Chapter 63

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As countless days and nights passed, Lin's slumber continued.

Lin didn't know how long it had been sleeping, but it would occasionally wake up to witness some wondrous scenes. For example, the entire water surface frozen over, or a section of the seabed cracking open, spewing lava that destroyed vast areas of the green carpet...

The changes in life were relatively slow, but the changes in the world were very evident. The water level rose for various reasons, once again flooding Lin's original land-based main base. Frequent deep-sea fault events tore apart the seabed and its inhabitants. Sometimes, the faults would recombine, or massive holes would appear, spewing lava without any pattern...

Occasionally, the sea surface would freeze completely, with huge ice pillars extending from beneath the ice to the seabed, killing everything they touched.

These were all minor issues, causing no significant damage to Lin as a whole, because the areas of destruction were not large or the duration was not long. Each time it woke up, it would quickly repair the green carpet and then fall back into slumber. What Lin wanted to see... was the evolution of life.

The overall evolution of life required a very long time. If it waited continuously, it would be extremely boring, but the ability to 'sleep' could turn all the long periods into an instant.

Even if it was just an instant for Lin, how long had it actually been?

Perhaps tens of millions of years... or even a hundred million?

The evolution of life seemed to have reached a new height, which was enough to wake Lin up to take a fresh look at the world.

When Lin awoke, it immediately saw some strange and peculiar creatures moving on its green carpet.

These strange creatures were completely different from what Lin had seen before it fell asleep, but they were not unfamiliar. Even in its slumber, countless eyes recorded all the changes in the creatures. Now, Lin could easily recognize what these creatures had evolved from.

Absorbing the various information accumulated by the eyes over countless years, Lin couldn't help but become excited.

This was a brand new world. Although the evolution of life was slow, it could create miracles!

Lin couldn't wait to explore the surrounding environment, but most of the eyes had been eaten by other creatures or encountered some danger. Now, only one eye in one area remained alive.

This was once a trench, with the green carpet of Lin covering both sides of the trench's crack. After so many years, they continued to absorb light energy. The trench itself had narrowed by more than half due to the movement of the seabed and various changes. The smoke columns that once spewed continuously had completely disappeared, but this did not affect the richness of the life here.

A huge creature swam through the trench. It had a flat, elongated body, leaf-like appendages for swimming, and strong, hooked front limbs. This creature was a descendant of the hookworm, with little change in appearance except for the addition of two large eyes on its head armor. However, its size had increased significantly, from less than half a meter to over two meters.

This giant hookworm had spotted a prey... a trilobite crawling on the green carpet.

The trilobite's appearance hadn't changed much, but there were many more species, ranging from two millimeters to over a meter. The hookworm had targeted a trilobite about thirty centimeters long. It rushed at the trilobite, instantly grabbing it with its front limbs and crushing its armor with great force.

Shell fragments and trilobite cells scattered in the water, attracting other creatures.

Three creatures about half a meter long swam over from a distance, slowly approaching the hookworm that was tearing apart its prey. Lin named them 'helmet fish.' These creatures were descendants of flat fish. Over countless generations, they had grown ten times their original size, from a few centimeters to their current length. Their leaf-shaped bodies had become thicker, and their heads were covered with a semi-circular helmet. They had developed appendages called 'fins' on both sides of their bodies, making them very suitable for swimming.

They were not predators but opportunists, attracted by the floating remains of the trilobite. Under their round helmets, they had a long, narrow slit with small teeth for filtering food from the water.

The hookworm seemed quite wasteful when eating, always spilling a lot. It had barely eaten half of the trilobite before discarding it, allowing the helmet fish to enjoy a free meal.

Lin now understood the meaning of 'free,' which referred to something obtained without effort.

Lin planned to observe these new creatures carefully, watching every battle. If it found any interesting abilities, it would capture them, dissect them, and learn their secrets.

What Lin was interested in now were not the hookworms but the helmet fish. After they finished eating the trilobite's remains, they swam away, and the small eyes observing nearby immediately followed.

Lin's observation eyes were about one centimeter in diameter, covered with a transparent, hard shell to prevent corrosion, and had transparent, small spikes. They could move by spraying water. This structure made it easy to get stuck in other creatures' throats, deterring them from eating the eyes. Despite this, the number of eyes had significantly decreased over the years.

The eyes followed the helmet fish as they swam over the trench, past several large rocks, and into a new environment.

This area was filled with coral, which had changed little since Lin's slumber. However, the shells they built had piled up higher and higher due to the lack of decomposition. What were once corals only a few dozen centimeters tall had now grown into massive structures, forming coral reefs that stretched like mountains, with the highest peaks reaching nearly a hundred meters.

During its slumber, Lin had also learned many new words, though it still didn't understand some of them, it felt they could be used to describe many things.

The coral reefs were green, thanks to Lin's green carpet. If a creature built a shell or nest on the green carpet, the covered part of the carpet would automatically decompose and then re-cover the creature's nest.

Since the green carpet did not block the coral's entry and exit holes, it had little impact on their growth.

The coral reefs were home to a rich variety of life. A few helmet fish slowly swam among the reefs, their heavy helmets hindering their speed, making them easy targets for predators...

Suddenly, the helmet fish seemed to sense something and quickly hid in the cracks of the nearby reefs.

At this moment, Lin also noticed a large creature approaching from above.

This creature's body was covered by a conical shell, and its head had ten thick tentacles, each covered with suction cups, the edges of which had serrated teeth.

Lin called it a 'belemnite.' This predator was three meters long, likely evolved from a bivalve. Its head had a water jet port, and it had completely abandoned its sand-burrowing habits, becoming an active hunter.

The belemnite suddenly rushed forward, shooting out a pair of longer tentacles from its ten, instantly grabbing the slowest helmet fish. It then used all its tentacles to completely envelop the helmet fish, the serrated edges tearing through the unprotected body, and red liquid gushed from the wounds.

While the belemnite was chewing, the two helmet fish hiding in the reef cracks were not safe either. Lin soon saw them quickly escape, followed by an armored arthropod that emerged from the cracks, grabbing one of the helmet fish and dragging it back.

It was a trilobite. Some trilobites could grow up to a meter long, and they had a wide variety of species, some of which had become powerful predators.

The remaining helmet fish left the coral reef and swam alone toward the surface.

Truly... this place had become a cruel aquatic world.

Lin recalled the past, when most creatures fed on single-celled organisms. Now, things had changed significantly. The fleeing helmet fish was soon targeted by a third predator.

These creatures were distant relatives of the helmet fish, called 'bore fish,' evolved from round-mouthed flat fish. They had not grown larger but smaller, with a bore fish only a few millimeters long. However, their round mouths and hook-like teeth had become more terrifying, and their bodies were covered with small, backward-facing plates, which Lin now knew could be called 'scales.' They attacked in the thousands, using their teeth to tear open the helmet fish's skin and then twisting their bodies into the wounds, devouring the flesh and destroying the organs.

Compared to the large predators, the small group attacks were even more terrifying. They did not waste anything, eating every part of the helmet fish.

Although the helmet fish had a hard shell on its head, its body had no protection and was powerless against the attack, only able to endure the intense pain of its organs being torn open as it awaited death.

Lin had always wondered why the helmet fish had such an obstructive and useless shell, but they did have some special abilities to escape predators.

These terrifying small creatures did not spare Lin's observing eyes either. They surrounded them, using their mouths to remove the small spikes around the eyes. Their mouths were extremely hard, capable of breaking the spikes on the eyes' shells and even drilling through the shells.

The last remaining eye died...

So, was this the end of the new world exploration?

Of course not!

In a more distant area from the coral reef, this was once a crystalline land, a region that had never been affected by environmental changes over the years.

Suddenly, several large crystals around the crystalline mountains shattered, and countless creatures covered in crystal armor burst out.

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Thank you to ~Greedy Gale~ for the 1888~

Thank you to ~Moonlit Rose~, ~Great Me~, and ~Soul Seeker~ for the donations~

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