Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty Eight – Mentally Ill
By the time night passed, nothing was left of the hooked worm’s corpse . Lin had turned all of it into nutrients .
Lin felt that while the “exploding bombs” were powerful, they seemed wasteful . After they blew up, Lin could not recover them . Next time, it would be better not to use exploding units .
Lin would think about what to do next time . Right now, Lin was most concerned with the state of the region below it . It only saw clearly when daytime came .
The lava which had exploded previously had turned grey and black, solidified in their flowing shapes . This was similar to what Lin had encountered before in the abyss .
Why would the lava solidify?
Because it was cold? The water temperature was cold . Since low temperature could make water turn hard, it could also turn lava hard .
So interesting .
Leviathan swam slowly above the solidified lava . Lin used a tentacle to touch the flowing black surface and couldn’t feel any heat .
It had turned completely cold? It was as though the previous temperature increase had been false .
“False?”
Such a strange term . It seemed to represent that things were not what they felt like … … where did these terms come from? Lin was not puzzled for the first time but it didn’t receive any answers .
So it moved its attention back .
The lava had created great damage and killed many organisms but more organsms were attracted to it . Large amounts of unicellular organisms swam over as fast as they could . They burrowed into the cracks in the lava as though they were searching for something to eat .
Were there edible substances similar to the ones from the abyss’s pillar of smoke?
Lin was curious . It released gatherers to burrow into the cracks in the lava . As expected, they found edible substances inside .
This place would attract a large number of organisms . Lin needed to occupy this place .
As it thought this, Lin put down a base seed here .
Then it will go visit that place .
The Leviathan swam to the lava opening . Bubbles and debris of different colors floated in the water here . If cells absorbed these gas bubbles, they would die .
Toxic poison … …
Maybe they had value . Lin could store these gases in the air sacs of the air storers . They were no problem as long as they were not taken into the cells .
Lin injected this to other organisms . They could not control their absorption because they couldn’t control each cell perfectly .
The opening was sealed by solidified lava . Lin wondered, would more lava erupt out?
This place was slightly dangerous . Putting down a base here to observe was a correct decision . Maybe this place would erupt again .
Then, it was time to leave … …
When Leviathan swam out of the opening, it saw some large multicellular organisms swimming in this direction .
Hooked worms .
Three of them . They appeared disinterested in the unicellular organisms floating in the water, heading straight for the Leviathan . They did not immediately attack but swam circles in the surroundings .
The hooked worms had brains, ones much larger than the flat worms . But proportionally, the hooked worms had smaller brains .
They used the leaf-like structures on the sides of their bodies to move . Even with their armor, they were nimble . Lin would most likely suffer some losses fighting all three together .
This was good .
Lin had the air storers fill up with the toxic gases and then swim towards the hooked worms .
These hooked worms did not eat the bait like the previous one . Seeing the poisonous air storers, they dodged to the side .
Their intelligence was clearly different from the one at night … … or was this individual differences?
Then Lin created a kind of small sphere . They were about a hundred cells large, something the hooked worms could not see with their vision . Lin put some infectors inside this ball, and then added an eyeball antenna and a hollow tube as well as extremely sensitive tentacles .
Lin named this the “infection ball . ” It could spray water and swim . This was Lin’s new method of infection for use against organisms with brains . It wanted to see what the virus would do to the brains of these organisms .
The infection ball slowly swam near a hooked worm’s gills . The hooked worm’s gills had small tentacle structures that acted like “filters . ” However, they were passive and couldn’t actively catch invaders . Lin could easily avoid the filter nets and then enter the blood vessels through the hooked worm’s respiratory system .
The brain of the hooked worm was at the center of the body . The infection ball was only in one of the countless blood vessels . Lin did not know its present location, but relying on the infection ball’s tentacles, it could feel the messages of the brain and swim in that direction .
The hooked worm’s blood vessels were filled with all kinds of cells, nutrients, waste material and other substances including immune cells . Lin had to avoid these immune cells, enter the hooked worm’s brain and inject the virus into the brain cells .
The immune cells would attack all invaders . However, the infection ball was wrapped up in a hard armor and moved faster than immune cells . This blood vessel was also one that flowed quickly and Lin easily left the attacking immune cells behind without much effort .
The feeling up front grew stronger . Lin thought it had reached the brain .
Then it had the infection ball insert its tube into the wall of the blood vessel and inject the virus into the brain .
Then the infection ball was now useless? No, its mission had not finished . The infection ball used the tube to stop itself from being swept away by the blood . At the same time, it shed its shell and the cells inside started to divide until it was large enough to block the entire blood vessel . It then secreted chitin substance and used the hard shell to completely block this blood vessel .
This was done primary to obstruct the immune cells . They would eliminate this block sooner or later but the virus would have replicated itself many times by then .
Now Lin just had to wait and watch something interesting .
The three hooked worms did not attack Leviathan because of the toxic gases and swam nearby . Lin paid attention to the infected hooked worm and watched the changes … …
Lin did not see any changes at the start but after a while, its actions clearly changed . First, its body started to twitch and then the twitches became much faster and violent . However, its movements were not controlled and it seemed crazy . .
“Crazy” was a term that was used to describe organisms with brains when they could not control themselves .
The infected hooked worm did something strange . It charged and attacked its nearby fellows . It used its thick curved forelimbs to grab the tail of its fellow and tore it off .
The hooked worm’s muscles should not have the power to tear off the armored tail . Did this organism’s strength increase after being infected?
The hooked worm whose tail had been torn off could not keep swimming . It twisted as it sank towards the sand as the other hooked worm quickly fled .
The infected hooked worm turned a few times in the water, and then swam in another direction .
Lin thought that it would smash onto rocks with how haphazardly it was swimming . So interesting . It appeared that the virus hadn’t damaged the hooked worm’s brain cells . Otherwise, it would be dead right now .
The virus made it go mad . Lin wondered, how long could it survive? So the virus was this interesting .
Leviathan swam near the hooked worm with its tail torn off who was struggling on the solidified lava . The Leviathan wrapped a tentacle around it .
One hundred cells in exchange for this meal? It felt good . The virus was of value to study .
Study, that really was an interesting thing . Not just the viruses . Lin suddenly found that the base in the region covered in green cells had progressed in its study .
Through adjusting and combining the “color” inside the cells, they could create the green color .
However … … the green color seemed useless .
But Lin now understood how to make color .
Just like making the chitin substance, the color was composed of certain substances in the cell . Lin could control them to create different colors .
If needed, Lin could feel the different substances inside the cells . This was why Lin could control these substances .
This seemed to be called … … “taste?”
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