I Am the Swarm

It was a black ant, which seemed to be a scout among them. At this time, it was alone, crawling forward aimlessly, touching this and then that with its tentacles from time to time.

Rowan approached it slowly, and observed its surroundings. In the direction it came from, the number of ants gradually increased, and seven or eight of them appeared in Rowan's field of vision.

However, this ant that is suspected of exploring the path is also two meters away from its nearest black ant companion.

This distance is already a long distance for ants, and it is difficult for the two parties to communicate in a timely manner.

Luo Wen locked his eyes on it, and the distance of more than ten meters between the two sides was rapidly closing.

Even during the rapid crawl, Rowan did not relax his vigilance, and even escaped a trap of a foul-smelling earthworm on the way.

Except for the first time, which was a little unclear, I was attacked at close range once. As long as you are prepared later, you can easily find them.

Because there would always be a small vortex of sand where they dug their traps. For Rowan, who had keen eyes, it was easy to notice these anomalies in advance.

This ant was much smaller than Rowan, and it was his favorite type.

As Rowan approached, the black ant finally noticed the abnormality, and its tentacles swayed wildly. But it was too late, Rowan was already close at hand, and a thick digging leg had already smashed towards its head.

These black ants are a bit of a compliment when they say that they have extremely poor eyesight. They mainly rely on the olfactory organs on their tentacles to find food. At this time, being bullied by Luo Wen, who had been prepared for a long time, he had no choice but to be beaten.

Before the black ant, which was stunned by the heavy blow from the digging foot, even woke up, Rowan bit off one of its hind limbs.

The other limbs of the black ant quickly rubbed against the ground and made some small sounds, as if they were calling for help. It's a pity that even the ants closest to it at this time did not respond abnormally to the situation here, and it seemed that they could not receive the distress signal here.

There was no response to the call for help, so the black ant could only resist by itself. Unfortunately, its size and tonnage were suppressed by Rowan, and it was much weaker than the yellow ants that Rowan encountered before. The front teeth are also much smaller, making it difficult to pose a threat to Rowan's armor.

Although ants have always been called Hercules, it is said that if an ant grows to the size of a human being, its strength can far exceed that of a human being. But now everyone is a bug, and no one has ordered exoskeleton armor or something.

After several fights, the black ant lost two more limbs. Only then did it think of running away, but it was too late. With only three legs left, it could hardly even maintain its balance, let alone move at high speed.

Originally it could have struggled twice, although the result would not change. But when he ran away at this time, he turned his back towards Luo Wen, which saved him a lot of energy.

He easily caught up with the lame black ant from behind, and pinched down its slender waist precisely with his feet. The black ant twisted its body vigorously, trying to attack Luo Wen with its pair of front teeth, but they couldn't penetrate the armor of the excavating foot at all.

After restraining the black ant, Luo Wen made a headgear with muddy saliva to seal the ant's mouth. After dragging it away from the scene of the attack, it dug a hole and left.

After digging for a while, he found a passage he had dug ahead of time. In the passage, Luo Wen quickly crawled towards the underground room, dragging the black ants. Although the black ant has been stubbornly resisting during this period, it has no threat to Luo Wen with its front teeth sealed.

When he was about to reach the room, Rowan stopped and put the ants on the floor of the passage, blocking the passage when they came, and forced the ants to the direction of the underground room.

The black ant had been terrified by Rowan, and had no intention of rushing into the passage behind him. It limped towards the room with three legs propped up.

After the black ant climbed out of the tunnel, it was suspended in the air, and its three jointed limbs could not fix its body. So, with a click, it fell out of the passage, onto the floor of the great cavern.

The black beetle that was walking around the room suddenly stopped alertly, and its tentacles began to probe towards the place where the ant fell.

In the dark cave, the functions of the visual organs are reduced to the limit. Without Rowan's mutated compound eyes, he would not be able to see anything at all.

At this time, the perception of sound is amplified several times.

The body of the black beetle is much larger than that of the ant, and the sound and vibration of moving on the ground are also detected by the black ant at this time.

Its tentacles also moved towards the direction of the black beetle, so the tentacles of both sides collided in the air.

After a while of entanglement, both parties came to the conclusion that the other party was not their familiar worm, and before the black ant could respond, a pair of giant jaws with spikes stretched out and pinched off its ant with force. Body.

The vitality of the black ant is very tenacious, even if it is broken into two pieces, it is still struggling, and its tentacles are frantically swinging. The intruder is not dead yet, which means the battle is not over yet, and the giant jaw of the black beetle stretched out again.

After the giant jaw opened and closed several times, the scene was already very difficult to describe. Some unknown liquid stuck to the giant jaw, the invasion crisis was resolved, and the black beetle started to walk again.

Luo Wen, who was secretly observing, nodded in satisfaction, the result of the experiment was not bad. Although the black beetle can't communicate, it can really guard the house, so he can trust it to guard the room in the future.

Climbing into the cave, Rowan had no appetite for the fragmented and indescribable ground, and the black beetle was a vegetarian, but there was another one who didn't dislike it.

After tidying up casually, I fed some as complete as possible to the brood. Rowan went to bite off a tree root and dragged it back to reward the black beetle.

The black beetle didn't show any complacency, as if doing all this was a matter of course, and it was also a matter of course for Rowan to provide it with food.

Luo Wen felt angry every time he saw this silly bug.

He is not a person who holds grudges. When the supplies are abundant in the future, he must return the bug to the furnace.

With the black beetle guarding the house, after a short rest, Luo Wen was ready to go out again. So many black ants were found in that direction just now, which means that there is an ant nest nearby, and he needs to check it out to get to know the neighbor.

A few days later, Rowan was lying in the cave thinking about insect life. Due to absorbing some genes from the black beetle, his body size has grown in the past few days, successfully growing from the size of a fingernail to the size of a one-dollar coin.

So some of the passages he originally dug were a bit small. Today, he widened them both, and just finished.

This cave looks like it will be used for a while, and it can be regarded as his lair for the time being.

After these days of patrolling, he has completed the investigation within a radius of 100 meters.

Solo travelers come and go in a hurry. Maybe they see it today, but they don’t know where they went tomorrow, so don’t pay too much attention to it.

And the biggest threat to his old nest is the only resident neighbor, the black ant nest more than 50 meters away from his old nest.

The size of this ant nest is quite large, but there is no need to worry too much for the time being. Because the farthest place the scouts they sent out was more than ten meters away from Rowan's lair.

And recently, the scouts they sent to the direction of Rowan's lair always disappeared inexplicably.

Therefore, they have reduced the number of scouts sent in this direction.