The protagonist was about to announce the end of the meeting, when Gun reported a situation, which attracted the protagonist's attention.
Rolling report: Among the soldiers of the God Envoy King's Legion who retreated, eleven soldier ants were confirmed to be infected with thread parasitic bacteria.
These soldier ants were either fighting or retreating, and were accidentally crawled to their backs by nearby thread-parasitic bacteria. They were not cleaned up in time, causing infection.
Fortunately, they were not killed by the enemy due to the severe pain caused by the infection, nor were they left behind during the march in the dark night and have been missing since then (most likely they were killed by nocturnal carnivorous insects).
Unfortunately, there seems to be no cure for their infection.
After returning to the main lair, Gun was responsible for coordinating the placement of the withdrawn troops because the protagonist was indifferent in the conference room. He directed other ants to pull out the thread-parasitic fungi that had penetrated the soldier ants' bodies.
But after several hours of savage growth, these threads grew very quickly and had firmly penetrated into the depths of the host's body.
The first parasitized soldier ants were rolling on the ground in pain when the silk thread was pulled out. There were still pieces of flesh and tissue fluid left on the pulled out silk thread. The unfortunate soldier ant soon writhed in agony and died.
Gun did not dare to try to remove the thread-parasitic bacteria from the remaining ten parasitized soldier ants. Instead, he concentrated these infected people who were still conscious in a nest and ordered dozens of them to be healthy and strong. Soldier ants guard the only entrance and exit.
Only then did the protagonist think of this problem. In the chaos of war, it was inevitable that some legionnaires would be infected. But I was hit too hard at the time and didn't take care of the matter in time.
Fortunately, before going out for the expedition, the protagonist had formulated a plan that required the infected soldiers to be placed together. Gun did better than the protagonist expected, and he set up guards to prevent these soldier ants from wandering around after becoming confused and infecting other ants.
Although the protagonist originally formulated a plan to centrally resettle the infected, he actually had no experience or strategies on how to treat these infected people.
Judging from Gun's report, it is impossible to forcefully pull out these thread-parasitic bacteria. Doing so will kill even the parasitic-infected legionnaires. If possible, the protagonist still wants to save these unfortunate legionnaires.
The protagonist decided to go see the situation of these infected people first.
This kind of environment is not suitable for too many people. The protagonist has driven away most of the kings. Only he and Gun go to the lair where the infected are housed.
This nest is located on the edge of "Dongyang City", far away from important nest rooms such as the king's palace, the queen's palace, the combustion chamber, and the incubation room. Even if there is an infection or fighting here, it will not endanger the safety of "Dongyang City".
The protagonist didn't expect that the somewhat impatient Gun could handle things in such an orderly manner.
Soon, the protagonist passed by the guard ants and entered the nest where the infected were housed.
The condition of these infected people is not very good now.
The protagonist can see that these infected soldier ants have a long thread of parasitic bacteria on their backs, which is the culprit of infecting them.
At this moment, all the thread-parasitic bacteria were hanging down softly, like hay that had lost its moisture and was no longer straight.
But this does not mean that the host's situation has improved. If you look carefully, you can see that in the gaps between the carapace on the back of the infected legionnaire, hyphae with small umbrellas are densely sprouting from every place.
This is the mycelial larvae that just emerged last night.
These hyphae will frantically absorb nutrients from the host, but due to vicious competition among themselves, only the three fastest-growing parasitic fungi can grow up. The other young hyphae will die due to malnutrition and then be repopulated by the host. The body absorbs it.
However, not all hosts can survive until that time. Many hosts with weak constitutions will die because the thread-parasitic bacteria have absorbed too many nutrients.
At this moment, the infected legionnaires in front of the protagonist have not yet reached the most dangerous moment when mycelium is frantically competing for nutrients, but no one knows how many of the ten soldier ants will survive.
Due to the sedatives secreted by the young hyphae, these infected soldier ants were lying on the ground powerlessly and motionless at this moment. In this way, they will only consume the least amount of energy themselves, and provide most of the energy to the larvae of the thread-parasitic bacteria.
Only the lucky ones who manage to survive until a small number of thread-parasitic bacteria have matured can start eating again.
The protagonist doesn't know the reason for this situation at all now, but from the infected people lying all over the place, he also knows that the situation is not good.
Now the old thread-parasitic fungi have lost their activity, while the smaller parasitic hyphae are not yet aggressive.
Since there is no need to worry about being infected, the protagonist simply walks boldly among the infected and uses his tentacles to order the soldier ants in front of him to stand up.
There was almost no response from the soldier ants' antennae, and only very weak emotional information could be detected. She is no longer able to receive any orders from the protagonist, and even her thinking has stopped. The protagonist is unable to enter her consciousness and understand her current state.
If I had to describe it, this soldier ant now seems to be in a vegetative state, still alive, but unable to move or think.
The protagonist tried to contact other parasitized soldier ants again, but the situation was still the same.
They still have to get rid of the parasitic bacteria on their bodies, or so the protagonist thinks.
Yesterday's method of forcibly pulling out the thread-parasitic bacteria was useless, but today's situation is different. The old thread-parasitic bacteria have withered.
The protagonist chose the thinnest-looking soldier ant for the experiment. If no measures were taken, this thin soldier ant, which had lost two legs in the battle, would definitely not survive.
The protagonist easily pulled out the old, withered thread parasites. These thread-parasitic fungi seem to have died on their own after completing their mission of parasitism and reproduction. Even the root systems that penetrate deeply into the host's flesh and blood have shrunk, and they no longer cause great harm to the host when pulled out as they did yesterday.
But pulling out the dead thread of parasitic fungus had no effect. The infected, thin soldier ants still collapsed on the ground, unconscious, and showed no signs of improvement.
The protagonist wants to pull out the new hyphae that have emerged from the gaps in her carapace, but there are too many of them, and they are found in all the gaps in the carapace and joints.
The protagonist tries to pull out one of the mycelium. The nearly transparent hyphae twisted and struggled weakly for a few times before being irresistibly pulled out by the protagonist.
The hyphae connected under its head are so long that the protagonist extracted three millimeters of hyphae from the infected soldier ants.
As the hyphae with blood was extracted, the protagonist sadly discovered that the body of the infected, thin soldier ant lying on the ground twitched suddenly, and then took its last breath.
These newly grown hyphae cannot be removed. Are these infected legionnaires hopeless?
