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… … …
As the days and nights alternated, Lin's slumber continued.
Lin didn't know how long she had been sleeping for, but she would occasionally wake up a few times. Whenever she did, she would see some wondrous sights, such as a layer of ice freezing the entire surface of the water, or a certain area of the seabed cracking open, causing lava to erupt and destroy a large part of the green carpet …
The changes of living creatures were relatively slow, but the changes of the world were very obvious. The surface of the water would slowly rise due to various reasons, once again drowning Lin's original main base on land. There would also be frequent rifts in the deep sea, tearing apart the seabed and its inhabitants. Sometimes, the rifts would reconnect, or a large hole would appear, spewing lava without any pattern …
Occasionally, the surface of the sea would completely freeze over, with a large icicle extending from the bottom of the ice to the seabed, killing everything it came into contact with.
These were all minor issues that didn't cause any damage to Lin as a whole, because the area they destroyed wasn't too large, or they didn't last for too long. Every time she woke up like this, she would quickly repair the green carpet before going back into slumber. What Lin wanted to see … was a change of life.
A change of life would take a very long time, and if she kept waiting, it would be very boring, but the ability [Slumber] allowed her to turn that long time into a single moment.
Even if it was only a single moment for Lin, how long had it actually been?
Perhaps it had been several million years … or perhaps a hundred million years?
The evolution of living creatures seemed to have reached a new height, which was enough for Lin to wake up and take a look at this world once again.
As soon as Lin woke up, she immediately saw a few wondrous and strange creatures swimming around her green carpet.
These wondrous creatures were completely different from what Lin had seen before her slumber, but they weren't unfamiliar to her. While Lin was asleep, there were still countless eyeballs recording the changes of living creatures for her, so she could now easily recognize what kind of creatures these creatures had evolved from.
Retrieving the information that the eyeballs had accumulated over countless years, Lin couldn't help but feel excited.
This was a completely new world, and while the evolution of living creatures was slow … it could create miracles!
Lin couldn't wait to explore her surroundings, but most of the eyeballs had been eaten by other living creatures, or had run into some kind of danger, leaving only one area where one eyeball was still alive.
This used to be an oceanic trench. The green carpet covered the seabed on both sides of the trench. After so many years, they were still absorbing the light energy. The oceanic trench itself had narrowed by more than half due to the tremors of the seabed and various changes. The plumes of smoke that gushed out from the trench had completely disappeared, but that did not affect the abundance of the creatures here.
A huge monster swam across the trench. It had a long and flat body, leaf-like appendages that assisted in swimming, and thick barbs on its forelimbs. This creature used to be a hookworm. Its appearance did not change much, except for the addition of two huge eyeballs on its head. However, its body size had increased a lot. Its body was originally less than half a meter tall, but now it was more than two meters tall.
This huge hookworm had its eyes on a prey … a trilobite crawling on the green carpet.
The trilobite's appearance did not change much, but there were many types of trilobites, from two millimeters to more than one meter long. This hookworm had its eyes on a trilobite about thirty centimeters long. It rushed towards the trilobite, grabbed it with its forelimbs, and crushed the trilobite's armor with great force.
The carapace fragments and the trilobite's cells scattered in the water, and these wreckage attracted some other creatures.
Three half-meter long creatures swam over from afar and slowly approached the hookworms that were tearing their prey apart. Lin named them the Helmetfish. These creatures were the descendants of the Flatfish. After countless generations, their original size of a few centimeters had grown ten times their original size. Their leaf-shaped bodies had become thicker, and their heads were even covered with a layer of semi-circular armor. Appendages called 'fins' had appeared on both sides of their bodies, making them very suitable for swimming.
They were not predators, but opportunists. They were attracted by the trilobite's floating wreckage. Under the round armor on their heads, there was a slender slit with tiny teeth, which was used to filter the food in the water.
The hookworm seemed to be quite wasteful when eating, as it would always spill a lot of food. Furthermore, it threw away the trilobite halfway through, which allowed the Helmetfish to enjoy a free meal.
Lin now understood the meaning of 'free', it meant that they could obtain the food without expending any effort.
Lin planned to carefully observe these new creatures and observe every battle. If she found any interesting abilities, Lin would capture them and dissect them to learn their secrets.
Lin was not interested in the hookworm, but the Helmetfish. After they finished eating the trilobite's wreckage, they swam away, and Lin's small observing eyeballs immediately followed.
Lin's observation eyeballs were around 1cm in diameter, covered in a transparent anti-corrosive coating and covered in tiny transparent spikes. They were also capable of spraying water, which made it easy for them to get stuck in the esophagus of other creatures, preventing them from preying on them. However, even with this kind of structure, there were very few eyeballs left after so many years.
The eyeballs followed the Helmetfish as they swam past the trench and several large rocks to arrive at a completely new environment.
This area was filled with a large number of corals. These creatures hadn't changed at all since Lin's hibernation, but the shells they created had grown taller and taller due to the fact that they couldn't be decomposed. The corals that were originally only a few dozen centimeters long had now grown into colossal creatures. The coral reefs they formed were as continuous as a mountain range, with the tallest ones reaching up to a hundred meters high.
Lin had also learned a lot of new words during her hibernation. Although she still didn't understand what they meant, she felt that they could be used to describe many things.
The coral reefs were green in color due to Lin's green carpet. If a creature built a shell or a nest on top of the green carpet, the part of the green carpet that was covered would automatically decompose and cover the creature's nest again.
Since the green carpet didn't block the entrance and exit of the corals, it didn't affect the growth of the corals.
There were a lot of creatures on the coral reefs. A few Helmetfish swam slowly between the reefs. Their thick carapaces hindered their speed, so they were easily threatened by other creatures …
Suddenly, the Helmetfish seemed to have noticed something. They quickly hid in the crevices of the reefs nearby.
Lin also noticed that a huge creature was approaching from above.
The creature's body was covered in a conical shell. It had ten thick tentacles on its head. The tentacles were covered in suction cups, and each of the suction cups had a circle of serrated teeth.
Lin called it the 'Arrow Stone'. This predator was three meters long and should have evolved from a severed shell. It even had a water spout on its head. It had completely abandoned its habit of drilling into sand and became an active predator.
The arrowstone suddenly rushed over. It shot out a pair of longer tentacles from its ten tentacles and caught the slowest Helmeted Fish in an instant. Then, it used all of its tentacles to completely wrap the Helmeted Fish. The serrated teeth tore apart the Helmeted Fish's unprotected body, and red liquid gushed out from the wound.
The Arrowstone chewed on the Helmetfish. The two Helmetfish hiding in the crevices were not safe either. Lin saw them quickly escape from the crevices. Then, an arthropod creature covered in armor rushed out from the crevices and dragged one of the Helmetfish back.
It was a trilobite. Some trilobites could grow up to a meter long. They had a wide variety of species, and some had become powerful predators.
The remaining helmeted fish left the coral reef and swam towards the surface of the water alone.
Seriously … this place had become a cruel body of water.
Lin recalled the situation in the past. Back then, most creatures ate single-celled food. But now, things seemed to have changed a lot. The Helmetfish that escaped was soon targeted by a third type of predator.
These creatures were the Helmetfish's distant relatives. They were the evolved form of the round-mouthed flatfish. Instead of becoming bigger, they became smaller. A Helmetfish was only a few millimeters long, but their round mouths and hook-like fangs had become even more terrifying. The Helmetfish's body was also covered with barbed scales. Lin now knew that these scales could be called 'scales'. Tens of thousands of them swarmed up and tore open the Helmetfish's skin with their fangs. Then, they twisted their bodies and went deep into the wound, devouring the flesh and destroying the Helmetfish's organs.
Compared to the larger creatures, the small group attacks were more terrifying. They would not waste any time and would only eat every part of the Helmetfish's body.
Although the Helmetfish had a hard shell on its head, its body did not have any protection. It could only feel the intense pain of its organs being drilled open and wait for death.
Lin could not figure out why the Helmetfish would grow such a troublesome and useless shell, but they did have some special abilities to escape from predators.
These terrifying creatures did not let go of Lin's Eyeball. They surrounded the Helmetfish and used their mouths to remove the small spikes around the Eyeball. Their mouths were so hard that they could directly break the spikes on the Eyeball's shell. Some even drilled open the shell of the Eyeball.
The only remaining Eyeball was also dead …
It seemed that this was the end of this trip to the New World?
Of course not!
In an area further away from the coral reefs, this was once the Land of Crystals. It was also an area that had not been affected by the changes in the environment over the years.
A few huge crystals around the Mountain of Crystals suddenly shattered, and countless creatures in crystal armor rushed out.
…
Thank you ~ Xuan Feng the Sleepy ~ 1888 ~