In the end, the flying knight was unable to set out immediately to search for the escaped parasitic ants.
According to reports from experienced ants, the humidity and air pressure in the air have changed badly, and a long-lost rain is about to fall.
The protagonist looked up at the sky. It was already dawn. The sky that should have started to light up was still gloomy at this moment. There was a dazzling light shining on the distant eastern horizon, but it could not change the background of the sky and the earth.
Heavy rain is approaching, and the protagonist has no choice but to give up his plan to search for parasitic ants.
The entire stump fortress has been put into disaster prevention mode, and the big-headed ants are busy clearing the blocked trenches, digging drainage ditches, and waterproofing the important nest chambers for storing supplies.
The worker ants that stayed behind in the original parasitic ant nest did not retreat to the tree stump fortress because of the long journey, so they took shelter inside the parasitic ant nest.
Not long after sunrise, the rain fell as expected.
The rain this time was not a disaster. It was not as intense as the summer rains, which caused flooding on the ground. It's more like a spring rain, soft and continuous, with a gentle breeze.
To humans, this rain is like a gentle rain of willows and peach blossoms, making people more willing to put down their umbrellas and enjoy the cool moment in this summer.
But for ants, they can't go out even in this drizzle. Fine water droplets will wet their shells, and if you are unlucky, they will clog or choke the air holes. And the huge raindrops gathered on the tall leaves may kill an ant when they fall.
The rain will not cause disaster, but it prevents the big-headed ants from going out. The protagonist can only hide in the warm and dry interior of the Stump Fortress and wait.
The only thing that comforted him was that even under the drizzle, the parasitic ants could not migrate. Moreover, in the open field, parasitic ants without nest shelter will definitely suffer losses, and wet ant eggs, young ants, ant pupae and weak ants are also prone to illness and death.
"Let's wait until the storm subsides and then deal with them." The protagonist thought to himself.
The drizzle continued for a long time, and around noon, the increasingly lighter clouds completely dispersed, and the scorching sunshine once again scorched the earth. The world that had just been slightly cool due to the rain quickly turned into a huge steamer.
The flying knights took their mounts to the top of the fortress one after another, letting the warm sunlight dry the flies' wings that were wetted by the mist. These flies cannot fly freely until their wings are completely dry.
After another quarter of an hour, the nine flying knights headed by Flying Eagle took off at the urging of the protagonist, flying in different directions, searching at a height of less than half a meter above the ground.
The protagonist asked them to search for half an hour at most and then come back. The flying knights can fly in a straight line for half an hour, and the normal march of the parasitic ants would take more than a day. If they are moving with their belongings, the time will be even longer. If the enemy is not found within half an hour, there is no need to continue searching from this direction.
The protagonist also sent the last flying knight to fly in the direction of "Dongyang City", urging "Dongyang City" to replenish the soldier ants as soon as possible to fill the gaps in the three legions of the God Envoy King caused by battle damage.
Since there is no external threat, the Stump Fortress is no longer busy with renovations. The protagonist orders the worker ants to immediately go to the nest of the original parasitic ants and move in all the materials that can be transported. After a rain, the nest that lacks worker ant maintenance must be soaked in water. If the materials inside are not removed quickly, the loot of the God Envoy King's army will shrink.
An hour later, the flying knights returned to the fortress and reported to the protagonist that no trace of the enemy was found.
The protagonist counted only eight flying knights who came back, and one flying knight who searched to the southeast did not come back.
After waiting for another quarter of an hour, the protagonist couldn't sit still. He and the flying knights agreed to fly back for half an hour at most, and one hour was enough for the round trip. This flying knight did not come back on time. Either he encountered misfortune or was delayed for some reason.
You must know that the parasitic ants have the ability to attack the flying knight through ambush. The protagonist thought of the scene where he was riding Xiao Qing under a bush and was ambushed by a dense web of parasitic ants falling from the sky. Xiao Qing was disabled because of this, and may no longer be able to continue to be the protagonist's mount.
The protagonist asked Flying Eagle to take the flying knights off again. Every two flying knights formed a group, a total of four groups, heading towards the direction of the missing flying knights to search.
The protagonist also warned Flying Eagle and the others to fly at a safe altitude and not to get close to shrubs or trees to avoid being ambushed.
Not long after the flying knights flew away, the flying knights heading towards "Dongyang City" reported that a thousand soldier ants who came to supplement them would arrive at the Stump Fortress around evening time.
This is good news, which means that the existing 71 teams of the God's Envoy Army will be fully replenished and have strong strength. And under the leadership of veterans who have gone through successive hard battles, the experience and combat effectiveness of the Divine Envoy King's legion will now even exceed that before the war.
As for the nineteen lost kings, they can only be replenished after the new male ant eggs laid by the queen grow up, receive education, and get married and fly, which will take a long time.
The five hundred worker ants who went to the parasitic ant nest to carry supplies also came back one after another. They carried back all the food and other supplies from the parasitic ant nest.
What surprised the protagonist the most was that they even moved the eggs, larvae and pupae of parasitic ants, whether they were dead or alive.
The protagonist inquired about it and learned that the big-headed ants would take the ant eggs in the nests of conquered enemies as trophies, even if these ant eggs are not of the same species as themselves.
Dead ant eggs, etc. are nutritious food, while live ant eggs, ant pupae, etc. will hatch. The descendants of these enemies who grew up in the big-headed ant nest will be used as slaves, and because they are contaminated with the breath of the big-headed ant nest, they regard themselves as fellow members of the big-headed ants and are loyal to them.
The hatched male and female ants will be killed immediately, and there will be no new additions to the soldier ants and worker ants after they die, so this kind of ant slave is not common and is just a one-time consumable.
Using prisoners of war as slaves to produce and serve themselves is a typical feature of the slavery system. It's just that this kind of slavery is still very primitive. The source of slaves is just a by-product of war, and there is no deliberate attempt to obtain slaves.
In addition, when the slaves are exhausted, the slave owners will not think of replenishing the slaves, and usually most of the slave owner class (soldier ants and worker ants of big-headed ants) have to do the same work as the slaves.
However, even if this kind of slavery is still very primitive, it is still a progress of social system, and the protagonist's evaluation of the Big-headed Ant Kingdom is even higher.
As for the behavior of ant slaves, the protagonist is not surprised. He had known before that some ants, such as "slave-keeping ants", would rob and raise slave ants to feed themselves, but he did not expect that big-headed ants would also do this.
