4.6 Billion Year Symphony of Evolution

Last chapter recap: Lin fights and defeats a hooked worm.

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?”

Translator Ramblings: I did not forget this translation, the releases are just … delayed.