Book 2: Chapter Twenty Four “Lava and Madness”


    Last chapter recap: Lin swims downward to the ocean bottom and seems to encounter an organism giving off bright light.


    The enormous and dim light flickered in the darkness. Lins exploring warhead slowly climbed near this strange source of light.


    However, when the warhead got close to the target, the light suddenly disappeared.


    What happened?


    The warhead did not give off a bright light. It only illuminated a small area and could not see the surrounding situation.


    Maybe a jellyfish or something?


    As Lin thought this, the light once again lit up in the distance. But this time, this light was bright red, another kind of light, and much brighter.


    Lin felt the temperature of the water suddenly rise. It had the warhead move towards the new light. When it reached its destination, it saw a novel sight.


    A dark viscous substance covered therge area up ahead. It gave off a burning feeling. Lin would asionally see one or two cracks among the viscous substance. Bright red light came from those cracks. While the cracks were notrge, the bright light illuminated the surroundings.


    Was that  va?


    But not the same as the ones Lin had seen before. Theva here seemed to be stationary. When they became grey, they wouldnt move, but they still gave off astoundingly high heat.


    These cracks glowing with red light might have unsolidifiedva


    Many unicellr organisms lived on the solidifiedva. They seemed to like the high temperatures rather than fear it.


    Lin did not have the warhead step onto theva. It did not think the warhead could withstand this kind of heat.


    Lin hesitated. It wanted to continue to look around, but it wanted to also go around theva and explore deeper waters.


    Suddenly, Lin felt the warheads vision shake. At the same time, it felt a pulling force dragging the warhead backwards. Before Lin could see what was happening, an enormous force crushed the warheads body.


    Lin felt as though something had crushed the warhead. Something had ambushed the warhead from behind.


    While slightly regrettable, but the journey to the sea trench had ended   yes?


    Lin would not think that!


    Leviathan floated to the center of the sea trench, moving toward the ce where the warhead had died.


    Leviathan turned its body and opened its hole. Large numbers of warhead swam out, heading towards the deaths of the sea trench.


    Leviathan had just created these hundreds of warheads.


    Leviathan possessed many traits and this one was of them. It had many reproduction chambers inside its body that could quickly create many multicellr forms, convenient for both attacking and other matters.


    The warheads quickly sank into the trench. While Lin had aimed for the center of the trench, most of them ended upnding on the rocky walls.


    Lin had them immediately gather in the direction of the enemy. When the warheads reached where they had seen theva, they found what the organism that had eaten that first warhead was.


    This organism was bright red and t. Its rhombus bodyid out on the ground like a   red carpet.


    What was a carpet?


    Lin didnt care so much, it would just call this a carpet worm. Had this organism just eaten the warhead?


    Lin couldnt see where its mouth was, and there were no tentacles growing on the surface of the body. Lin could not understand how this organism hunted.


    Lin would first kill it and see.


    Lin had hundreds of warheads rush forward. Lin had made these warheads specially for battle with sharp de-like structures at the ends of their segmented limbs.


    The warheads climbed on top of the carpet worm and then used the des on their segmented limbs to cut into the others body. Cells flooded out immediately from the carpet worm. The carpet worm wriggled as it felt pain but didnt make any motions of struggle. Lin had the warheads burrow into the wounds and destroy the interior structures.


    The carpet worm suddenly twisted fiercely and quickly swam upwards through the water using its t body.


    Lin had the warheads stop attacking. It felt that this carpet worms intentions were not to escape the warheads but had some other goal.


    The carpet worm swam upwards furiously at a rapid speed. It quickly swam out of the deepest part of the trench which had no light. Lin found it hard to imagine that an organism of this shape could be so fast.


    But once it left the aphotic zone, the carpet worm gradually slowed and thenpletely stopped all activity.


    When Lin was puzzled by this, the carpet worm suddenly exploded and turned into cells and fragments.


    This was   due to pressure?


    Lin almost immediately understood. Because bodies were tightlypressed under high pressure, when the organism swam upwards, itspressed body would suddenly expand, causing an explosion.


    But why did it do this? Why had it left the high-pressure sea trench bottom to swim up?


    Even if it was in pain from being bitten by the warheads, it wasnt likely. Pain was a signal for organisms to avoid danger, and not to make it go crazy.


    Leviathan swam towards the site of the carpet worms explosion and retrieved all of the warheads. It then started to study the carpet worms fragments.


    The warheads could resist the pressure with their water-filled bodies, but when they were in zones of low pressure, they could open small holes in their outer shell, and quickly absorb the gas bubbles in the water as they rapidly released water. This way, they wouldnt explode, and would rise up so the Leviathan could retrieve them.


    These were


    Lin found many things it was familiar with from the fragments of the carpet worm  viruses.


    Not any normal viruses, but the exact same kind as the red viruses in Lins infector.


    The bright red viruses existed in the carpet worms cells, its structures and organs. Was this why the carpet worm had been red? However, the viruses hadnt harmed the cells but caused it to go crazy?


    Lin found many viruses on the carpet worms nerves which hadnt been destroyed. These possibly could have been the reason it went crazy


    Lin suddenly noticed that going crazy seemed to be a new term. It meant abnormal behaviour?


    But this hadnt urred to Lins infectors. Lin had them be quiet and they had always been quiet.


    This seemed worthy of study.


    Lin could get some other organisms to test their responses to the virus. This seemed   pretty fun.


    But just fun? No, maybe it was a great weapon to destroy the enemy. Lin could inject the virus directly into the nerves of these organisms. Then, they wouldpletely lose the ability to fight.


    Also, these viruses would not damage cells. Lin could use them to defeat the enemy and not waste nutrients.


    In conclusion, this would be useful study


    Lin had only explored a small area of the sea trench. There should be more interesting things down there but it would be difficult to see them clearly jut with the warhead which was small and slow-moving. Lin did not want to modify the entire Leviathan to be pressure-tolerant. That was too troublesome, and Lin would have to change it back after leaving the sea trench.


    As Lin struggled over this, unusual tremors suddenly came from the water below. Enormous ck substances emerged from the sea trench and immediately surrounded the Leviathan.


    These ck substances contained something strange that would damage the cells if absorbed.


    Lin hurriedly closed all the openings on Leviathan and swam using the tentacles to leave behind the area filled with the ck substance.


    Lin looked back. Most of the sea trench was giving off these ck substances.


    This was something called smoke.


    But smoke seemed to be a gas, but these substances were not gas. They were mostly small debris and other strange things. They did not affect Lins shell but they fatally damaged the cells inside the suction tentacle.


    The smoke   seemed rted to theva?


    Trantor Ramblings: The ck smoke from hydrothermal vents are usually created from sulfuric acid and other substances. Great stuff   if you want to die.<figure>


    <figcaption>Hydrothermal vent</figcaption></figure>