4.6 Billion Year Symphony of Evolution

Book 2: Chapter Fifteen “The Desert In The Dark Night”

Last chapter recap: Lin survives going through a swarm of stinging jellyfish.

Lins wounds had recovered but it was still in the darkness. Lin couldnt see anything.

The darkness continued for an especially long time this time, just like how Lin felt the daytime had continued for a long time as well. Light and dark both lengthened.

Lin had too many questions to consider even with an enormous colony composed of so many cells, it could not understand, just like it could not fight against the previous water current.

Lin needed to get bigger, get stronger, before it could face these unexplained mysteries.

If this was Lin of the past, then it would stay motionless in the water and wait for the darkness to retreat ..

But it would not let itself be passive in the darkness this time. Also, Lin didnt know how long this would continue. Due to this, it needed something that could give off light.

Lin didnt just have the flashing exploding balls, it had eaten a jellyfish and discovered some of the cells inside the jellyfish would give off light. Inside these transparent cells was some kind of powder that gave off light. The flashing exploding balls obtained a kind of luminescent structure after eating the luminescent microbes. The two light sources were not the same.

No matter what, Lin needed to have the flashing exploding balls eat these powder things and become brighter to create a luminescent structure that would allow the mothership to see the surroundings.

The flashing exploding balls actually couldnt explode now. So Lin felt it was better to call them light balls.

Lin easily split out more light balls and had them form a large ball-like structure. Then Lin connected it using a tentacle and named it with the new term that appeared in its mind, lantern.

The lantern was situated at the head of the mothership with multiple blood vessels transporting nutrients to it. The light the lantern gave off could only illuminate a small area in front of the mothership. While it could not compare the light of daytime, at least Lin could move.

Lin continued to swim downwards and planned to meet up with the protector on the sand.

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Lin was swimming in darkness for the first time. Under the light of the lantern, all kinds of weirdly shaped fragments, single cells, and the corpses of unknown organisms floated by in the surroundings. Lins eyeball antenna had been modified. Other than the largest eyeball, there were six eyeballs of various sizes used to observe things of different sizes. Lin would not miss a thing. It would be able to see even a virus floating by.

After swimming downwards for a while, Lin saw more and more strange things in the water, including many cells. They did not have eyes, but they seemed able to feel the light Lin gave off and moved towards the lantern.

Yes, the light would attract other organisms. Maybe this was how the jellyfish hunted using their lights.

Lin released the devourers to eat the cells that gathered on the lantern and continued to advance. Soon it reached the sand at the bottom.

When the light of the lantern touched the sand, Lin saw many small organisms gathered on the sand. They did not appear like the unicellular organisms who were attracted to light. When the light touched them, they immediately swam in all directions and disappeared into the darkness.

Where these all multicellular organisms? Why were they afraid of light?

The light was too dim and Lin did not see them clearly. However, Lin felt they were slightly similar to oval worms, but they were small, about the size of the sea stars.

Lin slowly swam above the sand. It found that there were many more organisms in the dark than in daytime, especially on the sand. Organisms floated everywhere. Some of them feared light, others like light. Lin made a kind of devourer who had a small lantern and let those devourer go out to hunt. Lin did not want to waste this food.

Lin fed as it swam. It felt it was close to where the protector was. Suddenly, something strange appeared in front of it.

This organism was like an enormous giant tentacle, as long as the mothership, and had spiraling patterns on the surface. It moved over the sand as though it was feeding on cells.

Lin hadnt seen this type of organism in daytime, so it called this the darkness worm.

Lin observed this organism. The range of the lantern light coincidentally illuminated its entire body. Lin was speculating. How was the power of this darkness worm, was it a threat? Or food?

The darkness worm moved extremely slowly over the sand. Lin slowly swam closer. When Lin swam above the darkness worm, it suddenly twisted and shot out at a rapid speed.

Lin immediately swung the motherships tentacles to follow and chased this organism in the dim light. Lin found that the darkness worm seemed to be chasing another organism.

Lin raised a lantern. The light illuminated a wider range. It saw a small round organism with segmented limbs on two sides furiously fleeing ahead of the darkness worm. However, this organism was not as fast as the darkness worm.

The darkness worms head part opened, and it bit its target. Lin swam in front of it. and saw the head of the darkness worm was a mouth with a ring of teeth that curved inwards. It was moving its mouth muscles and crushing the food it had caught.

Lin watched for a while and then smashed its hammered tentacle on the feeding darkness worm.

The darkness worm swung its head and spat out its prey in pain. The segmented organism seemed to be unharmed and immediately fled.

Lin did not chase. Its goal was the darkness worm.

While the darkness worm lacked eyes, it know Lin was the culprit. It twisted its body and charged towards LIn.

Bang.

Another hammer blow on the darkness worms head. This attack smashed it into the sand. At the same time, Lin opened the motherships ectoderm and released a group of new cell types.

Lin copied the sea stars injection method and created a new kind of organism. These injectors had long needles at the head, and a sprout at the end of their streamlined bodies. They could accelerate immediately and charge out, thrusting the long needle into their opponent. Then they could shrink back and inject what was inside them.

The injectors injected a cell that mimicked the virus. Lin called them multipliers. Lin had evolved these new cells from cone-shaped cells. The mouth of each multiplier was an empty cone-shaped channel, not for secreting something, but to pierce into other cells and suck in.

If the multipliers gained enough nutrients, they would immediately divide. Their division was faster than other cells, and Lin had prepared them so they were full of nutrients before they were injected into the enemy. Even if they did not absorb nutrients from the host, they could rapidly increase in number.

The injectors could swam rapidly for a short period. They charged towards the darkness worm and then pierced the ectoderm of the darkness worm with their needles, injecting tens of thousands of multipliers.

The multipliers lacked vision so Lin had them attack as they wished. They would insert their needles when they encountered something soft and then suck in before dividing. They continued this process. While their division could not compare to the rate of the virus, it was still rapid.

Attacked by large numbers of injectors, the darkness worm started to twist its body in pain and roll on the sand. It appeared many places inside its body were damaged.

At this time, Lin had the mothership swim over and give a hard blow towards the darkness worms head.

Even if the darkness worm had immune cells, they were useless because Lins attack came from both outside and inside.

The darkness worm quickly stopped moving.

Lin had the multipliers stop dividing and automatically die. Lin would take back their corpses, not wasting anything.

Now was the time to feast.

Lin had the devourer enter through the mouth of the darkness worm, and started to turn this into its own nutrients. Of course, Lin studied this organisms structure.

The darkness worm seemed to have a structure like a feeding passageway from head to tail. There were eight circles of curled teeth near the head, and piled in the esophagus were large amounts of sand and the hard shells of other organisms.

The multipliers had primarily attacked the head and many marks of cell damage showed there. The esophagus was destroyed.

The darkness worms blood vessels circled around the esophagus. There were many hearts from the head to the tail, but they were small, and looked like lumps on the blood vessels. Also, a relatively large nerve near the head.

Other than this, the entire body was composed of muscles used to quickly move the body.

There was nothing to learn from it. It was just food.

Having made the conclusion, Lin immediately had the devourers start to feed. THis darkness worm could provide them with great amounts of nutrients.

Suddenly, an organism entered the range of Lins lantern.

This was the segmented limb organism the darkness worm had been chasing previously?

Lin saw this organism running quickly towards the mothership. Just as Lin prepared to raise the hammer and stun it, it suddenly saw a large organism chasing this organism.

Translator Ramblings: Lin becomes the first anglerfish. Also, Lin has obtained pickiness as a personality trait.