The team of assassins was slowly advancing through the rocky cave.
The salty, damp smell filled Rin's senses. Puddles of water were everywhere on the ground, and the sound of dripping water could be heard from time to time.
This was an abyss, right below the Five Plague Islands. This place might even be below the seabed, but this place … was not shrouded in darkness …
There were many wonderful creatures here. Some of them looked like plants with long branches and emitted blue fluorescent light. Around them were some arthropods and worms that looked like trilobites. There were even some starfish that emitted fluorescent light.
There were also some creatures that Rin was familiar with. A small group of jellyfish floated in front of Rin's group. She didn't know how long they had lived here, but they seemed to be doing well.
These creatures weren't infected by the fungus, and the light they emitted was their own. The plant-like creatures were a type of coral. They grew in small puddles, and Rin guessed that they relied on the puddles here for food.
This place was like an underwater environment. Although there was a lot of water here, it wasn't completely submerged. Perhaps they had some way to drain the water away? Or perhaps the water would be consumed for some reason?
The assassins gathered together and slowly moved forward. Occasionally, cold water would drip on their bodies from the ceiling. There were also fungi here. However, in places without water on the ground, there were some mycelium and mushrooms. They were very good at hiding from the puddles and the water dripping down from the ceiling, but they couldn't spread out.
Was this the place where the leader of the plague fungus lived? It was indeed possible. The assassins had sensed some special signal here and were constantly sending it out.
As they moved forward. Rin also noticed that there were many small holes on the ceiling at regular intervals. If they went up through these holes, they would find a mud cave. They would reach a muddy cave, and if they kept going up, they would be able to leave Plague Island.
These were the caves where the leader of the plague fungus lived. Sure enough, as Rin thought, this underwater cave at the bottom of the sea was connected to all the islands.
However, this place gave Rin a different feeling. She thought that there should be some creatures creating the leader of the plague fungus here, or a lot of mushrooms storing energy here, but she didn't expect so many sea creatures to live here …
Rin moved forward in the direction of the strong signal. Strangely, the deeper she went, the fewer creatures there were around, and the environment was relatively dry. The puddles on the ground slowly disappeared, and the cave became more spacious. There were many circular stone pillars here, as if they were used to support the cave.
No, these weren't stone pillars.
An assassin approached the stone pillar and gently scraped some debris off it, then ate it. Rin found that this was a hardened fungus structure. it had become quite sturdy inside. It could be used as a 'support'.
This hardened structure … felt like the fungus fossils found in the salt cave.
Rin thought to say, to time, to, to time, to time, to time, to time, to form to time, to say, to time, to time.
But what kind of situation did they encounter? If she knew, this might be the key …
There weren't as many puddles here as before, but there were still some creatures. Rin found that they were familiar … ancient squids.
These ancient squids were obviously different from the ones in the Northern Continent. They were twice as big as the ones there, about twenty centimeters, and had blue ring-shaped markings all over their bodies. It seemed that these markings didn't change with their body color.
They seemed to live in groups of ten in the puddles. When Rin's assassins approached to observe them, they didn't seem to be afraid. Instead, they curiously observed the assassins.
Rin wanted to call them 'Blue Ring Ancient Squids', but the name didn't sound interesting, so she called them 'Abyss Ancient Squids'.
She didn't know the difference between the intelligence of these 'Abyss Ancient Squids' and the ones in the Northern Continent, but there wasn't much difference between similar species. The two species might even mate and give birth to a new species.
Maybe she should catch one and give it a try …
Thinking of this, Rin ordered the hunters to approach the puddles. The Abyss Ancient Squids, who didn't seem to be afraid at first, instantly swam into the sand at the bottom of the puddles. They kept drilling inside, and all of a sudden, they disappeared.
Rin looked at them for a few seconds and decided to forget about it. She would catch them next time. This team wasn't here to study and explore.
Then Rin continued to follow the signal and went deeper. At this depth, there were no puddles around, and no creatures appeared. Without the glowing creatures, the environment became dark.
At this time, the assassins emitted light, and the whole cave became much brighter. Rin saw many cone-shaped sharp pillars on the top of the cave. She didn't know if they were hardened fungi, and there were some shiny things around that reflected light.
Was this … a crystal?
Rin gathered the light of the assassins and found a crystal standing on the ground. This crystal seemed to be the same as the one in the Northern Continent's Chibucha Worm. Rin had seen it before in the sea. Generally speaking, there were crystals around these crystals …
Rin ordered the assassins to look around, and they saw some creatures moving around. They looked like scorpions, only five centimeters long. They were quite small, but their bodies were covered with crystal-like carapaces.
That's right, there were always crystallized creatures around these crystals. It was a wonderful feeling, as if the creatures would unconsciously eat these crystals, and then the crystals would replace their original carapaces and grow on their bodies. This process might be quite fast.
This wasn't the only crystal here. When the assassins released their light, they could see that there were crystals everywhere. They were piled up in clusters all over the cave, giving this damp and dark place a special feeling of beauty …
As they continued forward, the originally stone ground turned into gray sand, and the clusters of crystals grew larger. They were originally only about one meter tall, but they slowly grew taller here. Two meters, three meters … Rin even saw some over six meters tall.
However, it seemed that because this place didn't seep water, there weren't any creatures here. The scorpions from before were also nowhere to be seen.
… Wait a minute, what's that?
Rin saw a huge object lying in front of the assassins. The surface of this object was also made of hardened fungi. This was … the leg of the Plague Leader.
This was only one of the segments. The hunters circled around to take a look and found that they could drill into the broken part. However, it was hollow, as if the shell had just been made and nothing had been stuffed inside yet.
Then, Rin saw many of these one-segmented legs around, and some pieces of the Plague Leader's carapace. Was this also a place to store unfinished products?
"Crack."
While Rin was inspecting one of the carapace fragments, she suddenly heard a familiar sound.
When Rin heard it, she immediately ordered the assassins to rush in the direction of the sound. Sure enough, Rin saw something wonderful that she had seen before … an echo egg.
Rin had seen many of these eggs when she was on the sea, and the plague fungus infected locusts would avoid them. After that, during the war against the fungus on the continent, Rin hadn't seen anything similar. She didn't expect to see one here.
This echo egg was exactly the same as the one she saw before. It was wrapped in a layer of rock and would occasionally make a cracking sound. There were many more scattered around, but only this one could make a sound.
Rin ordered the assassins to open up a nearby echo egg that didn't make a sound. When they dug up the outer layer of rock, they found that the egg inside was already dead.
It seemed to have run out of energy, and perhaps only one of the eggs was still alive.
Rin continued forward. There were many echo eggs here, and most of them were close to the crystal clusters. However, only the one Rin saw at the beginning had a sound, and all of these echo eggs were dead.
This underwater cave seemed to be hiding a lot of things. Rin felt that she might be able to discover the history of the fungus here.
Now, Rin's team suddenly stepped into an open space. The edges of this space were filled with crystals and echo eggs. These things seemed to have been pushed to this place by some creature to clear out this space.
In front of them, Rin suddenly saw a pile of echo eggs arranged in a circle. In the center of the circle, there was a huge crystal. This crystal was about ten meters tall and five meters wide. It looked like a huge rock, and there seemed to be … something inside.
They couldn't see clearly from this position, so the assassins got closer to observe. Through the transparent surface of the crystal, Rin found that there was indeed a strangely shaped object at the center of the crystal.
The object was grey in color and looked very soft. Its shape was very irregular, and it was about two meters in size. It looked like a lump of meat, and it was trembling slightly as if it was still alive.
Rin also noticed that there were many strands that looked like mycelium around the lump of meat. They were connected to the bottom of the crystal, and seemed to be connected to the ground.
Could this be … the brain of the plague fungus?
Rin could feel that it was releasing a lot of signals, and this signal was much stronger than the Fungus Overlord's. But because they were underground, Rin believed that its signal couldn't reach the plague army outside. Was that why it needed the Fungus Overlord to act as a 'relay station'?
The brain looked quite big, but the plague fungus could only display intelligence occasionally. It really needed to be studied.
The assassins began to climb up the crystal. But just as they touched the crystal, Rin suddenly heard the sand nearby start to shake violently, as if something was about to crawl out from the sand. [Astronomy.]
PS: Thank you ~ Pear is really big ~ 588.
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