"Are those luminescent bacteria poisonous?" Leah whispered.
Zero shook his head and said, "Look carefully, not all the moles are dead."
Sure enough, only a part of the moles died, but some moles were contaminated with luminescent bacteria, but they did not die, and they were still gnawing on the full mycorrhiza. After a full meal, they walked around slowly, but turned a blind eye to the corpses of their own kind. After being eaten by giant rats, the stems of those giant mushrooms began to produce a thin layer of fibrous membranes to seal the "wound".
Look at those dead moles, their bodies are decomposing. The speed of decay is very fast, and the changes that can only be completed in a few days are completed in just a few tens of seconds. However, on the rotting corpses, the luminescent bacteria gradually disappeared. In their place are tiny germs that further decompose the mole carcasses, turning the animals into fertilizer for the land.
"Symbiontic system." Mo Ni suddenly said: "I have seen some plants use this method to continue the life of themselves and their offspring during the two years in the dark land. They will use aroma or color to attract nearby animals , and the seeds are sprinkled on these animals. Some animals die for no reason, and their carcasses become fertilizer for the plants. But others survive, and they can receive the gifts of the plants."
"The surviving animals left soon after, and took the seeds of the plants to other places to reproduce their own offspring. The Amandas call this way of plants a symbiotic system." Mo Ni finally said .
"We don't want to eat these giant mushrooms. I hope they don't treat us as animals." Jin looked worriedly at the luminescent fungi on the giant mushroom caps above his head, for fear that they would fall off.
Everyone laughed, and Mo Ni said: "Don't worry, plants can tell whether you are their eater through smell. If not, they wouldn't waste their seeds on you."
"Plants can also distinguish smells. The world is really crazy." Jin was a little crazy.
Zero shrugged: "How has this world ever been normal?"
Suddenly, the color of the luminescent bacteria on the caps of some giant mushrooms that were a hundred paces away changed. Whatever color they were before, they are now fading to bright red. No matter how you look at it, it looks like the plants are calling the police. Noticing the change in the color of the light bacteria, some moles raised their heads vigilantly, then turned around and ran away screaming "Zhizhi".
Something is coming!
As soon as this thought came into being, a cry like a blue whale sounded from the darkness. There was a loud sound of breaking through the air, as if something was passing through the space at high speed. It's a pity that the things in the darkness are so far away that even Zero can't see each other.
A mole seemed to be frightened, and it ran towards Zero and the others in a daze. Zero stared, ready to kill the fat rat, otherwise it would attract unknown creatures. But before he could make a move, an octopus-like tentacle suddenly jumped out of the darkness. It passed through many giant mushrooms, nimble as a snake, and hit the mole with incomparable accuracy.
The ground trembled slightly, and according to the vibration felt on the ground, everyone present was all high-level, and it was not difficult to deduce that the strength of the tentacle's slap was nearly a ton. Not to mention moles, even an iron plate would be deformed by such a blow. Sure enough, when the tentacles were lifted slightly, the mole had already turned into a ball of meat paste. The tentacles rolled up the rat's corpse, then retracted with another whirring sound, and disappeared into the distant darkness in an instant.
The exclamation of the mole kept coming from nearby, and the sound gradually stopped after a while, and the light bacteria on the giant mushroom also changed color. The red light is gradually retracted, and then other soft colors are emitted.
The hunter has left.
"Let's go." Zero said.
"What was that just now?" Hai Wei couldn't help asking, of course she knew that there was no answer to this question.
"Some kind of large predator, as long as it doesn't block our way, let's ignore it." Ling said, and then identified the direction of the sound of the water, and then led the team to set off.
The sound of water is approaching, and the mushroom forest is far away.
It is far away, but through the misty light emitted by the whole mushroom forest, one can see a figure as tall as a hill moving slowly in the giant mushroom forest. I can't see what it looks like, but from the outline, it is reminiscent of a snail. The apparently round body and the raised head in front are indeed similar to the appearance of a snail.
The biggest snail that Zero has ever seen is the Bawang snail, but compared with the ones in the mushroom forest, the Bawang snail is nothing compared to the big one. But that thing may not be a snail, who has seen a snail with tentacles, so in the end, Zero can only attribute the * in the mushroom forest to a giant alien species.
After leaving the mushroom forest, it was obvious that the soil on the ground gradually became wet, and then gravel began to appear, and finally they came to a rocky beach. Not far from the rocky beach, there was an uproar from a stream. The water flowed from behind Zero and the others, flowing forward along the terrain. It seems that this river should be a certain underground branch of the lake at the entrance, and then pass through the surface to form such a river.
There are creatures in the river, and some strange fish with several glowing tentacles are the residents of the water. They are small and slender in size. The speed of swimming in the water is very fast. If you swim along the water, it is estimated that it can reach 30 kilometers per hour. This is already fast, and although it can't swim like this for a long time, it can avoid the attack of some predators when necessary.
The predator in the water is a water snake-like animal that emerges from the crevices in the rocks on both sides of the river. These animals have snake-like bodies, but with transparent skin that glows with fluorescent light. It has three pairs of feet, and the pair of feet has a frog-like toe structure with webs between the toes. When the strange snake stretches out its opposite feet, it can use the webs between its toes to float on the water surface, which looks like a luminous branch.
It uses its specialty to attract the approach of some spiny fish. When the prey approaches, the strange snake will suddenly roll into a ball, hang the prey, and then drag it into the crevice of the rock to enjoy.
When Zero and the others were resting by the river, they just witnessed the whole hunting process. From the giant mushroom forest to this river, they have already seen that this underground world has its own independent ecosystem. In this ecosystem, predators and prey are in constant struggle. As long as one side slackens, it may be a catastrophe.
Competition is everywhere.
This is the most comfortable portrayal of the new world, from Proseus and Aglades, to humans and alien races, and even in this independent space under the ground, there is competition among creatures everywhere .
All just to survive!
After a 10-minute break, the team set off again. Walking along the river, the terrain goes from high to low, but the slope is gentle. If you don't distinguish carefully, it is difficult to realize that you are going underground. Walking in the dark is lackluster. After losing the obvious reference, the perception of time gradually becomes blurred. The road ahead is always in darkness, and there seems to be no end in the beam of light.
The endless darkness devours everything.
Just when they thought the road would never end, Zero suddenly stopped. The slope in front of the terrain suddenly intensified, and the river flowing below turned into a waterfall, turning into the sound of roaring water.
"Flare!"
It was so dark that nothing could be seen in front of it. To be on the safe side, it was obvious that a flare could not be stingy. When the flare was lifted into the air, everyone held their breath. Where they are now is a cliff about 20 meters above the ground. The river turned into a waterfall and flew down here, like a stream of mercury pouring into a lake below.
The lake is not big, it is estimated to be about tens of meters. The water of the lake is always in waves. Under the lake, there must be an underground waterway connected to other places, otherwise the lake water will not be able to maintain its normal state. Behind the lake is a mountainous area with jagged rocks and some glowing moss. In the places where the light of the flares cannot reach, there is a faint halo in the darkness.
And at the back of this mountain, with the light of the flares, some strange outlines can be faintly seen.
Like the ribs of a giant beast, the two sides emerge from the ground to form an inwardly curved structure. This is recorded in the murals of ShadowClan, and it is also the second forward node after the Giant Mushroom Forest. Giant Beast Canyon. Through this canyon, you can reach the plain area where the lizard dragon's lair is located. After passing through the lizard dragon plain, the Titan Hall is not far away.
The light of the flares was gradually weakening, and Zero and the others did not sit idle, jumping directly from the cliff to the lake below. After swimming out of the lake and reaching the shore, this underground world was once again shrouded in darkness. After a while, the light of the glowing moss appeared in the darkness, they were like a glowing carpet, marking the direction of Zero and his party.
With these glowing moss coats, Zero simply turned off the lights to save energy, and others followed suit. Everyone walked on the carpet of light, and the blade hunters were scattered on both sides of the team to act as guards. The team advanced towards the Behemoth Canyon without hindrance.
When approaching the Canyon of the Giants, the amount of Glowing Moss is decreasing, and it seems that the soil of the Canyon is not suitable for this plant to grow. The soil quality of the ground also changes from soft to hard. When you come to the entrance of the canyon, if you pick up a stone, you can find that they are as hard as steel. With such a molecular structure, it was no wonder that the luminous moss coat could not expand its territory into the canyon.
The entire canyon is filled with emptiness and the smell of death.
"Be careful." Zero said softly, turned on the light source again, and walked towards the canyon first.
The canyon is very spacious, and the rocks on both sides are bent like the bones of giant beasts. From time to time, there will be a very strong wind blowing from the other side of the valley. The temperature of the strong wind is scorching hot, and it contains some hard sand. Zero and Jin had no choice but to walk ahead, open the force field, and keep the wind and gravel away from both sides of the force field. But I don't know where the wind comes from under the ground.
What can be known is that it is precisely because of these hot winds and metal-like sand and gravel that the special landform of the Behemoth Canyon is formed. It is conceivable that at the beginning, perhaps this was just an ordinary underground canyon. It doesn't have the special appearance it has now, but at some point, with the Foehn and iron sand, they gradually eroded the landform of the canyon, forming the mountain wall that looks like the rib of a giant beast today.
Fortunately, the foehn doesn't blow continuously, and occasionally there will be one or two bursts, with long intervals. The longest one was almost 40 minutes long. Zero and the others walked in the canyon for more than two hours, but encountered only a few or two bursts of such foehn. But the journey to the canyon seems to be very long, at least they can't see the end yet, and after walking for a while, Ling asked the team to stop and rest.
Eat some food, rehydrate, and rejuvenate. Exploring underground without light, they consume far more energy than the ground. Among them, the most consumption comes from vigilance against the unknown darkness. Therefore, you can't march for a long time, and the necessary rest is an important guarantee for safely arriving at the destination.
Haiwei is a restless girl. While eating, her feet sitting on a rock would shake from time to time. Suddenly her toes touched something, she looked down and let out a short cry.
It turned out that under the foot was a skull. It's just that the shape is a bit strange, and I don't know what kind of animal skeleton it is. But everyone soon discovered that on the ground of this section of the canyon, under the gravel, some kind of animal skull or other bones of the body can be seen almost everywhere. This is almost an animal cemetery, with countless bones.
Ling Shen said: "Everyone, be careful, we seem to have entered the territory of some kind of predator."
After he finished speaking, Liya stood up and said, "Something is approaching us."
"Location!"
"Two o'clock, no... it's moving fast. Very close..."
When Liya exclaimed, there was a sound of piercing above everyone's heads, and the fishy smell was pressed from top to bottom. Ling raised the lamp and raised his head. Under the lamp, he saw a black shadow rushing down from the mountain wall where they were resting, sending debris flying around. Jin reacted very quickly, and immediately pressed one hand on the mountain wall, and suddenly a piece of rock surface in the middle of the mountain wall exploded, blowing the thing away, leaving blood stains on it.
The black shadow fell to the ground and flew towards them again. The four feet flew like flying, and the gravel of the canyon flew up. Zero was the first to meet it, unexpectedly this thing was extremely flexible. Braking abruptly, spinning and killing, leaving a surging wave in the air, he had already bypassed Zero and crashed into the rear team.
It rushed straight towards Lia with awe-inspiring murderous intent, as if it were an intelligent species. He seemed to know that Liya had sensed it in advance, so he was included in the must-kill list by it. The speed was astonishingly fast, Zero Muffled Hum, just about to flash over with a space jump. A scream suddenly sounded in the team, and a cold light flashed like autumn water, piercing straight into the body of the black shadow.
It's Monnie!
She combined the death assault into the shape of a gun blade, and followed the tip of the gun to accurately penetrate the black shadow. But the strong impact still caused her to slide back on the ground, and she didn't stop until her pink back hit the mountain wall. The thing's limbs were still twitching from time to time, and the nerve endings were still functioning. Mo Ni put down the blade of the gun, stepped on its body and pulled out the Death Assault, blood flooded the ground immediately.
This is a rat-headed man with short dark brown hair all over his body. The eyes have degenerated, but the nose is particularly large. From the top of the head to the tail, there is a row of dark red short spines on the entire back. The body looks a little thin, and the physical characteristics of a human can be clearly seen, especially the shape of the ribs, which is no different from that of a human. It's just that the hands and feet have claws that look like nails, and a tail is thin and long, but there are bony needles at the end of the tail.
Looking at this special product of the Giant Beast Canyon, Zero personally dismembered it with the dagger in his hand in order to understand the body structure of this thing. Wherever the blade hits, the skin and flesh stand apart. Under Zero's knife, the rat man soon became a piece of parts. It is not difficult to see from its body structure that this thing has evolved to a rather high level. Its brain is very developed, and the brain grooves inside are deep and dense, which is the characteristic of intelligent life.
The skeleton is as light as the previously discovered murloc skeleton, which greatly reduces the weight of the rat man. But the most developed muscles are its muscles, especially the femoral muscles of the hind legs, which have a lot of fibers and the muscle bundles are delicate and tight. This allows the Ratman to make the difficult maneuver of turning sharply as before when needed. Whether it is avoiding danger or hunting prey, it is an extremely rare skill.
Finally, there are the knife-like claws on its four legs, and Zero found a muscle bracket on its claws. Squeeze hard to spray out the claws to injure the enemy, and the effective killing distance is about ten meters. The tail needle is also a very powerful weapon. There is a poison sac at the end of the needle. It seems that after being pierced into the prey, it can create a hydraulic pressure to squeeze the poison sac through the flow of blood vessels, thereby injecting certain toxins.
Zero carefully punctured the poison sac, and a dark green, fluorescent solution flowed out from it. As soon as it touched the gravel in the canyon, the stones sizzled and burned, and after a while, the whole body was black. This is a very powerful biological toxin, but the poison sac is very small, so only a little can be squeezed out. But this little toxin is enough to bring down many creatures.
Overall, this is a higher level predator than Sauropod. Moreover, wisdom has evolved, making them even more dangerous. The Giant Beast Canyon may be the territory of this kind of ratman. If you continue to go deeper, encounters are inevitable. He explained the characteristics and structure of the Ratman to everyone, and then the team set out on the road. They walked close to the side of the mountain wall to avoid surprise attacks to the greatest extent. But Zero is very clear that the movement of his team cannot be hidden from the residents in the canyon.
Because he has already discovered that on the other side of the mountain wall, in the darkness where light cannot reach, there is something watching their team. Although the eyes of the ratmen have degenerated, the underground creatures naturally have a set of perception systems. Or the sense of shock, or the sense of smell, those perception systems that are not affected by sight must have allowed them to evolve to a higher level.
The trip to the canyon was far from peaceful, and Zero had expected that. But when Leah projected a mentally scanned image into the minds of the zero-level people, they were still deeply shocked. On both sides of the canyon, densely packed spots of light appeared within an area of 300 meters square. Each dot of light represents a creature, and there are thousands of such creatures.
If all of them were Ratmen who moved like the wind, even Zero's team would feel quite a headache.
As for the short thorn on the back, its purpose is unknown.