Chapter 61: On the March
As the sun appeared, the regiment closest to the northeast took the lead and crawled in a column to the northeast. The legions on either side of this legion also moved, and the ants of the three legions formed a fan about two meters wide and advanced forward.
The then assembled legions followed in turn. The protagonist's legion is on the east side of the entire assembly area, and the other legions around him soon follow the vanguard, in a relatively high position in the marching line of the large army.
The protagonist wants to grind foreign workers, and it is not in line with his plan to go ahead, so even if his subordinates are so anxious that they scratch their ears and cheeks, and frequently send worker ants to pass on the urging signal, the protagonist is unmoved.
The legions next to it are pulled out one by one, and the protagonist legion standing still is extremely conspicuous. However, not a single legion commander came to complain, and the entire Ant Expeditionary Force was not so much a whole, but a union of fifty small legions, all moving towards one goal. There is no command between the different legions, and there is no supreme commander.
At this time, there is still a steady stream of ants in the main nest, which has just come out and has not yet completed the assembly. The newly hatched legions assemble in the southern clearing and wait for the first legion to advance before they can follow.
The protagonist's attempt to hide in a back position is quickly shattered. About half of the legions were already in the way, when a legion passed by the protagonist's legion, but the legion suddenly stopped. The protagonist is surprised when a worker ant runs quickly from the legion. He stopped at the edge of the protagonist's legion, briefly communicated with a king, and ran straight in front of the protagonist.
The protagonist knows that the worker ant should be in the role of a herald, and extends his tentacles.
The worker ants send a message to the protagonist through their tentacles: the Legion of the Public Security King invites the Divine Envoy King's legion to accompany him.
Well, dare to love this legion under the public security. Yesterday, I seemed to hear the senior brother say that he was an ordinary king in this legion. In addition, the name of the Divine Envoy King Legion is quite nice, so let's call it this name in the future.
Since the public security has sincerely invited them, it is not easy for the protagonist to refuse. He emits a pheromone signal of "Attack Now", combined with a distinctive abdominal fricative, a combination of messages that means to move forward. The soldier ants next to the protagonist immediately respond to their unique rubbing syllables, and then the ants farther away hear the same sound. It wasn't until the ants at the very edge of the legion had recovered that the entire legion began to move forward.
After the Divine Envoy King's Legion moved, the Public Security Legion followed suit.
After all fifty legions of the main nest were assembled and deployed, the sun had completely risen over the horizon. The sun's dazzling morning light pierced the sky from the east, shining on the advancing expeditionary force, reflecting their carapaces with a golden glow.
If you look down from the sky, you can see that this piece of golden light is about two meters wide and about ten meters long, in an irregular rectangle, moving rapidly in the northeast direction at an even speed of five meters per minute.
Along the way, countless insects lurking on the ground and in the grass were killed. In the direction of the Ant Expeditionary Force's advance, only insects with good eyesight, fast speed, and quick reflexes can dodge in time. As long as the other insects are bitten by any one of the ants, then countless ants will soon crawl all over its body, the soldier ants will use its sharp palate claws to dismember it alive, and the worker ants will cut the meat into smaller pieces, and the entire team of the king's subordinates will stop to enjoy this delicious meal, and then speed up to catch up with their own legions. Sometimes when a big guy is caught, even the entire legion can have a full meal, allowing the legion behind him to overtake him.
In the human world, the rule of the army in the ancient era was generally "the emperor is not a hungry soldier". The ant world is different, because the main nest needs to feed too many ants, and a lot of food is transported to the secondary nest near the front line to support long-term combat, so the army that the main nest pulls out is half full and goes on the road. Therefore, whenever there is a hunting fruit along the way, the ants will not hesitate to stuff it into their stomachs.
In this way, the ants will even climb every stone and bush in the path, whether it is locusts and foot beetles that are active during the day, or grasshoppers and caterpillars resting under the rocks and leaves, all of them are unlucky, and they all become military food in the stomach of the expeditionary force.
Even the praying mantis, centipede, which terrified the protagonist before, as well as the unicorn fairy and stag armor that they had never met before but were extremely powerful at first glance, all avoided the army of ants. The ant army also did not actively pursue these dangerous apex insect predators, lest they increase casualties.
This also makes the protagonist feel a big breath of evil. The previous two encounters with praying mantis and centipedes were all losses, and they failed to cause any substantial damage to the other party, which can be described as a complete failure. Now that you've seen the ant army, it's not just about escaping! The saying that unity is strength is really not covered, and these stragglers, no matter how strong their individual strength, are no match for a group of truly social insects (ants, termites, bees). Just as a hunter can't beat a lion, but a group of lions is definitely no match for a group of hunters, even if the group of hunters has only one stone spear.
The protagonist can't help but think of a critically acclaimed documentary "Animal World" in his previous life, where the highly recognizable male magnetic voice explains such a picture: "The lions were feasting on their fresh prey, and suddenly, all the lions were alarmed, and they fled in a hurry. What makes them even abandon their prey? It turned out that a group of African hunters approached in the distance. At this moment, the lions finally understood who was the master of the African savannah. "What's the name of this narrator? The main character's amnesia has been forgotten.
In fact, there are such spectacular ant hunting scenes in the real world. Ants such as army ants and spear ants in the Americas have this habit of marching and hunting. In the tropical rainforest, it is not difficult to see the following scenes: large cockroaches that are like house mice, extremely venomous scorpions, tarantula poisonous spiders with fur all over their bodies, as well as turtles, snakes, lizards, etc. scattered and fleeing. With bursts of sour smell, a black-pressed ant army at least 15 meters wide was terrifying, and its speed was extremely fast, and it had arrived in the blink of an eye. They do not build fixed nests. On weekdays, they march in the rainforest and slaughter in the rainforest area, and wherever the mighty army goes, all insects and invertebrates rarely steal their lives. When the vanguard caught the prey thousands of times larger than them, the main army arrived as soon as possible, and the prey was immediately submerged in the vast sea of ants, and the chance of surviving was zero. In particular, spear ants can even hunt large animals that are countless times larger, and cattle tethered to trees are often targeted. Spear ants will burrow into the cow's body in swarms from its eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, and first cut its internal organs. Within a few weeks, a cow was left with only a pair of bones. A chicken, on the other hand, can only serve as food for spear ants for two days.