While the scouts went to investigate what was happening from the direction the wounded man ca from, Grud and the dicine man were trying to save the life of the wounded man with the weird wounds all over his body.
Unfortunately, fate was not on the man’s side this day. Despite the treatnt, the man continued his incoherent ramblings about a swarm, and soon after that his unfocused eyes rolled back into his head, and he started having a seizure and died soon after.
After confirming his death, both Grud and the dicine man let out a sigh, ‘With the ferocity of this new land, this will not be the last man I bury.’ Grud thought to himself.
Being the only shaman in the outpost at the mont, he held a short ceremony and gave the man his last rites.
It was almost dark by the ti the scouts ca back and they did not bring good news. “Chieftain Grud, the outpost in the direction the man ca from was intact and its gates locked when I arrived, but nobody answered my call to see if there was anyone around and there was the strong sll of blood. When I climbed a tree tall enough to see over the wall, the only thing I saw was blood everywhere but no bodies.”
“Were there any tracks around?” Grud asked while thinking about what in the world could bypass the walls and gate ‘Was it those damm lizards again?’ Grud thought to himself.
“Weirdly, no foot tracks, only blood trail. We had no ti to investigate further and made our way back.” the scout reported.
“Good.” Grud said as he turned to another bunch of hunters, “Make two small teams and go to our two closest outposts. Tell them what happened and request their backup, stay with them overnight, and co back tomorrow so we can investigate tomorrow. If what the man I just buried said is true, nothing called a swarm is good.”
The next day around late morning, three teams of hunters along with the n he sent to get them showed up and after a short rest for lunch, made their way to the outpost his scouts reported about yesterday.
When they got to the outpost, they too tried to call out and peek over the wall only to find the now-dried blood splattered all over the place.
After sending a couple of n over the walls to open the gated form inside, the hunter teams made their way inside the abandoned outpost.
When Grud made his way inside, it was then that the full stench of the place hit him. There were the usual slls of battle which was blood, sweat, piss, and shit, but along with those slls were three more slls.
The first was a yellowish liquid that had been spilled around, and from the splash pattern, Grud suspected it was the blood of whatever killed the people in the outpost.
The second sll ca from certain patches around the places where scuffles took place, the patches had the sa sll of the man he buried yesterday, wherever the patches were, the area seed to be blackened like it was burnt, yet there was no sll of ash, only an acrid scent that was so sharp and pungent that it curled his nose hairs.
The last scent was mild and subtle, yet it left distinct trails around the outpost, over its walls, and leading away into the distance. ‘I have no idea what this scent trail is, but it is a good bet that it belongs to what killed out people.’
After searching around for any survivors, the only thing they found was so small remains of the n who were once there.
Seeing that there was nothing more they could do, Grud split the group. There were two nearby outposts, so he sent two teams to investigate the status of one while Grud’s team along with another team would investigate the other and et back at Grud’s outpost.
When Grud got to the next outpost, the results mirrored the previous one. Gates locked, blood everywhere, no bodies, and the sa three slls that were not associated with n dying.
After performing the last rites so that those who died here would be guided by the Great Spirits to their ancestors’ side, Grud ordered a return to base before it got too dark.
Grud’s group returned to their outpost to rest for the day and let his n rest and do their own equipnt maintenance, and they were soon joined by the other group that split up to investigate another outpost.
But unlike Grud’s group, the other group saw so action at their assigned outpost. They ca back with the carcasses of four giant ants along with a few n with similar wounds as the man he buried, but they were less severe.
From the report of the encounter with the giant ants. The outpost they went to was the sa as the previous one, the only difference was when they climbed over the wall, the blood splatter was very fresh, and the four giant ants were just milling around until the n ca over the wall.
When the ants tried to rush the n, the n prioritized the main gate and went to remove the log barring the gate, after that the rest of the hunters rushed in to slay the ants, but not without a few of them getting sprayed by a burning liquid.
Fortunately, there were a lot of people around with waterskins to wash off the acid before the acid burns got too bad.
After the reports, Grud got everyone settled in as the families assigned to the outpost got dinner ready for the hunters.
While waiting for dinner, Grud went over to the dead giant ants to figure out what they were dealing with.
The first thing he noticed was the ant’s compound eyes, ‘If this is just a really big ant, does that an the normal smaller ants have the sa kind of eyes?’ Grud asked himself as he prodded the compound eyes.
As he prodded the rest of the body, he noticed that beside the head and thorax, the abdon was covered by a more flexible chitin, and when pressed would flex to where he applied pressure.
Grud wanted to see how much pressure the abdon could take and started to compress and smush the dead ant’s abdon to the ground. When it was smushed halfway down, a sudden spray of colorless liquid ca out the back end of the abdon onto the grass, and within seconds, the grass began to sizzle as an acrid smoke began to waft up from the area where the acid touched.
‘Well, that explains the injuries the n got when slaying these ants.’ Grud thought.
After a while of examining the ant carcasses, the call for dinner was made. Thinking that he might as well get over with the most likely awful taste now and wash it down with so good food, he reached into a big wound on the ant’s thorax and ripped out a chunk of at, and bit into it.
After gagging a bit from the sour flavor of the at, he washed the rest down with a lot of water and made his way to the cooking fire to cleanse his tastebuds with so hot food.
Then Grud retired to his tent early to blow his load inside of Mita and rest for a busy day tomorrow.
—
When Grud was deep asleep, the mutating agent got to work on the newly introduced genetic data that was introduced to the system and got to work to see what it could use to mutate its host.
Mandibles, incompatible. Multiple legs, could be useful but the internal chanisms for movent were too different from the current host, so it was incompatible. Compound eyes, are objectively worse in every way than the host’s current situation, each individual eye in the compound eye (ommatidium) is so weak that even as a whole the eyes can only see a couple of ters before everything becos a blur of shapes and colors, this genetic data is to be broken down and recycled as biomass. Chitin exoskeleton, a potential mutation option if the host gets more genetic data to bridge the gap, to be stored for the mont, and the sa applies to the acid glan, it will do more harm than good if applied now.
As for the features that can be applied, the mutating agent found that the pheromone gland was much more advanced and complex compared to its host and decided to apply the mutation. The other feature the mutating agent decided to apply to complent the applied pheromone gland was the antenna, or more specifically the sensory receptors in the antenna which were added to the host’s already powerful olfactory senses.
Seeing nothing more it could do, the mutating agent went dormant again.
—
It was night ti and most people were already asleep, while others were still up shooting the shit with their friends, that was until a sentry released a sharp whistle and shouted “ANTS!”
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