Although the protagonist had paid attention to the approaching thread before, when he killed the last worker ant, the thread was still a certain distance away.
At the speed at which the thread was crawling, the protagonist estimated that he still had at least two seconds to react.
When the thread suddenly rolled itself into a spring and pierced the protagonist with lightning speed, the protagonist who made the wrong judgment was not ready yet.
Moreover, facing the dragnet composed of nine ejected silk threads, he could not avoid it.
In desperation, the protagonist flapped his wings, kicked off his hind legs, and rolled to barely avoid the ejections of the five threads in front of him.
There were four threads left, three of them were shot not far from the protagonist, and one bounced right on him.
Not to mention the silk threads falling on the leaves, just the one on the protagonist.
As soon as it landed on the protagonist, this seemingly living thread suddenly became extremely flexible, just like a tiger entering the forest or a dragon lurking in the swamp.
The protagonist stretched out his hand to grab it, but the silk thread swung its tail flexibly. Whether consciously or unconsciously, it avoided the protagonist's hand several times.
Then, like a swimming dragon or a spiritual snake, this thread flexibly shuttles on the carapace on the protagonist's back until it touches the gap between the carapace.
The tip of the silk thread immediately penetrated into the gap. The protagonist only felt a slight numbness on his back, and the head of the silk thread had already penetrated a small amount.
The deep fear engraved deep in the genes came to mind again, and the protagonist understood that it would never be a good thing if the thread was allowed to penetrate into his body.
When the thread stopped wandering and twisted into the gap, the protagonist barely reached the end of the thread with his arthropods.
After applying a little force, the protagonist discovered that the silk thread was very strong, and even after pulling it out, it didn't move at all.
Not only that, as the protagonist exerted a little force, a heartbreaking pain came from the wound, making the protagonist miserable.
But seeing the thread go deeper and deeper, it was the lesser of two evils. The protagonist's heart twitched, and the jointed limbs exploded with maximum strength, and pulled hard.
With brute force, the head of the silk thread was thrown out from the gap in the carapace, and was thrown onto the page with a "pop" sound. The head was still stained with viscous tissue fluid and a little muscle.
The combination of burning and needle-like pain on the back made the soft and hard hairs on the protagonist's body stand up. If it could make a sound, then the protagonist's miserable howl would definitely shake the entire grassland.
Enduring the severe pain, the protagonist pulled it out with a kick and crushed the head of the thread that was still twisting and crawling towards him.
At this time, the silk thread finally struggled a few times and stopped moving.
The other three threads have slowly come closer, and the protagonist tramples them all to death one by one.
Before he could catch his breath, the protagonist raised his eyes and saw dozens more worker ants crawling quickly along the branches toward the leaf.
The protagonist knows that these are enemy reinforcements attracted by pheromones. Normally, he would not be afraid of such enemies at all.
But now, the protagonist is injured on the back and can only use 20 to 30% of his 100% success rate. The mysterious thread on the enemy's body can launch a sneak attack when the enemy is not prepared, making it difficult to guard against.
After weighing the pros and cons, the protagonist quickly climbed onto Xiao Qing's back, without even bothering to tie the rope, and hurriedly took off as soon as he pulled the reins.
After the protagonist took off, the worker ants climbed up the blades and searched everywhere without finding the enemy. Only then did these worker ants lift up the bodies of their unconscious companions and dead comrades, and dispersed one after another.
There are only five silk threads left on the leaves that can't find their hosts, and they dry up and curl little by little under the baking of the sun.
The protagonist lay helplessly on Xiaoqing's back, enduring the pain in his back, tightly grasping the bristles on Xiaoqing's carapace, and managed to fly back to "Dongyang City".
————
The protagonist rested for a full week before the wound on his back healed.
These days, apart from recuperating from injuries, the protagonist has not been idle.
After summoning Gun, the protagonist carefully compared the images in different information packages and basically determined that the worker ants he encountered were the same species as the killer ants that Gun met.
It's just that the ant Gun met didn't have three threads growing from its back.
Based on the above situation, the protagonist boldly guessed that something bad had happened in "Dongyang City". A male ant that was hiding for some reason ordered some worker ants to sneak into the team and let them wait for opportunities to assassinate those who wanted to participate in the wedding flight ceremony. of male ants.
After the assassination failed, the male ant ordered the entire nest to move to the hilly areas in the south.
However, this conjecture cannot explain two questions:
The first question is why "Dongyang City" gave birth to a large number of young male ants this year, far exceeding the normal standard.
You should know that although the male ants will let the queen control the number of soldier ants and worker ants according to the conditions of the nest, they will never interfere with the number of male ant eggs produced and the number of young female ants cultivated.
The second question is, the worker ants the protagonist encounters have three silk threads on their backs. Why is this?
These threads resemble parasites, but they are not like insects. Instead, they have some characteristics similar to those of plants. Is this a creature similar to cordyceps?
As far as the protagonist's observation is concerned, this silk-threaded creature does not kill their host, the broad-knotted big-headed ant, but forms a symbiotic relationship.
Under certain circumstances, the thread organisms will break away from their mother and crawl towards an unparasitized host. This is supposed to be a way of reproduction.
The threads can even emit a thin, light green smoke. This kind of smoke can not only notify other silk threads that there is a suitable new host nearby, but also make the host ants enter a violent state and attack the new host crazily, making it easier for silk thread organisms to parasitize.
The protagonist couldn't help but feel horrified that this silk parasite could also control the actions of its host ants. This was something straight out of a science fiction movie.
However, the protagonist does not know that in the real world of ants, there are countless scenes that are comparable to science fiction movies. For example, there are zombie ants that are also parasitized and controlled by fungi.
This is a 48-million-year-old fungus that changes and controls the behavior of ants by releasing chemicals, turning them into their own puppets until they eventually die.
This parasitic fungus has evolved the ability to control the animals it hosts since ancient times, even before the Himalayas rose.
This parasitic fungus still lives on the earth, usually parasitizing ants. Ants are often infected with this parasitic fungus when they pass through forest floor cover, and their behavior is then controlled by the fungus.
The fungus continues to grow in the ants' bodies and releases chemicals that affect the ants' behavior, turning them into "zombie ants". The "zombie ants" controlled by the fungus no longer have their own behavior and life.
The last stage of their lives is also the most painful and terrifying. In the last few hours of life, "zombie ants" will crawl to the bottom of the leaf where they are, and bite the central vein of the leaf with their mandibles, thus trapping themselves on the leaf, and the parasitic fungi are also locked in on leaves. This leaf becomes an "ant grave."
The humidity and temperature of the environment here are most suitable for the survival of fungi. After the "zombie ant" dies, the parasitic fungus will sprout from the ant's head, produce spores and "launch" to the forest floor at night, and then infect other ants, and the cycle begins again.
