This is the first chapter today. I forgot to post the previous chapter last night. As expected tonight...there's still one more chapter!
——I am the dividing line——
These mysterious ants show many characteristics that are different from the common ant species on both sides of the river.
The first is bellicosity.
Most ants are warlike, but this wariness is more reflected in the competition for resources and territory, but there are few ants that fight specifically for killing.
The mysterious ants have different allies. Whether they are facing pavement ants, black-headed sour ants, or Japanese black brown ants, they are all under constant attack. They seem to put all their forces into the war and kill for the sake of killing.
So much so that after some calculations, the protagonist became more convinced that the ants feed on the corpses of ants.
After all, during several adventurous and in-depth long-distance reconnaissances, the flying knights did not see any food production in the territory occupied by the mysterious ants on the north bank of the river.
There is no gathering or hunting. Even if the mysterious ants hide underground and grow fungi, like leafcutter ants, they have never collected plants to make culture media.
The only things they carried back to their nests were the corpses, eggs and pupae of ants of the same race and those of foreign races, as well as a lot of gravel of various colors.
The gravel may be used to strengthen the nest, but a large number of ant corpses would be very scary. Just like humans are naturally afraid of cannibals, the protagonist has to repay this highly suspected "ant meat-eating" race with 120,000 points. Be wary.
Although we don’t know why the mysterious ants have this eating habit, if this habit is true, it means that this race must continue to expand and attack other ants in order to obtain enough food.
Including the Legion of God's Envoy King, no ants can reach peace with this mysterious ant. Just like humans will not pay attention to the so-called "peace agreement" between pigs, cattle and sheep that requires humans to coexist peacefully and stop eating them.
Perhaps precisely because of their feeding habits, these ants have no record of attacking other insects other than ants. Even though many insects are obviously nutritious and readily available, these ants still disdain them.
This is very inconsistent with the laws of biological evolution. Even advanced creatures such as humans and orangutans will not give up snails, a primitive but delicious, protein-rich small prey.
But these mysterious ants gave up willingly.
The second characteristic of mysterious ants is their huge numbers.
This hugeness is only a relative term. After all, with the huge size of the mysterious ants, it is unrealistic to have a tribe as large as the Pavement Ant Barbarian Kingdom.
In the battle to defend the main nest of the Pavement Ant Barbarian Kingdom, the Mysterious Ants were also repelled by ten times the Pavement Ant Barbarian Army.
However, these mysterious ants can often dispatch tens of thousands of warriors at one time, which is very terrifying.
The Japanese ant, which is similar in size, originally lived in the northern mountains. Now it has disappeared and may have been exterminated. The size of their tribe is only a few hundred or thousands.
The number of mysterious ants is conservatively estimated to be tens of thousands. They are a group and accept unified command.
Such a large group still feeds on ant corpses. So how many ants do they need to eat every day in order to maintain daily food consumption? How many ant tribes and nests were eliminated? This number is unimaginable.
Moreover, the number of mysterious ants seems to be increasing.
When being repelled by the pavement ant barbarian army, the flying knights who kept going to the war zone to conduct reconnaissance reported that there were about tens of thousands of mysterious ants.
However, after suffering certain losses and being repelled, these mysterious ants attacked Japanese black brown ants and black-headed sour ants again, and were able to dispatch more than 10,000 of them.
When their troops approached the north bank of the river, the flying knights conducted more frequent and accurate investigations and discovered that these mysterious ants had been divided into four clusters, with each cluster containing tens of thousands of ants, sweeping away all the ants in the dense forest.
The third characteristic of mysterious ants is that they seem to be composed of multiple races, or they are a kind of slave ants.
For a long time, the flying knights under the protagonist did not realize this. The protagonist has always regarded the enemy as a kind of large ant that fights in groups and has a cruel and determined will. Such enemies are not without methods to target and restrain them. The protagonist There is still time to explore.
However, as late fall approaches and the weather gets colder, things change.
Ants are cold-blooded creatures and do not like too cold environments. Only a few ants such as pavement ants can effectively utilize the temperature of sunlight and can go out during the daytime in winter when conditions are suitable.
Because the flying knights had high-calorie food and certain equipment support, they could barely maintain their attendance.
And they also observed that on the battlefield in the dense forest area on the north bank of the river, both the large mysterious ants and the smaller Japanese black brown ants and black-headed sour ants showed signs of slow movement.
This means that winter is coming, the good times for ants are about to pass, and all ants need to hide in winter.
For the mysterious ants, according to the normal routine, their expansion this year should end here. They are preparing to deal with the elimination mechanism of the harsh winter and will show off their fangs in the spring of next year. Of course, the protagonist is eager to see these "anteaters" "It would be better if they all freeze to death.
For the indigenous tribes of black-headed stink ants and Japanese black brown ants, the surviving tribes should be grateful that they can survive under the protection of winter. Even if they suffer heavy losses due to lack of food, it is better than being wiped out by the enemy and reduced to food.
For the Pavement Ant Barbarians, winter is their ally, and they can even launch counterattacks to regain lost territory. Of course, the protagonist hopes that they will counterattack the mysterious ants and weaken this evil enemy, instead of counterattacking the Northern Expedition of the Big-headed Ant Kingdom.
Just when the protagonist feels that the threat of the mysterious ants has temporarily subsided, unexpected changes occur on the battlefield.
According to an urgent report from the Flying Knights, they discovered that on the battlefield in late autumn, some "pavement ants" appeared fighting side by side with the mysterious ants.
The protagonist immediately checked the information packet, and he quickly recognized that these newly appeared ants were not "pavement ants".
They have a similar body shape and color to "pavement ants", but their heads are shaped like mysterious ants, only several sizes smaller.
Although the structure of the thorax and abdomen is different from that of the larger mysterious ant, there are also similarities.
This newly appeared small ant should also be a member of the mysterious ant. Otherwise, it would be impossible to explain why the two can fight side by side without any grudges.
However, these small mysterious ants soon demonstrated an ability that the big mysterious ants did not have, making the protagonist also doubt his own previous judgment.
