Chapter 47

In the calm and boundless waters, a massive creature slowly advanced by floating...

Life at the base was peaceful and boring, so Lin shifted her attention to Leviathan.

It had been two days and nights since they set out. Leviathan had swum over vast gray beaches and stony seabeds. Unlike before, this time Lin mainly swam deeper.

Leviathan had now reached a new place, which was also a beach, but the sand was finer and white, and it was covered with creatures Lin had never seen before.

They looked like upside-down jellyfish, with short, round bodies attached to the sand, and they used a large number of tentacles with stinging cells to capture prey.

Lin knew a word to name them... 'anemones.'

Anemones are quite simple creatures, without blood vessels or hearts. They have a central digestive sac that digests the food brought in by their tentacles.

These creatures had no research value, and Lin didn't like to eat them because they usually had little substance left after removing the toxic stinging parts.

Leviathan lowered its swimming height and slowly floated over the beach. Lin named the tentacles with mouths on the underside 'biting tentacles,' but like the devourers, they were only used for biting and not for digesting food.

Leviathan generally did not use its own eyes but relied on the floating eyes around it for observation.

Suddenly, Lin noticed some movement in the sand below.

Leviathan quickly extended a tentacle, bit into something in the sand, and pulled it out.

It was a trilobite.

There were many species of trilobites, and this was the fifth one Lin had seen. This particular one was very small, with a thin shell, and the biting tentacles could completely crush it.

After the trilobite was crushed, the shell and cells scattered. Lin released a type of creature called a collector to gather them. It was about the same size as a devourer, primarily a worm-like structure, very flexible, capable of swallowing large amounts of food, and expanding into a ball. Its body was filled with a strong dissolving liquid, responsible for ingesting and dissolving food, ultimately returning the nutrients to Leviathan.

Collectors could also spray the dissolving liquid to attack, although they were not designed for that purpose.

After eating the small trilobite, Leviathan continued to advance. It had enough stored fat, and Lin planned for a longer journey without stopping.

Lin mainly wanted to see some unique environments, ones she had never seen before.

The water propulsion system accelerated, and Leviathan quickly swam over the white beach, but it soon stopped because an unfamiliar environment suddenly appeared before it.

The beach in front of it seemed to be split into two, with a massive rift extending beyond Lin's field of vision, wide enough to fit hundreds of Leviathans.

Lin had never seen such a landscape... Was this a 'trench'?

Lin found that the new terms recently were not very interesting. What's a trench? It lacked grandeur; it would be better to call it a rift.

...What is grandeur anyway? Never mind.

Leviathan swam above the trench, and the floating eyes looked down, seeing the rift extending downward into the dark abyss where light could not reach.

Should I go down and take a look?

Lin was a bit hesitant, but wasn't this journey for exploring unknown places?

Go down!

Leviathan slowly descended, and the sides of the trench were covered with anemones, with some small trilobites moving around them. The water was also filled with many single-celled organisms, indicating that this was a biologically rich area.

After descending for a while, the light around Leviathan became increasingly dim. Lin released floating lanterns, which provided a non-fixed light source, allowing her to see everything around.

As Leviathan approached the deeper parts of the trench, the surrounding organisms became fewer. When the surroundings became as dark as night, Lin could hardly see any organisms except for single-celled ones.

Lin did not stop and continued to descend into the deeper, darker areas, releasing more lanterns. These small, moving light points discovered some creatures on the rock walls that resembled anemones.

They had anemone-like tentacles, but their bodies were not the thick, round type; instead, they were long, thin stalks. They were not called anemones but had a new name: 'crinoids.'

This name seemed quite nice.

Leviathan swam closer to the rock wall, trying to pluck one to eat. However, as soon as Lin approached, they would instantly retract into the crevices.

The rock walls of the trench were extremely hard, making it impossible to eat them.

There were many crinoids on the rock walls, and Lin noticed that they were of different species, with some not retracting.

Lin was not very interested in studying them, and Leviathan continued to descend, hoping to find something more interesting.

As Leviathan descended deeper, Lin noticed a problem that could be called 'pressure.'

The floating eyes and lanterns were the first to feel this pressure, making it difficult for them to move, as if squeezed by a powerful force. Some even died due to the pressure.

Where did this pressure come from? It seemed to be everywhere. Could it be... due to the water?

Lin recalled all of them and opened a hole at the edge of Leviathan's disc-shaped shell, revealing its own eye.

It was protected by a transparent shell, preventing damage but limiting its field of vision because it could not move freely.

Lin also released lanterns covered with hard shells to resist the pressure in the water.

However, the deeper they went, the more pronounced the pressure became, affecting even Leviathan. The water intake and expulsion movement became increasingly difficult, and cracks appeared on Leviathan's shell.

Pressure was truly terrifying.

It seemed they could not continue descending, but Lin did not want to give up. She had already calculated how the pressure worked and knew what structure could resist it.

Of course, Lin did not want to change Leviathan's structure, so she created a new type of creature. Its body was oval-shaped, filled with water, and covered with a thin shell. This creature had no swimming ability and, once released by Leviathan, sank to the bottom of the trench due to gravity.

This shape and structure should effectively resist pressure, but the key was to fill the interior with the same substance that created the pressure, so no force could penetrate it.

Leviathan swam back, and Lin had to repair its injuries. The exploration of the trench bottom would be left to the oval-shaped creature.

It was named 'bullet.'

After a while, as Leviathan was about to surface from the trench, the 'bullet' transmitted a sensation of colliding with something, indicating it had reached the bottom.

At this point, the shell on both sides of the bullet's body opened, revealing six jointed legs. The legs were also filled with water, preventing them from being crushed by the pressure. Its head also opened two holes, with an eye and a lantern appearing in each.

The eye and lantern were covered by a thin, transparent shell and filled with water, effectively resisting the pressure. The bullet had not a single crack.

It moved its small jointed legs and began its journey in the dark abyss.

The bullet's body was filled with water, occupying the space that would normally be filled with muscles or blood vessels, making its movement very slow. However, for exploration, speed was not necessary.

The bottom of the trench was composed of rocks. Under the light of the bullet's lantern, some single-celled organisms first came into Lin's view.

Indeed, they were everywhere except on land.

Lin noticed that these trench cells were much larger than those above, also filled with water to resist pressure.

As Lin was studying them, a sudden bright light appeared in the distance, far brighter than the light emitted by the bullet, seemingly from a massive creature.

...

Thank you for the support from ~Da Wo Cheng~

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