4.6 Billion Year Symphony of Evolution

The reaper is dying.

Under the constant sprint of the locust swarm, Lin probably cut off hundreds of 'plague locusts'. They are quite fragile and have no resistance, but they are like a horrible plague like their name.

At the moment when each locust is cut off, its broken body will release countless fine powders. These powders are very similar to the "bacterial dust" used for fungal reproduction, because the harvester's eyes are farsighted and cannot be seen clearly. The close-up microscopic view, so Lin did not notice this powder at first.

This dust-like powder has characteristics that the fungus does not possess. They have a very strong adhesion ability. They adhere to the wing of the harvester in large quantities, blocking the air outlet of the harvester, and then the "bacterial dust" begins to grow. They directly It absorbs the guts' viscera and blood sticking to the reaper's wings, and begins to grow in various shapes, ranging from fungus-like 'mushroom' forms to spreading blanket-like forms like ground, and at the same time, it produces a solution. , Trying to penetrate the harvester's hard shell and drill into the harvester's body.

This kind of biological attack is similar to fungi, but it grows faster and absorbs nutrients much faster than fungi. They continuously drill the hard shell of the harvester a little bit, and then penetrate the harvester's body, piercing the cells inside to quickly absorb them.

The harvester does not have any special resistance. In order to fly fast, most of them are muscle cells. Only a small amount of gland cells can secrete chitin, but they cannot stop the surge of fungi. The fungus quickly grows and erodes in the harvester. , And blocked the air vents, they grew a layer of mycelium on the surface of the reaper, wrapped the reaper, wrapped around the blaster on the reaper, and finally the reaper could not continue to fly, from the air Fall into the sea.

Because the parts of the reaper's eyes are also corroded, Lin can't use it to see things clearly, because the fungi in the body are still exploding, and they will die soon.

It turns out that these locusts seem to be just the carriers of this powerful fungus. They may have some special symbiotic organisms. The locusts provide the fungus with the ability to move, the fungus erodes other creatures, and finally eats the whole island and then leaves with the locusts.

At present, Lin does not see what level of intelligence they have, nor does it know whether it is a divisional species, they may only eat it all the time.

However, the fungus that grows so fast can indeed be called a "plague". The new type of fungus has not yet fully understood them, and this is much stronger than the twisted jungle. They can even drill. The high-hardness shell of the harvester, although it is said that there is no ability to prevent corrosion in order to strengthen the hardness and sharpness.

In this case, it is necessary for the troops to make adjustments, but now there is no time.

The wandering plague, which has appeared above the sea level, will approach the island where Lynn is.

But since this is the case, then test the infection ability of this group of plagues.

The white sand beach is full of forts, and Lin let the head worms command. The purple locust swarm that is covering the sun is close to the sky above the sand, and can be at any time ...

"shooting."

At this moment, all the turrets pour out the warheads in the body. They dissolve the shell sand and reshape them into a sharp shape. This warhead has a rotating jet port that can directly crush the target.

Lin let the head worms see the situation on the whole battlefield. The head worms seemed to be attacking on time. The limbs of the locusts that were shot by the turret continued to fall, and the dust in their bodies spread out, just like a sandstorm.

The dust on the beach has no nutrients and can not grow, and some fungi that just stick to the scattered locust limbs suddenly start to grow. They grow long silk threads or pompon-like spheres, but they It stopped shortly before reaching the fort, and the scattered limbs and debris were not enough nutrients to allow the fungus to grow.

So it seems that they will indeed use locusts as nutrients to grow, but only after the locusts have died.

The locust swarm did not stop. They ignored the fort, but rushed towards the green-mossy plain behind the beach. They slammed into the ground and then ... died.

This group of locusts smashed their crushed bones and bones on the mossy plain at the fastest speed ...

Is this suicide?Do they use suicide to let the fungus grow?

Although the locusts committed suicide, they looked very regular. Their bodies did not pile up. Each one hit the empty space without locusts, making the bodies dense and not stacked. On their bodies, they quickly emerged. The white hyphae extend around and cover the moss on the ground. These mosses are quickly eroded by the fungus. The fungus extends into the interior and extracts the nutrients of the moss to generate more fungi.

The growth rate of these fungi is abnormal, but Lin found a characteristic that when they engulfed the moss, they did not grow as fast, and the fungus that grew out of the locust corpse is not fast. Unlike ordinary creatures, there may be something special in the locust body Ingredients can accelerate fungal growth.

But their slow growth on the moss is only relatively speaking. They are still much faster than ordinary fungi or any living things. It really suits the name of the plague.

A large number of locusts did not hit the moss ground, but flew in the air. Some of them landed on the corpses covered with fungi. There were only a few thousand locusts killed, and only tens of thousands rushed to the island. And most of them flew around in the sea, and they did not intend to launch a full-scale attack.

Lin observes the growth of fungi on the mossy ground through a discolored flying person. They first spread mycelium, and then grow more complicated structures on the mycelium, such as mushrooms, pompon, and strange shapes and species like trees. As if it were different, some mushrooms will start to swell when they reach a certain level, then explode, and after the explosion, a large amount of bacterial dust will be released. The dust will fly with the wind and infect moss and other creatures further away.

The dust came into contact with the blast ball, and the surface of the blast ball quickly rotted. The sap from the fungus began to grow. As the surface was corroded, the spikes of the thorn ball began to fall off one by one.

The aviator who observed in the air also came into contact with some dust, which adhered to it and began to corrode the shell of the pilot. Lin found that they have a strong corrosive effect, which can corrupt the biological shell and let it bleed. They will lean on The blood grew rapidly. The harvester did not find that this effect was estimated to be due to the fact that the shell was too hard. The fungus could only get in after the blood of the locust sprinkled on the wings grew.

The flying person stuck a lot of dust, and the number of cells in its body was not enough to resist so much dust. It was quickly corroded and the dead body of the flying person on the ground also turned into a fungal bed. Spread mycelium around.

Because Lin observed more than one pilot, this scene was very clear, but several other pilots used for observation also got a lot of dust ...

Even if a small amount of bacterial dust corrodes the shell, Lin can let the cells be plugged again, but a large amount will not work, and these few pilots can only retreat.

Lin changed to use a special eyeball "Television" to observe the spread of fungus from the plain.

The growth rate of these fungi is really quite fast. The coverage area of ​​thousands of locusts is only less than 5% of the moss plain, but they have now grown to 15% of the plain, and they are constantly releasing bacterial dust to infect A farther goal, or a day and night, this plain will become a jungle of fungi.

This is really a terrible lethality. No wonder the creatures here want to run away. Remember that the back of the "swiveler" is covered with a lot of gravel. It is estimated to be a way to avoid infection by fungi.

They do n’t seem to have much intelligence. Fungi obviously do n’t grow their brains, and locusts ’brains should n’t be too big. They just eat all the time and convert all their nutrients into their own structures. This seems to be exactly the same as the original fungal behavior pattern .

For such creatures, Lin really should destroy them.

But what do you do?For this, Lin has come up with many ways.

But let ’s talk about it first.

The day passes slowly, the fungus grows more vigorously on the mossy woodland, they seem to grow a variety of wonderful structures like plants, tall mushrooms and sturdy branches, covered with fluffy 'branches', like pompon The common dust seeds and the ground covered with white blankets not only continue to spread, but also start to desperately grow these various strange structures, but they are still smaller than the plants, and the largest mushroom is only two meters. Just about.

But the strange thing is that they seem to be aggregates of many kinds of fungi, not just one kind, otherwise they won't grow as many different structures.

Lynn found that the locusts that were hovering on the sea and the sky came flying over. They landed on the fungus and began to nibble on the various structures grown by these fungi, and the stomach swelled with them as food.

This is the case, is this a relationship?Locusts let fungi spread, and fungi break down other organisms to give back locusts to achieve a special symbiosis.

These fungi are still spreading, but their spread and nutrients are equal. They engulfed the moss, engulfed a lot of thorns, and finally stopped until the night. They faced a barren rocky land.

There is no water in the rocky ground, and only a few trees are scattered. Fungi cannot reach those trees, and their spread can only be suspended.

Lin thought that the locusts should help the fungus to spread, or wait for the wind to blow the dust through the rocky ground, but the locusts were still eating on the fungus, did n’t pay attention to it, and now there is no wind, but Lin found that the fungus is in the rocky ground Some large mushroom structures began to grow on the edges. These mushrooms were not upright, but curved, and they were aimed at the scattered trees on the rock ...

Then the mushrooms began to swell continuously, and finally ... 'Boom!'