4.6 Billion Year Symphony of Evolution

Book 3: Chapter 4 “Crawl and Fly”

Last chapter recap: Lin fought a giant millipede on land.

The organism in front of Lin had four thick limbs, and looked very similar to the salamander. However, its entire body was covered in fish-like scales. From its slightly ajar mouth, Lin could see large numbers of teeth.

Reptile?

This term appeared in Lins thoughts. This name did not feel very special. So many things knew how to crawl but why was this one the only one called reptile?

While this reptile looked very vicious, Lin was disappointed by its body which was only about thirty centimeter, including its tail that was almost as long as the rest of its body.

The reptile did not go near the water, and looked from a distance at Leviathan. Lin only shifted its tentacles slightly and it immediately fled.

It wanted to run?

Lin did not plan to only attack large organisms. It would not ignore small organisms. It would kill all the different types of organisms here once in order to secure its position.

Leviathan released a kind of unit that was thirty centimeters long. This was an experimental unit similar to the system of water spouts. Lin had built many air spout systems on its body. The unit could suck in a large volume of air from the head, compress it through the body, and then expel the air through the spout holes to help its six segmented limb move.

Lin had made many calculations for this system. It thought that it had almost perfected it.

However, Lin didnt know how fast the unit could run.

This was a new kind of charger. Like the previous ones, it had a cone horn covered in hooks that could be used to stab enemies.

Lin released the charger onto the ground. Its systems immediately activated and it charged out!

Pretty fast.

Lin paid attention to the sight of the charger. The spiked pillars in the surroundings quickly faded away and the fleeing reptile was already in front of the charger.

The reptile looked back and then moved even faster with its four limbs. Lins charger followed closely, getting even closer to the reptile using its air spout system. Lin did not feel the scales of the reptile could defend against the horn of the charger. If Lin managed to catch up, it could easily penetrate the reptile.

The charger sped up even faster. Lin felt as though it was rushing through the water. Yet right before it made contact with the reptile, the reptile suddenly swung its tail and ran to the left between two spiked pillars.

Lin immediately twisted the chargers body to the left. It closed the spouts in its tail, and sprayed air outside the right side at the same time. After making a successful turn, Lin opened the tail holes again and continued to chase the reptile.

The distance lengthened again. Turning like this could minimize the extra distance due to travelling too fast but it was still a bit worse than the nimbleness of running on all limbs.

But this distance was almost nothing, and the charger once again neared the sprinting reptile.

Chasing through the woods, the reptile made several more turns. However, the charger became more clean with every turn. Lin could even predict when the reptile would want to turn.

In the end, the reptile turned into a dead end. In front of it were three spiked pillars close together, and behind it was the charging charger

The reptile had no time to react. The horn of the charger pierced the reptiles armor and the tip travelled into the reptiles chest.

The reptile stopped struggling but the charger did not have the ability to feed. Leviathan had to reach the site.

This felt wrong. While the reptile had not run far this time, if it had run far away, the prey that Lin had managed to catch might be stolen away.

It had to put digestion systems on the charger.

Leviathan walked to the sight of death and released gatherers to break down the reptile.

The organs of the reptile were similar to the salamander. This kind of organism had evolved from the salamander. They used relatively hard scales to stop water leaking out of the skin. Their bodies also had an amusing organ in the body that seemed like an air sac. Some passages were connected to small holes in the head and the sac could expand and contract to suck in oxygen.

This seemed to be called a lung.

Lins air sacs also had the ability to contract, but it was not so complicated in structure. There were many net-like structures in the lung that Lin did not know the use of.

This kind of organ was suitable for absorbing large volumes of oxygen. But oxygen was plentiful now so Lin felt this was not useful.

After eating the reptile, Lin put away the charger and the gatherers. It found another direction to move in.

What kind of organisms would it encounter next? No matter what Lin encountered, even if it were worms like before, Lin was prepared to fight. But Lin would only know if it could win after having the fight.

Leviathan strolled through the spiked pillar woods. The temperature here was cool but Lin suddenly felt a wave of heat. It came with a flow of air through the woods, and caused the surrounding temperature to rise.

Was the heat of the ocean affecting this place? No, this wave of heat came in the opposite direction of the ocean.

Leviathan quickly walked in the direction of the wave of heat. After passing through a wall made from spiked pillars, Lin came to an open area.

Within Lins sight was an endless expanse of yellow sand. This here was like the land of a billion year ago no water, no organisms, just flying sand and an endless desert.

It appeared that the pillar forest was not large in area, and plants had not spread further into the land? Maybe this was because the mist was unable to float further.

Lin looked behind it. The row of spiked pillars divided the woods and the desert like an enormous wall. Lin started to suspect that these spiked pillars were not ordinary stones.

Lin felt some pity. It originally thought it could see a land filled with organism, and hadnt expected seeing the same scene as a billion years ago

Just as Lin was preparing to turn and leave, a voice suddenly interrupted Lins thoughts.

The eyeball antenna looked in the direction of the sound. Two organisms suddenly flew over the spiked pillar forest towards the desert.

Organisms that could fly!

Lin immediately released the charger. While the Leviathan could not keep up with these organisms, the charger clearly could. It followed the two organisms quickly while the Leviathan followed behind at a slow pace.

In order to see the environment clearly at high speeds, the eyeballs of the charger had been modified. They could capture many scenes in an instant so it could clearly see the appearance of the two organisms in the sky.

These two organisms were long and slender. They were more than a meter long, and three pairs of segmented limbs grew out of their relatively thicker chest. The eyeballs at the heads were enormous in comparison. The most evident trait was that they had four transparent flat and long structures, two on each side of its body. They seemed to rely on these to fly in an manner unlike the jellyfish.

These organisms seemed to have a name, Meganeura. This seemed to be a good name, much cooler than reptile.

The charger followed the meganeura and studied its structure at the same time. Lin now had ideas of making the structures itself. It didnt have to capture these ones.

Lin was interested in where they would fly to. Did these organism just live in the air? Would it land on the ground? The ocean had many organisms that never touched the ocean floor.

The charger ran for a while below the meganeura. After passing over a sand hill, Lin saw its target.

That was

There was a moderately sized sand pit below the sand hill. Many meganeura were gathered there. In the center of the pit was an enormous organism.

That organism looked similar to the brontoscorpio. It had pincers for forelimbs, and eight segmented legs. But it was enormous, longer than three meters, and did not have a hook at the end of its tail. Its armor was covered in cracks as though it was damaged. Those meganeura were flying around it, charging down occasionally to attack the cracks in the armor and feed on the blood that spilled out.

Lin temporarily called it a desert scorpion. The desert scorpion waved its pincers but could not catch those fast meganeura. If this continued, the scorpion would die.

Translator Ramblings: We get giant dragonflies now!