On the back of the star beetle, "Little Flower" looked up and saw that the seemingly endless stretch of dark curtain at the top of the forest was torn open in front of a circular gap, and the afternoon light poured down from the gap. Bring a dazzling light!
The bright light was so dazzling that "Little Flowers" and the others had to raise their forelimbs to cover their single eyes to reduce the stimulation of the single eyes by the light.
After getting used to the light a little, "Little Flower" finally saw the scene in front of her clearly.
In the dense woods, there is actually a large open space. If the protagonist were here, he would probably estimate that this open space is hundreds of square meters in size.
"Xiaohua" couldn't calculate the specific size of the open space. She only knew that the open space was very large, at least much larger than the current peninsula territory of the Divine Envoy King's Legion.
In this clearing, there is a very strong and tall tree, which is also the only tree.
It was a very old ginkgo tree. Just by looking at its roots, which were five to six meters thick, one could estimate that this ginkgo tree was at least a thousand years old.
The trunk of the ginkgo tree is thickest near the root. When it reaches a height of eight or nine meters above the ground, the diameter at breast height is still four to five meters. Then from here, the trunk split into two branches and continued upward. But both main trunks have dried up, and no new leaves have grown from any branches on the main trunks.
On the contrary, many branches grow diagonally from the bottom of the trunk, grow upward, and then branch out to form dense branches. Green leaves can already be seen sprouting on these branches, continuing the vitality of the thousand-year-old tree.
The ginkgo tree still looks bare now, but with its dense branches, you can imagine how green and lush this thousand-year-old ginkgo tree will be in midsummer. In late autumn, the golden ginkgo leaves will surely make this ancient tree look rich and gorgeous.
This ginkgo tree is not only huge, but also stands out from the crowd. The nearest trees around are nearly eight or nine meters away. It seems that some force ensures that no other trees can grow around the ginkgo tree.
Although the trees that were close to each other tried to stretch their branches diagonally in this direction in order to get more sunlight, when they reached the ginkgo crown not far away, these branches all shrank. This left a gap that resembled a ring in the canopy.
Even "Little Flower" in the Angel King's army, who has been used to seeing many things that the ant tribe has never seen since childhood, is now attracted by the tall, spectacular, colorful and majestic ginkgo tree in the forest. The momentum was calmed down. On the other hand, the soldier ants and worker ants lacked the sensitivity and intelligence in this area and showed nothing.
The star beetles flew straight towards the ginkgo tree, and "Little Flower" realized that their destination was exactly this tree that gave people a sense of sacredness.
The star beetles landed on one of the lowest branches of the ginkgo tree. This branch is much thicker than the diameter of many trees.
The leading male leafcutter ant signaled "Little Flower" and the others to come down, and the delegation continued to move forward with the guide, but the star beetles immediately flew away.
Even though you are walking on the branches, the bark of the ginkgo tree has criss-crossing lines and fractures. But "Little Flower" and the others walked very smoothly. Upon closer inspection, it turned out that the cracks in the bark under their feet were filled with small stones and soil.
Not only is there a road on the branches, but when you reach the trunk of the tree and need to move up, you will see a spiral road extending outside the bark of the tree.
Judging from the naked eye and touch, this winding tree road should be made of ant glue, plant fibers and debris. The thick trunk surrounding the base of the ginkgo tree leads upwards to a platform and downwards to the ground.
When you move up and reach the end of the winding tree road, this is the end of the thick trunk at the bottom, where the trunk begins to divide into two dead trees.
There is also a level road here and a platform large enough for a single dining table, which is also constructed of the same materials as Panshu Road.
From the level path, one can reach the entrance of two dry trees. Two dead tree trunks were juxtaposed to the east and west, with a hole the size of a table tennis ball in both.
"Little Flower" and the members of the mission followed the guidance and came to the entrance of the dead tree trunk in the west.
Here, the leaf-cutter male ant that guided them all the way no longer went in. A large leaf-cutter ant worker came out of the cave. After touching the male ant's tentacles, she communicated with several small and medium-sized worker ants beside her.
Later, the small and medium-sized leaf-cutter ants came to inspect the honeydew and crow honey before transporting it away. The envoys did not stop this behavior. They strictly abided by the orders of the envoy king and obeyed the other party's arrangements.
Subsequently, the large leaf-cutting ants asked the envoys except "Little Flower" to stay outside the hole and be monitored by dozens of leaf-cutting ant soldiers. Only "Little Flower" was allowed to enter the hole.
Following the big leaf-cutter ant, "Little Flower" was surprised to find that there was a light blue light after entering the cave and not walking far.
"It's fluorescent fungi!" Xiaohua recognized this kind of lighting that was very common in her nest.
The fluorescent fungi in leafcutter ant burrows are also planted on the walls, with a mass of culture medium at the roots.
However, there are no red patterns like these between the two fluorescent fungi in the lair of the Angel King's Legion.
"Little Flower" followed the opponent while recording the visual information of the road sections it passed. Memorizing complete information into information packages for such a long time is very energy-consuming, but "Little Flower" feels it is necessary.
The patterns composed of red lines on those walls include various geometric shapes, and there are also some obvious ant symbols composed of dots and lines.
Different patterns are intertwined. Even if "Little Flower" cannot know the cave paintings of primitive human society, she still feels that these patterns are used to record some things, just like recording in an information package.
The protagonist sometimes uses symbols from the human world to record things on blades of grass or walls. This is how his calendar is created, for example. Many members of the God Envoy King Legion have also seen these things, so "Little Flower" is not surprised by the patterns here.
What concerned her was that when she passed these murals, she could smell the faint smell of hormones in her tentacles.
Different hormones contain different emotions. Although the smell types of these hormones are slightly different from those of the Divine Envoy King Legion, "Little Flower" can roughly distinguish them. It's like someone who doesn't understand music notation can know whether the melody is exciting or gentle.
The emotions represented by the breath in the air are some soothing, some exciting, some bloodthirsty, some gentle...
These smells are faint, and although they can be vaguely smelled, they will not make any ants think that there is a real commander issuing orders.
"Little Flower" curiously put its tentacles against the pattern lines on the wall. Sure enough, in addition to a metallic smell similar to that of an iron jaw knife, these lines also had a faint smell of ant hormones.
At this time, the big leaf-cutting ant leading the way roughly pulled the "little flower" down, seeming to be very angry at the "little flower"'s behavior!
