Chapter 96

Should we follow and take a look?

Leviathan flew above the river formed by the heavy rain. The desert was so dry that such a heavy rain must be very rare, but where would this water flow to?

Lin felt it was necessary to investigate.

The heavy rain in the sky continued, but strangely, it seemed to rain only over the desert. In the jungle, Lin’s two bases did not feel any rain at all.

Was it the twisted trunks blocking the water? That seemed unlikely. The only possibility was that the clouds only appeared over the desert.

Leviathan followed the river, flying through the rain. The speed of the water increased continuously with the rain, eventually turning into an unstoppable flood. It crashed through sand dunes and swept away boulders, rushing through the desert in an unstoppable torrent, heading southwest.

The heavy rain lasted for two days and nights. After the rain stopped, Leviathan continued to follow the river southwest. Lin suspected that they were now in the center of the desert. Even at an altitude of over a thousand meters, there was no sign of the twisted jungle.

However, Lin saw something even more peculiar ahead of the river.

In the distance, a huge cave appeared in the sand. Just by looking, Lin could estimate that the diameter of the cave entrance was over a kilometer. Inside the cave, there were spiral stair-like structures leading deeper, each level narrower than the one above. The entire cave was hundreds of meters deep, and at the deepest level, it was only a few dozen meters wide, with a layer of something that looked like white sand covering the bottom.

This is truly amazing. How did it form? Even from a height of over a thousand meters, the cave appeared enormous, like a huge wound on the desert. Perhaps it shouldn’t be called a cave but rather a 'giant pit.'

The giant pit was made of rock, and the stones inside seemed to be cracked by the sunlight, with no trace of moisture. It appeared that this place had never received any rain. The surging river rushed into the giant pit, following the spiral structure straight to the bottom. The cracked rock pit was instantly irrigated by the water, and Lin seemed to hear the sound of the rocks cracking as they came into contact with the water.

This is probably called 'thermal expansion and contraction,' right?

But even such a massive flood could only fill about 30% of the giant pit. A murky lake filled with sand and mud appeared in the pit.

This is really interesting. There’s no reason not to take a closer look.

Lin had Leviathan slowly descend. As they approached the giant pit, Lin immediately felt that the surrounding air currents seemed strange, as if a current was trying to drag Leviathan into the pit. However, this current was not very strong, and Lin quickly adjusted the flight posture and continued to fly into the pit.

While descending into the pit, Lin noticed many holes about one to two meters in diameter on the spiral stair-like structures, which seemed very peculiar. Could there be creatures living inside?

Leviathan flew to the surface of the lake in the pit. The water was so murky that it was hard to see clearly. Lin released a fish-shaped explorer into the water, mainly to examine the bottom of the pit.

Even with the lantern’s illumination, visibility in the murky water was only about ten centimeters. The explorer used its olfactory and auditory tentacles to detect objects. Upon reaching the bottom of the water, which was also the bottom of the pit, Lin began to carefully observe the composition of the rocks. The layer of white sand seen before the water flooded was gone, perhaps washed away by the water?

The appearance of such a huge pit in the desert, and the fact that it had not been buried by sand, was very suspicious. Lin believed that there was a high possibility that some creatures lived here and regularly cleared the sand from the pit.

However, could this pit have been dug by creatures? This seemed unlikely. Not only would it be extremely difficult to dig such a large pit in the desert, but what would be the purpose? To wait for and collect the rare rainwater? The twisted jungle was to the northeast, and even on foot, it would take no more than ten days and nights to get there. There would be no need to dig a pit to live here. Even if hundreds of creatures as large as fog worms were to dig, it would take years to create such a large space.

The more Lin studied, the more peculiar it seemed. Lin believed it was necessary to establish a base here to observe the changes.

Just as Leviathan was preparing to plant the base seed, the explorer in the water suddenly felt a strange vibration, as if many small creatures were suddenly swimming around.

This is...

A tiny worm, only a few millimeters long, wriggled in front of the explorer’s eye, slowly swimming past.

A worm? Is it a creature that originally lived at the bottom of the pit?

Then, many more worms appeared in the explorer’s field of view, seemingly emerging suddenly, and their numbers kept increasing. Even with such low visibility, the explorer’s field of view was now filled with countless tiny worms, and Lin felt that their numbers exceeded the sand particles in the water.

Where did these things come from? Were they originally at the bottom of the pit, or were they washed here by the river from the desert? Hmm... The first possibility seems more likely.

Lin had the explorer swim around the bottom of the water. It found many small spherical objects on the ground. The explorer extended its tentacles to grab one of the spheres, and the sphere slowly cracked open, and a small worm emerged from the crack.

These are their eggs. The explorer found countless such eggs on the bottom of the water. Could it be that large worms come here to lay eggs and then wait for them to hatch when they come into contact with water?

This is quite interesting. So, did the worms create this pit? But that seems too hasty. It’s unknown how large these worms can grow. Given their fleshy, tender appearance without any shell, they are unlikely to be the larvae of creatures like fog worms.

Moreover, why lay eggs in the pit? Why not in the jungle? There’s no food here, just the occasional rain.

While Lin was thinking, Leviathan suddenly felt a lot of noise in the air. Lin looked up and saw countless figures flying over the giant pit.

Those are... giant dragonflies? What are they doing here?

There were hundreds of dragonflies, and they all flew into the giant pit. Some were wary of Leviathan’s large wingspan but still flew down. Most of them landed on the surrounding stairs, while some flew around the water.

Lin thought they came to catch the worms, but after watching for a while, none of the dragonflies tried to catch the worms. Instead, they made some strange movements.

Some dragonflies began to lie on top of another dragonfly, and the one on top bent its long tail forward, inserting it into the head of the one below. The one below also bent its tail, inserting it into the chest of the one on top.

So, this is reproduction.

Most aquatic creatures release their cells directly into the water to reproduce, but terrestrial creatures cannot do this. Instead, they inject reproductive cells directly into the other’s body.

Lin observed a pair of dragonflies. After a while, they separated. The one that was on top continued to look for others that hadn’t mated, while the one that was below bent its tail and touched the water here and there.

It seems the one on top is the male, and the one below is the female. The female is laying eggs on the water. The male and female giant dragonflies have almost no difference in size. During the observation, Lin found that males are mostly responsible for collecting various evolutionary information. They often fight to become the strongest and then seek females. Females generally do not fight but are responsible for directly producing offspring, so over time, their sizes have become different.

Although males tend to be stronger because they like to fight, it’s not always the case that males are larger than females. For example, in sharks, females are larger than males, possibly due to the dangers they face during childbirth. Males can run away after mating, but females have to face more dangerous predators, like Dunkleosteus.

This reproductive method is quite interesting, ensuring that the offspring are the strongest. However, it has some issues, such as making the species less united, leading to competition among the same species. Lin believed that evolution is based on unity, as only the most united single-celled organisms can become multicellular organisms.

Giant dragonflies don’t seem to have these issues, so males and females look identical.

Leviathan released more explorers, and they found the eggs laid by the female dragonflies on the water. These eggs, like the worm eggs, dissolved in water, and small arthropods that looked like dragonflies emerged and began to hunt nearby small worms.

This is a very clever reproductive method, but the pit couldn’t have been created by dragonflies. They must have just discovered the worms here and come to lay their eggs.

So, what is this pit all about?

Lin became increasingly interested in this place.

...

Thank you to ~Soul Seeker~ for the 688!

Thank you to ~godmorgan~ for the donation!

PS: Reference image for the giant pit: [[[CP|W:210|H:140|A:C|U:]]]

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