Chapter 3107: Fatal Parasite
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
This was truly an incredible interstellar journey!
Li Yao seemed to have seen countless ancestors of the Primeval Race crouching under the tentacles of the Void Hunters, s.h.i.+vering in the broken stars.h.i.+ps. They were living every second of their life in anxiety, while they were trying to come up with new dreams to please the gargantuan nightmare creature below their feet and above their heads.
One moment of carelessness, and the stars.h.i.+p would be minced to pieces by the tentacles. Millions of people would be swallowed by the sucking discs that looked like black holes. There would be nothing left of them at all. They would truly be obliterated!
Other than that, the Void Hunters often travelled in the raging tides of the four-dimensional s.p.a.ce.
The ancestors of the Primeval Race were apparently not prepared for the impact of the four-dimensional storm.
Although they were protected by the tentacles of the Void Hunters, countless stars.h.i.+ps were damaged every time they pa.s.sed through the storm in the four-dimensional s.p.a.ce. The pa.s.sengers were sucked out of the gaps and smashed into the gaps of time and s.p.a.ce, ending up in a fate worse than death.
Even if they returned to the three-dimensional universe safely, countless people would be melded with their stars.h.i.+ps and explode violently, or suffer from serious sequela and become mentally deranged. It was as if their bodies had returned, but their souls were still left in the terrifying four-dimensional storm!
How thrilling, how humiliating, how desperate!
However, in order to survive, a weak species had struggled from the lifeless s.p.a.ce tens of thousands of years ago to this day, to this place, to the center of the Universe Ocean, and to the dawn of dawn. Their will and ambitions would not be crushed by any difficulties.
When the Void Hunters and the four-dimensional storms crushed their flesh and blood, leaving them heavily wounded and on the verge of death, the purest spiritual energy in the center of the universe gave them the warmest comfort.
The Primeval Lord of Heaven absorbed and digested the spiritual energy crazily. He was like a sponge that had been tossed into water after being dried, hoping to absorb all the seawater in the ocean.
In order to survive, they had tempered every organ in their body with spiritual energy, reorganized the gene strands, refined the cell structure, and optimized the efficiency of the mitochondria. Their internal organs, skin, and brain had undergone tremendous changes and gradually adapted to the coldness of the three-dimensional universe and the brutality of the four-dimensional s.p.a.ce.
In order to survive, their computational ability soared. Almost every Primeval Lord of Heaven had become a qualified Dream Maker, weaving weird, brilliant dreams for the Void Hunters.
In order to better instill the dreams into the collection of nerves of the Void Hunters, the Primeval Lord of Heaven’s ability to manipulate brainwaves and telepathic thoughts was improving day by day, too. The neurons in their brains were mutating and strengthening. The number of neurons that were condensed in a tiny brain was even higher than the total number of neurons on one of the enormous tentacles of the Void Hunters.
Of course, even though they were fully prepared, it was inevitable that a lot of their compatriots would be devoured by the Void Hunters every few days. There was no time for sorrow or desperation. With the help of their spiritual energy, the Primeval Lord of Heaven activated their strong reproductive ability and expanded their species crazily like rabbits.
In the universe at that time, most of the intelligent creatures were tough individuals without natural enemies or compet.i.tors like the Void Hunters. They boasted a long life and absolute dominance. Their urge to continue their genes was not strong, and they would only reproduce once every hundreds or even thousands of years.
The female creatures such as the Primeval Lord of Heaven could reproduce when they were fifteen or sixteen years old. Then, they could reproduce once a year. Every time, they could even be twins or triplets. They were even crazier than c.o.c.kroaches, mice, and rabbits.
With the help of advanced genes and medical technology, it was not difficult for the multiple births and the rapid recovery after the birth.
At that time, the reproduction of the species was dependent on the bellies of the females and was bound to be restricted. But after the artificial uterus and the incubation tank were developed, the Primeval Lord of Heaven was no longer restricted by the gender restriction. As long as they had enough energy and genes, they would be able to produce offspring continuously, thereby freeing all the women and doubling the combat ability of the entire species.
As long as they were willing and had enough energy, their species could explode exponentially and reproduce in every corner of the infinite universe.
And that was exactly what they did—the devils that were about to sweep across the entire Universe Ocean!
The Void Hunters were ignorant of everything.
It was not that it did not notice the subtle changes of the bugs attached to its body, but that there were more and more of them.
However, its body was too enormous, and its perception of time was different from that of the Primeval Lord of Heaven. It did not realize the danger of the Primeval Lord of Heaven at all. Instead, it felt that the bugs were scratching its itch more and more. What was wrong with that?
Not long after, the Primeval Lord of Heaven showed another ‘ability’ to the Void Hunters.
The Void Hunters lived by swallowing meteoroids and asteroids, crus.h.i.+ng the crystals stored inside, and absorbing the energy stored inside.
However, its body was too large, and its movements were relatively clumsy. During the process of swallowing the meteoroids and asteroids, it was inevitable that a lot of the debris would be left behind.
A lot of precious energy was still stored inside the residues. As the saying goes, a little makes the world go round.
In the past, the Void Hunters would often leave behind a large number of meteorites and asteroid fragments after devouring everything in their way.
But right now, the Primeval Lord of Heaven was hovering around the scene of the void hunter’s absorption in his latest small-scale spiritual airs.h.i.+p. He was collecting the scattered sc.r.a.ps carefully and smelting the sc.r.a.ps that contained mother lodes of crystals into the purest spiritual crystals before he offered them to the void hunter.
For the Void Hunters, the manually-refined spiritual energy crystals whose purity was close to 100% were as delicious as dragon liver and phoenix marrow.
The Void Hunter sensed a feeling of beauty that was completely different from the glamorous dream but with the same approach. He was immediately hooked and found his original method of absorption boring and tasteless.
From then on, the Primeval Lord of Heaven joined the absorption and digestion process of the Void Hunters and became the ‘tentacles’ in a different form. They helped the Void Hunters crush the meteoroids, smelt the spiritual minerals, extracted the purest spiritual energy crystals, and tossed them into the suckers of the Void Hunters respectfully.
Of course, the Primeval Lord of Heaven had to take a step back during the process. About 5% to 10% of the spiritual energy had fallen into their control.
The Void Hunters, who had been well served by the Primeval Lord of Heaven, did not think too much of it. As far as they knew, the Primeval Lord of Heaven was their tentacles, teeth, the flagella in their digestive system, and even the probiotics inside their body. Who would doubt the probiotics inside their body?
Just like that, the ancestors of the Primeval Clan lurked in the shelter of the Void Hunters and drifted in the dark sea of stars for a second ten thousand years.
Over the past ten thousand years, the Void Hunters and the Primeval Lord of Heaven had become more and more inseparable. The primeval cosmic creature that was as enormous as a deity was more and more feeble in appearance and under the control of the Primeval Lord of Heaven.
Its cl.u.s.ter of nerves had been a.n.a.lyzed, studied, paralyzed, and corrupted by the dream creators of the Primeval Clan. Its wisdom, like that of a seven-year-old child, had been played by the wisdom of the Primeval Clan.
Its digestive ability weakened as the Primeval Lord of Heaven continued supplying the purest spiritual energy crystals. It did not even bother to wave its tentacles. Everything was done by the Primeval Lord of Heaven.
The Primeval Lord of Heaven had even learned how to sneak into one of its tentacles and cut off the transmission of information between the tentacle and the nerve cl.u.s.ter before it was connected to the mainframe crystal processor of the stars.h.i.+p so that the tentacle could be controlled.
After all, the Void Hunters had so many tentacles, but they did not even have a real brain. The neurons all over their bodies were too few to notice such tricks.
If it had been discovered, it might’ve praised the loyalty of the Primeval Lord of Heaven and helped it get rid of the tentacles and the troublesome feeding process!
Although it was not unusual for countless people to die every day, the artificial uterus and the technology of the large-scale hatching pool, together with the fully-automatic education system that Li Yao mentioned just now, could allow ten times more of his compatriots to be produced continuously. Then, with the sc.r.a.ps of meteorites that the Void Hunters despised, he could refine metals and build components into new stars.h.i.+ps—the real wars.h.i.+ps that could expand the black glory of the Primeval Lord Clan to the ends of every tentacle of the Void Hunters!
The Void Hunters had never discovered the ambitions of the Primeval Lord of Heaven.
In the meantime, the Primeval Lord of Heaven had only encountered one life-and-death threat, not because of the original intention of the Void Hunters, but because the life cycle of the behemoth had come to an end.
Void hunters were as.e.xual creatures.
It was obvious. Such top predators in the universe did not need to change their genes aggressively. Besides, it was quite rare for them to run into their own kind in the vast sea of stars. It was unnecessary to ask for trouble by evolving genders.
However, the reproduction method of the Void Hunters had caused a lot of trouble for the Primeval Lord of Heaven.
Whenever a Void Hunter sensed that its ten-thousand-year-long life was coming to an end, it would devour a lot of meteoroids and asteroids crazily driven by its instincts and store all the overloaded spiritual energy inside its body. It was like a gargantuan biological bomb that would explode in the end.
In the big explosion, the old Void Hunters would be blown to pieces, and their broken limbs would be burnt by the intense spiritual energy reactions. Part of the hibernating genes would be activated, too. In the end, of the thousands of tentacles that were tossed away, the few largest limbs would be revived and grow out of their body parts, turning them into new Void Hunters.
The process was called ‘explosion’.
It was not hard to imagine that, for the Primeval Beings who were living on the bodies of the Void Hunters, it was as good as another apocalypse.
However, the Primeval Lord of Heaven at this moment was no longer an earthling who could not resist the catastrophe twenty thousand years ago.