At the time when sunlight and moonlight meet, it is the darkest time at dusk, and the light at this time is not even as bright as at night when the moon has fully risen.
Especially the moon came out late today. More than an hour after the sun set, the moon belatedly rose from the top of the mountain in the east. After all, when the sun rises tomorrow morning, this bright moon will still be hanging in the sky, presenting a brief beautiful scene of the sun and moon shining together.
During this short period of time without sun or moon, only the afterglow on the horizon can provide the only light, or the fireflies lit by summer stars in the grass by the river are dancing with full of fluorescence.
Such a world is silent. Most of the diurnal creatures have stopped moving, and not all night creatures have appeared. The whole world seems to have weakened even the intensity of the insect chirping.
But it's not complete silence. The light was dim, the river was whispering softly, and in the calm darkness, something was floating on the river.
Is this a floating aquatic plant or branch?
No, floating objects always flow down the river. Unlike this thing, which is tilting downstream at a certain angle and slowly but firmly approaching the other side of the river, it obviously has its own power.
If we get closer, we will find that this is indeed not a simple aquatic plant branch.
A huge snail, about the size of a large cherry, is lying on a branch, as if drifting with the current?
Is it going with the flow? Not exactly. If you look closely, you will find that there is the same huge shadow under the water next to the branch. It seems that some water bug is struggling to push the branch and the snail on the branch underwater.
What makes patients with trypophobia collapse is that this snail is not simple. Its carapace is densely covered with needle-like holes, so deep that it seems that the internal structure of the volute can be directly seen. And in the snail's white, tender and soft abdomen and feet lying on the branch, there are actually countless parasitic hyphae extending from the lower side, as if it is a moldy snail!
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Countless strains of parasitic hyphae are sometimes straight and sometimes curved, constantly entering and exiting the water. It looks chaotic, but it seems to be in order.
These hyphae continuously extend their hyphae heads into the water, complete a half-circle motion, then leave the water, and then return to the water to continue sliding. Hundreds of parasitic hyphae are like rowing oars, constantly moving water, like countless oarsmen steering a boat, making the branches sail faster.
Coupled with the push of the parasitic field turtles and dragon lice under the water, the branch where the snail is located is rapidly approaching the territory of the leaf-cutter ant kingdom on the other side of the river at a relatively fast speed!
Around the middle of the river, the water flow from west to east speeds up, rushing the branches downstream quickly!
The parasitic field turtles and dragon lice have left at some point. They are not adapted to the too fast water flow and only move around in the gentle sections near the river bank.
Only the snail was left. On the snail's head, the antennae and long eyes had been retracted into the body to avoid the fierce breeze. However, it did not completely retract into the safe shell. Instead, it exposed its delicate body in the cool breeze. The parasitic hyphae piercing out of the body were still messy but rhythmically paddling until the branches were pushed away. The middle section of the river with the fastest flow.
In the second half of the journey, parasitic water bugs from the other side of the river came to help. It is not known how these water bugs overcome the river surface and reach the water near the other bank.
With the relay assistance of more than a dozen large and small parasitic water bugs, the exhausted parasitic snail finally reached the other shore.
At this time, it landed at a remote location in the leafcutter ant's country, and had deviated hundreds of meters eastward from its starting point.
This parasitic snail is already very tired. The paddling activity of the mycelium in its body also consumes the energy of the host. No matter how large the body is, it is a huge burden to supply so much hyphae energy for such a long time. Those parasitic snails with slightly lower reserves often run out of energy and die before reaching the other side.
After barely climbing up the river bank, other parasitic organisms came over and pulled or dragged the parasitic snail to a safe place where it would not be threatened by the rising river water.
This parasitic snail fixed itself on the shady side of a certain rock, retracted its body into its shell, and began to fall asleep. From the outside, the snail shell and the attached rocks are integrated into one. If you don't check carefully, no living thing will notice the abnormality here.
Due to the excessive consumption, only a small number of parasitic snails can wake up from their slumber - however, whether they are alive or dead, the mission of the parasitic snails has been completed!
Those parasitic snails that have revived again will slowly move deeper into the woods with hundreds of parasitic mycelium in their bodies - they are tasked with opening up a new purified place for the tribe.
Even if they never wake up, the bodies and final energy of these snails will rejuvenate most of the hyphae in their bodies. These hyphae will take advantage of a nightly high tide or a night rain to wake up and leave the host's body. The body, with the help of moisture and mud, slithered like a snake on the tidal flats!
These hyphae must dive into the river before the sun comes out, before they are dried, or they must dive into the river and start dormant until they are washed to a new place, find a suitable host, and then wake up.
Or they will enter the nearby woods, find a new host that is motionless hiding from the rain, and then infect it and start a new life course.
Or, the most likely outcome for most parasitic hyphae is to be dried out by the sun or die from exhaustion of energy.
There are hundreds of parasitic hyphae on a parasitic snail. Judging from the probability, there will always be a few that complete their mission, find new hosts, hibernate, spread, and purify this new world bit by bit!
When Zhu Jue and the leaders of the civilized ant clans didn't know it yet, the parasitic hyphae had quietly spread!
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The star beetles in the leafcutter ant country increased their aerial patrols, and finally discovered a stowaway parasitic snail on an evening when the moon rose earlier.
Following the clues, the scouts of the leaf-cutter ant clan soon discovered the bodies of many dead parasitic snails on a stretch of tens of meters long on the nearby river bank.
Some parasitic snails have begun to ooze yellow-green corpse water from their shells. They don’t know how long they have been dead. I don’t know how long ago this parasitic snail arrived quietly!
The queens of the leafcutter ant kingdom were greatly alarmed. They conducted large-scale inspections across the country and soon found traces of infected parasites in a large area.
There is even a remote nest that was originally a temporary nest for ants who collected leaves from long distances. Later, it gradually developed into a small nest with thousands of ant mouths.
This lair has been completely destroyed!
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