Chapter 28

'Crack...'

The ice layer emitted continuous vibrations, and the surrounding cracks multiplied. Lin ordered the excavators to retreat back into the aircraft carrier, but it still left the small eyeball outside to observe the situation.

At this moment, under the continuous vibrations, the tunnel the excavators had dug in the ice had already collapsed. At the same time, Lin also saw a huge, dark shadow gradually appearing behind the transparent ice layer.

What is this?

Lin felt an intense curiosity about this thing, but Lin could only see its blurry figure through the ice, unable to understand the details.

The only thing Lin could confirm at the moment was that its size was almost as large as Lin's aircraft carrier, and it was continuously moving forward in the ice layer. Its direction was precisely where Lin was located.

Every time this creature moved, more cracks appeared in the surrounding ice layer, indicating that it was advancing through the ice with great strength.

What is this thing?

Lin had never seen such a large creature before. Even the largest amoeba couldn't grow that big.

Lin had seen large-scale aggregations of cells, but this was clearly not a massive cell cluster; it was a single organism!

Could there be other creatures that can combine multiple cells?

Lin had never seen such a creature, which was also the reason why it had always been invincible.

'Crack...' As the creature approached, the only thing separating Lin from it was a thin layer of ice. In the next moment, this layer of ice finally collapsed under the creature's attack, shattering into countless small pieces that floated in the water and then dissolved and disappeared.

At this moment, the creature also appeared before Lin.

Its appearance was very strange, not resembling a typical cell. Its head was a semi-circular structure, seemingly very hard. Lin watched as the creature used its head to break through the ice layer.

Its cylindrical body was very long, with continuous ridges extending all the way to the ice tunnel it had dug.

Under the semi-circular head, there were ten symmetrical tentacles, which seemed to be used for movement.

No, perhaps they shouldn't be called tentacles, as these 'tentacles' were not as flexible as true tentacles. They seemed to only bend in a fixed direction and were hard, with several segments in the middle.

The term 'arthropod' might be more suitable for this creature.

At the end of these arthropods was a pincer-like structure, with saw-like teeth on the inside. Lin came up with a new term, 'cheliped,' to describe this structure.

This was a completely new creature, not only in its enormous size but also in its unique body structure, which Lin had never seen before. Its appearance also introduced several new terms.

"Round Shield Worm," Lin thought this name was quite fitting.

Although Lin enjoyed naming things, it did not like what this creature was doing now.

The Round Shield Worm had broken through the ice layer and was now swimming toward the location of Lin's aircraft carrier. Lin did not know what it would do, nor did it know what to do.

Attack it? Ignore it?

Lin would not act rashly when facing an opponent of equal strength. Who knew if the other party had the ability to destroy it? But if it did nothing, the other party might not attack.

Lin was hesitant.

But the other party was not.

The giant worm swam to the surface of the aircraft carrier and used its arthropods to touch the surface, as if exploring something. Then, it suddenly opened its pincer-like end, which had saw-like teeth, and clamped onto the surface of the aircraft carrier.

With a strong pull, a large piece of the aircraft carrier's surface was torn off and immediately devoured.

The Round Shield Worm's mouth looked like a hole surrounded by a ring of small blades. The piece of the aircraft carrier's surface that Lin had torn off was brought to the mouth, cut into smaller pieces by the blades, and then swallowed.

It hurts...

The pain of the surface being torn and chewed made Lin no longer hesitate. It instantly decided to destroy this enemy.

Counterattack!

Lin vigorously shook the tentacles on the side of the aircraft carrier, using the twisting of the entire body to throw off the Round Shield Worm. At the same time, it opened all the passages on the aircraft carrier, releasing all the devourers to attack the target!

So hard!

This was Lin's first impression after attacking the Round Shield Worm. The devourers could not bite into the smooth, semi-circular head, so Lin concentrated its attacks on the creature's arthropods.

However, the devourers' mouths, composed of conical cells and acid injectors, which could crush any cellular organism, were unable to damage the hard shell of the Round Shield Worm's arthropods.

In fact, they had difficulty even biting onto the smooth, hard shell. After all, the largest devourer was not even half the size of the Round Shield Worm's pincers, and the smallest was even smaller than the tips of the pincers' teeth.

Moreover, most of Lin's devourers were small, originally designed to deal with large-scale cell clusters. However, since they were too large to navigate through the gaps in the sand, there were very few of them.

The Round Shield Worm did not seem to feel Lin's attacks at all. It twisted its body and swam again, pouncing on Lin's aircraft carrier and using its arthropods to tear off more pieces of the surface.

As the surface was torn open, individual cells from inside the aircraft carrier began to flow out. However, the Round Shield Worm showed no interest in these small, single cells and continued to tear the surface of the aircraft carrier, seemingly only eating multicellular structures.

If this continued, Lin might not be completely destroyed, but the aircraft carrier would definitely be damaged.

Absolutely not! But what to do?

Lin began to think quickly. It noticed the joints on the Round Shield Worm's arthropods, which were white and different from the black, hard shell around them, indicating that they were more vulnerable.

Lin ordered the devourers to concentrate their attacks on these joints. However, the arthropods were constantly moving, making it difficult to aim. After several attempts, a large devourer finally managed to bite onto one of the joints.

The joint was made of a softer, white substance. Lin made the devourer twist its body continuously, and finally, with the help of the dissolving liquid and the conical cells, the devourer successfully tore off a large piece of the soft, white substance.

After tearing open the joint, Lin noticed a large group of blue cells surging out from the joint's opening. Lin immediately concluded that these cells must be the components of the Round Shield Worm and ordered the devourers to start biting and breaking these cells, while some small devourers entered the joint's opening.

Inside, it was very dark, with no light. However, some of Lin's devourers had bioluminescent spheres mixed into their skin to move in the darkness beneath the sand, so even in the dark, they could see the environment clearly.

Inside the arthropod, it seemed like a pipe-like structure, filled with a weak current of water and densely packed with blue cells. These cells were continuously moving toward the opening Lin had torn, completely ignoring the invasion of Lin's devourers.

Some larger blue cells seemed to be using their bodies to block the opening, preventing more blue cells from flowing out.

Bite them.

Lin did not hesitate. The devourers immediately attacked the blue cells blocking the opening, and Lin also ordered more devourers to rush through the opening to attack the blue cells inside.

At this moment, the Round Shield Worm finally reacted. It seemed to feel pain and began to shake the injured arthropod vigorously, but the other arthropods continued to tear the surface of Lin's aircraft carrier.

Due to its shaking, it became difficult for Lin to invade from the outside, but dozens of devourers had already entered the wound. Lin began to order them to attack everything inside.

At the same time, Lin ordered the remaining devourers to continue attacking the other joints and to release a large number of bioluminescent spheres and conical cells from the damaged surface of the aircraft carrier, directly rushing toward the Round Shield Worm's mouth.

Since it couldn't be bitten from the outside, it would attack from the inside!