complete fool to not plan his revenge with his foe in mind. The Jade Horde fought with large shields in phalanx like formations. They were further propped up by the equipment he’d developed. Shields that block arrows, polearms that can act as long spears or short axes, armor that can create Formation Arrays, crossbows that can rain down supporting fire, and even giant winged lizards to use as mounts. If he was going to beat them, he’d have to beat all of his old tricks.

After many trials, he was finally successful in making the new soldier caste as he wanted them and they became the inspiration for the name of their new species: Emerald Dragoon Ant. To combat a phalanx, the classical solution was to target their low mobility. A forest of spears and a wall of shields didn’t mean anything if it wasn’t pointed towards you. By putting all of his new soldiers into the air, they would be many times more mobile than the Jade Horde. They could also combat the Vulture Gecko by nature of their sheer number, which meant he now only needed to come up with a way to handle the Formation Armor and Stumblebow.

It’s only a matter of time until I get my revenge. They are all going to be sorry they crossed me, and god help them if any of them went after my friends.