4.6 Billion Year Symphony of Evolution

Last chapter recap: Lin encounters a jellyfish swarm.

The movement of the water current was unlike ordinary currents. Lin didn’t know if this was caused by the vibrating sand or came from far away … …

After Lin formed multicellular structures, it never feared water currents again. However, the power of the water current this time surpassed its imagination. This fierce flow swept through the water region, sweeping up countless grains of sand, carrying away everything present. The peaceful night turned immediately into a roaring hell.

Lin felt as though it was in the grasp of a great power. It rolled back and forth in the mothership through the darkness. Lin felt as though it was constantly spinning. It could not detect up or down, and didn’t know where it was. It helplessly rolled through the wild waters.

Lin closed the openings on the mothership’s ectoderm so that the cells inside would not leak out. Fortunately, the water current did not tear apart the mothership’s ectoderm but Lin could not do anything else. In the strong flow, Lin couldn’t even move a tentacle.

More than ten billion cells made up the enormous mothership. Lin hadn’t ever thought that the mothership could be swept away. Just now, an enormous leaf worm had smashed onto the mothership. It appeared that other organisms were also swept up by the current.

Lin could usually smash the leaf worms but it could not pluck them out of the sand. The power of this water current surpassed Lin’s imagination.

Unable to fight back, unable to move, Lin rolled and twisted for an unknown amount of time. The water current gradually slowed, and then stopped. The water became peaceful again.

… … It stopped?

It really came quickly and left quickly.

This seemed to be a fun phrase … … no matter. Lin started to inspect its state. Many of the blood vessels had torn apart, and the eyeball antenna on the outside of the ectoderm had snapped off. However, the enormous hammered tentacles and the tentacles used for swimming were fine. Those small wounds could be healed.

Lin didn’t know where the protectors had been swept to. It seemed to be buried in the sand. Because of the hard shell, the cells inside were fine, but it probably was very far from the mothership.

Lin first grew out new eyeball antennas on the ectoderm. The surroundings were still dark. Lin would probably have to wait until it was light to meet up with the protector.

Hold on… … light?

The eyeball antenna suddenly saw flashing light come from above.

Were those jellyfish? The feeling wasn’t the same … … these lights were dots, and Lin felt that they were extremely far away.

Lin swam towards the flashing dots. As it went closer, the number of dots of light increased …..

Those were … …

The flashing lights filled Lin’s vision. They covered the span of what Lin could see. Among these dots of light, there was an enormous pillar of light that seemed to be made from countless dots of light. They stretched from one end of the world to another. Lin’s eyes, and thoughts were filled with light.

World? Galaxy? Stars?

Many terms appeared in Lin’s thoughts it did not understand, but it felt a great yearning towards them. It didn’t want to return to the dark waters below, it wanted to advance, to touch these lights … …

It swam forward and reached out a tentacle. It tried to touch one of the dots of light.

Suddenly, a strange feeling came from Lin’s tentacle. It seemed to have touched a strange place. The water around the tentacle disappeared, and the feeling was one of emptiness.

Lin found that its muscle cells could not hold up the tentacle in this void. Gravity seemed to multiply in its force and pulled the tentacle immediately back below the water surface.

“Water surface?”

Lin seemed to have encountered this term before. That was a very special place … … As Lin thought about this, it activated the sprout behind the mothership and rowed its tentacles to charge forward!

“Splash!”

In the next moment, Lin felt the mothership leave the water, and enter that void, but in an instant, gravity pulled it back into the water.

Yes … … yes, no Lin remembered. As long as it went up, the opposite direction of gravity, it would reach the wondrous place called the “water surface.” Above the “water surface” was an empty space. There was no water, and one couldn’t move. One could not stay in that space no matter how great their strength because gravity would pull them back into the water immediately.

While Lin had only been out of the water for a flash, it could clearly feel from the ectoderm that the void space was not completely empty. It had something called gas.

Just like oxygen, and the air bubbles. Gas existed in small bubbles in water, but the area above the water surface belonged to them!

Other than this, the terror that was the “ultraviolet light” would fill this empty gas space when it was “daytime.” The ultraviolet light could instantly kill cells. Because it was night, so this was fine now?

“Day time?” That seemed to be a new term referring to light. It felt good.

Then what were the countless dots of light above? That seemed to be called the starry sky? While the dots were giving off light, the strength was far from the “daytime.” as they couldn’t illuminate the dark areas of the water.

Lin wanted to get close to them, but there was a space that belonged to gas blocking Lin. In other words, Lin had to move within the gas?

How to do that?

Lin couldn’t think of a way.

And if it was daytime, the strong ultraviolet light would kill it. Lin had never tried to evolve resistance to ultraviolet light and there was no reason to try.

Just a “starry sky” was not enough to attract Lin to do so, even though the stars were beautiful.

Maybe later, when Lin’s colonies were bigger, it would think of a way. But definitely not now.

So it was time to return to the deep waters … … before daytime came.

Lin slowly moved back. It glanced at the starry sky before turning and swimming towards the darkness.

At this time, countless light suddenly appeared in the pitch black water.

How did the stars get into the water? No, that wasn’t right … …

Lin quickly found the source of light in the water. Those were not stars, they were … … jellyfish.

Countless jellyfishes appeared from the deep waters. They gave off serene blue light asa they moved their disk bodies to slowly towards the water surface where Lin was.

Had they also been swept up in the water current?

Lin had no place to retreat. Behind it was the water surface that belonged to gas, and below it were countless jellyfish. The jellyfish were in such great number they rivaled the stars in the sky!

If they flooded up, not just the mothership’s ectoderm, even the cells inside would be devoured. While Lin’s protector was unharmed below the water, Lin did not want to lose the mothership.

What to do?

Charge!

Lin did not consider too much. It saw a place where the jellyfish were less densely packed, and suddenly used its sprout to charge at its fastest speed.

Hammer attack!

Lin pushed aside the two jellyfish at the front, but what entered its view were dozens of jellyfish swimming upwards.

Lin once again hammered away the nearest jellyfish, but the surrounding jellyfish that swam by brushed on Lin’s tentacles and the mothership’s ectoderm.

So painful … … but, Lin almost made it.

Lin could see the darkness within the light of countless jellyfish.

That was the exit!

Lin once again swung its hammered tentacles. Even though it was wounded by countless toxic stinger cells, it still forcefully hammered out a path. Lin then accelerated and charged into the darkness.

Success!

Lin was covered in wounds, the ectoderm showing large cracks as a result of Lin having the poisoned cells die to effectively stop the spread of the toxin. At the same time, Lin removed the hammered tentacles and the two swimming tentacles from its body because they were covered in stinger cells.

The losses were great, but Lin had survived.

Lin turned back to look at the luminescent jellyfish swarm and then swam towards the darkness.

Lin had reached towards light, but at this time, it felt the darkness was safer and more comfortable.

Translator Ramblings: Can’t find a good video of a water current so, here’s an animated one.