The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 327: Raiding the Dragon King
Continuing to move forward, the environment inside the cave is already quite spacious, with huge Venus flytrap structures growing on the top and sides of the cave walls, and some other structures appearing in the field of vision from time to time.

The core of this cave structure is the one Lin Yi had seen before, the huge tentacle with a bud-shaped tip and dense eyeballs, and the core nest chamber of those strange pitcher plant-like insect-catching organs. As for whether there are even stranger structures behind it, it is unknown.

In front of the known core nest chamber, there seemed to be only a long and straight main road, which provided access for individuals of various grades in the opponent's cluster, just like the army of pursuers before. But judging from its width, if it was specially dug for pursuers, Lin Yi didn't quite believe it.

The fire-breathing saw ants led the way, using blazing flames to burn the huge Venus flytrap structures that blocked their way, while a large number of common crazy-toothed saw ants followed closely behind, waving their claws and advancing forward.

Although it is a cave, the burning does not seem to consume too much oxygen in the air. The air in the cave seems to be exchanged with the outside world through an ingenious cave structure design, using some external force, just like the termite mound in later generations.

This allowed Lin Yi to set fires more unscrupulously. The larger body of the improved Crazy Tooth Saw Ant also brought more fuel and propellant reserves, enough to support a large-scale saturation attack.

However, just as Lin Yi expected, after a while, the other party finally sent out a counterattack force - a huge echo signal that almost filled the entire cave, appearing in the echolocation system of the reconnaissance ancient web-winged flying insect that was always running.

Some of the more developed infrared night vision eyes of the Crazy Saw Ants also saw the thermal radiation signals emitted by the target - near the top, there was a large group of flying creatures, which seemed to be pursuers, while below, there was a giant beast of astonishing size!

Its appearance was somewhat similar to those of the alien raiders on the periphery, but it had a larger body, a larger head, and a more ferocious appearance. Even at this distance, the compound eyes could clearly see the well-developed blade-like bony protrusions on both sides of its head.

The most obvious thing is that its pair of forelimbs are highly specialized, so specialized that they are no longer like the structures that can be produced by vertebrates with only four limbs - the ends of the limbs are highly ossified, forming a structure like a giant bone sickle.

As the distance got closer, the structure of the forelimbs became more clearly apparent in the compound eyes - of the four claws on the forelimbs, three were highly ossified and extended backwards like the fingers of a bat's wings, forming ferocious cutting blades.

The only remaining unspecialized claw was flat at the bottom, forming a structure somewhat like a hoof, which seemed to provide some support. However, at this time, the three highly specialized claws were retracted at its sides, allowing it to stand in a posture similar to that of a normal theropod dinosaur.

A roar echoed in the cave, and then a huge Raider Dragon rushed forward under the protection of its pursuers, and crouched in front of the formation, with the flat knuckles of its forelimbs supporting the ground and the flexible whip-like tail at the end raised above its head.

At the end of the tail, there is a structure that is somewhat similar to the tail clamp of an earwig, but is composed of six keratinous protrusions. Countless droplets spurt out and pour down like rain, sprinkling on the body of the ancient web-winged flying insect that cannot avoid it in time, making a hissing sound as if the exoskeleton is corroded.

What sprayed out from the end of the tail seemed to be their blood. The fragile membrane wings of several ancient web-winged flying insects immediately rotted, and their bodies fell to the ground and were then stepped on by the huge body of the raiding dragon.

Above, the Seekers took advantage of the passage cleared by the giant Raider Dragon's jets to fly past, and the light signal flashed, causing them to dive madly towards the Crazy Tooth Saw Ants below. The Crazy Tooth Saw Ants had also been waiting for a long time - countless projectiles whizzed out from the end of their curved abdomens, instantly forming a dense barrage of bullets that enveloped the Seekers diving down, forming a bullet wall in front of them.

Since it is more difficult to achieve rapid fire with a biological structure than with a mechanical structure, if you don't want to install a bunch of tubes at the end of the abdomen of the Crazy Tooth Saw Ant, the best way to increase the amount of firepower projected per unit time is to install a larger tube and use shotgun shells.

The improved Crazy Tooth Saw Ant was larger in size, and the caliber of the biological electromagnetic weapon on its abdomen reached 30 mm, which was considered a machine gun according to the later 20 mm standard. However, the projectile structure was only replaced with a shell containing metal ions, and no other improvements were made.

This allows the improved Crazy Tooth Saw Ant to fire more than ten projectiles at a time, and the amount of firepower projected per unit time reaches a terrifying level. Faced with the dense barrage of bullets, these seekers swooping down with their wings spread wide are the best targets.

The projectiles carrying powerful kinetic energy tore the bodies of the pursuers into pieces. The broken corpses were even thrown upwards for a distance by the kinetic energy impact before being completely torn into pieces by more stray bullets and falling to the ground piece by piece.

These projectiles still have a similar structure to before. They are essentially highly specialized eggs with two sacs filled with special chemicals and some sharp protrusions inside. Once the projectile is deformed by impact, the sacs will rupture, allowing the chemicals inside to mix with the enzymes and react.

This design allows the projectile to delay for one to several seconds after hitting the enemy, explode inside the enemy's body, and continue to create a larger killing cavity. It is a very destructive warhead.

However, the thinner bodies of these pursuers and the electromagnetic launch structure with a faster muzzle speed than gunpowder weapons caused many projectiles to leave the body before they had time to fully react, and exploded after passing through their bodies.

That’s why we see the pursuers being torn apart by the barrage, but even so, the damage is enough to tear their weak bodies into pieces of flesh and then fall down.

But in a sense, the pursuers also achieved certain results - under their successive attracting firepower, the body of the giant raider dragon had already rushed through most of the range of the crazy saw-toothed ants, with its bladed forelimbs spread wide, rushing straight forward.

The swarm of Crazy-Tooth Saw Ants also dispersed to both sides, leaving a passage in the middle. At the back, two more Crazy-Tooth Saw Ants bent their abdomens and aimed the terminal structure at the launching structure of the huge Raider Dragon - Black Hole, and an arc of electricity suddenly flashed!

The faintly visible tail whistled out with an explosion, breaking the speed of sound in an instant, and left two circles of milky white ring-shaped cloud tails near the muzzle - the armor-piercing single-headed bullet, which was improved according to the electromagnetic launch structure, will face its first test against a large target.

(End of this chapter)