"Bang!"
Without hesitation, I pulled the trigger. The loud gunshot startled Top, who jumped onto a nearby bamboo stalk.
At such close range, the shotgun's immense power sent the ants flying backwards for over ten meters, like dust.
Countless foul-smelling ants were blasted into a puddle of mud by a single shot, splattering onto nearby plants.
Ten meters is not a long distance for these ants, and they don't have the fear that higher animals do. In the insect world, there is only instinct, and their instinct right now is to eat the food in front of them.
I tightened the last bamboo strip and pushed it into the lake. At this moment, more ants were attracted by the commotion and covered the ten-meter distance in an instant.
"Bang!"
Another shot was fired, and the dense swarm of ants in front was blown up by the metal bullets, turning into a cloud of blood mist.
I chopped down a small bamboo pole to use as a punt and shouted to Top, "Top, get on board! We have to go!"
Forgetting the shock of the gunshot, Top immediately ran towards me and leaped onto my shoulder.
I pushed hard against the lake shore with the bamboo pole in my hand, and the bamboo raft made of three bamboo poles was pushed away from the shore.
I breathed a small sigh of relief when I saw that the bamboo raft had left the lake shore.
But my danger is not over yet. You know, there is still a lake monster in this lake that can swallow an otter whole.
My current situation is at best a narrow escape from the tiger's mouth, but I've now stepped into the wolf's den. This is the water creature's territory, and it's no easier to deal with than an ant on the shore.
Just as I was intently watching for any unusual movements in the water, the ants on the lake shore made a new move.
The ants began to link themselves together, using their bodies to build a bridge across the lake. They moved very quickly, and the ants below didn't care at all whether they would drown.
They skillfully linked together, quickly building a straight ant bridge with their bodies.
I've heard this mentioned on science programs: army ants fight fires when they encounter fire, build bridges when they encounter water, and there's no terrain that can stop their progress.
Of course, there may be some exaggeration involved. Building bridges over water might refer to narrow rivers or streams with weak currents.
The lake I'm in right now is at least several hundred hectares in size. If they could catch up with me by building a bridge, I wouldn't need to stay here any longer.
Soon, just as I expected, their bridges reached their maximum distance.
Ants are already huge, and with them stretching such a long distance, their own weight is now pressing them down into the water.
But they still didn't seem to have any intention of leaving; in fact, even more ants were attracted to the lakeside.
How could this be? Could it be that even ants have developed intelligence?
I thought about it, and that's probably impossible. If they had any intelligence, they wouldn't have climbed over my fire in the first place; at the very least, they wouldn't have chosen to use their bodies to put out the fire.
Maybe my gunshots attracted them.
This hypothesis is highly plausible, because ants have virtually no vision and rely on pheromones and bristles on their bodies to receive and transmit messages.
Ants cannot see the world, but their delicate bristles can sense even the slightest vibrations in the ground.
When ants hunt, they can judge the size of their prey by the vibrations it makes, so they can release pheromones to attract the right number of ants.
The larger the prey, the more of their own kind they will call over.
This is similar to how a mouse's walk is always quieter than an elephant's, so the vibrations it creates naturally attract fewer ants than an elephant.
My two shots just now made the whole earth tremble violently. Under such violent shaking, they naturally mistook the gunshot for a super-large prey.
Now they are all guarding the lake shore, still trying to build an ant bridge to reach me.
It seems my plan to wait for them to leave on their own before going ashore is doomed. There are still unidentified monsters lurking in the water; I need to find a way to get ashore as soon as possible.
Whether it was because the ants released pheromones or not, more ants gathered in this direction, turning the originally white snow into a pitch-black mass.
However, one thing is clear at this moment: the lake shore without ants is still a vast expanse of white, and the closest place to me is near the lake shore of the big mountain to the east.
The most dangerous place is the safest place. Now, the birds and beasts on the mountain east of the lake have been frightened away by this group of ants and have fled in all directions. The ants that have no food have also followed them down the mountain.
Based on the current situation, that mountain is now a barren land, making it a good choice for temporary shelter.
I couldn't wait here any longer; the lake monster might appear at any time. So I decided to risk paddling the bamboo raft towards the eastern shore to take a look.
The distance from here is estimated to be more than ten kilometers by water along the lake. If we set off now, we should be able to reach the vicinity of the mountains on the east side of the lake by around noon.
Before doing this, I prepared the machete in my hand, tied it to my chest with the blade facing outwards, and then sat on the bamboo raft and used the pole to paddle back and forth towards the location of that mountain.
This was Top's first time sitting on a bamboo raft. Perhaps it was the lake monster that had surfaced that frightened it, as it seemed a little nervous having never seen such deep lake water before.
I patted Top on the shoulder and smiled reassuringly, "Don't worry, we'll be ashore soon."
Top calmed down a little after I comforted him, but his eyes kept scanning the lake surface, as if searching for something terrifying.
To be honest, seeing this deep, dark lake makes me feel a little uneasy.
I just didn't want to pass on this feeling to Top. If we wanted to get ashore, we had to risk venturing into the deep lake.
The number of ants was truly terrifying; the entire long shoreline was covered in a dense, black mass. There must have been millions of them.
I couldn't help but gasp in astonishment at how God could have created such a terrifying species.
They can almost sweep away any kind of creature with their invincible power, and the probability of them being wiped out in nature is almost zero.
Is this kind of ecosystem a kind of balance? I don't know, it's like asking whether people are born fairly.
To my surprise, nothing from the lake appeared today, which made me feel a little more at ease.
However, I still dared not be careless. There was still a distance to go before I reached the mountains on the east side of the lake. Only after I had safely completed the journey could I be considered to have truly reached the shore.
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