บท 259: Chapter 258
It's over … At least the battle on this island is over.
The spreading fungus was burned to ashes by Lin's high-temperature flames. Their queen was drilled into two by the pioneers. The escaping locusts were also killed by the bombers. However, this was still far from a complete victory over the 'Wandering Plague'.
It was impossible to clean up the fungus dust in the air. If it drifted to a plant, would it grow? Lin could not be sure if she had killed all the locusts. Most importantly, there might be more than one group of this species.
Now, Lin was analyzing this group of creatures to see what was going on in their bodies.
If the fungus was not included, the locusts and the Locust Lord were the typical branching species. They were the more primitive species with only one queen and one troop. However, Lin noticed something strange about them.
The Locust Lord breathed through its gills, which was why it was able to maintain its huge size. On the other hand, the locusts breathed through their stomachs, which was why they were so small. However, this way, the two species seemed to be separated. The locusts could not help the Locust Lord deal with the situation underwater. The Locust Lord had to go ashore to surface to produce more locusts …
It was a strange feeling. There was no queen that could not protect itself after giving birth to a troop. However, the Locust Lord did have the organs to produce more locusts …
There was also the fungus. Every locusts had a large number of fungi in their bodies. These fungi seemed to be parasitic, sticking to the internal organs, skin, blood vessels and other parts of the locusts. There were also many of them in the brain. They were usually dormant but once the locusts died, they would explode.
Lin had yet to discover how these parasite-like fungi were related to the locusts. Fungi did not belong to the locusts. There was a high possibility that they were symbiotic. These fungi were quite scary. They would devour any living thing except for the locusts. It was hard to imagine how this relationship was established.
Other than the brain, the Locust Lord did not have any fungi in its body. Newborn locusts did not have any either. However, they would be infected by other locusts.
Only the brain had it? Was there a connection between fungi and the brain?
Furthermore, Lin did not discover any connection between them and the 'echo eggs'. The Locust Lord did not seem to be able to produce echo eggs. However, Lin noticed that the locusts would avoid the island with echo eggs.
Some creatures were indeed afraid of certain sounds, and this had something to do with their nervous system. However, the locust's brain did not seem to have any structure that was sensitive to the sound of echoing eggs.
All of this was too strange. This race was full of mysteries and needed to be investigated further.
At the same time, Lin could be considered to have 'saved' the island. Although the only animals left on the island were the Sound Lizards, this creature was still knocking on the rocks in the forest, constantly producing cracking sounds. It was unknown when it would stop. And so, Lin used 'Hallucinator' to display the scene of the swarm of locusts leaving. Sure enough, the lizard stopped moving.
Then it was obviously knocking the stone for the locusts. However, it was hard to know why it knew that knocking on the door would work.
Although the 'plague' had been stopped, Lin still felt like the island was' dead '… It would be better to bring some other creatures here.
Lin was ready to leave now.
The westward journey had been suspended for some time, and Lynn felt it necessary to speed up.
If she found any interesting creatures along the way, she would bring them to the island.
But now was not the time to leave. Lin had to clean up the wreckage on the battlefield and recover the resources. The fungi that had been burnt to ashes were edible. The Cerebrum also showed that it wanted to eat them, but Lin did not allow it to get close to the battlefield. If it was infected by the fungi, it would be very difficult to get rid of it in time.
Lin did not lose any of her troops in this battle. She only used up a lot of explosives and flammable liquids. After recovering enough resources, Lin checked the forest again. After confirming that there was no infection, she left the tentacles to observe and began to gather her troops. They continued their journey west.
On the second day and night, Lin's troops left the island. They started from the cliff behind the forest in the south. A large number of Bombers and Bechymos flew over the forest. The Pathfinders also went around the island and came to this location. Lin believed that if they set off from here, they might be able to see more unique creatures.
There should be more island-like 'Travellers' at sea. Some of the creatures on this island might have left on other Travellers. They might still be alive and have reached other places.
After taking one last look at the island, Lin decided to name it 'Land of the End of the Plague'. But she felt that it was a little troublesome, so she just called it 'Plague Island'.
Perhaps they would encounter more of these fungi in the future. If that happened, Lin would turn them into dust like she did now.
Next, they would have to face the endless ocean once again …
How long would it take to reach the mainland?
In this way, more than ten days and nights slowly passed on Lin's journey … …
The ocean was not the same. Lin saw many new sea creatures. She discovered that there were many shell-less ammonites and arrowheads in this area. These creatures were like ancient squids, their shells had degenerated.
There were also many new species of fish, but they did not seem to be too different. Perhaps they were just beginning to be classified. At the same time, there were also more and more large fish like sharks.
On the sea, Lin also discovered many islands. Most of these islands were small, and almost all of them were barren islands filled with sand and rocks.
Echo eggs were occasionally found on these islands, but not every island had them. However, the similarity between echo eggs was that they were all located on barren islands. It had nothing to do with the size of the island. Sometimes, a small island with a diameter of a few meters would have an echo egg. Lin also discovered a round island with a diameter of more than a hundred meters. It was occupied by a marine plant that crawled ashore and a large number of Burondo Scorpions, but this island did not have any echo eggs.
What kind of creature placed these puzzle-filled things here? Lin hoped to find the answer soon. Currently, she only knew that the Plague was somewhat related to them.
Burondo Scorpions could become large terrestrial arthropods after a lack of oxygen. Not only did they not shrink in size on land where oxygen was scarce, they actually began to grow bigger. Their method of breathing through gills seemed to be very effective, but they still needed to be kept moist and could not be too far away from the water.
Because the headworm had returned to its boring state, Lin let it continue to observe the situation of the ancient squid in the Twisted Jungle.
The ancient squid Ika had now become the king of the waterhole. It had gathered a huge community of up to a hundred ancient squids and occupied the largest waterhole in the canyon. Generally, ancient squids would not gather in such a large group, but because of the current resource problem, they all had to gather together.
They relied on hunting small arthropods near the waterhole for food, and occasionally caught large reptiles and other creatures.
Because the position of the leader was not eternal, Ika was often challenged by other ancient squids. Sometimes, their challenges could reach as many as several times in a day and night. The headworm called it, "Stupid competition, unreasonable distribution, unfair fighting style."
Despite this, Ika still defeated all the challengers and became the strongest ancient squid of this generation. But if it could not continue, being the strongest was meaningless. So, Ika found the strongest ancient squid among its challengers and planned to reproduce with it.
Ancient squids had a special 'courtship ceremony'. One ancient squid would first make a request, and if the other party agreed, then the two ancient squids would have to pose together, and then hunt together, fight together, and so on. Only ancient squids that could perfectly cooperate with each other would be united.
This was mainly to test their 'personality synchronization rate'. The headworm thought that this method was very good. If their personalities did not match, staying together would only cause trouble, just like how the headworm could not command together with Muketu.
If they did not match, there would be a lot of disputes and so on. According to the headworm, this kind of situation would occasionally occur in their community. There was once a headworm that was always rolling about a second slower than the others, so it argued with its companions. It thought that it was not that slow at all.
In the end, when the community was destroyed, the headworm did not escape with its companions because of its rolling speed, and was first swallowed by the lava.
So, personality synchronization was really important.
And Ika obviously did not care about this at the moment. She and her mate's synchronization rate was very good, so they soon planned to lay eggs. Presumably, Ika's offspring would be as strong as her, and find a way out for the fate of the ancient squids in the canyon.
In fact, their fate was not very good. Although it had rained a few times in the canyon, it was very light, and the speed at which the puddles dried up was always much faster than the speed at which they recovered.
When they were preparing to give birth, they finally found out what Ika's gender was …
Pop. The display was turned off.
The sky above the ocean was roaring at this time, and under the dark clouds covering the horizon, several flashes of lightning streaked across. Lin once again encountered a storm at sea. She found that the headworm's active thoughts seemed to attract lightning, so she had to turn off the display.
In the storm, Bechymos and the Bombers were connected to each other by a rope, forming a large and stable body to resist the storm. Although they would be less affected by the storm if they dived into the water, Lin felt that it was not necessary.
This storm was a little bigger than the one they encountered on the island, but it was not enough to shake Lin's troops.
Moreover, more interesting things could be found on the surface of the sea, such as … some kind of huge creature.
Above the dark and thunderous sea, an island of up to a hundred meters wide appeared before Lin's eyes, swaying in the water like the waves on the sea.
This' island 'was full of creatures, most of them reptiles. They gathered together and shivered in the storm.
They were obviously the other group of creatures that had escaped from Plague Island. Floating astronomy.
PS: Thanks ~ Shengyang Fish ~ for the tip ~
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