The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 358 Signal Interruption
Scattered reconnaissance ancient web-winged flying insects were the first to spread out to explore the way. The visual system composed of a pair of compound eyes on both sides of the head, a large sessile middle eye in the lower middle and three special simple eyes scanned back and forth in multiple frequency bands.

Broken and shapeless metal fragments can be seen sporadically in the field of vision, but their shapes are becoming more and more hideous, and they are broken and twisted in various places, as if telling the past experiences of the creations they compose.

Under the faint fluorescent light emitted from the abdomen of the ancient web-winged flying insect, its appendages and stepping structures stepped across the ground. Apart from that, the entire underground world was so quiet that it was almost depressing.

And in this depressing atmosphere, the signal of an ancient web-winged flying insect instantly disappeared in the huge spatial synaptic consciousness network - even Lin Yi did not feel any precursor, as if it had never appeared in the world.

The ancient web-winged fly is a fragile disposable consumable, but this time, something is wrong - there is nothing abnormal in the sensory signals that the ancient web-winged fly sent back at the end, from the inside to the outside.

Lin Yi had mastered the microscopic single-cell version of the space-like synapse structure long before leaving the Earth. Although the high cost and the impact on the function of the cell itself make it impossible to install this structure in every cell, there are several concentrated structures of such special cells in the body of the ancient web-winged flying insect.

Their function is that after the ancient web-winged fly's sensory system is severely damaged in an instant, Lin Yi can sense the state of the ancient web-winged fly's tissues through these remaining tissues and obtain more information. However, at this time, these special structures throughout the body also lost contact in an instant.

With the opponent's known abilities, it is impossible to silently wipe out an ancient web-winged flying insect in an instant without leaving any cell tissue - perhaps the plasma jet structure can achieve the elimination, but the noise made during the launch will definitely not escape the compound eyes of the ancient web-winged flying insect.

The army's pace of advance slowed down, and more ancient web-winged flying insects began to gather - this might be some new type of attack structure, more ancient web-winged flying insects will move forward to test and find out its true strength.
The dense flapping sound of wings began to echo. Under Lin Yi's control, three ancient web-winged insects were grouped together to take care of each other so as to observe the situation of this new attack method more clearly.

But when more ancient web-winged flying insects arrived at the scene, Lin Yi saw an astonishing scene - the body of the ancient web-winged flying insect was lying on the ground almost intact, and except for the slight damage to its vein wings, there was no obvious scar on its body.

The three ancient web-winged flies slowly dispersed. The first one slowly moved forward, while the other two retreated, staring at the movements of the ancient web-winged fly in front with their developed compound eyes, trying to see the situation clearly.

The ancient web-winged flying insect retracted its wings, and its six limbs slowly crawled forward two steps on the ground. A pair of front limbs stretched out, and moved forward step by step, slowly approaching the fallen body of the ancient web-winged flying insect.

But when the ancient web-winged flying insect took a certain step, the signal representing this ancient web-winged flying insect disappeared again in the consciousness, as if blocked by an invisible wall, completely cutting off the connection.

The moment contact was lost, all the sensory structures on the body of the ancient web-winged flying insect behind it locked onto its location, but no matter which sense it was, it did not detect any form of "attack"!
Under the gaze of its compound eyes composed of tens of thousands of small eyes and a series of photoelectric receptors, the body of the ancient web-winged flying insect did not suffer any damage. It just staggered suddenly and then collapsed to the ground, as if it was not killed, but an unmanned device controlled by signals that suddenly lost connection with the signal source.

After a little thought, an idea quickly appeared in Lin Yi's mind - one of the two ancient web-winged flying insects quickly fell to the ground and lay motionless, and in its abdomen, a series of unnecessary organs quickly began to dissolve and reorganize.

A new structure was quickly formed, and a shell structure like an anchor extended from the end of the abdomen. Then, with the help of another ancient web-winged fly at the scene, it slowly aimed its abdomen at the previous ancient web-winged fly. With a muffled sound, the anchor-like structure fell accurately behind the fallen ancient web-winged fly. At the end of the anchor-like structure, a tubular structure with a texture similar to the digestive tract slowly contracted, and the "anchor" hooked the body of the ancient web-winged fly and dragged it forward.

When the body was dragged past a certain point, without any warning, the signal of the ancient web-winged flying insect that had disappeared before reappeared in the consciousness, still as if it were an extension of the limbs, and was not affected in any way.

After a quick check of the ancient web-winged flying insect's body functions, apart from some minor injuries caused by the fall, everything seemed normal. However, Lin Yi's thoughts became more and more serious.

While thinking, he once again controlled the recovered ancient web-winged flying insect to move forward, with the "rope" made from the improved digestive tract still attached to its body, and slowly crawled over the place it had flown over before.

Passing the same point where the connection was restored before, the signal was cut off again in the familiar way in an instant, as if this ancient web-winged flying insect had never existed.

The ancient web-winged flying insects at the back then retracted the "rope" and dragged it back again, and similarly, after passing a certain point, the signal appeared again - as if there was an invisible barrier blocking the propagation of the signal.

After a little thought, Lin Yi had an idea. After a moment, he heard a rumbling sound that was getting closer and closer, accompanied by the shaking of the earth. The huge head of a tunnel worm poked out of the ground and wriggled forward, connecting the two ends of the invisible "barrier" that had lost the signal after the ancient web-winged flying insect passed through.

Due to the layout of its organs, such a large individual as the tunnel worm has multiple special nerve centers with hyperspace synapses as the core. At this time, under Lin Yi's precise control, they are evenly distributed at both ends of the "barrier".

Almost instantly, Lin Yi felt that half of the system perception in the tunnel worm's body was cut off. However, a large number of the same traditional nerves in the body were not affected at all. Only the spatial synaptic structure remained, without any response.

The speculation was verified, but the situation in front of us was even more horrifying - unknown interveners, the Ezki civilization, the missing research ship, the "Presolin" individual that might have destroyed the Ezki colony No. 7, and the hyperspace synapse. Everything seemed to have finally been connected.

At this time, in the distant "Moria" star system, among the remnants of the exploration fleet who were watching all this via the space synapse signal that was synchronously broadcast across light years, someone once again said something that was somewhat puzzling.

"So this is what he called ascension"

(End of this chapter)