It was a green island, but that was all there was to it …
Lin had observed the entire island. The place where Lin had landed was on the north side. There was a white beach, a green area covered in moss, with leaf-shaped insects and some kind of thorny ball on it. Next was a dry wasteland, and finally a forest. Beyond that was a cliff that touched the sea.
The island was smaller than what Lin had expected. It was semicircular, only about 30 kilometers in size.
The biggest problem was … Lin had only seen two large lizards and a nest of small lizards on the island.
In fact, there were very few small lizards as well. Occasionally, she would find some beetle larvae under the bark of trees, but there were no adult lizards here. Lin had named the two lizards' Sound Lizards' because they would take turns to come out and knock on rocks.
That was what Lin wanted to know the most. According to the footprints of the creatures, many of them had fled to the cliff behind the forest, and their tracks had disappeared there.
Could it be that they had jumped into the sea?
It had probably been more than ten days since the creatures had left. It was very difficult to determine where they had swum to if they had entered the sea, and whether they were still alive or not. However, Lin still decided to investigate.
Bechymos released a Reaper. It was Lin's fastest flying unit at the moment. Bechymos had brought three Reapers with her since the beginning. They would search the nearby waters to see if there were any other islands nearby. Perhaps the creatures would gather on a nearby island if there were no other targets to land on. What was the difference between jumping into the sea and committing suicide?
To that … The Brainworm that was rolling on the soft moss gave its opinion. "Creatures escape. The forest is silent. A disaster is coming. A disaster, an unknown disaster, will appear here. "
As expected, the Brainworm was thinking the same thing. But what kind of disaster would it be? Lin was very interested in the Brainworm.
Although he could have the Brainworm extract the memories of the Sound Lizards to see what would happen, he decided to forget about it. If there were only two of them left, killing one would be the same as going extinct.
Lin had the Reapers scan the island before flying through the forest and following the footprints to search the sea. They wanted to see if there were any islands or other places where creatures could take refuge.
The Reapers were extremely fast. Their eyesight had been specially adjusted to adapt to their high speed. At the same time, they could observe a considerable distance. Their field of vision was more than 7 kilometers. They could quickly discover any strange things on the vast sea.
The Reapers quickly swept across the sea. The sea here was calm and tranquil. They had yet to see any islands or other things.
While the Reapers continued to search for things. Lin also ordered her troops to enter the island. The Bombers and Bechymos flew to the sky above the island's jungle. Lin released a few creatures that she still had with her, such as lizards and the like. The environment here was very good, so she decided to let them live here.
But before that, Lin had to solve the biggest problem …
The headworm also expressed that it liked this place very much. It said that it wanted to roll around on the white beach under the sun. If there was a barbecue, it would be even happier.
Lin thought that it might soon be tired of this animal-free island, and that the sunlight might soon disappear...
Rumble!
The Reapers had flown about 3 kilometers away from the island. They could not see the island from this distance, but Lin saw something else … a large expanse of darkness mixed with rumbling sounds.
The rolling dark clouds were accompanied by thunder and lightning. At the same time, fierce winds were roaring. The powerful energy caused the sea to churn and surge. A huge whirlpool stood tall in the darkness. The contrast between the Reapers and the sun-illuminated shore was like the contrast between day and night.
It was … a storm. There was even a tornado in it.
The ocean storm was slowly moving forward. It would reach the island Lin was on in about a few thousand seconds. Judging from its range, it might engulf the entire island, causing it to be engulfed in fierce winds and rain.
Could the ocean storm be the reason for the animals to flee? Obviously not.
The storm was not very strong. Lin felt that even if the storm was strong enough to sink the entire island, it would not cause so many animals to flee. In comparison, jumping into the sea was obviously more dangerous.
What could be the reason for that?
Lin decided not to think too much about it. First, she had the troops on the island prepare to defend against the storm. Lin ordered the Predators to return. Bechymos and the Bombers landed on the plains of the island. At the same time, they began to assemble some tough hooks and hooked the aerial units to the ground so that none of them would be blown away. At the same time, Lin brought the Brainworm back into Bechymos.
Now, all that was left was to wait.
A few thousand seconds was not a long time. When the storm approached, the trees in the forest at the edge of the island began to rustle. Large amounts of broken leaves were blown into the sky. The Sound Lizard was still knocking on the rocks on the island, seemingly unwilling to give up.
What made it so persistent in making that noise? Normally, creatures would only put their lives on the line when one of these three things happened — reproduction, feeding, and being driven to a dead end.
It was obviously not knocking on the rocks for the first two things. Was it the last thing? Perhaps the animals that escaped from the other islands were doing the same thing …
Lin wanted to know more and more why they were doing this. Apart from reproduction, only extreme fear would make creatures that lived on land risk their lives to jump into the sea, or knock on the rocks before a powerful storm …
Boom!
Thunder roared in the sky above the island. Fierce winds rushed through the forest. When the sound of knocking on the rocks was covered by the wind, the Sound Lizard finally gave up on knocking on the rocks and quickly fled back to its nest in the forest.
Was the storm finally here?
Lin had placed many eyeball tentacles in the forest. They stuck to the tree trunks to observe the effects of the storm. When the storm approached, Lin felt an extremely strange feeling …
There was a strange smell mixed in with the storm. It smelled like … rotten meat?
Previously, the Reapers had seen the storm from a few kilometers away. At that time, because the distance was too far, the Reapers did not have any sense of smell, so they did not notice it. However, the eyeball tentacles had a full set of sensory organs, so they could clearly sense it.
There was a rotten smell mixed in with the storm. It was like an air current made up of corpses.
It was a very strange feeling.
The eyeball tentacles on the tree branches in the forest swayed under the strong air current of the storm. Lin could clearly sense that there were many small impurities mixed in the wind and rain. These impurities kept hitting the tree trunks and making sounds. They were not leaves or mud, but some gray debris. Combined with the smell, it might be the remains of skeletons or pieces of meat.
The storm raged above the forest. After sweeping through the forest, it moved to the plains in the north. Since the storm was not very strong, it did not cause much damage to the trees here. In fact, the storm's strength had been decreasing. It was much weaker than when the Reapers had seen it on the sea. Moreover, the tornado seemed to have dissipated before landing.
After the Sound Lizard saw that the storm had passed, it came out to knock on the rocks again.
It seemed like it was going to knock on the rocks even if it was about to die.
Lin had some eyeball tentacles jump down from the tree. They observed the ground and Lin found a lot of strange debris.
These debris were brought in by the storm. They were basically irregularly shaped fragments that were a few centimeters in size. After dissecting them, Lin discovered that they were indeed made up of meat. Most of them were the meat and bones of reptiles. There were also some carapace fragments of arthropods.
In other words, there were indeed many corpses mixed in with the storm. Then, these corpses were crushed by the wind and turned into a large amount of minced meat that was scattered on the island.
It was possible for the tornado to sweep some things up into the sky. But when it reached the island, the wind seemed to have weakened and the minced meat was scattered on the island.
If that was the case … could these corpses and minced meat be the creatures that had escaped from the island?
At present, the storm was approaching the troops of Bechymos and the Bombers on the plains. With so many troops present, the smell in the wind became even more obvious.
Moreover, there were still many pieces of debris that kept falling on Bechymos. As the wind grew weaker and weaker, more and more pieces fell on the island.
In the end, the storm didn't continue to pass through the plains. Instead, after a period of time, its power gradually decreased and finally dissipated over the plains.
The dark clouds slowly receded and the sky once again became as bright as day. Everything returned to tranquility …
After the storm, there was almost no change to the island. The only difference was that the ground was soaked by the rain. Moreover, there were many small … pieces of debris.
These pieces of debris were scattered on the ground and emitted a large amount of the smell of corpses. However, compared to the smell of corpses, this smell was very faint. Lin once again sent out the Hunters to collect these pieces of debris on the ground for detailed analysis.
After dissecting the pieces of corpses that had been blown by the wind, Lin discovered that there were quite a lot of different species among them. There were probably more than ten species of creatures mixed among them. However, there were relatively few large creatures.
Could it be that after they escaped from the island, they collectively died somewhere and then their corpses were blown back to the island by the storm?
That was the only possibility.
Lin intended to have the Reapers continue to fly out of the island to investigate and continue to search for other islands where creatures gathered.
This time, the Reapers rushed towards the direction of the storm as fast as they could. After flying over an ocean, Lin indeed saw an island. The island was very small, only about two hundred meters long and one hundred meters wide. It was a barren land with only sand, rocks, and … some corpses. Floating astronomy.