Chapter 268 The End of the World

As the land and sea froze, life on the surface disappeared.

However, there are still many creatures in the depths of the ground... but they are also slowly dying...

It wants to protect the creatures here, it wants to keep them alive.

Although these tiny creatures are like parasitic microbes to it, it wants to protect them.

The life here... needs warmth to survive.

It knows this.

However, warmth is a luxury in a wandering world without stars.

So, it thought of a way to raise the temperature of the ground, allowing some creatures there to survive.

However, no matter how much it is raised, there is no way to raise it to the original temperature, so there are not many living creatures, but... it is enough.

It believes that these creatures can still recover, just like... before.

In this way, the creatures here live here, they are slowly recovering their population, and the world itself has entered a state of slumber.

It took some damage, so it needed to sleep to recover... and after it fell asleep, Atlan was slowly starting to 'wake up'.

Atlan lived in the underground shelters they built before the war. The exploration captain who originally proposed to build the shelter blocked all the exits of the shelter. However, they were not used to staying in cramped places. Landu is trying to find a way to leave.

Some Atlans found a way. They successfully opened the entrance to the shelter and then went to explore the outside environment.

However, the Atlans found out. They can no longer return to the ground, because the road to the ground has been blocked by a large amount of ice and snow, and it is almost impossible to dig.

So, they went to the depths of the ground.

However, exploring the depths of the underground... also has considerable dangers.

Many Atlans disappeared during their exploration, and they found it to be quite difficult.

However, there are some Atlans who have found special places...such as the warmth of the underground.

and went to live there, but they no longer contacted their companions in the sanctuary.

And the Atlan in those sanctuaries. He also stopped going out to explore, but pinned his hopes on a special group of Atlan.

Because, many Atlans are aware of a special program 'Ecological Restoration'.

'Vault 109' was born for this.

Actually, there are some shelters like No. 109. The equipment in this kind of sanctuary is relatively 'advanced' and is specially made for some special researchers.

Known as 'ecological restoration teams', they specialize in restoring devastated surface environments after wars.

So all they have to do is create creatures that adapt quickly to the ground.

When they first lived in the shelter, they began their research, studying various animals and plants, but the creatures they studied were basically their own, and they did not use the original creatures here.

Because Atlan knew more about the creatures he brought with him. It is also easier to conduct research.

They make many organisms, and in the process of research, these researchers have passed for several generations. However, their descendants also inherited their knowledge, so research can continue.

They have also left the shelter, and they are trying to explore underground.

But they didn't want to go out on their own, so Atlan found a creature to explore instead of them...

This creature is the 'mole'.

Moles are well-suited to living underground, while their skin keeps them warm. It even eats some underground plants, which are perfect for underground life.

initial. Atlan began to use these moles to explore the underground environment, and they also conducted research on new species of moles, trying to create higher intelligence moles to perform more complex tasks.

A typical task would be to outfit the moles and then send them into environments that Atlan didn't want to be in to photograph and probe the environment.

Initially, the process went smoothly, with the moles exploring a number of areas, and Atlan letting them take some fungal or plant seeds to the depths.

Some plants do not need light to grow, and they use this plant to improve the environment in their caves.

And because this process went so smoothly, strange things happened later...

There are two main types of moles, but they are all of the same kind of creature. They were originally called 'fruit moles', but I don't know why they were called without the word fruit.

One type of mole is on all fours and the other is standing, and they perform different tasks, but both have the same intelligence.

The researchers first found that their moles were becoming more obedient and better able to understand their commands, which they thought was fine at first, and then gave them more commands.

And soon, researchers found that the moles seemed to be getting smarter.

Atlan thought from the start that moles only needed to be smart, not too smart, or they might do weird things.

But even if Atlan did not continue to try to improve the intelligence of the moles, their intelligence continued to grow.

Also, the problem was actually noticed very late.

Because in the intelligence test, the moles have learned to deliberately pretend to be stupid, making it difficult for Atlan to detect their intelligence, and they are also secretly doing some things.

For example, after entering the depths of the ground, they dismantled the exploration equipment that Atlan gave them, and so on, and they also deliberately made it look like they fell from an accident.

Those moles who lost their exploration equipment went into the depths of the ground to live and began to breed.

Originally, Atlan firmly controlled the breeding of moles, but as long as the moles were breeding outside, Atlan would not notice.

Later, when the moles were bred to a certain number, they began to try to deal with the race that made them, the Atlan.

The moles that were multiplying outside, and the moles in the research institute began to 'cooperate with the inside and the outside'. They used a 'trick' to break into the shelter and attacked Atlan in the shelter.

The battle was a success...for the Mole.

Nearly all of the Atlan researchers were killed by them, and the moles managed to free their own kind who were trapped in the shelter.

And the moles didn't go back to the sanctuary, they went to new places to breed...

That's what they've found deep underground in a space that's perfect for them to live in.

Of course, there are more than moles. There were originally many creatures in the shelter. They also left the shelter and followed the mole into that place to live.

The place is very beautiful, with all kinds of creatures, and the little sun in the sky lights up the whole place and has the right warmth.

This is the world...the environment built for the life that is left, and now the mole has joined this place and is a member of it.

Mole's first life... It should be said that it was very smooth.

They have established their own communities underground, they are like a group of primitive creatures, and they will use all kinds of things to make simple tools.

Why didn't they use Vault Atlan's tools? Maybe it's because the intelligence hasn't reached that level yet, or maybe it's just simply not wanting to use it.

In short, they didn't take anything with them when they left the sanctuary, they built their own population entirely on their own.

Like a group of primitive individual creatures, moles start with simple tools and slowly build stone structures, they are usually chiefs, and they live by finding edible plants and hunting as their main source of food. .

As they grew, so did their colonies, and they began to take a toll on the subterranean environment.

Because the creatures in the underground environment are almost all native creatures, and the expansion of moles began to oppress these creatures, and their numbers gradually decreased.

At the same time, it is not only the mole that oppresses them.

There are also some creatures that left the shelter with the mole before, such as 'Monkey', these creatures are small, but they are very competitive.

In addition to this there are other creatures that are slowly encroaching on the whole place.

And at this time...

The world woke up.

But it is not a complete awakening, only a part of the 'consciousness' has awakened, and this part of the consciousness will check for foreign objects in the underground environment and eliminate them.

Only native species are considered not foreign objects, other things...including Atlan and Mole, and the creatures brought by Atlan, all belong to the category of foreign objects.

They are counted on the 'extinction list'.

With the awakening of this exclusion function, the subterranean environment will also begin to change.

This environment will suddenly darken, and then countless terrifying creatures will appear.

This creature only targets 'exotic species' and exterminates them.

This phenomenon doesn't just appear once, it becomes a cycle. Every once in a while, the terrifying creatures will appear again, and the place will also become dark...

But in fact this kind of creature is some kind of organ of this world, they have killed many creatures, including a kind of mole, because this kind of mole is not fast.

They nearly wiped out most of the alien creatures...only a few remained, struggling to survive in regular cycles.

Mole also found that these monsters have a certain fear response to light. Although light will not harm them, they can avoid them by going to a bright environment...

After that, the structures of the villages, buildings, etc. that the moles had built before fell apart. They could only live a life of hiding everywhere. Their reproduction speed was not fast, so the number became less and less...

until now. (To be continued)

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