The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 50 Things in the Pit
  The further they moved forward, the more fearless the leader of the Ancient Jaws became, approaching from all directions.

Although the exoskeletons of the fearless soldiers and pioneering mothers were still unscathed, the ordinary soldiers with thin exoskeletons began to suffer losses and were torn to pieces by the ancient jaws of the leader of the group.

The huge body of the fearless soldier moved forward at full speed under the action of the water jet propulsion system, and the pioneering army and the surrounding soldiers followed closely behind, all the way forward.

Through the individual three-point positioning around the crater, Lin Yi could easily determine the location of the center of the crater and head straight inward.

Even if there is no positioning, with the clear blocking attitude of the Ancient Jaw Group, it is correct to rush in the direction where the leader Ancient Jaw is most densely packed.

In the blood waves, the huge body of the fearless soldier seemed to be in a jawless state, using his sickle limbs to fight a bloody path. A large group of soldiers followed closely, killing the fish that slipped through the net beside the fearless soldiers.

Finally, after passing through an extremely dense area of ​​ancient jaws, the green algae leaves suddenly disappeared, and what appeared in front of them was an open, exposed seabed, and the more densely concentrated ancient jaws.

In the ancient jaw group, Lin Yi finally discovered something abnormal.

It was a huge thing covered by an exoskeleton and shaped like a mother's nest. But the difference is that there are no honeycomb-shaped holes on its surface, but only a huge hole on the top.

At this time, through the compound eyes of Kao Muhao, Lin Yi saw a strange scene inside.

At this time, countless leading ancient jaws were swinging their tail fins sluggishly, swimming towards the hole on the top of the object, and slowly swimming into it, as if they had become completely controlled puppets, without the majesty of gathering in a group to tear apart prey.

One by one, the ancient jaws swam in, but did not swim out again. Lin Yi guessed that they were probably absorbed by that thing, just like the mother nest absorbs the flesh and blood tissue of living things.

After absorbing several ancient jaws, a large amount of yellow-brown liquid was released from the gaps on the side of the object and spread in the nearby waters.

Seeing this, the leader of the ancient jaw group immediately stepped forward like crazy, opened its mouth wide, and swallowed the spreading yellow-brown liquid. Then, it made an unexpected move.

These archaic jaws actually twisted their bodies and swam near the sea surface1, and then began to reproduce. A large number of fish eggs were expelled and floated in the water - it seems that the archaeognaths also reproduced parthenogenetically.

Out of curiosity, Lin Yi controlled a miniaturized spy to sneak forward, trying to obtain an egg belonging to the leader Ancient Jaw. He had a hunch that there must be something wrong with these eggs.

But the leader, Ancient Jaw, quickly discovered the micron spy, swallowed it in one gulp, and used saw blade-like conodont molecules to instantly tear the micron spy's weak exoskeleton into pieces.

In desperation, Lin Yi no longer hid, and controlled the fearless soldier to rush out suddenly, with his sickle limbs spread wide, and passed through the leader's ancient jaws driven by the water jet propulsion system.

Clusters of blade thorns streaked across, and blood spread again among the blue waves. The leader of the ancient jaw group that had gathered together for breeding was immediately torn apart by the huge body of the fearless soldier, and their remaining bodies fell downwards.

The leader of the Ancient Jaws swarmed forward, but this time, their behavior was indescribably weird. Their attacks became weak and their swimming speed slowed down. They could not even catch up with the swimming soldiers.

Gradually, even the body of the leader Gu Jaw slowly stopped twisting and fell to the seabed on its back - obviously dead.

It seems that these leader ancient jaws adopt a strategy of quick birth and quick death. They die after breeding and wait for the eggs to hatch and enter the next cycle of life.

The soldiers picked up the remains of the ancient leader's jaws and stuffed them into the hole above the unknown object - he was a little curious about the role of this brood-like life form and how it controlled these ancient leader's jaws. After stuffing a certain number of the corpses of the ancient leader, sure enough, the living body once again released the yellow-brown liquid from the gap on the side of the body. It seems that its mechanism is indeed similar to the mother's nest.

Controlling an ordinary soldier to move forward slowly, Lin Yi felt something was wrong. It would be bad if this thing controlled the soldier in turn and killed it back.

Thinking about it, he controlled the soldiers to retreat, and a micro-spy snake slowly stepped forward, opened its mouth, and took a sip like the previous leader Gu Jaw did, hoping to see what would happen.

The attack power of the miniaturized spy is negligible, and even if it is really controlled, it will not pose any threat. Lin Yi was able to safely let him conduct this dangerous experiment.

But after taking a slow sip, everything was normal with the micro-spy, showing no signs of being controlled or any strange reactions.

Lin Yi, who did not believe in evil, controlled the micro-spy to take two sips, but there was still no reaction at all. Seeing this, he had no choice but to give up and prepare to take it back for further study.

There are various indications that this thing is likely to be related to the truth about the Middle Ordovician meteor event and the Ordovician radiation, as well as the mystery of the origin of the mother nest and the nest group.

At this time, the leader Gu Jia who was watching around was almost dead, which allowed Lin Yi to move the thing back to the base camp and study it slowly.

As for whether more Archaic jaws will catch up, the Archaic jaws cannot adapt to the salinity of the open sea. As long as they are taken away from the Dikla crater, they can be researched with confidence.

However, how to move this big guy has become a problem.

Fortunately, there was a fearless soldier accompanying him on this trip. Under Lin Yi's control, the fearless soldier's pair of well-developed sickle limbs easily picked up the nest-like object, then started the water jet propulsion system and slowly swam out.

The nearby soldiers stepped forward one after another, picked up the remains of the leader Gu Jaw, and followed the fearless soldiers toward the nearest nest. These food resources cannot be wasted and must be recycled as much as possible for the mother nest to absorb.

At the same time, Lin Yi looked at the eggs leading the Ancient Jaw and fell into deep thought again. Control the exploiting motherflies to filter them out with the three pairs of feeding appendages on their heads, and then make preparations.

Taking this opportunity, he is also preparing to continue to expand his territory deeper into the crater and build more fixed and floating broods.

And just as Lin Yi was preparing all this, new news came from other directions, interrupting his next plan.

In the compound eyes of the filtering mother who went to investigate, the gray-white conical shell with blood-red stripes drew water lines under the propulsion of the water injection system - they are the right helical stones, they are back.

And this time, the Strawhorn Nest Group sent out an astonishing number of adult Strawhorn Stones, and there may be more than one floating mother nest. They are definitely serious this time.

But this time, Lin Yi's side is no longer what it used to be. It no longer only has a fighting grade of second-generation soldiers, but already has an epoch-making weapon.

While thinking, the huge body of the fearless soldier slowly rose from the seabed. A battle was inevitable.

(End of this chapter)