Chapter 178 The Plague Against All Things

Reaper is dying.

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

The moment each locust is cut off, their broken body will release countless fine powders. These powders are very similar to the 'dust' used for fungal reproduction, because the eyes of the reapers are farsighted and cannot see clearly. The microcosmic scene at close range, so Lin didn't notice the powder at first.

This fungal dust-like powder has characteristics that fungi do not have. They have a very strong adhesion ability. They stick to the wings of the reaper in large numbers, blocking the air vents of the reaper, and then the 'dust' begins to grow violently. They directly Absorb the viscera and blood of the locusts sticking to the wings of the Reaper, and begin to grow various shapes, including a 'mushroom' like a fungus, and a carpet that spreads like a piece of land, and at the same time produces a solution , trying to penetrate the reaper's hard shell and drill into the reaper's body.

This biological attack method is similar to fungi, but the growth speed and the absorption of nutrients are much faster than fungi. They continuously drill through the hard shell of the harvester, and then penetrate into the harvester's body, piercing the cells inside to quickly absorb them.

The reaper does not have any special resistance in the body. In order to fly rapidly, most of them are muscle cells, and only a small amount of glandular cells can secrete crust, but they cannot stop the explosive growth of fungus, and the fungus quickly grows and erodes in the reaper. , and blocked the vent. They grow layers of hyphae on the reaper's body surface to wrap the reaper in groups, entwining the explosive worms on the reaper's body. Eventually the Reaper was unable to continue flying and fell from the sky into the sea.

Because the part of the reaper's eye was also corroded, Lin couldn't use it to see things clearly, because the fungus in the body was still increasing rapidly, and it would die soon.

It turns out that these locusts seem to be just the vehicle for this powerful fungus. They may have some special symbiotic organisms, and the locusts provide the fungus with mobility. The fungus eats away at other creatures, eventually eating up the entire island before leaving with locusts.

At present, Lin doesn't see what level of intelligence they have, and doesn't know if they are division-of-work species. They may just keep eating.

However, the fungus that grows so fast can indeed be called a 'plague'. Fungi are a new type of creature, and Lin has not yet fully understood them. And this kind is much stronger than the ones in the Twisted Forest. They can even drill through the high-hardness shell of the Reaper, although there is no anti-corrosion ability to strengthen the hardness and sharpness.

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

Wandering plagues, they have appeared above the sea level. We are approaching the island where Lin is.

But in this case, let's test the infection ability of this group of plagues.

The white sandy beach is full of forts, and it was Lin who asked the headworm to command. The purple locust swarm covering the sky has approached the sky above the beach, and it can be done at any time...

"shooting."

In this instant. All the turrets poured out the warheads in their bodies, which dissolved and reorganized the shell fragments into sharp shapes. This warhead is equipped with a rotating jet port, which can directly smash the target.

Lin let the head worms see the situation of the entire battlefield. The head worms seemed to attack very punctually. The limbs of the locusts shot to pieces by the turret kept falling, and the fungus dust in their bodies spread out, spreading to the beach like a sandstorm.

The fungus dust sprinkled on the beach has no nutrients and cannot grow, and some fungi that just stick to the limbs of the scattered locusts suddenly start to grow rapidly. They grow long silk threads or pompom-like spheres, but they Before being able to touch the fort, it stopped soon. These scattered limbs and wreckage did not have enough nutrients for this group of fungi to grow.

So it seems that they will indeed grow with locusts as nutrients, but only after the locusts die.

But 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 themselves to pieces at the fastest speed, and died on the mossy plain...

This is suicide? Do they commit suicide to allow the fungus to grow?

Although the locusts are suicidal, they are very regular. Their corpses will not be piled up together, and each one will hit the empty space without locusts, making the corpses dense and not piled up. On their corpses, they will soon emerge White hyphae formed, and they extended around to cover the moss on the ground. These moss were quickly corroded by fungi, and the fungi extended into the interior, extracting nutrients from the moss and producing more fungi.

The growth speed of these fungi is abnormally fast, but Lin found a characteristic. When they devoured moss, they did not grow so fast, and the fungus that grew from the locust corpse was not as fast as ordinary creatures. Maybe there is something special in the locust body. The ingredients can accelerate the growth of fungi.

However, their slow growth on moss is only relatively speaking. They are still much faster than ordinary fungi or any living things, so it is really suitable to be called the plague.

There are also a large number of locusts that did not hit the mossy ground, but spun in the air, and some of them landed on the fungus-covered corpses without moving. Only a few thousand locusts were killed, and only tens of thousands rushed to the island. , and most of them flew around as if they were hovering in the sea, and they didn't seem to plan to launch a full-scale attack.

Lin observed the growth of fungi on the mossy ground through the color-changing flyers. They first spread mycelium, and then grew more complex structures on the mycelium, such as mushrooms, pompoms, and strange shapes and types like trees. It seems to be different. Some mushrooms will start to swell after growing to a certain extent, and then explode. After the explosion, a large amount of fungal dust is released. The dust powder drifts with the wind, infecting moss and other creatures farther away.

The fungus dust came into contact with the explosive thorn ball, and the surface of the explosive thorn ball was quickly rotted. The juice flowing out of it caused the fungus to continue to grow. As the surface was corroded, the spikes of the thorn ball began to fall off one by one.

The flyers observing from the air also came into contact with some bacteria dust, which stuck to it and began to corrode the shell of the flyer. Lin found that they had a strong corrosive effect, which could corrode the shell of creatures and make them bleed. The blood grew rapidly. The reapers didn't realize this effect at the beginning, probably because the shell was too hard, and the fungus could only penetrate through the growth of the locust blood sprinkled on the wings.

The flyer was covered with a large amount of bacterial dust, and the number of cells in its body was not enough to resist so much bacterial dust, so it was quickly corroded, and the corpse of the flyer that fell on the ground became like a seedbed of fungus. Spread mycelium around.

Because Lin observed more than one flyer, this scene was very clear, but the other flyers used for observation were also covered with a lot of bacteria dust...

Even if a small amount of bacterial dust corrodes the shell, Lin can re-block the cells, but a large amount will not work, and these flyers can only retreat.

Lin changed to using a special eyeball 'televisioner' to observe the spread of the fungus from the plain.

The growth rate of these fungi is really quite fast. The area covered by thousands of locusts is only less than 5% of the mossy plain, but they have now grown to 15% of the plain, and they continue to release bacterial dust to infect For a farther goal, within 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 escape. I remember that the back of the 'Swimmer' is covered with a lot of gravel, which is probably a way to avoid fungal infection.

They don't seem to have much intelligence. Fungi obviously don't grow brains, and locusts don't have big brains. They just keep eating and convert all nutrients into their own structures. This seems to be exactly the same as the behavior of primitive fungi. .

For such creatures, Lin should indeed destroy them.

But how? For this, Lynn has come up with many ways.

But let's take a look first.

As the day passed slowly, the fungi grew more and more vigorously on the mossy woodland. They grew all kinds of wonderful structures like plants, tall mushrooms and thick branches, and the 'twigs' covered with fluff, like pompoms Ordinary fungal dust seeds, the surface covered by white blankets, they not only spread continuously, but also began to grow these various strange structures desperately, but compared with plants, they are still a little smaller, the largest mushroom is only two meters left and right.

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

Lin found that the locusts hovering on the sea and the sky flew over at this time, they landed on the fungi, and began to eat the various structures grown by these fungi, and their stomachs swelled up by eating them as food.

Is that so, is this the relationship? The locusts let the fungi spread, and the fungi decompose other organisms to give back to the locusts, achieving a special symbiosis.

These fungi are still spreading, but their spread and nutrients are equal. They devour the moss, eat a large number of spiny balls, and finally stop until the night time, and they face a barren rocky land.

The rocky ground has no water, only a few scattered trees, and the fungus cannot reach those trees, and their spread can only be suspended.

Lin thinks that those locusts should help the fungus spread, or wait for the wind to blow the fungus dust across the rocky ground, but the locusts are still eating the fungus, and they don't seem to pay much attention to it. Some large mushroom structures began to grow on the edge. These mushrooms were not upright, but curved, and aimed at the few scattered trees on the rocky ground...

Then the mushroom began to expand continuously, and finally...'Boom! ’ (To be continued...)