I Am the Swarm

Luo Wen somewhat hated his good eyes, and some complained why he had to watch the whole process.

A rare delicacy, why let him see the production process, which makes him how to eat it in the future, this is simply a critical blow to a foodie.

He turned his head and stopped looking around, focusing on exploring the way.

Because his vision was blocked, he only searched a few hundred meters before dark and found four ant nests. These ant nests are all black ants, and the scale is generally relatively large, which may be related to their ability to feed other insects. More abundant food sources allow them to feed more tribes.

As for the new nesting location, Rowan also had a choice, so he chose the center where the four ant nests intersect. Although this location is a bit dangerous, Rowan is already very experienced in how to hide the lair.

The depth that these black ants can dig in the ground is not deep, he only needs to build a nest deep in the ground as before. Then build a transfer station on the top that is completely separated from the nest below.

The insect nest below is like an isolated island, and it will only be connected to the transfer station above when transporting food.

Now that the purpose of this trip has been achieved, it's time to return. It's getting late today, so he decided to rest for one night and set off tomorrow morning.

Early the next morning, Luo Wen got out of the soil, first went to the adjacent ant nest to have a meal, and then climbed towards the cliff.

The last encounter on the cliff still had lingering fears in his heart. This time he changed to a different place, and the claws firmly grasped the stone wall, pulling his body to climb up.

Rock climbing is a very labor-intensive job, especially for Rowan's round body, which requires extra physical strength. However, the huge size also means that the joint limbs are stronger and more powerful, and his ability to resist strong winds has been strengthened. It can be said that there are advantages and disadvantages.

Carefully pay attention to the gap on the cliff, preventing something from jumping out suddenly. If he was attacked by surprise, this time he would absolutely not hesitate, and immediately start to catapult and fly his body away.

Although this means climbing again, Rowan's purpose this time is to find a safe path. The next time he comes back, he will bring many younger brothers, so he must ensure the safety of the path.

Fortunately, they were not attacked along the way. It seems that there are not many spiders of that kind on the cliff. The last time I was very unlucky, I only encountered one.

From morning to evening, he climbed the tens of meters of cliff. The reason why it took so much time was that, besides the exhaustion of climbing up, the wind was too strong for a period of time, even if his limbs were thick, he couldn't support it, so he found a rock crevice to hide for a long time, until the wind weakened. climb out.

The desert area above was basically not too dangerous, so Rowan decided to drive overnight.

In the evening of the second day, except for a few short breaks in the middle, I was on my way all the time. Finally, it took more than two days to go there, and it took only one day and one night for Luo Wen to rush back.

Calculating the time, this time I went out, back and forth, plus the restorative sleep time, it took about a week. Everything in the insect nest is still in good condition, except that the food reserves are basically exhausted, there is no other loss.

Most of the bugs lie quietly on the ground to save physical exertion. Only a small number of smaller worker ants are feeding on the larvae.

Luo Wen also saw more than a dozen small black beetles at the side. It seemed that the first batch of prepared eggs had finally grown into adults.

Unseal the room where the mother nest is located, feed some food to the mother nest, and then connect with the mother nest, and upload some newly obtained gene fragments.

As for how to migrate the insect nest, Rowan had already used the time on the return journey to think about it.

There are more than a thousand insects in the nest, including adults, larvae, pupae and eggs. Among them, adults are the most, accounting for more than half, and most of the rest are pupae and larvae.

And because the brood was ordered to stop producing new eggs early, there were not many eggs that had not yet hatched in the nest.

He first gave instructions to let all the worms eat all the remaining food, and then each adult carried a larva, pupa or egg. He himself connected to the mother's nest, and the little black beetles got under the mother's nest, formed a square formation, and put the carapaces together to form a simple platform to support the mother's nest.

Everything was ready, and the migratory army set off in mighty form.

A few digging ants opened the way ahead, first digging a road to the surface.

Hei Da couldn't communicate, and Luo Wen originally planned to give it up, but when Luo Wen and many little black beetles pulled the brood out, it also followed closely.

On the barren land, a huge beetle dragged a sarcoma and crawled slowly. If you look carefully, you can see that there are many small beetles moving under the sarcoid. Behind them were hundreds of ants, and the ants still held things like pupae in their jaws.

This large wave of bugs, which were clearly not of the same species, lived in harmony, moving slowly in the same direction together.

The large army moved forward, and because they were dragging their families, their moving speed was naturally not as fast as Luo Wen's own hands and feet. He estimated that it would take a week to reach the cliff at the current speed.

During this period of time, the black beetles are lucky to say that there are still some tall trees on the side of the road that have not been harmed, and there are always a few young branches on them that can feed their hunger. The ants can only lick some tree sap to replenish some water. Luo Wen doesn't know how long they can last only drinking water without eating.

He decided to wait until the new station to produce a new batch of eggs, and he must add the soil-eating gene fragments to it, at least he didn't have to worry about them starving to death.

Every evening, Rowan would lead the bugs to dig out a temporary cave. The temperature at night was a little low, and the adults were better, but the larvae couldn't bear it.

He didn't notice this problem on the first night, and all the remaining few eggs were frozen to death, and some larvae also died. The pupae were fine, but two adult insects that had just broken through the pupae were also frozen to death.

No way, they are also proteins after all, and Rowan ordered the bugs to eat them, which can be regarded as a little bit of energy.

Along the way, the sporadic yellowish ants that I could see occasionally went to nowhere, and I didn't come across a single one after walking for a few days.

A week later, the migrating army finally reached the edge of the cliff. At this time, the number of insect swarms had shrunk from more than a thousand to more than nine hundred.

Except for those that froze to death the first night, some bugs were lost every day thereafter to various reasons. Most of them were larvae that died due to food supplementation, and there were also some adults who had just broken through their pupae. Among them, the weaker ones did not hold up, and some fell behind and did not keep up.

The reasons are all kinds of strange, but those are all in the past, and now they have reached their staged goals.

However, soon they will face a more severe test.