Chapter 5: Insect Tide
Now Liu Ting is so bold, he's completely fearless of life and death, doing things as he pleases. Let alone something like snatching food from a tiger's mouth, even if there was an ancient giant dragon in front of him, he would dare to rush up and fight it. Of course, such a high-level creature has long been standing at the top of the food chain pyramid and wouldn't bother with a tiny insect that can't be seen with a magnifying glass.
Also saying do it, Old Liu's back a pair of wings rapidly shook, issuing a burst of unpleasant buzzing sounds. The whole person had already like seeing blood flies generally pounced on the ground.
In fact, these carnivorous ancient trees only swallowed a small part, and most of them were still torn into pieces by the enraged ancient trees, scattering all over the ground. The Goma beast, due to its large body size and thick skin fat, now has about 95% of the remaining flesh and blood on the ground belonging to this giant beast. The Rainforest Electric Python was relatively lucky compared to the brutally dismembered Goma beast, as earlier the man-eating ancient tree shook with anger, and in a frenzied attack, more than half of the attacks fell on the Goma beast's body. This strong python with a good appetite was ultimately only torn into two pieces by the devilish vines, and then casually thrown into some pothole, dying relatively intact.
When Old Liu found the half-standing body of an electric eel in a corner, this headless rainforest electric eel was still struggling with its body, and the dark green blood was still active, exuding a strong life breath.
"Not bad, not bad, it's quite fresh. I've heard that snake blood and gallbladder are great tonics. Let me see if I can get some snake gall to supplement myself." Old Liu first evaluated the half-dead snake, then pounced on it with the speed of a fly seeing dung. He opened his belly and sucked vigorously. To say that Old Liu had never enjoyed such a sumptuous lunch since he was born in this world, the previous time was simply the difference between milk bath and foot washing water. Moreover, here is where Lao Shu treats guests, drinking high-end demon blood, not those inferior things. Here, you can drink to your heart's content, open your belly and drink, even if you vomit, no one will bother you. Even the 5-yuan all-you-can-eat buffet that made me full in the past was not as enjoyable as this. Thinking about it, just the environment and atmosphere here are tens of thousands of miles apart from those low-quality street stalls."
Since he's here, let him be at ease. Old Liu is quite aware of his role as a leech and on the first day, he can slaughter his own kind and drink blood with gusto, seemingly without any psychological trauma. Moreover, his appetite appears to be fine. In no time, he sucked his flat belly into a round shape, and his entire body emitted a jade-like glow. After a satisfying belch (imagine the scene yourself), Old Liu still wouldn't give up, buzzing around the half-dead snake's body, trying to find that possibly existing snake gallbladder. As the saying goes, "a man's heart is never satisfied, just like a snake swallowing an elephant." Old Liu doesn't even consider his own small stature, looking at his tiny arms and legs, even if he found it, he probably wouldn't be able to enjoy it.
When Old Liu was secretly thinking about going through a tunnel adventure to take a look at the dead snake's body, he suddenly realized that his wings were vibrating at high frequency behind him and flew up into the air with a swoosh. When he looked down again, he saw that the ground had already been densely packed with a kind of ant as big as a baby's finger, crawling all over it. It seemed that there were at least tens of millions of them, just looking at them made people's hearts tremble with fear. In comparison, the place where Old Liu was born was more pleasant to look at.
Just now, on the snake corpse that Old Liu had found food on, there were even more black-brown ants crawling all over it. These ants had extremely large heads, and their mandibles were highly developed, just like two sharp iron sheets. When they closed together, there was even a faint clicking sound. With ease, they cut up the rainforest electric python's skin and flesh into pieces, packaging them to take away. In less than one minute, the huge rainforest electric python had been dissected into a pile of old bones, with not a single drop of blood or shred of flesh left behind.
"This isn't the legendary man-eating ant, is it?!" Old Liu took a deep breath, his eyes wide with wonder as he stared at the "little ants" working diligently below. Where did these guys come from? They were able to sneak up on him without being detected (mosquitoes have compound eyes that take up three-quarters of their head, composed of many small eyes. These eyes can not only recognize objects but also distinguish between different colors and light intensities). If he hadn't had a sixth sense explosion just now and flown away quickly, he would probably have been torn apart by them already. As Old Liu was amazed, he inexplicably felt a sense of inferiority in his heart. What is technology? That's what they call technology! What is teamwork? That's what they call teamwork! In comparison, Old Liu's behavior earlier, which he thought had given him the upper hand, seemed extremely amateurish. Look at their division of labor and efficiency - it was like the difference between riding a tricycle to transport goods versus hiring an airplane for air transport. Compared to them, he was nothing but a P (a nobody).
In fact, this is also the jungle law that has evolved over millions of years in the Gaya Rainforest. As the saying goes, "the strong eat the weak", this is an eternal and unchanging law. If a species wants to multiply and grow stronger, it must constantly adapt to nature and become more advanced and powerful. Only then can it qualify to fight against various natural enemies and even natural disasters. Taking the millions of poisonous insects that live in Gaya as an example, no matter what kind they are, their individual abilities are extremely weak and small. The innate limitations have already cut off their acquired development, making them unable to become powerful individuals like demons that can constantly evolve and grow. Therefore, they can only form a group, with the highest leader (insect queen) issuing commands, assigning tasks, and every time they attack, it is an all-out effort, with everyone working together. With a huge number of groups, they resist the various crises and natural enemies lurking in the Gaya Rainforest, achieving the goal of breaking through quality with quantity. Legend has it that there are extremely powerful and wealthy invasive species that are terrifying. Once they attack, they can gather hundreds of millions or even billions of individuals together. At a glance, they are densely packed, endless, and seemingly overwhelming, like a tsunami or a landslide. It's almost as if everything is being exterminated.
Although the black-toothed ants are not the most powerful venomous insect group in the Gaya Rainforest, they have the oldest social habits among insects. They feed on animal carcasses and cut flesh with clear division of labor and high efficiency. However, they generally do not hunt animals themselves. This is because the Gaya Rainforest is home to many extremely powerful magical beasts that can use supernatural elemental powers, which are beyond their ability to resist. As a result, this highly compatible primitive group has formed an alliance with the carnivorous plants in the Gaya Rainforest. The carnivorous plants hunt and kill animals, while the black-toothed ants take over the opponent's discarded rotting flesh and internal organs. In return, when the carnivorous plants are injured by some powerful magical beasts during hunting, the black-toothed ants inevitably play the role of medical staff. They repair the wounds of the carnivorous plants with their own secretions, allowing them to quickly recover their vitality. Over time, this strange symbiotic relationship has also become a feature of the Gaya Rainforest. The black-toothed ants have also thrived and branched out into several extremely powerful tribes. If it weren't for the fact that this group's potential is really too poor and hasn't developed to scale, with their timid way of life and the strength they've accumulated over tens of thousands of years, they would be able to rank among the top ten venomous insects in the Gaya Rainforest and proudly hold their heads high.
Looking at our old comrade Liu, although he has watched a few episodes of "Animal World" and listened to his idol Zhao's brilliant commentary, after all, he doesn't have the same deep foundation as Zhao. So, after witnessing the powerful living habits of the black-toothed ant, he still didn't gain any insight and thought it was just a normal thing. Originally, whether on Earth or in other realms, ants look similar and are all social creatures, so Liu didn't think much of it. What he wondered about was how these ants could grow such big heads and how much meat they could eat at one time - a question that made people's scalps numb. It really wasted the impressive display of division of labor and cooperation by the black-toothed ant in front of him earlier.
Liu Ting, who was intently watching the ant colony below, didn't notice that behind him, a nearly transparent silk thread was slowly being pulled down between the branches of the tree, supporting a bright green spider as it silently descended. In the silent and stealthy manner, this long-hidden hunter finally couldn't hold back, and opened its sharp fangs towards its prey in front of it, which happened to be our old Liu!
