Doomsday Totem

Chapter 319 Battle Ants
After Mu Qianhe left, Tie Zha first went to the mobile assembly room in the parking lot of the fortress to unload the power armor, then returned to the office, took a shower, and fell asleep on the big bed in the rest area.

Eleven hours later, it was Dr3713-04-29, nineteen o'clock (because the Abyss has no distinction between day and night, so the 24-hour clock is used), Iron Slag woke up.When he came to the rest area, Bai Xiaoyun had already made tea and handed him a list of personnel.

Team name: Wolf Clan Legion

Leader: Sa Chacha, equipped with "wilderness knight" mechanical power armor
Assistant to the Head: Bai Xiaoyun
Power armor commando: Captain Jerome, Tuoba San, Marcus, equipped with standard mechanical power armor, scout match, equipped with reconnaissance mechanical power armor
Marine Corps: Captain Mu Qianhe, 20 original members, 8 reductions, 12 remaining.

Logistics Brigade: Captain Ju Amu, 35 former logistics personnel, 18 reduced, and 17 remaining.

Medical team: Captain Hillman Hilos, 2 field nurses.

Casualties stranded in Dawn Fortress: 4 marines, 1 support staff.

Tie Slag stared blankly at the list and couldn't help sighing.His team members come from the original college detectives, the Beast Legion, the Northern Black Knights, and the remnants that Captain Nick Wagner asked him to take care of before his death.Along the way, there have been three battles before and after, and more than half of them have been killed or injured, and there are not many left.However, these surviving people have experienced the test of blood and fire, and can be the future grassroots officers of the team.He planned to recruit a group of new players after returning from the abyss this time to expand the size of the wolf army.

Then, he thought about the porcupine again. After pondering for a moment, he raised his head and said to Bai Xiaoyun: "You inform Qin Ke'er and ask her to send three thousand gold coins to Elder Wumu, say it's a pension, let him On behalf of the porcupine family.”

"This..." Bai Xiaoyun hesitated for a while, and said earnestly, "Boss, according to the agreement, the ancient lineage will take care of his family, and we don't need to pay additional pension."

"Just as..." Tie Slag took a deep breath and said, "It's my heart." He heard from Wang Hu that Porcupine was born in a remote mountain village in the far southeast. Enter the Temple of War Bear.Porcupine has never been home for many years. It is said that there are two younger brothers and two younger sisters in the family.While the money won't heal the pain of losing a loved one, it can at least make them better off.

"Okay." Bai Xiaoyun nodded solemnly.

After arranging things, Iron Slag ate something casually, then went to the mobile assembly room in the parking lot to put on the power armor, drove the red comet, and left the fortress alone.

When leaving the gate of the fortress, the soldiers guarding the gate asked Tie Slag to show his pass.Tie Slag was a little stunned, and then remembered that he just arrived yesterday, and the soldiers in the fortress didn't know him yet.

In desperation, he was about to turn around and leave, but ran into Hildebrand who had just returned from patrol outside.Seeing him, the latter immediately stepped forward, smiled slightly, and greeted him, "Commander, good evening."

"Hello." Iron Slag replied.

Hearing the conversation between the two, the faces of the soldiers guarding the gate suddenly changed, and then they came to their senses. One of them hastily stepped forward and asked, "Excuse me... are you... are you Lord Tie Slag?"

"En." Tie Slag nodded.

"I'm sorry...we...we..." The soldier explained nervously, but Tie Slag waved his hand, saying that he didn't bring a pass, and it was reasonable not to let him pass.Seeing that the newly appointed commander had no intention of pursuing the matter, the soldiers immediately breathed a sigh of relief, and hastily lowered the suspension bridge to let him pass.

After bidding farewell to Hildebrand and leaving the fortress, Iron Slag rode the red comet and drove along the road dug into the cliff for half an hour before returning to the platform where the termite was found.

"Alice, take care of yourself." Tie Slag turned over from the car, walked towards the cliff, and said without looking back.

[Obey, my captain] The headlights of the red comet flashed, and a mechanically synthesized girlish voice came out.

"tumultuous……"

With a long jet sound, the iron slag jumped out from the edge of the platform and flew to the top of the cliff.A few minutes later, the life detector on Slag's helmet scanned a stag beetle the size of a car in a crevice covered with ferns.

He flew over immediately, raised his arm, pulled the trigger, and blasted an emergency shotgun on the flat insect shell, and the green slime splashed out immediately.Iron Slag turned sideways first, avoiding the mucus, and then spat in a mouthful of saliva.

After a while, big ants with red carapaces and long joints flew out of the cracks in the stone one after another.In an instant, they gathered into a red cloud in mid-air, beating their membrane wings and making a dense "buzzing" sound.Seeing that it was almost done, Iron Slag turned around, swooped down, and flew back to the platform with the ants colony.Immediately afterwards, with a thought in his mind, hundreds of scout soldier ants immediately shed their membrane wings, huddled together, and quickly crawled into the tunnel dug by the abyssal termites.

After entering the tunnel, the soldier ant colony gradually divided into three groups.They swayed their limbs at a high frequency, moving forward rapidly in the corridor, Iron Slag's field of vision widened accordingly, the stone wall in front seemed to be transparent, and intricate corridors emerged in the void.

Not long after, one of the soldier ants encountered the first abyssal termite.At this moment, due to the large number of soldier ants and the fact that the width of the tunnel is almost the same as that of a calf-sized abyss termite, the bulging milky white abdomen tightly blocks the passage behind them.Seeing this, Iron Slag hardly hesitated, and directly ordered the soldiers to pounce on it.
At this moment, Iron Slag found that the strength and speed of the scouting soldier ants had increased a lot. After the first few were crushed by the abyss termites, the rest of the lurking ones rushed to the back of the termites, biting frantically stand up.A few seconds later, the colony of soldier ants dispersed in a hurry, and continued to move forward, leaving only broken insect shells and scattered limbs on the ground.During this period, Iron Slag discovered another change in the soldier ants.While biting their prey, they unexpectedly injected new parasitic cells.These parasitic cells quickly hatched and formed, drilled out of the termite's fat body, and joined the ant colony.Iron Slag quickly judged that this was the effect of his new ability "Drone Ant Gland", and the soldier ants also had the ability to reproduce.

Before he had time to think about it, Iron Slag discovered a third change. After devouring a sufficient amount of termite flesh and blood, some of the soldier ants' carapaces actually emitted a faint blue gleam.This is obviously the result of absorbing and using psionic star sand.Under the influence of spiritual energy, the strength and speed of these soldier ants have been greatly improved, several times higher than when they were just hatched.The speed of the march and the swiftness of the movements far surpassed that of ordinary soldier ants, and they were thrown away from the large group in the blink of an eye.

In the following 10 minutes, the ferocious soldier ant colony swept across the entire termite nest like a red storm.They are like tides, flocking to the enemy without fear of life and death. While tearing apart the opponent, they inject a large number of parasitic cells and hatch batch after batch of new friendly troops.

After going deep into the hinterland of the ant nest, they soon encountered a group of abyssal termites with larger size, thicker carapace and stronger fighting power.According to the introduction in the textbook, this is a soldier ant among the abyssal termites, and it is fully responsible for guarding the ant nest, so it is also called "abyssal termite".However, although ordinary scout ants are no match for termites, those high-level scout ants who swallowed the flesh and blood of termites and were named "Dark Blue War Ants" by Iron Slag on the spot tear apart the thick insect shells like a broken bamboo , killing hundreds of termites.

In the blink of an eye, the termite colony that occupies the geographical advantage is retreating steadily, while the number of red soldier ants is increasing, and it has become an overwhelming trend. Every fallen abyss termite will hatch more red soldier ants.Due to the large number, Iron Slag has lost control of most of the ant colonies, and can only let them act according to their instincts.

During the hearty annihilation battle, Tie Slag's heart shuddered for no reason, and he accidentally thought of a question, and suddenly broke out in a cold sweat.These scout soldier ants have the ability to reproduce themselves, and the number is getting bigger and bigger, and there is a trend of getting out of control.If they continue to develop like this, will they become a new species after they are completely out of control...

However, his worries quickly dissipated, because he found that all the parasitic cells produced by the soldier ants themselves were weaker than the previous generation, and both in terms of survival time and body strength, there was a certain decline.After seven or eight generations of reproduction, the life cycle of new soldier ants will be shortened to a few minutes, making it difficult to reproduce downwards.

About half an hour later, the termite nests that stretched for more than ten kilometers were cleaned by the scout soldiers, and the corridors were full of broken insect shells and white slime.While cleaning up the remaining termites, Iron Slag made a brief summary.

First, in the environment of the abyss, his insectification ability has been significantly strengthened. Originally, he could only control about [-] soldier ants at the same time, but now it has directly doubled, and he can control [-] or [-] at the same time. ;
Second, soldier ants hatched from stronger species had higher initial strength.The movement speed, bite force and life cycle of these soldier ants have all been significantly improved.A dozen newly hatched soldier ants can easily kill an abyss termite the size of a calf, which would have been impossible in the past;

Third, after the scout soldier ants devoured the species carrying psionic star sand, they would fully upgrade and evolve into dark blue warrior ants, and their combat power level soared; when they slaughtered termite ants just now, they were like cutting melons Chopping is as easy as vegetables.

While thinking, a group of soldier ants swarmed into a relatively open underground space.From the taste perception of the antennae on the top of the soldier ant's head, Iron Slag "sees" a piece of milky white, oval-shaped eggs half the height of a person.With his thought, the soldier ants surged up, tore open the translucent eggs, and devoured the nutrients and newly formed larvae in big mouthfuls.

At this moment, there was a wave of fluctuation in the darkness.Although ants have no sense of hearing, they have good senses.It is not difficult to judge from the resonance of the air, this is a sharp, angry hissing sound.

It seems that the crusade army has found the queen of this underground kingdom.

(End of this chapter)