The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 200 Deep in the Fern Forest

Sometimes, destroying the most high-end equipment only requires the most primitive and violent means. Just like now, Lin Yi's idea is simple - landmines.

As long as some special underground stem structures containing propellant ingredients are grown under the extended roots of the fungus blanket, once the fungus carpet root system senses the approach of leaf claw worms, enzymes will be injected to allow the propellant to start reacting and detonate these biological mines.

The overall structural design of these mine structures was different from all subsequent types of mines because they were dealing with a behemoth such as the Leaf Claw Worm.

In the imagination, its external structure is more like a potato covered with an exoskeleton. The internal bag structure is separated by several valves, and its burial method is also similar to that of a potato, growing directly from the root system.

This is the most suitable structural form that Lin Yi has come up with so far. It perfectly meets his needs in all aspects. The only thing is that such a structure has a sense of déjà vu from a certain classic game.

Although it is not yet known whether the power can harm the leaf-clawed worms, Lin Yi's purpose was not to directly kill the leaf-clawed worms, but to lift up the soil layer and blast the leaf-clawed worms out of the ground, making it easier for the King-Winged Diver and Mortar The Cannon Spider attacks it.

In addition to this passive method, he also needs some active methods to detect the leaf claw worms burrowing into the ground early and blast them out of the ground for further output.

It is envisaged that this will consist of a new fixed receiving structure. Using the faster propagation speed of sound waves in solids, we can detect the sound of leaf-clawed worms as they advance in the soil in advance, so as to detect and kill them as early as possible.

There is nothing much to say about the receiving structure. Simply plug the vibration-sensing structure into a slender exoskeleton tube, insert the tube downward into the soil, and contact the outside world, and you can sense the underground very sensitively. of vibration.

What is more critical is how to blast the leaf-claw worms out of the deeper soil. Although the existing armor-piercing aerial bomb structure can also blast the leaf-claw worms out of the shallower soil, with the current leaf-claw worms The depth of the worm's penetration into the ground is somewhat difficult.

Therefore, Lin Yi decided to further improve the armor-piercing aerial bomb, lengthen and weight the warhead, so that it has stronger penetration and power. Even if it is not used to attack underground leaf-claw worms, it can better penetrate leaves. Claw Worm's exoskeleton, kill it.

The price is that the flight performance of the Kuaiwing Diver carrying such heavy armor-piercing aerial bombs will be greatly affected. But when air superiority is guaranteed, this shortcoming is not a problem.

According to speculation, if it directly hits the Leaf Claw Worm, such a biological heavy-duty armor-piercing aerial bomb can directly kill, or at least severely damage the Leaf Claw Worm.

In other words, the truth about the mass extinction at the end of the Devonian period, as well as some other important information, is very likely to be revealed to Lin Yi soon.

These structures began to be produced under Lin Yi's control. At the same time, ahead, the expansion of the mother nest group did not stop. The fungus carpet proliferated, and mother nests and other structures sprang up from the ground.

Before, it couldn't be seen clearly from the air, but now, Lin Yi clearly discovered that from the depths of the fern forest, the terrain was getting lower and lower, and it showed an obvious ring shape - this was very likely to be a meteorite. The location of the pit.

Combining these plants and fungi, this place is likely to be the location of one of the two most important meteorite impacts in the Kelvasa event in the stage before the end-Devonian mass extinction.

For this reason, Lin Yi no longer even controlled the mushroom carpet to proliferate forward, but controlled the shadowflies to fly past from low altitude, conducting reconnaissance in advance to look for possible abnormalities.

The Big-Winged Diver carries a bag full of chemical substances and splashes them down, clearing a clearing in the fern forest in advance.

Immediately, the Shadowfly's body slowly landed on the ground, gathered its membrane wings, split the dead vines with its sharp bladed appendages, and moved forward to explore.

In the fern forest, between the pair of well-developed compound eyes on the shadow fly's head, a pair of single eyes turned on low-light night vision to explore the situation in front of them. Deep down, the shapes of these strange ferns are different from those on the outside. The main part is more knotted, as if it is completely entangled with countless lignified vine structures.

Under Lin Yi's control, a shadowfly's bladed appendage was used to chop, cutting off a section of the vine and sandwiching it between the claws at the junction of the tibia and tarsus of the appendage.

Immediately, the Shadowfly's body found an open space, spread its membrane wings, soared into the air, flew towards the mother nest group at the rear, and casually dropped the vine on the fungus carpet.

After a while, the genetic sequence analysis was completed - the fern wood in the core area was actually very different from that in the periphery.

What surprised Lin Yi was that based on the genetic sequence analysis of these strange ferns, the proportion of air components most beneficial to their growth was different from that of any other geological era.

It stands to reason that this phenomenon is unlikely to occur. Moreover, analysis of the microstructure of their bodies showed that there were many extremely unique microorganisms living in their bodies, many of which Lin Yi had never seen before.

There are not even these symbiotic microorganisms in the outer fern wood. Even if there are, the number is very small. It seems that they are gradually degenerating.

And, the most important thing is that their vine structures have structures similar to muscle tissue themselves, instead of being composed of symbiotic or parasitic fungi like the ferns on the outside.

Perhaps because of this, the composition of fungi is much less than that of the surrounding ferns. There are even some ferns that have no fungal structures at all.

The rhizomes of these ferns seemed to have some kind of special structure, similar to a neural structure, which further aroused Lin Yi's vigilance - it was indeed not simple.

Other shadowflies continued to go deeper, opening the way with chemicals sprayed by the giant-winged swoopers in the sky. Their sharp bladed appendages split dead vines and branches, opening passages all the way inward.

……

Continuing forward, Lin Yi was surprised to find that the lethality of chemical substances to fern trees was weakening. From the very beginning it was instant death upon contact, then gradually became slowly effective, and then almost completely ineffective.

But at the same time, the aggressiveness of those vine structures is also weakening - to be precise, they still maintain their aggressiveness, but something seems to be interfering with them, causing these vine structures to wave randomly and lose their peripheral attack power. .

Lin Yi simply controlled the Kuai-Wing Diver to wait above, while the Shadowflies continued to go deep alone, splitting the vines along the way and investigating forward.

Those vine structures no longer posed a threat, allowing the shadowflies to easily cut through the obstacles and move forward.

And after moving forward for an unknown amount of time, finally, something extraordinary appeared between the pair of well-developed compound eyes of the shadow fly!

(End of this chapter)