Fungus Island, three hundred meters underground.
This place was like … another world.
It took several days for Lin's Hunters to reach this place. When they arrived, Lin discovered that this island wasn't as simple as it seemed.
It was a vast underground space. Mycelium glittering like stars covered the walls and floor of the cavern. Some of the thicker mycelium gathered together like pipes to form a huge mushroom about five meters tall. Such a scene could be seen everywhere underground. These mushrooms were located every few meters, but they had nothing to do with the fungus monsters.
These structures had only one function – to concentrate nutrients. The mushrooms could compress the nutrients transmitted by the mycelium and finally create a dehydrated hardened structure called 'cheese'.
But Lin seemed to have arrived too late. The Hunters spread out to search underground and found that most of the mushrooms were empty. Only one was still functioning.
These fungi were indeed consciously resisting Lin. They secretly dissolved all the nutrients on the surface and transported them deep underground to compress them into 'cheese'. Finally, they transported the cheese away.
Lin had discovered how they were transported away. There were some twisted passages in this underground cavern that led straight to the sea. There were traces left behind by some creatures in these passages.
These traces … seemed to be left behind by some large arthropods. Some seemed to be left behind by a marine creature similar to a trilobite …
So that was how it was. The plague fungi transported part of the nutrients so deep underground and then transported it away with a marine arthropod? Because this place was very deep. Was that why Lin didn't notice? These marine arthropods must have been infected as well.
Obviously. The plague fungi wanted to escape. For that, they did not hesitate to sacrifice large amounts of nutrients to create the illusion of dissolving themselves, allowing the remaining nutrients to be transported out of this island.
Wasn't it a clear display of intelligence?
Lin initially thought that these fungi were slow to react, but that wasn't the case. They had been thinking of ways to deal with Lin. There was no mistaking that they had taken control of some creature with higher intelligence.
But if they escaped from here, it meant that there were other fungal islands nearby. Infected aquatic creatures could not eat in the water. Otherwise, they would kill the fungi in their bodies. In addition, the fungi would make the creatures very weak and they would not be able to swim far.
Lin immediately launched a comprehensive search. Bechymos, who was at the center of the Fungus Island, released a large number of flyers to investigate the nearby waters.
He should be able to find it without flying too far.
Speaking of which, Monte II had always been locked up in Bechymos' body by Lin. Lin had tried to communicate with him, but she discovered that he was often unwilling to communicate. His' personality 'was very different from the Brainworms and Inca bugs. He would often show emotions of anger or fear. It seemed that it was difficult to reach a friendly relationship with it.
If he killed it, the Aztec bugs would be completely extinct. Therefore, it was better to keep it for now.
In addition, Lin discovered that the Chibucha Bugs were very interesting creatures. Lin fed them other types of fungi and found that they could digest fungi other than plague fungi. Therefore, Lin captured a group of Chibucha Bugs and tried to change their habits by feeding them other types of fungi.
The pilots who went out to explore the surrounding waters quickly responded. One of them discovered an island seven kilometers to the west of Fungus Island. The island was round and had a diameter of one kilometer. The entire island was covered in fungus.
No, it wasn't just fungus. After the pilot approached the island and observed it for a while, he discovered that the island was covered in sacs with fungus monsters inside. They were called 'fungus sacs'. The plague fungi had placed them on the ground! Many fungus monsters had also awakened. They gathered at the edge of the island and seemed to be preparing for something.
After the first pilot discovered the island, a second and a third did the same. Basically, these islands were to the west of Fungus Island. They were all round islands of about the same size.
The structure of the islands was exactly the same. There were a lot of 'fungus sacs' and some fungus monsters that had already awakened.
There were a total of five islands. Therefore, Lin called them … the Five Plague Islands.
Apart from the Five Plague Islands, there were no other islands in the nearby waters. Lin saw marine arthropods that resembled trilobites on the shores of a few of the islands. Obviously, they were the creatures that transported nutrients that Lin had previously discovered.
So, they had transported all of their nutrients to these five islands to create more fungus monsters. Were they planning a counterattack?
Certainly, the plague fungi had such an idea. The Flyer had found many large marine arthropods by the beaches of the Five Plagues Islands that could be used as' transport vessels', and the fungal monsters on the islands were gathering around those 'transport vessels'.
The plague fungi … were preparing for war.
This time, the fungus monsters weren't as weak as the ones Lin had encountered before. They weren't wrapped in fungus sacs, but rather hardened shells. There were also many large creatures among them. Lin even saw quite a few wyverns.
Lin was almost certain that the plague fungi were responsible for the extinction of the wyverns.
The pilot couldn't get too close to the islands, but Lin believed that there was an infected creature with high intelligence on one of the five islands. It was commanding this war …
Now, the fungus monsters were gathering in large numbers with only one goal — to launch a counterattack on Fungus Island that Lin had occupied.
They had a considerable number of troops. Although the five islands combined weren't as large as Fungus Island, Lin hadn't obtained much nutrients due to the large-scale self-dissolving. In other words, the number of troops on the islands was smaller than the plague fungi.
Still … this was quite interesting.
While it was interesting to observe the development and life of Tuck and the others, war was also something that excited Lin.
'Let them come!' Lin showed her latest masterpiece to the creature called Pestilence! Then, like crushing dry weeds and smashing rotten wood, it destroyed all of their cells without leaving a single one behind!
For Lin, creation and destruction were equally enjoyable.
As the fungus army was gathering, Lin began to assemble her own forces.
Lin's Bacteriophages had taken over many parts of the island. Now, Lin was turning this large cluster of 'slimes' into a large number of bases, using the nutrients obtained here to produce troops. A portion of the nutrients were used to create large green carpet trees. Lin wanted these trees to quickly grow all over the island and continuously absorb sunlight as nutrients for the future.
As for the core combat forces … what should she create? How should she attack? Fire? Claws? A small but frenzied multicellular army?
Either way, it would be interesting …
Over the course of several days, Lin rapidly used the available nutrients to create bases and troops. At the same time, the flyers were also monitoring the movements of the five plague islands. The plague fungus army was also constantly 'awakening'. They emerged from their fungus sacs and crawled onto the bodies of aquatic creatures on the shores, waiting to be mobilized.
They were indeed strengthened. They were no longer full of mycelium and bloated cysts like before. Instead, they now looked like they had grown a layer of arthropod-like shells, probably formed by the hardened fungus. The troops consisted of reptiles and arthropods, as well as many large marine creatures. They were all used for transportation, and as soon as they emerged, they would run into the water and allow a large number of land troops to ride on their backs.
These transport creatures would swim towards one of the islands and gather there. These aquatic creatures seemed to have completely sealed their bodies from water, relying on certain pore-like structures on their backs to breathe or eat.
Both sides were preparing at about the same speed. As more and more fungus monsters were gathering at the sea, Lin's army had also arrived at the western side of the island. On the beach, Lin had already gathered her army, while more and more troops were being produced.
The preparations lasted for about three days and nights. There were no more fungus sacs left on the five plague islands. Almost all of them had awakened and become part of the plague army.
Initial estimates suggested that there were more than a hundred thousand of them. Since the flyers were only circling the outskirts, their actual numbers should be much higher than that.
Lin believed that these creatures were basically creatures from the various islands or the nearby seas. As long as they had the habit of going ashore, they could be infected and controlled.
Moreover, the five islands and the True Fungus Island that Lin now occupied should be the plague fungus' main camp. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many troops, and they wouldn't want to reclaim the island … Or perhaps they didn't want to reclaim it, but simply felt that Lin was a great threat?
After assembling, all the sea creatures carrying the fungi began to line up in a neat row. Some of the larger creatures were at the front, and there were many smaller creatures around them. There were also many fungal monsters flying in the air.
Lin could ambush them from the sea, but it seemed that fighting on land was more interesting. After observing the structure of the fungus monsters' army, Lin found that almost all of them were involved in the battle. There weren't any troops left to guard the island, which was why she prepared three troops: one to defend the island's beach, while the other two would ambush the Five Plague Islands and see if they could find the infected intelligent creature.
Lin believed that the intelligent creature might be the 'brain' of a certain species that had been infected. If they couldn't find it, the two troops would attack from the rear. After all, the brain alone wouldn't be of much use once the army was taken care of.
No matter what, it seemed that this would be an interesting battle … Heavenly.
PS: Thank you ~ Sleepy Xingguo ~ for the tip ~
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