บท 261: Chapter 260
The long journey seemed to have reached its end. The Voyager stopped by a rocky shore. It extended some of its barbed limbs from the edge of its body and hooked them into the crevices of the rocks on the shore to prevent itself from being washed away by the current, relieving its fatigue from the long journey …
Lin looked into the distance. This place could no longer be called an 'island'. The shore was made up of various kinds of rocks. The barren shore stretched on endlessly with no end in sight.
There were almost no living creatures on the rocky beach. Occasionally, one or two Brondu scorpions could be seen. Beyond the shore was a barren desert.
This feeling was very similar to the Northern Continent. The barren desert was not made up of pure sand, but a mixture of rocks and sand. Whirlwinds made up of sand swept across the plains, blurring their vision.
This should be the Western Continent … … right?
It was different from what Lin had imagined. She believed that there should be many living creatures active here. Although one should not be fooled by appearances, the periphery of the Northern Continent was also a desert.
But if this place was really a desert, Lin would try to modify the environment here.
In short, since they had arrived, they might as well settle down here first.
Lin had the troops fly into the sky above the barren land. Lin's Bechymos slowly landed on a flat and dry rocky ground. The Bombers landed on the surface of the desert nearby.
The Bechymos opened the muzzle on its back and shot out many green spheres. These spheres would explode when they flew into the air, forming green carpets that floated in the air. Lin would use them to absorb nutrients. She would use them as the foundation to build a base here.
Some of the Bombers gathered together. The Bechymos shot out a sac-shaped object to cover them. The sac-shaped object would slowly move and sew up on its own, completely enveloping the group of Bombers. Then, the Bombers would automatically dissolve inside, and they could be used to create other types of troops.
Lin intended to try modifying the barren environment here and see if she could succeed. Although the animals she brought with her had been released, Lin still brought along a large pile of plant seeds, not just those of the Twisted Tree. There were also plants from the various islands along the way.
Lin had the Pioneers dig in the sea. The seabed here was covered by a layer of black mud. Many small creatures moved about on it, and the mud layer was basically made up of their corpses.
The Pioneers would devour the various kinds of mud on the seabed. After collecting enough mud, they would come up and spit out the nutrient-filled mud on the beach. Some of the Bombers would then collect the mud and spread it over the barren land.
The Bombers weren't very efficient at doing this, so Lin dissolved most of the Bombers and made them into a variety of units, not just for transportation. There were also some combat units to prevent strange creatures from ambushing them.... At the same time, Lin also began to construct a large number of green carpets to collect nutrients. However, the main source of nutrients was still the plankton in the sea. These plankton were very adept at collecting nutrients from the ocean currents, but there weren't many creatures that ate them. Furthermore, they could obtain nutrients and crustaceans from these plankton, so Lin's forces had almost everything they needed.
Therefore, Lin created a creature that could collect large amounts of plankton, the 'Filter'. It went to the sea to collect these large amounts of nutrients, and all of these nutrients were transported to the floating bases that Lin brought. These bases were now floating on the sea to produce large amounts of troops.
Because the Overmind was bored, Lin had some troops give it command. The Overmind wasn't familiar with such tedious manufacturing activities, but Lin felt that it should be able to quickly learn.
Lin planned to start building a base on this coast, then slowly occupy the entire area. While this manufacturing chain was active, Lin naturally had to carry out the most important task.
Exploring this continent.
This task had to be completed by a unit that she hadn't used during this journey – the Leviathan.
Of course, Lin could release a large number of Flyers or Predators to explore, but that would be rather boring. It would be fine if they were exploring small islands, but exploring the continent and discovering its mysteries bit by bit was obviously more interesting.
However, Lin still released a large number of Predators to explore the nearby area, while the Leviathan was responsible for flying directly into the depths of the continent. Hopefully, this place wasn't a desert.
Just like that, everything slowly began to unfold. Lin's base of operations on the coast continued to expand, while the Unrestricted Wanderer had already left. Lin didn't know where its next stop would be. This creature was truly an interesting one, drifting around the ocean all year round.
The Predators were also constantly exploring. Lin ordered them to search the surrounding area with a radius of tens of kilometers. There were only sand and rocks in this place, but Lin had just discovered that there was something special hidden under the desert … …
Some of the Predators had gathered at a place about 30 kilometers away from the coast. Lin initially found this place to be a bit strange. The ground here wasn't made of sand, but rather dried up pieces of wood. They were piled up on the ground like grains of sand.
Wood? Does this mean that there used to be plants here?
Lin had the Predators swallow these pieces of wood and conduct some detailed observations inside their bodies. Although she didn't know what kind of plants they were, there were many small holes inside these pieces of wood.
It looked like they had been corroded by fungi … Could it be …
Lin had the Predators try to dig up these pieces of wood. At the same time, she had the other Predators dig up the sand below them …
Sure enough, after digging, Lin found some white fragments and other things buried inside the wood.
These were the bones of animals.
Not only this place, the Predators in other places also found the bones of all kinds of creatures under the sand, under the rocks, fragments of shells and other remains … Moreover, these remains all had one thing in common. There were many small holes on them, which looked very much like the traces of plague fungi infection.
Could it be … Lin's previous guess was correct? Why hadn't Lin seen the fungi before? It was because they were sweeping across this continent!
Perhaps this continent used to be an environment flourishing with life, but was completely destroyed by plague fungi? The remains of the creatures that the Predators dug up under the sand and the surrounding barren environment seemed to be the best proof of this …
Although they had only explored a small area, Lin sensed that the other places were also barren. These fungi … they were much more destructive than fire.
After destroying this continent, the fungi might have started to find a way to leave the land and drift towards the ocean, leaving behind this world that was completely depleted of nutrients.
Lin should've found an environment rich in species, but because of these fungi …
There were also some doubts. The plague fungi would've devoured all the bones and wood, but these bones and wood were left behind. This was very strange.
The only possibility Lin could think of was that the fungi had run out of water before they finished decomposing the bones and wood. If it didn't rain for a long time, the fungi wouldn't be able to filter the seawater, so they could only try to leave this place and spread to other islands before that happened.
They might've formed a symbiotic relationship with the locusts at this time, but how they did that was still a mystery.
However, since there were so many skeletons hidden underground, Lin could also use them to her advantage. Lin created a new type of excavation unit: the 'Bone Grinders'. They were responsible for excavating these skeletons, grinding them to pieces, and turning them into nutrients. After mixing them with seawater, they could be easily decomposed and turned into nutrients for the new troops. These nutrients could also be used as soil, and when these mixed nutrients were spread over the barren sandy ground, plants would quickly grow.
Lin would restore this environment, but was this place really completely destroyed by the plague fungi?
Perhaps Leviathan would have to find the answer.
Leviathan had flown more than two hundred kilometers away from the coastline. This was still a barren land, but in the distant horizon, Leviathan could see many large objects protruding out.
When Leviathan got closer, Lin finally saw these objects clearly. They were exactly the same objects buried in the sand: the bones of living creatures.
However, these skeletons were not buried under the desert. Leviathan flew over them from a high altitude and found that most of them were exposed above the surface. The dust and wind here were relatively small, and it seemed that they had not been buried in time. However, their appearance was rather strange. Most of the bones were piled together instead of scattered naturally. It was as if they had been piled up deliberately.
Leviathan flew along these piles of bones. The deeper it went into the land, the more bones there were. After Leviathan flew for about ten kilometers, the number of bones had reached a terrifying level.
The piles of bones on the ground here were two to three meters high, like piles of debris. However, they weren't completely made up of bones. There were also wood, arthropod shells and other things. Some of the taller 'debris hills' were as high as six meters.
Obviously, some kind of creature had piled these things up, but what was the point of doing so?
Leviathan stopped and flew next to a pile of bones. It reached out with its tentacles and pulled out some bone fragments to decompose them.
"Crack …"
There was a small sound.
When the bone fragments were pulled out, the whole pile of bones seemed to be affected. It kept making all kinds of small sounds. Then, with a boom, the pile of bones collapsed.
It seemed that the structure of these bones had become quite fragile after being left there for so long. More importantly, these bones seemed to be buckled together.
In other words, this was a nest deliberately built by some kind of creature?
Lin asked Leviathan to go around some of the piles of bones and carefully observe them. Sure enough, there were some structures like holes at the bottom. Lin then noticed that almost every pile of bones had a complete creature's skull placed on it, and they were all facing the same direction. Floating astronomy.
สถานะพลังงานรายสัปดาห์
-- การจัดอันดับด้วยพลัง 
-- หินพลัง