Bab 229: Chapter 228
But the headworm couldn't go down and roll anymore.
The cracks leading to the surroundings of the cave rapidly spread out in two directions, one to the north and the other to the south. Wherever the cracks reached, the ground of the jungle would collapse, but not all of them would collapse downwards. Instead, they would rise upwards.
The collapse continued to spread along with the cracks. Large areas of the ground of the Twisted Jungle began to peel off and fall off. The connected Twisted Trees broke off one after another as the ground collapsed. Some of them rose up into the sky along with the Sound Stones, while some fell into the depths of the ground, floating in the submerged subterranean world.
It wasn't strange for such a situation to occur. In fact, the subterranean world had always been on the verge of collapse, but there was still a delicate balance between the uninfected Hometrees, the rising Sound Stones, and the non-falling Sound Stones.
The sudden occurrence of such a large-scale collapse seemed to be due to the destruction of this balance point. It could be destroyed at any time for various reasons, but Lin had already made preparations beforehand.
At present, the collapse of the jungle continued to spread across the surface of the subterranean world. Even the surface of the subterranean world had begun to crack. What made Lin feel strange was that there seemed to be far more stones flying up than falling down. If there weren't that many stones falling down, the seawater in the subterranean world wouldn't be squeezed out. In that case, perhaps … the jungle wouldn't be affected.
The collapse spread so quickly that Lin had to use the speedy Reapers to keep track of it. Some of the creatures hiding in the jungle were awakened by the collapse. Before they could escape, they fell into the collapsing ground, while some rose up into the sky along with the Sound Stones.
Those that rose up into the sky might not necessarily reach the clouds. Violent raindrops and rumbling thunder were stirring restlessly in the sky. A storm blew up once again. The intense airflow caused the floating Sounding Stones to collide with each other. Immediately, a storm formed from Sounding Stones blew across the sky. A large number of Sounding Stones were turned into countless fragments by the violent wind. However, some of them were also flung out by the storm and ruthlessly struck Bechymos who was in midair.
After a dull thud, Rin felt pain coming from the place where she was hit. Many of the cells under her skin were killed by the impact. The airship of the Overmind that Bechymos was pulling was also attacked by a large number of rocks at the same time. Countless Sound Stones struck the airship along with the storm, producing banging sounds.
There was already a strong gust of wind that contained countless boulders, and Lin knew that she had to leave this place.
Bechymos let go of the hook holding the headworm, allowing the airship to float to the sky by itself.
The headworm's airship began to spin as it was blown by the storm in the air. Its sturdy outer shell also withstood the impact of the stones, but it still relied on its huge body to float steadily in the air.
Bechymos, on the other hand, could not be as stable as the Chime Airship. Therefore, Rin had it accelerate downwards, rushing into the cracked earth below before more rocks could hit it, and entering the underground world!
Bang!
Following a loud noise, Bechymos felt the ice-cold sensation of seawater all over his body. Lin immediately ordered Bechymos to release most of the gas in its body, before diving deeper into the darkness.
In the sky where a strong storm was blowing. This place appeared very peaceful. Bechymos released some large lanterns in the dark water for illumination. At present, Bechymos had already dived to the very bottom, which was what used to be the underground world.
Lin had another purpose in coming here, and that was to confirm the situation of the collapse. Under the illumination of the lanterns, Lin saw that the bottom of the water was covered with small stones and rocks of moderate size. If there were only so few stones, perhaps the seawater would not have overflowed.
When Moon left and the Sound Stones fell back to the earth, the water here would recede.
Bechymos continued to swim southward. Lin wanted to confirm everything. At the same time, she also wanted to observe the large number of flyers that she had placed here.
Under Lin's observation, she discovered that the number of stones that fell into the water was indeed rather small, but she still could not completely confirm that it was safe.
Gurgle …
Lin felt the water around Bechymos suddenly become restless. It began to slowly spin, and it spun faster and faster.
Was this … a vortex? Why would a vortex appear here?
The water currents in the surroundings swirled unceasingly. Their powerful force even affected Bechymos. Lin immediately urged Bechymos to swim faster towards the edge of the vortex. However, Lin could sense that the vortex was rising with an even greater force.
Lin felt that this force could even sweep Bechymos up into the air.
Could this be …
Bechymos immediately released a compressed explosive shell from behind. Under the impact of the explosive shell, Bechymos simultaneously activated the water spout and charged forward. Just as he was about to be pulled out of the water surface, he charged out of the range of the whirlpool.
At this moment, Bechymos looked behind it and saw a spiraling water column rushing straight up into the sky. Under the storm, it connected with the clouds on the horizon. Countless boulders were spinning along with it, appearing even clearer under the occasional flash of lightning. It was an extremely spectacular sight, but it wasn't as if Lin had never seen it before.
This seemed to be a special phenomenon of tornadoes. They sucked seawater up into the air, occasionally appearing on the surface of the stormy sea.
The tornado moved slowly on the surface of the water. Lin ordered Bechymos to dive into the sea once more to avoid this powerful storm.
The water in the entire region began to spin around the tornado. Anything floating in the water would be swept up into the air once it came into contact with the tornado. Through the eyeball's tentacles that extended out of the water, Lin observed that a huge hometree floating on the surface of the water was slowly approaching the tornado.
The moment the hometree came into contact with the tornado, countless wooden shards splashed in all directions, flying up into the air along with some of the refuge creatures that were hiding from the flood.
In the end, the entire hometree was ground to pieces by the powerful airflow. This incomparably huge creature turned into fragments that filled the sky under the powerful storm, dissipating without a trace.
However, the duration of the tornado seemed to have come to an end. After crushing the hometree, the speed of its rotation suddenly slowed down, and then slowly dissipated.
Rotation was indeed a very powerful force. Lin wondered if the 'Pathfinder' could do such a thing.
After the tornado dissipated, the sky slowly calmed down. The storm and rain lessened, and the lightning became less frequent. Everything seemed to be slowly returning to normal.
However, the ground continued to shake.
A large number of cracks on the ground had spread to the edge of the Glittering Glade. The moment the cracks came into contact with the desert, a large amount of sand and gravel fell down. The collapse rapidly spread towards the sea with a loud rumble. This place was different from the Twisted Glade. Only a small amount of sand and gravel floated into the air. A large amount of sand and dust fell into the underground world.
The large amount of sand and gravel caused the seawater to rise. If the collapse spread to the entire underground world of the desert, the seawater would still gush out from the ground.
Lin ordered the Reapers to closely follow the spreading collapse in the storm. She needed to obtain information as soon as possible.
* Boom! *
Suddenly, with a strange loud noise, the spreading collapse in the desert stopped. It seemed that it had encountered something hard, causing the cracks in the ground to stop growing.
Lin immediately ordered the Reapers to fly to the place where the collapse stopped to observe. When they arrived at the place, Lin did not discover anything unusual.
However, the crack on the ceiling did stop at this point. Perhaps there was something in the rock stratum that was stopping it.
However, the collapse was not over yet. It was moving towards the north and south at the same time.
Now in the north, the collapse was moving towards the depths of the Twisted Glade. Wherever it passed, the forest would collapse. Countless boulders connected to the twisted trees rose into the air. Only a few fell into the ground.
Lin had been tracking the collapse. Now, she was close to the location of the Hometree on the ground.
When they got close to the Hometree, the cracks on the ground seemed to avoid the Hometree and split to the side. While the ground around the Hometree exploded into the sky, only the area around the Hometree remained unscathed.
After the surrounding rocks and soil crumbled away, Rin finally saw the true face of the Hometree. It was indeed connected to another Hometree underground, but there were countless roots at the 'connecting point'.
What a strange phenomenon. Why could this Hometree grow out of the ground? Could it be that when it grew, there was a hole or something here?
If that was the case, the height of the Hometree was not only the height of the underground world. They could grow more than twice their original size! But it could also be that two Hometrees were stacked together, but it seemed difficult to stack them so neatly.
'Creak …'
Suddenly, the Hometree made a series of noises. The roots at the connecting point suddenly broke one after another, and huge cracks appeared on the tree bark.
It seemed that because of the collapse of the surrounding rock stratum, the Hometree could no longer maintain itself. It began to shake, but after a while, it stopped.
It seemed to have been stabilized.
However, this had nothing to do with the Home Tree itself. Lin didn't want the Home Tree to collapse. There were still a lot of strange creatures and a base on it. Therefore, before the Home Tree collapsed, Lin had some soldiers use spider silk to reinforce the structure. After some work on the outside, it shouldn't collapse anymore.
Now, Lin was following the spreading collapse. It did not stop like it did in the desert. Instead, it moved faster and faster. It passed through a large forest. When it passed by the rocky mountain where the Cerebrum lived, a large number of rocky mountains instantly collapsed. However, the Cerebrum and Muketu's group had already moved away, so there was no damage.
This was the benefit of being prepared in advance.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone