The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 14 Hunting the Cornerstone

During this era, horseshoe crabs were at a disadvantage in the competition with large cornerstones represented by cornerstones, and they were more likely to survive in relatively barren sea areas that were difficult to support large cornerstones.

But the existence of Lin Yi and the nest group brought variables. In front of the expansion of the nest group, even if it is as big as a corner stone, it will be ruthlessly crushed and turned into nourishment for the expansion of the Huo tribe.

The soldier's ferocious scythes spread wide and cut through the waves, and his body came through the waves with the swing of the fan tail and oar feet.

The black compound eyes locked tightly on the soft body of Cornerstone's huge body, and a pair of smaller sickle limbs opened and closed like the jaws of later generations of insects, making a faintly audible grinding sound.

Fang Jiao Shi, who was still immersed in eating, realized that something was wrong. He waved his wrist and released the remains of the Overlord and other insects in his mouth. The funnel-shaped water spout under the head violently spurted out a strong stream of water, pushing the five or six insects forward. The huge, meter-long shell suddenly retreated several meters. Then he waved his tentacles to wrap around the incoming soldiers.

Although inferior in every aspect to their later cephalopod relatives, the Cornerstone's sheer size still allowed its death hug to hit its mark.

Lin Yi was unable to dodge, and Bing Hao's body was tightly entangled by the tentacles, and was slowly sent to the strong horny beak.

But at this time, other soldiers had also stepped forward, slashing with their sickle limbs, tightly clamping the corner stone's head protruding from the shell.

The long thorns pierced deeply into the unprotected soft tissue, tearing apart the flesh as they pulled, and a dark color spread among the waves.

At the same time, the exoskeleton of the soldier that was previously entangled by Corner Stone's tentacles was gnawed open by Corner Stone's sharp horny beak. The blue horseshoe crab blood mixed with Corner Stone's blood, making the clear sea water even more turbid.

This is the first individual that Lin Yi has lost since his rebirth. However, this is only a nerve-enhanced type, not a second-upgraded poisonous type.

He let this soldier rush to the front in the lead, and also deliberately used it as cannon fodder to attract firepower, so that subsequent friendly forces could have better output.

More soldiers rushed forward, pinched Cornerstone's huge body with their sickle limbs, then bent their tails, and pinched hard at the roots of Cornerstone's tentacles with their earwig-like tail clips. The sharp blade-like structure at the end easily cuts through flesh and blood, and completely cuts off the corner stone's tentacles.

The poisonous soldier pierces the sharp tail stinger into the soft tissue of the hornstone, squeezes the poison sac, injects a large amount of digestive juice, and wreaks havoc along the circulatory system.

Being stimulated, the corner stone's ten thick and long tentacles waved wildly, trying to remove the soldiers clamping its body. But the long thorns had penetrated deeply into the flesh and made it difficult to pull out.

The intensity of the struggle became more and more intense, but Lin Yi knew that this was its final death struggle.

As the digestive juices entered the body, the tentacles swung more and more weakly, and finally drooped downwards completely, and the huge body slowly stopped moving. A pair of eyes with primitive structures gradually become hollow and lifeless, indicating the passage of life.

Because the air chambers within its shell are still filled with air, Cornerstone's massive body remains floating in the sea even after death. This was also convenient for Lin Yi. The soldiers clamped the soft part of the body with their sickle limbs and slowly swam towards the mother nest where the soldiers were half-burying their bodies and preparing to pupate.

Looking at the huge corpse in front of him, Lin Yi couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

The last time he met Cornerstone, his nest only had three giant horseshoe crab individuals, and the only edited gene fragment was the myelin sheath from the Sakaban soft-shell turtle. Even the dead remains of Cornerstone on the seabed deeply shocked him.     But now, the nest group is expanding more and more, and its scale is no longer what it used to be. Lin Yi no longer needs to fear any large predators discovered by later generations, even the huge five or six meter long corner stone.

Thinking about it, Lin Yi controlled the individual and started eating. The workers broke away from the body of the pioneer mother, wielded their pincers and began to tear out the flesh and blood of the corner stone's soft tissue. Even the huge pioneer mother poured water into the air chamber, slowly sank, and lay on the corner stone's body. Started eating.

Although the pioneer moth uses filter feeding as its main food source, it also has three pairs of shorter chelicerae around its mouth, which can tear large pieces of food into its mouth - shorter, compared to the huge size of the pioneer moro. In terms of body. Its actual size is about the same as that of a worker's pincer.

Naturally, the three pairs of chelicerae were also genetically edited by Lin Yi. Among them, the first two pairs are the same as the two pairs of claws of the tearing worm, one pair has large conical spines, and the other pair has fine serrated teeth. The last pair has short, blunt, molar-like protrusions that can be used to grind food.

Although it is a bit difficult to use for hunting, the efficiency of using it to assist in eating exceeds expectations.

While eating a large amount of food, the pioneer mother consumes her own stored nutrients and lays nutrient eggs concentrated in various nutrients from the end of the abdomen, which are eaten by the workers preparing to emerge into the mother's nest and quickly replenish nutrients for them.

After eating a large amount of nutritious eggs, the worker's body was completely half-buried on the seabed and began to pupate.

The structures in the body were gradually dissolved and reassembled into completely different structures, and the prototype of another mother's nest began to take shape.

Bing Hao on the side used his sickle limb to break open Gong Hao's body that was born out of a short-winged horseshoe crab, revealing the honeycomb structure of the newborn mother's nest below.

The remaining workers nearby swarmed up and continued to tear the flesh and blood of the corner stone into the holes on the surface of the mother nest to replenish it with nutrients so that it could proliferate.

On the mother's nest, countless tubular structures spread and proliferate like vines towards densely populated areas of plankton.

They will develop into clusters of sea ringworms that accompany the mother nest, quickly allowing the mother nest to filter plankton in the sea and reducing the foraging pressure of workers and soldiers.

The mother nest quickly multiplied to a size that could produce workers on its own, and the clusters of sea ringworms that spread around also matured.

The workers began to be produced, and under the control of Lin Yi, they went to the corner stone's corpse to collect it. The torn pieces of meat of suitable size were sent back to the mother's nest for them to absorb, and they began to feed steadily.

Seeing that assistance was no longer needed, under the control of Lin Yi, the pioneer mother that had eaten the corpse on the corner stone slowly swung its five pairs of paddling legs, exhausted the seawater in the air chamber, and floated upward.

Most of the workers and soldiers followed closely and continued on their journey. Only the corpse of the cornerstone was left in place to provide for the early development of the brood.

The remains of the overlord and other insects that were captured by Corner Stone but were not eaten much because Lin Yi launched an immediate attack were caught by the pioneering female with the claws around its mouth and taken on the road as a In the next period of time, supplies will be provided for the "expedition fleet" to move forward. In this way, the pioneering mother grasshopper, which had completed a "seeding", swam toward the ocean again.

(End of this chapter)