4.6 Billion Year Symphony of Evolution

Book 2: Chapter 46 “The Light Threads In The Abyss”

These organisms that spread blue light covered the sand on the seabed like threads. Their light was not bright but enough to illuminate this dark region of water.

What were these? Slightly like plants, but Lin had never seen plants which would shine. While one could absorb ones own light to not waste energy, there would still be waste and the cycle could not be perfectly maintained.

Leviathan used to have this kind of system before but it had degenerated after a hundred million years.

But no matter what these were, Lin might be able to create the green carpet here using their light

However, Lin had to first resolve the present trouble.

Leviathan followed the ammonites to quickly swim over this seabed with its luminescent threads. That enormous fish still followed them closely. Suddenly, some of the ammonites slowed down and stayed behind Leviathan.

Lin did not turn its eyeballs back to watch but it could clearly feel the unique water flows when these ammonites were crushed by the Dunkleosteus.

The Dunkleosteus speed did not decrease. It would not be satisfied by a few small ammonites. Right now, the ammonites appear to have slowed. Several more ammonites fell behind and were crushed by the dunkleosteus.

The dunkleosteus was not as fast as the ammonites, but the ammonites did not seem to have strong endurance. Exhaustion occurred because the cells could not eject waste in time, and could not provide enough nutrients and recover from the damage created by strong activity. Lins Leviathan had evolved perfect endurance. As long it still had nutrients in its body, it would never run out of energy.

The ammonite swarm started to slowly disintegrate due to the lack of energy. Half of the ammonites started to slow down. The enormous ammonite which was two meters in diameter suddenly turned around. It opened its operculum. Dozens of tentacles reached out and it appeared to face the chasing dunkleosteus.

The ammonite could do something like this?

The dunkleosteus did not care whether the ammonite was large or small. It charged forward and opened its powerful mouth to bite the ammonites shell.

The strong outer shell immediately showed large cracks. The ammonites numerous tentacles wrapped around the dunkleosteuss head and it primarily attacked the gills.

The dunkleosteuss gills closed. Of course it had ways of defending its weakness. The ammonite wanted to pull open the gills and damage the oxygen-absorbing structure inside.

This seemed to be a battle of attrition. Under the pressure of the dunkleosteuss mouth, the cracks on the ammonite spread across its entire body. While the head of the ammonite had not appeared, and only its tentacles were attacking, its organs inside seemed to have received damage. The tentacles grasping the gills slowly lost power.

Two meters against seven meters. It had tried very hard, but it still could not win in the end?

The mouth of the dunkleosteus had evolved against extremely hard organisms like the ammonite. This could be almost described as a natural enemy.

The smaller ammonites in the surroundings had disappeared. This enormous ammonite had failed but it won life for its fellows.

Leviathan had been watching these two organisms fight from afar. Because the dunkleosteus was not as fast as the leviathan, Lin did not worry much.

The dunkleosteus finally crushed the ammonite shell. Organisms usually did not eat shell, but the dunkleosteus swallowed both flesh and shell.

Looking at the dunkleosteus feeding on the ammonite, Lin suddenly had a thought. Maybe it would attack. This was the largest organism it had ever seen. Defeating it would be interesting.

Just out of interest? Maybe there were other reasons

Yes, Lin wanted to create the green carpet here. It had to confirm how large this area of glowing threads was.

Lin searched for some useful units within the Leviathan. Lin found the Leviathan rarely attacked organisms larger than itself. There had been no need. An organism half as large provided enough nutrients for a long time so Leviathan only had units to drive others away, and none that could attack large organisms directly.

While it had evolved well, it was too focused and not perfect.

As Lin pondered this, it created a dozen smashers to attack the outer skin of the dunkleosteus.

The dunkleosteus was like other large organisms and ignored the smashers at the start. However, when the smashers started to attack its skin, it reacted.

The dunkleosteus suddenly twisted, the water currents produced by its enormous body immediately driving several smashers away. They rolled several times before stopping, some of them colliding with the glowing threads on the seabed.

The dunkleosteus looked around, attempting to find what had attacked it. But its vision seemed unable to see things as small as the smashers in the dim light. Also, it did not connect this attack to the Leviathan so it turned back to the remains of the ammonite.

Were ordinary tactics ineffective for such a large organism? Did Lin have to use the slaughterers? For some reason, Lin did not like using things like poison. It liked to destroy enemies directly.

Lin first had the Leviathan recall the smashers.

Lin suddenly had a strange feeling. Some smashers returned but others could not move, as though they were restrained by something.

Lin released an eyeball to look towards the smashers. It found those smashers were tangled up by the glowing threads. The threads grew on the smashers, forming a glowing ball of thread that wrapped completely around the smasher.

The smashers did not have eyeballs but Lin could feel that they seemed to be corroded by dissolving fluid. From the outer skin, the cells were gradually killed and then the entire body.

Did this kind of strange thread have such an ability?

Lin felt puzzled. Just as it wanted to have the Leviathan go look, a powerful surge of water came from nearby.

Leviathan immediately darted back. In the next moment, the jaws of the dunkleosteus closed over where the Leviathan had previously been.

It had almost been bitten in half

The dunkleosteus turned and bit again but it had lost the advantage of surprise. Lin had the Leviathan swim a dozen meters away at a faster speed. Seeing the dunkleosteus not giving chase, it went back to observing.

The dunkleosteus had eaten half of the ammonite. The other half of the corpse had landed on the threads on the seabed and was wrapped up. The dunkleosteus seemed to know the threads were dangerous and gave up on the ammonite, attacking the Leviathan instead.

While it moved slowly, the dunkleosteus ambush ability to was powerful. Lin only felt the abnormality of the water flow when it was close and didnt detect any scent at all. Lin did not know how it had eliminated the smell of the ammonites organs from its mouth. Maybe the smell was so thick in the water Lin did not detect it.

Right now, the dunkleosteus seemed to know it could not catch up to the Leviathan. It had eaten a great amount so it gave up on attacking and swam away.

Lin usually would not spare organisms that attacked it. However, if it killed the dunkleosteus now, its corpse would land on the seabed. The threads would get there first and dissolve it. There would be no meaning.

Compared to killing a monster that could bite through the Leviathan in one bite, it was more interesting to study these threads.

Lin created a small cell type with a sharp pincer at the front for them to cut a small length of the threads. Then Lin used a sphere-shaped unit called a study ball to absorb the material. Lastly, Lin released a large number of cells and small units into this sphere to study.

This thread had a simple structure. There was a layer of luminescent cells as the outer layer, and cells similar to muscle cells inside so they could move.

Also, they could project tiny needle threads on the surface, which could release powerful dissolving fluid. This kind of dissolving fluid was more powerful than any Lin had seen before. They most likely used these small needles to stab other organisms, and then dissolved their preys organs from the inside.

These threads most likely fed on all kinds of debris because food was rare here. So they would go wild and immediately surround anything that dropped down?

However a place like this. The surface was ice, and the bottom was both cold and black. Was there enough food that the threads could cover such a large area?

If possible, Lin might copy them and create a new kind of green carpet yes, the green carpet did not have to just feed off light. It just had to stay in one area and gather food.

Then it would try.

Translator Ramblings: This update has nothing to do with the fact that I am watching Alien Worlds on Netflix. Nothing at all