The protagonist returned to the location of the drainage ditch with his escort.
According to the usual design, the drainage ditches of all ant nests will be adjacent to some important nest chambers to prevent these chambers from being flooded, such as the palace where the queen lives and lays eggs!
When searching for this drainage outlet before, the protagonist felt that he had reached the end, so he turned around and went back. Now that he thinks about it, the drainage channel is a good breakthrough point. Sure enough, fixed thinking kills people. After all, humans generally don’t think about it. Drainage channels serve as roads (except in certain movie plots). The protagonist decided to climb up the drainage outlet and try his luck again.
A line of ants climbed up the rough pipe wall along the nearly vertical drainage outlet with an extremely inclined angle. There was no activity of pavement ants here, and it was indeed the best way to sneak in. In terms of hiding and sneaking, it plays the same role as the ventilation ducts in the building in modern movies.
After climbing a short distance, the protagonist discovered the first hole that merged into the drainage channel. The protagonist leaned over and quietly poked his head into the hole. Inside the hole is a dark and quiet tunnel, with no trace of pavement ants.
So the protagonist led the escort team in, searched along this tunnel, and soon found two granaries, but there was nothing else to gain. This road cannot go forward. The protagonist sees that the end of the tunnel not far away merges into a larger passage. Countless pavement ants are running from top to bottom, apparently to support the battlefield at the bottom.
Of course, this stealthy team cannot challenge the enemy army like Rambo. The protagonist has no choice but to continue leading the escort team back into the drainage channel and continue climbing up. Soon I found the second drainage outlet.
Following the same pattern again, the protagonist probes to investigate the situation. This time, there is a pavement ant lying not far away. It seems to be holding something in its mouth. It is facing away from the protagonist and does not know what it is doing. The protagonist immediately ordered Hua Mulan to move closer, quietly attacked the unlucky pavement ant from behind, and cut off her head in one bite.
The protagonist then approached and saw clearly that there was a half-eaten ant egg next to the dead pavement ant. The color of the ant egg was an abnormal dull gray. It was obvious that the dead ant egg was regarded as food recycling.
"Ant eggs?" The protagonist thought to himself. He had found many ant pupae and young ants before, but no ant eggs had ever been found. Ant eggs are generally placed not too far away from the queen. After the queen lays an egg, the worker ants will place the eggs in a nearby nest chamber. Until the ant eggs turn into young ants, they will be placed in other more suitable nest chambers to facilitate feeding and obtaining ant silk.
It's a pity that this pavement ant is already dead, and even if it is not dead, the protagonist does not know how to interrogate her, and there is no way to know where she got this dead ant egg as food. Now I can only look for it nearby.
There is a narrow passage diagonally upward between the pavement ant's body and the drainage outlet. The protagonist decides to search here first with his guards.
Along this relatively narrow passage, the protagonist and the others can smell a slightly sour and slightly smelly smell gradually increasing in the air, which is different from the smell in other places in the sub-nest.
"There's something really weird here." The protagonist thinks to himself.
Soon this straight and narrow tunnel came to the end, and there were no other forks along the way. The protagonist poked his head out and saw a scene that pleased him.
Ant eggs, a large number of ant eggs are crowded with each other and placed on the floor of the nest at the end of the narrow tunnel. This nest room is large in area. The four pavement ants picked up the eggs one by one, wiped and stroked them with their mouthparts, and then put them down again.
This is an ant egg placement room, and if your guess is correct, the ant queen's bedroom is nearby. But if you need to move forward, you must eliminate the four pavement ants in the nest at the same time. If any one of the pavement ants escapes or sounds an alarm, it will alert the guard troops to come and intercept. With the help of only two pavement ants around the protagonist, Ten guards not only cannot complete the task, but may also be in danger.
The protagonist made some calculations and found that his biggest advantage was that his observation range was farther than the enemy's. If he planned carefully, it would still be possible to kill all the enemies silently.
The protagonist asked Hua Mulan to quietly drip a small drop of secretion at the entrance of the hole, and then all the ants shrank back into the hole, leaving only the protagonist with his head stretched out to observe.
Soon, a pavement ant that was closer smelled a special smell. This smell did not belong to its own group, like the smell of an enemy, but it was very light, not enough to arouse her vigilance. I wonder if the corpses of big-headed ants nearby were not properly collected in the granary. While thinking this, the pavement ant worker searched for the source of the smell and approached the protagonist step by step in the darkness.
At this moment, the protagonist turned around and touched his tentacles with Hua Mulan and another soldier ant. After receiving the order, Hua Mulan and the others rushed to the entrance of the cave in an instant. One of them bit the head of the pavement ant worker and knocked her down. On the ground, another one quickly cut off her neck. All this happened quietly in the darkness and with lightning speed, without disturbing the other three pavement ants in the distance.
Seeing that the method worked, the protagonist followed the same method and subdued another pavement ant acting alone. The last two pavement ants that were together were forcibly killed by the big-headed ant soldier ant guards who touched them.
The protagonist smelled carefully, and the slightly sour and slightly smelly smell that he smelled before was emanating from some of the ant eggs in the nest. The difference between these ant eggs and other eggs is that there is a small amount of mucus on the surface. The dead pavement ants also had the same mucus on their mouthparts, and they looked like they were licking the mucus clean.
These ant eggs have just been laid, and the protagonist immediately realizes that only ant eggs freshly laid from the queen's belly will have this mucus, which is similar to human amniotic fluid. The ant eggs were just laid and moved to this nest chamber, and the mucus has not yet been licked clean or dried, which shows that the queen ant is indeed nearby.
With this inference, the protagonist's confidence greatly increased, and he decided to continue to look forward. After confirming the position of the pavement ant queen, he summoned the Envoy King's army to perform the beheading operation.
The team didn't even have time to destroy the ant eggs, so they went out through another exit of the nest. The tunnel was no longer so dark, and there were more and more fluorescent fungi on the walls, which was very detrimental to the concealment of the protagonist and his party. The protagonist had no choice but to lead the guards all the way forward to destroy the fluorescent bacteria and hide the team in the darkness as much as possible.
The protagonist's team is very lucky to have been operating inside the enemy for so long without being discovered, but good luck will always run out. No, when turning a corner, the team collided head-on with two pavement ant workers carrying newly born ant eggs.
Although Hua Mulan, who was in the lead, reacted quickly and immediately bit the pavement ant worker in front and pinned her to the ground, and then her companions behind her finished her off. But the other pavement ant, located further back, turned around quickly and ran away, sending out an alarming scent signal as it ran, leaving even its eggs on the ground.
"Not good", the protagonist knows that the enemy's reinforcements will arrive soon, but there is no news about the Queen of the Paving Ants yet.
"What to do? Retreat or keep moving forward?" This dilemma is placed in front of the protagonist. Retreating is, of course, the safest and safest option, but the previous actions will be in vain, and the failure to kill the enemy queen will also have a very negative impact on future military operations. If you continue to move forward, it will take a little time for the enemy's reinforcements to arrive. If this little time still yields no results and cannot retreat in time, the protagonist may be trapped in a tight siege.
The protagonist raised his head and glanced forward. The end of the tunnel was not far away. The cave at the end was unusually bright, unlike an ordinary nest. The escaping pavement ant workers had just slipped into the light curtain and disappeared.
"Fight!" The protagonist made up his mind. He had to rush into the unusually bright nest room on the opposite side to see what happened, otherwise it would be in vain.
The protagonist immediately asked the two soldier ants to go back to ask for support, and he quickly rushed to the end of the tunnel with Hua Mulan and other eighteen soldier ants.
As soon as I rushed into the cave entrance, my eyes were filled with fluorescent fungi and the cold orchid light, illuminating the huge nest room like daylight. The protagonist didn't bother to appreciate the underground beauty carefully, his eyes were fixed on the middle of the nest room.
There, some pot-bellied ants were lying on their stomachs unable to move. Their bellies were contracting in regular bursts, like layers of waves passing through the soft abdomen, and ant eggs with mucus plopped out one after another. The end of the abdomen comes out, and then the worker ants next to the pavement ants hurriedly pick up the eggs.
These are the queen ants, one, two, three... ten, all ten queens are here. The protagonist's heart is filled with the joy of victory - I found it!
The alarm emitted by the escaped pavement ant workers has attracted attention in the nest. Some worker ants who were taking care of the queen turned their heads and looked here. With the light of fluorescent bacteria, they discovered the uninvited guests like the protagonist and hurried towards the entrance of the cave. Come, if it turns out to be an enemy, they will do their best to stop the enemy.
Other worker ants ran to the side of the queen. The queen also panicked after receiving the alarm. They began to stop laying eggs and tried to clumsily move their fat bodies to leave the nest, which was no longer safe. However, the abdomens of the queen ants that have entered production mode are too fat and they move very slowly under their own power. They can only ask other worker ants to carry them.
"The queen wants to escape!" The protagonist notices this. This is not good news. The entire nest is connected in all directions, with as many as six entrances and exits. Once the queen ants escape, it will be impossible for him to find them again.
There are not many worker ants currently guarding and caring for the queen, only twenty or thirty, which is a good opportunity. The protagonist weighed the strength of the enemy and ourselves, made a prompt decision, and issued the order to attack.
Eighteen soldier ants immediately moved into groups of three and pounced on the pavement ant workers who were about to stop them.
The decapitation operation begins now!
