Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen The Desert In the Dark Night
Lin’s wounds had recovered but it was still in the darkness . Lin couldn’t see anything .
The darkness continued for an especially long time this time, just like how Lin felt the daytime had continued for a long time as well . Light and dark both lengthened .
Lin had too many questions to consider … … even with an enormous colony composed of so many cells, it could not understand, just like it could not fight against the previous water current .
Lin needed to get bigger, get stronger, before it could face these unexplained mysteries .
If this was Lin of the past, then it would stay motionless in the water and wait for the darkness to retreat … . .
But it would not let itself be pa.s.sive in the darkness this time . Also, Lin didn’t know how long this would continue . Due to this, it needed something that could give off light .
Lin didn’t just have the flashing exploding b.a.l.l.s, it had eaten a jellyfish and discovered some of the cells inside the jellyfish would give off light . Inside these transparent cells was some kind of powder that gave off light . The flashing exploding b.a.l.l.s obtained a kind of luminescent structure after eating the luminescent microbes . The two light sources were not the same .
No matter what, Lin needed to have the flashing exploding b.a.l.l.s eat these powder things and become brighter to create a luminescent structure that would allow the mothership to see the surroundings .
The flashing exploding b.a.l.l.s actually couldn’t explode now . So Lin felt it was better to call them light b.a.l.l.s .
Lin easily split out more light b.a.l.l.s and had them form a large ball-like structure . Then Lin connected it using a tentacle and named it with the new term that appeared in its mind, “lantern . ”
The “lantern” was situated at the head of the mothership with multiple blood vessels transporting nutrients to it . The light
the lantern gave off could only illuminate a small area in front of the mothership . While it could not compare the light of daytime, at least Lin could move .
Lin continued to swim downwards and planned to meet up with the protector on the sand .
Lin was swimming in darkness for the first time . Under the light of the lantern, all kinds of weirdly shaped fragments, single cells, and the corpses of unknown organisms floated by in the surroundings . Lin’s eyeball antenna had been modified . Other than the largest eyeball, there were six eyeb.a.l.l.s of various sizes used to observe things of different sizes . Lin would not miss a thing . It would be able to see even a virus floating by .
After swimming downwards for a while, Lin saw more and more strange things in the water, including many cells . They did not have eyes, but they seemed able to feel the light Lin gave off and moved towards the “lantern . ”
Yes, the light would attract other organisms . Maybe this was how the jellyfish hunted using their lights .
Lin released the devourers to eat the cells that gathered on the lantern and continued to advance . Soon it reached the sand at the bottom .
When the light of the lantern touched the sand, Lin saw many small organisms gathered on the sand . They did not appear like the unicellular organisms who were attracted to light . When the light touched them, they immediately swam in all directions and disappeared into the darkness .
Where these all multicellular organisms? Why were they afraid of light?
The light was too dim and Lin did not see them clearly . However, Lin felt they were slightly similar to oval worms, but they were small, about the size of the sea stars .
Lin slowly swam above the sand . It found that there were many more organisms in the dark than in daytime, especially on the sand . Organisms floated everywhere .
Some of them feared light, others like light . Lin made a kind of devourer who had a small lantern and let those devourer go out to hunt . Lin did not want to waste this food .
Lin fed as it swam . It felt it was close to where the protector was . Suddenly, something strange appeared in front of it .
This organism was like an enormous giant tentacle, as long as the mothership, and had spiraling patterns on the surface . It moved over the sand as though it was feeding on cells .
Lin hadn’t seen this type of organism in daytime, so it called this the “darkness worm . ”
Lin observed this organism . The range of the lantern light coincidentally illuminated its entire body . Lin was speculating . How was the power of this “darkness worm,” was it a threat? Or food?
The darkness worm moved extremely slowly over the sand . Lin slowly swam closer . When Lin swam above the darkness worm, it suddenly twisted and shot out at a rapid speed .
Lin immediately swung the mothership’s tentacles to follow and chased this organism in the dim light . Lin found that the darkness worm seemed to be chasing another organism .
Lin raised a lantern . The light illuminated a wider range . It saw a small round organism with segmented limbs on two sides furiously fleeing ahead of the darkness worm . However, this organism was not as fast as the darkness worm .
The darkness worm’s head part opened, and it bit its target . Lin swam in front of it . and saw the head of the darkness worm was a mouth with a ring of teeth that curved inwards . It was moving its mouth muscles and crushing the food it had caught .
Lin watched for a while and then smashed its hammered tentacle on the feeding darkness worm .
The darkness worm swung its head and spat out its prey in pain .
. The segmented organism seemed to be unharmed and immediately fled .
Lin did not chase . Its goal was the darkness worm .
While the darkness worm lacked eyes, it know Lin was the culprit . It twisted its body and charged towards LIn .
Bang .
Another hammer blow on the darkness worm’s head . This attack smashed it into the sand . At the same time, Lin opened the mothership’s ectoderm and released a group of new cell “types . ”
Lin copied the sea star’s injection method and created a new kind of organism . These “injectors” had long needles at the head, and a sprout at the end of their streamlined bodies . They could accelerate immediately and charge out, thrusting the long needle into their opponent . Then they could shrink back and inject what was inside them .
The injectors injected a cell that mimicked the virus . Lin called them “multipliers” . Lin had evolved these new cells from cone-shaped cells . The mouth of each multiplier was an empty cone-shaped channel, not for secreting something, but to pierce into other cells and suck in .
If the multipliers gained enough nutrients, they would immediately divide . Their division was faster than other cells, and Lin had prepared them so they were full of nutrients before they were injected into the enemy . Even if they did not absorb nutrients from the host, they could rapidly increase in number .
The injectors could swam rapidly for a short period . They charged towards the darkness worm and then pierced the ectoderm of the darkness worm with their needles, injecting tens of thousands of multipliers .
The multipliers lacked vision so Lin had them attack as they wished . They would insert their needles when they encountered something soft and then suck in before dividing . They continued this process . While their division could not compare to the rate of the virus, it was still rapid .
Attacked by large numbers of injectors, the darkness wormthe darkness worm started to twist its body in pain and roll on the sand . It appeared many places inside its body were damaged .
At this time, Lin had the mothership swim over and give a hard blow towards the darkness worm’s head .
Even if the darkness worm had immune cells, they were useless because Lin’s attack came from both outside and inside .
The darkness worm quickly stopped moving .
Lin had the multipliers stop dividing and automatically die . Lin would take back their corpses, not wasting anything .
Now was the time to feast .
Lin had the devourer enter through the mouth of the darkness worm, and started to turn this into its own nutrients . Of course, Lin studied this organism’s structure .
The darkness worm seemed to have a structure like a feeding pa.s.sageway from head to tail . There were eight circles of curled teeth near the head, and piled in the esophagus were large amounts of sand and the hard sh.e.l.ls of other organisms .
The multipliers had primarily attacked the head and many marks of cell damage showed there . The esophagus was destroyed .
The darkness worm’s blood vessels circled around the esophagus . There were many hearts from the head to the tail, but they were small, and looked like lumps on the blood vessels . Also, a relatively large nerve near the head .
Other than this, the entire body was composed of muscles used to quickly move the body .
There was nothing to learn from it . It was just food .
Having made the conclusion, Lin immediately had the devourers start to feed . THis darkness worm could provide them with great amounts of nutrients .
Suddenly, an organism entered the range of Lin’s lantern .
This was the segmented limb organism the darkness worm had been chasing previously?
Lin saw this organism running quickly towards the mothership . Just as Lin prepared to raise the hammer and stun it, it suddenly saw a large organism chasing this organism .