The protagonist is highly vigilant about this new species of pavement ants, and the Flying Knight is quickly ordered to deliver relevant military information to the retreating coalition forces who are being pursued.
The coalition forces are dominated by leaf-cutting ants, and the queen ants and female ants, the top commanders of the leaf-cutting army, were also very nervous after hearing the news.
The weather has been really cold recently. The coalition forces have a very short time to move during the day, and the distance they can travel is also limited. From the intelligence point of view, this enemy moves quickly and is not restricted by low temperatures, although there is still a constant distance between the two sides. , there is no guarantee that they will not catch up with the slow-moving coalition forces.
What is even more embarrassing for the coalition forces is that even if they already know this information, it is difficult to prevent it:
During the day, the army was busy marching in long queues. This formation was difficult to withstand a surprise attack, and the temperature restricted the dispatch of scout troops, making it difficult to provide sufficient early warning.
The situation will only get worse at night. When the troops camp separately, it is also the most vulnerable time. If the enemy launches a sneak attack, they can defeat them one by one. All the ants in the nest are unable to move out in the low temperature environment, that is, To support each other, we can only disperse and defend.
In this case, the coalition forces seemed like giant earthworm prey, while the pursuers were the menacing ant hunters.
Under the threat of the pursuit of pavement ants, the coalition forces tried their best to move as fast as possible around noon in the next few days, but the position of the pursuit of pavement ants reported by the flying knight was getting closer and closer.
A high sense of tension enveloped the coalition forces. Although there were currently only a few thousand pursuing troops behind them, the Flying Knights gradually discovered that tens of thousands of regular Imperial Army troops arriving in [Liuyi City]. Once the coalition forces are entangled and unable to break away, they are likely to gradually fall into the encirclement of multiple pursuing enemy forces.
Fortunately, the worst did not happen. In mid-November, before the arrival of the first big cold wave, the coalition forces successfully withdrew from the "Holy Tree Forest".
After heaving a sigh of relief, the leaf-cutting ant army in the coalition dispersed to various sub-nests in the territory to spend the winter. The expeditionary forces of each civilization's ant tribe were also assigned winter nests and supplies, and each made preparations to survive the long winter.
However, the special new pavement ants that were pursued aggressively before were still hesitant two days away and soon evacuated on their own.
The crisis for the coalition forces has been lifted, but for all life in this world, the annual severe cold crisis has just begun!
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The sun was still shining brightly for the first two days. At noon, the sun was shining fiercely, and occasionally it felt hot.
However, a sudden attack of cold air announced that the cruel winter will never be absent.
In a world without warm-blooded animals, the land under the rule of cold air would be deathly silent. Except for the "rustling" of dead branches and needles that have not fallen off in the wind, there is no movement or shadow of any living thing.
It seems like this is a frozen planet with only dark green plants!
But underground, it's a different scene.
In places such as [Xinyang City], [Hematie City], [Yueerlan City], [Hive City], and even [Tuohuang City] on the south bank of Qinghe River, every lair, large and small, is bustling with activity.
Generally in winter, in order to save precious food, in the nests of each ant clan, except for the necessary maintenance ants, other ants will consciously reduce their activities, and eat, drink and litter to the minimum frequency to reduce energy consumption. At the same time, ant colonies rarely lay eggs in winter to expand the size of the ant colony. These measures are all to ensure that scarce material reserves can sustain the entire nest for a longer period of time in winter.
But the Ant Alliance is different. They have adapted to winter several years ago and have abundant and inexhaustible reserves. Although the continuous wars consumed a lot of resources this year, the large-scale reconstruction and harvesting before winter still ensured that each sub-nest had sufficient food and material reserves for the winter.
Even if the reserve level is lower than last year, it will easily be enough to cover the entire winter.
Instead of saving in the winter, produce more of what you need next year. Therefore, the "rich and wealthy" Ant Alliance still shows great vitality in winter.
In a nursery, the newly born eggs of the queen are pure white and flawless. They are transported here and placed in soft and warm ant silk mats. In the crystal flesh of some ant eggs, you can see large and small black spots, which are the small bodies of the hatching ants.
In the adjacent nest chamber, a small group of young ants was arching back and forth on the ground. These little "maggot"-like beings can't yet see the tough appearance they will have with hard carapace and clear jaws in the future. Each one is small and fragile, but extremely lively. The nurse ants that take care of them often pick up the young ants that have crawled too far, and they also spit out food from time to time to cope with the endless demands of the greedy young ants.
In the next nest room, ants that have pupated are piled together like dense mummies. Only the occasional squirming tail of the pupa can prove that they are all living creatures. It won't be long before a new batch of worker ants will emerge from their pupae and join the Ant Alliance.
The nest is as warm as spring, maintaining a comfortable room temperature of about 20 degrees. The combustion chamber or blast furnace in each nest is working, so that the underground space with good thermal insulation effect is always filled with heat suitable for activities.
In addition to the expansion of the ant colony, the Ant Alliance is also engaged in large-scale production during this cold winter.
The underground ant tunnel connecting [Hematite City] and [February Orchid City] has been built. This underground "highway" allows hematite ore and other materials to continue to be transported even in winter.
Now, this underground "highway" is continuing to extend in the two directions of [Xinyang City] and [Hive City], preparing to connect small sub-hives along the way to build an underground transportation that is not affected by surface weather. net.
Outside [Hematite City], a working channel extends to a mineral vein not far away, and the ants continue to dig for ore underground. These hematite ores will be converted into molten iron in the blast furnace of [February Lan City], and then cast into pieces of ironware. In [Xinyang City] and [February Lan City], countless iron tools for various purposes were produced, as numerous as the stars in the pure night sky in winter.
Other workshops are also working hard. In addition to the iron-making blast furnace, the busiest one is undoubtedly the explosives workshop.
The raw materials of these workshops far away from the nest body are fluorescent bacteria, and even in winter, the fluorescent bacteria that mainly rely on the excrement of ants or mealworms are growing well. The tiny bacteria that emit light blue light contain huge amounts of energy.
The Ant Alliance is busy, but within the busyness is the hustle and bustle of war preparations. They are preparing in advance for next year's war.
How harsh will next year's war be? Maybe it's even scarier than this winter...
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