Chương 196: Chapter 195
Lin was a little hesitant about whether she should let the army invade the last territory of the Inca swarm, which was the area directly under the desert. But now, it was better to study the worms first.
The Purgatory Worms were the largest unit of the Inca swarm. They could spit lava and other attacks. Although Lin called it lava, she was not sure whether it was lava or not. It might just be a kind of high-temperature liquid.
Most importantly, what was the origin of the Purgatory Worms? The Purgatory Worms that Lin saw had obviously been modified countless times by the Inca swarm. The Purgatory Worms could not be normal creatures. They moved slowly, had a large body, and used a lot of energy to attack by spraying high-temperature liquid. They were only suitable to live in a division of labor.
So Lin was very interested. What were the Purgatory Worms originally? Were they 'stolen' by the Inca swarm? Or did they evolve from the original Inca swarm?
Now, Lin was about to uncover this secret. She felt that it was quite interesting to study these complex and powerful creatures.
First, Lin was most concerned about the insides of the Purgatory Worms. The collectors drilled into the Purgatory Worm's broken body on the ground. Lin lit up and saw the same scene as when Leviathan drilled in...
The walls of the esophagus looked like they had been polished, and they were very long.
The collectors crawled inside. The deeper they went, the narrower the tunnel became. Lin thought that the tunnel might run through the entire body of the worm. The buried part of the worm might be more than 30 meters deep, but the body underground should not be as wide as the head outside. This was probably why it was difficult for them to go back. Lin even suspected that they did not have the ability to go back.
The collectors went all the way to the end of the tunnel. Lin found that there was a small hole at the end. And it was less than a meter in diameter. There were many small particles on the inner wall, which looked like dust.
After the collectors drilled out of the hole at the tail of the worm, they found that the surrounding environment was an underground cave. This cave was obviously dug out by the Purgatory Worms. The 'soil' around the cave had a strange smell.
It seemed that they did not find anything special.
Lin then asked the collectors to start digging holes in the esophagus of the worm to see if they could drill in and observe the internal organs and other structures. But it might take a long time because the inner wall of the worm was very tough. It also had a strong resistance to dissolution. During this time, Lin planned to study the shell of the Purgatory Worm.
The collectors collected a lot of shell powder from the Infernal Helminth under the collapsed Hometree. Lin found that it was a very special kind of shell substance. Normal marine and land creatures would not produce this kind of shell substance.
The composition inside was very special. This kind of shell was strong and suitable for resisting pressure and high temperature. However, in terms of hardness, it was not the highest. It was just that the shell of the Purgatory Worm was too thick. Thus, it was very difficult for ordinary attacks to penetrate it.
However, Lin had seen a creature that could create this kind of shell material.
That creature lives under the sea. Lin hadn't seen one in a long time, but it was also a worm-like creature that usually appeared near lava vents at the bottom of the sea.
Lin had a new word to describe these vents: 'volcanoes'.
Through this, he might be able to trace the origin of the Purgatory Worms.
Lin could obtain information by recalling her observations at the bottom of the sea …
Most creatures would quickly escape when the lava erupted, but some creatures would follow the lava to live. These creatures were actually quite common. They were mainly fungi. They liked to gather in large numbers at the bottom of the sea. When the volcano erupted, a large amount of nutrients deep in the ground would also erupt. Most of these nutrients were toxic, but the fungi could decompose them.
Since there were fungi, there were also creatures that ate fungi.
Pompeii Worm, this was not a name that Lin came up with. It was a term that came with the vocabulary. There were many kinds of small and powerful worms that gathered near the bottom of the sea. Some of them lived with fungi, and some of them ate fungi.
However, in the face of intermittent volcanic lava eruptions, fungi could hide in various rock crevices. As a multicellular creature, the Pompeii Worm was too large to hide easily. Therefore, some of the Pompeii Worms had evolved speed and could quickly escape the lava.
Some evolved a 'hard resistance' method. They covered the surface of their body with a kind of shell substance to resist the high temperature of the intermittent lava. This way, they did not have to run too far and could eat the fungi that were burned to death.
Where did they get the shell substance? Lin guessed that it might have been collected from the ocean currents, or it might have been dug out from the rocks near the crater. Lin had once collected crustaceans from rocks and sand, but now, Lin obtained them directly from her prey.
Since there was such a situation at the bottom of the sea, there might also be some kind of heat-resistant creature that lived in intermittent volcanic craters and liked to devour volcanic fungi.
The Purgatory Worms might have originated from a very small worm-like creature. However, after they were discovered by the Inca, the special ability of this creature was quickly exploited by them. At first, the Inca probably used this ability to drill into and explore some high-temperature areas. In the process of development, the Inca continuously increased the size of the worms to achieve better results.
In the end, the originally tiny worms grew to their current size. Perhaps the ability to spit lava was just a bonus. The Inca bugs loved to use fire, so having a troop with high temperature resistance to spit out high-temperature liquid was the perfect choice.
Using a method similar to combining explosives, it should be possible to create a high-temperature substance similar to lava. In fact, there were many explosive formulas, and Lin had only discovered a few.
Lin now planned to analyze the method of producing the shell substance of the Purgatory Worms, which could be used to explore high-temperature areas. Most of the creatures that liked to live in high-temperature areas were fungi, but occasionally strange creatures could be found.
If they could burrow deeper into the ground, there would be more spectacular discoveries.
In fact, there were even more puzzles. Why did the Inca need these worms to burrow? They obviously liked to live in tree holes, and only for burrowing, so they should be about the size of the Mist Worm. Why did they have to make them so big?
Perhaps … the Inca had experienced some kind of war in the past, and the Purgatory Worms were a unit that was born from war.
This could only be confirmed by studying the history of the Inca. Lin Sanjiu did not know if there was a way to find their history.
This was what she needed to do next, march into the territory of the Inca!
At this time, Lin's collector finally broke open the esophagus wall of the Purgatory Worm and burrowed into its body …
Tình trạng nguồn điện hàng tuần
-- Xếp hạng
Quyền lực 
-- Đá
Quyền lực