The good news: The task force has safely made it out of the trap Pet Shop had set for them on Black Rock Island. The bad news: Suchan had to go into full-on berserk mode to do so…and now he has been labeled a threat by NEST! Branding Suchan a ticking time bomb, most of the professors want him quarantined before he can become a risk―save for Professor Ji. In order to prove his student isn’t the monster they think he is, Professor Ji must fight Suchan, even if that means trying to kill him. Unbeknownst to NEST, though, death looms around another corner―Pet Shop is back, and this time they’re bringing the battle to campus. Their target? Professor Ji…!
“Ants have a tendency to leave their “burdens,” the weak or dead, behind. In a cruel and brutal world where only the fittest survive, perhaps that’s only logical. But…there are some foolish creatures that shoulder these “burdens”…and keep living. We call those creatures…humans.”
This was an interesting one. We get to see how some of the characters evolve with epic fight scenes that kept me flipping pages faster than I have with any of the other volumes so far. But damn am I nervous for what’s gonna happen next.
I feel that this is a wonderful addition to the series. This book has multiple things going on at once. It starts off with the pet shop being broken into and the other dragonfly being defeated, at the cost of Suchan going crazy for a bit cause of it. With the extra credit, they go back to school to face a midterm made solely for them to beat their weaknesses. Suchan gets the worse of it, as he has to face an old, natural enemy of his. Despite the clear disadvantage, Suchan learns how to use the technology he was gifted with and was able to overcome his instincts. After everyone either beats or fails their midterm, the school get raid by predators from the pet shop, with only one goal, kill.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Nest's raid on the Pet Shop breeding farm goes sideways pretty quickly, then upside-down when it's revealed that Pet Shop has abandoned the facility and is actively trying to destroy it (and any living people still inside) while Suchan's bug instincts go berserk.
Then the story moves on (because the pacing is in overdrive) and Nest moves on with their next steps to strengthen their students in preparation for Pet Shop's next move (which is coming sooner than they think) while Suchan faces his potential to become Nest's worst enemy.
Tons of action, good suspense, and the introduction of the superpowered evil side.
With the facility compromised by Suchan’s reconnaissance team, Pet Shop sends in someone to take out the Nest forces and remove all the evidence. The team gets split up - one half fights to rescue survivors and save them from feed training while Suchan takes on a deadly Antlion infused soldier who takes Suchan to the limits of his complexes. As the battered Nest students head back to the school, there's no rest for them as they have an Extra Credit assignment that exposes them to their weaknesses and forces them to overcome their toughest obstacle in order to pass their midterm assessments.
There are a lot of intense fight scenes in this volume, which are great for the pacing of the story, but it can be challenging at times to keep track of Suchan as he zips around the pages and does everything at top speeds. The creative team masterfully build the tension in each situation and has given the readers enough clues that our hero team doesn't have, so the heightened tension is satisfyingly frustrating and keeps the pages turning just as much as the action. The characters do have some alcoholic drinks to celebrate and there is a moment where Suchan believes he's going to get lucky, but he's tricked instead, so this is still a title I recommend for older teen audiences.