Quiet, a certain degree of quiet, too quiet, which in itself is extremely abnormal.
There are various forms of nature all the time, including the sound of wind, water, swaying grass and trees, and... the chirping of insects.
The first few sounds were still there, so they paralyzed my nerves and prevented me from noticing for a while that the nearby insects had disappeared. In other words, there had been no insect sounds since we came to the valley.
I raised my tentacles high and probed everywhere, but indeed I did not receive the vibration of insects in the air.
Crickets, crickets, grasshoppers, cicadas, these chirping insects seemed to disappear in an instant.
I stopped, put my tentacles on the queen's and told her about this unusual situation.
She also looked very nervous, and any fool would know something was wrong. The two of us quickly decided to return. Although we didn't catch any prey, it was clear that our lives were more important.
Moreover, even if they continue to hunt, they will probably come back empty-handed. Not only have the songbirds disappeared, but all the nearby insects seem to have been driven away by something.
I don’t know what it is. I have never encountered such a situation. Even if the bark mantis, red dragon centipede, and giant scorpion appear, it is impossible to scare away all the insects. There are many strong insects that are not afraid. these predators.
Therefore, we can only guess that there is something more terrifying than these predators nearby. What could it be?
No matter what, we must escape and report to the tribe.
So, we followed the route we had taken, still cautiously observing step by step, and slowly walked towards the mountainside. At this time, you must not run away in panic. The more exposed you are, the easier it is to be targeted by the terrifying existence in the dark.
Fortunately, we did not encounter any danger when we escaped back to the place where we encountered the bark mantis and German cockroach. Half of the body of the German cockroach was already motionless and very dead.
After resting for a while, the queen angrily swallowed the unpalatable upper body of the German cockroach, and then we returned to the tribe's nest on the top of the mountain.
We drilled through the entrance in the middle of the cone-shaped earth enclosure. The underground part of the nest was not large. We quickly found the eldest queen ant and reported the situation to her.
After the elder queen received the information from us, she stood there quietly, thinking motionlessly. After a while, she asked me to summon the other queen ants, the three most heroic warriors (including me), and the two male ants that were allowed to stay in the nest.
It wasn't until late afternoon that I found all the ants, because some soldiers went out to hunt and didn't come back until the sun set.
We finally gathered at the eldest queen, and then we formed a circle, with the left antennae connected to the right antennae of the left ant, and the right antennae connected to the left antennae of the right ant, forming a meeting circle.
The eldest queen asked me and the younger queen to recount our afternoon encounters again. Afterwards, everyone expressed their opinions.
That annoying warrior who often challenged me to duel, but always lost more than I won, and was missing a middle limb. Her messages were very unkind, saying that we were too timid and were frightened back home without understanding anything clearly. No useful information was brought back at all.
I know she did it on purpose. She always wants to use every opportunity to defeat me and occupy my current position.
But she was right. Apart from our feelings and the disappearing sounds of insects, the young queen ant and I did not bring back any more useful information. But my intuition at that time did not allow me to stay in that place longer.
The other ants did not go near their neighbors' valleys, and they had nothing to say.
But a male ant, an older male ant, older than the queen, expressed his opinion.
He extracted some useful information from my packet: the pheromone scent I smelled from the neighbor tribe marking the edge of their territory was very weak, which it shouldn't be. According to tradition, every tribe member who comes here is obliged to use excrement to strengthen the territory marking.
He believed that members of our neighboring tribes had not been at the border for some time.
But we don't take the male ants' word seriously, and we don't have a good impression of this parasite. These male ants have a huge body, but are timid and weak. They have no fighting ability and cannot hunt. They can only survive by begging the soldiers to give him some scraps.
If it weren't for the fact that the new queen ants still need to mate with male ants, no tribe would be willing to support these parasite-like male ants.
Now, we don't know what happened to the neighboring tribes in the valley, but something was definitely going on.
So, the tribe appointed me, along with that annoying warrior who was missing a middle limb, to go investigate together tomorrow.
Well, damn, I still have to get back there.
——I am the dividing line——
The next day, we set out early in the morning.
I don't like to act with this annoying guy as much as with the young queen.
Although the young queen ant would sting me gently and ask me to do this and do that. But the guy in front of me was even more annoying. She was always trying to get in front of me.
Of course this cannot be tolerated. She often loses to me in duels, so my status is higher. I should walk in front of the team and let her head obediently point at my ass.
This guy is the most difficult opponent I have ever seen. Although he is missing a leg, he is always very tenacious in duels and often requires me to expend a lot of energy to win.
Even now, she keeps trying to overtake me and climb to the front, and I can only keep accelerating to get rid of her. Fortunately, she is missing one leg. Although it does not affect crawling and jumping, it still slows down her speed.
The two of us chased each other all the way to the border of the territory. At this time, we finally lost our mood to compete and started searching with a fighting attitude.
After entering the valley, I heard something different from yesterday - the chirping of crickets.
The leg-broken warrior shook his head at me, as if he thought I was frightened by him yesterday and brought back false information.
I didn't pay attention. There was indeed no insect buzzing yesterday. Even if there are crickets chirping today, the sound is too lonely. Our tribe once lived in a valley, and we know that the density of insect chirping in normal times is much higher than this.
I climbed straight to a small tree in the grass. Such obvious landmarks usually have territorial markings underneath.
Sure enough, here I smelled the pheromones of the territory marks left by the neighboring tribes. This was the smell mixed with their feces and urine, and it had a smell unique to their tribe. The smell was very bland, and it seemed that no new excrement had been replenished in three or four days.
The broken leg warrior also smelled it and became solemn. None of the soldiers who survive to this day are fools who don’t know the heights of the world.
Something happened in the valley!
