Kapitel 123: Chapter 122
The Leviathan retracted its wings and swam towards the location the headworm mentioned. It was right next to the lake and was covered by a pile of ferns.
The Leviathan used its tentacles to push aside the ferns. Countless flying insects flew out from the ferns. They were a type of golden beetle that glowed under the sunlight.
"Tribe?" The Leviathan reached out its tentacles and used the suction cups on its tentacles to catch a golden beetle.
"Polcat bug, bright, reflective, food, not tribe." The headworm bit the beetle on the tentacle's suction cup and ate it.
"Scent of tribe, there are remnants, continue searching."
After eating, the Overmind rolled its body down from the Leviathan's body and fell into the fern bushes.
"Danger, do not act on your own." The Leviathan reached out its tentacles and pulled the headworm out from the ferns. Lin had already noticed that although the headworm knew what danger was, it didn't seem to have any sense of danger. It had almost no ability to defend itself, the only thing it could do was to roll, which made it easy to be ambushed.
The headworm moved its body as if it wanted to continue rolling down. Lin sensed the headworm's excitement and spoke: "Found the tribe passage, three meters ahead, under the ferns."
Tribe passage?
Lin suspiciously walked to the location the headworm mentioned. After pushing aside the ferns, Lin found a tree hole about a meter in diameter.
"Tribe living area, inside the Hometree, roll!" The headworm excitedly rolled down from the Leviathan's back into the tree hole.
Inside the Hometree? It was just as Lin thought. The middle of the tree was also empty, but not completely empty. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been able to support such a large body.
The hole was too big for the Leviathan to fit in. Lin was thinking about whether to blow up the hole or release a few smaller units inside when the headworm's voice came from inside …
"Lin —"
Now, the brainworm would call any of the Lin units "Lin", instead of calling the biggest one "Leader" like before.
It seemed to have run into some kind of problem inside, so Lin decided not to blow up the hole first. Instead, she let the Leviathan release a few flyers into the hole.
The inside of the hole felt very narrow. It was a small space with a width of less than one meter and a length of less than three meters. The headworm was lying on the ground at the bottom of the cave as if it was looking at something.
Noticing Lin's flyer flying in, it said: 「 Clan drawing, Lin, take a look 」
Lin noticed that there was an obvious circle where the Cephalophorus was lying. Other than that, there was nothing else.
"Painting?" The Flyer who had a vocal sac asked the Overmind Worm.
"Draw, traces of the tribe, scent remnants. Begin searching." As the brain worm spoke, it began to roll. Lin watched as it hit the wall of the cave and rolled back to its original position. When it reached the entrance of the cave, it realized that it could not roll up, so it rolled back to the bottom of the cave. This action only lasted for a while before it stopped rolling and said, "The cave is too small to use the rolling search method. The trail is cut off. "
Sometimes, Lin really wondered if the 98 cells in its brain were not put to use.
The brainworm was now standing on the painting, seemingly thinking about something. After a while, it suddenly said, "New clues found. Using the second search method, vibration."
"Gah — —!" The Cephalophorus abruptly uttered a high-pitched noise. This high-pitched noise caused Lin's hearing to feel a rapid vibration. Under this vibration, the ground below the Cephalophorus and the walls of the cave began to crack.
So sound could have this kind of effect? This is worth studying …
More and more cracks appeared around the cave like a net, but the Cephalophorus continued to make noise. In the end, the entire cave collapsed. Lin noticed that behind the collapsed cave walls, an even wider space had appeared.
Due to the collapse of the ground, the Cephalophorus fell down. With a 'thud', Lin noticed that it had fallen into a lake.
This lake was exactly the same size as the one above, about 20 meters wide. This should be the central layer of the tree, a relatively large space that was about 30 meters wide from the bottom to the top. Because the light outside couldn't reach this place, it was completely dark. However, the lake at the center was giving off a strange blue light that illuminated the entire space.
The Cephalophorus floated in the lake and desperately rolled around while uttering: "Close to death, close to death, danger, quickly roll away, escape from death, do not want to die, reject death, Lin — —"
Lin immediately ordered the Flyer to grab the Cephalophorus and drag it to the edge of the lake. The Cephalophorus's body was very light, so it could float, otherwise, it would have been very dangerous for it to sink to the bottom of the lake.
Lin's respiratory system could normally be used on both land and water, but it seemed that most creatures had given up on the ability to breathe underwater.
The Cephalophorus rolled onto the shore: "Escape from death, safe environment, tired, need rest"
Seeing the Cephalophorus resting on the ground, Lin looked around. There were only a few plants growing on the ground and walls of this place, all of them were moss, no ferns. At the center of the lake, there was a large wooden pillar that was directly connected to the top. Lin assumed that the water from the lake above had flowed here through this pillar to form a new lake.
But were they connected to the waterfall below? Based on the amount of water flowing through the waterfall, Lin felt that these two lakes should have been emptied very quickly.
"Rest complete, begin searching, remnant scent of the Cephalophorus" At this point, the Cephalophorus began to roll again. After rolling for about 10 meters, it stopped and began to rub its body against the moss. After wiping away the moss and dust, a picture appeared below it.
Lin noticed that the picture looked like it was carved with a sharp object, but she couldn't understand what it meant.
Just as Lin was about to ask the Cephalophorus, it abruptly answered: "A picture of the Cephalophorus, incomprehensible"
"Incomprehensible?" Lin was confused by the Cephalophorus's reaction. Wasn't this a picture of its Cephalophorus?
"The Cephalophorus doesn't know how to draw. It's possible that it learned a new ability while I was away"
In other words, its Cephalophorus originally didn't know how to draw, but only learned it after the Cephalophorus was captured by Qibucha Zhong?
That was to be expected, Lin recalled that the Cephalophorus only learned how to draw after seeing Lin's pigment cells change, which meant it didn't know how to draw in the first place.
After that, the Cephalophorus continued to dig out more pictures on the ground. Aside from a few that looked like random drawings, most of them were understandable. The most important ones were the pictures of the Cephalophorus' members, such as when they were hunting, eating, etc.
However, why wasn't there a single Cephalophorus' member here?
Lin's flyer followed the Cephalophorus as it continued to dig out pictures on the ground. Lin suddenly noticed that one of the new pictures it dug out was a creature that looked exactly like her.
"Moketu, a new Cephalophorus. When I left, it replaced me" the Cephalophorus looked at the picture and said: "The Cephalophorus now has a new head, a new way of thinking"
"How did you know?" Lin looked at the picture. It only depicted a Cephalophorus and nothing else, so how did it know so much?
The Cephalophorus answered: "Scent, just like the picture, it was carved here"
So that's how it was. Lin had seen many creatures use scent to communicate. Scent could carry extremely complex information that was difficult to decipher, and normally, only members of the same species would be able to understand such information. Lin then asked: "It was replaced?"
"Yes, without a head, unable to think, unable to hunt, unable to eat, only death. The Cephalophorus needed a head, and the Empress had given birth to a new one" The Cephalophorus spoke with a sense of 'disappointment', as if the delicious food had escaped from its grasp.
'Empress' was the Cephalophorus's term for the species produced by the Cephalophorus, and it felt like this term was quite interesting.
"Continue tracking the Cephalophorus' traces" The headworm continued to roll around on the ground and found more paintings. Lin discovered that all the paintings were drawn around the lake in the center. Most of the paintings were records of life and history. There didn't seem to be anything particularly interesting about them.
After the Cephalophorus finished one round, it finally stopped and spoke in a tired tone: "Continue exploring, there is a unique scent at the bottom of the lake, unable to explore further"
The bottom of the lake?
Lin looked at the lake that was glowing blue. Lin also felt that there was a need to study it.
With that in mind, Lin ordered the Flyers to enter the lake. Although the Flyers were normally flying, they were also capable of moving underwater.
Lin noticed that the water was filled with a kind of small glowing creature, and there were quite a lot of them. The Flyers slowly approached the bottom of the lake. Lin noticed that the bottom of the lake was filled with various impurities and debris, most of them were the remains of corpses. She couldn't find anything out of the ordinary, perhaps a picture was buried among the debris.
However, the Flyers couldn't dig it out, so she had to have the Leviathan descend first.
Wait a minute, what is that?
Lin saw a large creature coiled together among the debris. If it was fully extended, it would be around 10 meters long, and it looked like … a worm.
As the Flyers got closer, Lin noticed that this was indeed … a Fog Worm. This one was much larger than the bears in the Forest of Sharp Pillars, but its shell and appearance were exactly the same.
It appeared to be in a dormant state, not moving at all. Why would such a creature be here? Lin had never seen a Fog Worm in the Twisted Forest before.
"Exploration of the picture, the gas storage has been completed, beginning to roll, Lin" Lin suddenly heard the sound of something falling into the water. The Flyers looked up and saw the Cephalophorus rolling on the surface of the water.
Following this sound, the Fog Worm slowly raised its head. As soon as it woke up, it saw the Cephalophorus rolling on the surface of the water … If you like this work, you are welcome to come to the starting point and vote for it.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
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Stein