Chapter 60 The Cave of the Abyss

The troops of the assassins were slowly advancing through the cave in the rock.

The damp and salty smell filled Lin's senses, water was everywhere on the ground, and the sound of dripping water could be heard from time to time in the quiet space.

This is a place of abyss, under the Five Plague Islands, it may even be under the seabed, but here... is not shrouded in darkness...

There are many wonderful creatures here, some are like plants, with branches, and blue fluorescent creatures are everywhere, and some arthropods and worms similar to trilobites are moving around them, and there are even some hairy creatures. fluorescent starfish.

And there are some creatures that Lin is familiar with. A small group of empty jellyfish floated in front of Lin's troops. I don't know how long they have lived here, but they all seem to be doing well.

These creatures were not infected by fungi, and their light was emitted by themselves. Those creatures that looked like plants were a type of coral, and they grew in some small puddles. Lin estimated that they relied on the water here Pit for food.

It's like an undersea environment, although there is a lot of water, it's not completely flooded, maybe they have some way to get the water out? Or is the water being consumed for some reason?

The assassins gathered together and moved slowly, the roof of the cave dripped cold water on them from time to time, and there were also fungi growing here. But in those places where there is no water on the ground, there are some mycelium clusters and mushrooms. They have avoided the water dripping from the puddles and the roof of the cave well, but they have no way to expand.

Could this be the head of the plague fungus? It is indeed possible that the group of assassins has sensed some special signals here, which are constantly being sent out.

In the process of advancing, Lin also discovered that there are many small holes distributed at intervals on the roof of the cave. If you drill into these small holes and go up, you will reach a mud cave, and then go up, you can Came out of the plague island.

These caves are all the caves where the head of the plague is located, just as Lin thought. The bottom of the sea cave is connected to all islands.

However, Lin feels differently here. Lin thinks that there should be some creatures creating plague heads, or that there are many mushrooms storing energy, but she didn't expect that there are so many sea creatures living here...

Lin was moving in the direction of the strong signal, going deeper, and the strange thing was that the deeper the creature was, the fewer creatures around her. Moreover, the environment is relatively dry. The accumulated water on the ground has gradually disappeared, and the cave has become more spacious. There are many round stone pillars here, which feel like they are used to support the cave.

wrong,

This is not a stone pillar.

An assassin approached the stone pillar and gently scraped some debris from it. After eating it, Lin found that it was a hardened fungal structure, and the inside had become quite solid, and could indeed be used as a 'support pillar'.

This hardened structure... feels like those fungal fossils found in the salt cave back then.

Sure enough, there must have been some connection between them in the past. Lin felt that these fungi should not be hardened by being attacked by something, but that they themselves would become like this under certain circumstances, and all the fungi would take effect together.

But what happened to them? if known. This could be the key to their extinction...

There are not as many puddles here as before, but some creatures still appeared. Lin found that these were also familiar creatures...ancient squid.

This ancient squid is obviously different from the species on the northern continent. They are twice the size of the ones there, about 20 centimeters long, and have blue ring-shaped markings all over their bodies. It seems that these markings will not follow them. The body changes color.

They appeared to be in groups of ten in the waterhole, as Lin's assassins watched them closely. They also appear not to be frightened, but instead observe the assassin curiously.

Lin wanted to call them 'Blue Ring Ancient Squid', but the name didn't make much sense, so it was better to call them 'Abyss Ancient Squid'.

I don't know the difference between the intelligence of this 'Abyss Ancient Squid' and that of the North Continent, but usually there is not much difference between similar species, and the two of them may be able to cooperate to give birth to new species.

Maybe grab one and try it out...

Thinking, Lin let the hunter approach the water hole. The abyssal ancient squids, who were not afraid at first, swam into the sand at the bottom of the pit in an instant. They kept drilling into it and disappeared all at once.

After watching it for a few seconds, Lin decided to forget it and catch it next time. This force is not here to study and explore.

Then Lin continued to follow the signal to go deep. At this depth, there were no puddles around, and there were no creatures. Without those luminous creatures, the environment became dark.

At this time, the Assassin emitted light, and the whole cave was much brighter again. Lin saw many cone-shaped pointed pillars on the top of the cave, wondering if they were hardened fungi, and there were some shiny things around them that reflected the light.

This is... crystallization?

Lin gathered the light of the assassin and found a crystal standing on the ground. This crystal seems to be the same as the one in the Qibucha in the northern continent. Lin has also seen it in the sea before. Generally speaking, these Near the crystallization there are...

Lin asked the assassins to look around, and sure enough, they saw some creatures moving around. They looked like scorpions, only five centimeters in size, quite small, but their whole bodies were covered with crystal-like carapaces.

Yes, there will always be crystalline creatures near these crystals. This feeling is really wonderful. It seems that the creatures will eat these crystals unconsciously, and then the crystals will start to grow on their body instead of their original carapace. This process may be quite fast.

The crystals here are not limited to this one. If the assassin let go of the light, they can be seen everywhere. They are piled up in clusters, all over the entire cave, giving this damp and dark place a sense of brilliance. A special sense of beauty...

If you continue to move forward, the original stone ground will also turn into gray gravel, and the crystal clusters will appear even larger. The original height is only about one meter, but it is slowly increasing here, two meters, three meters...even Lin I also saw one that was more than six meters high.

But it seems that because of the lack of water seepage here, there are no creatures, and the scorpions like before can't be seen here.

...Wait, what is that?

Lin saw a huge object lying in front of the Assassins' troops. The surface of this object was also formed by hardened fungus. This is... the leg of the Plague Chief.

This is just one of the sections. The predator went around and looked around, and found that it could drill in at the section, but the inside was empty, as if nothing had been stuffed into it after the shell had just been built.

Then Lin found that there were many such one-jointed legs everywhere, as well as some pieces of plague head carapace. Could it be that this is also a place for unfinished products?

'Gada'.

While Lin was examining a carapace fragment, she suddenly heard a familiar voice.

When Lin heard it, she immediately asked the assassin to run towards the direction of the sound. Sure enough, Lin saw a wonderful thing she had seen before... an echo egg.

Lin had seen a lot of these eggs when she was advancing at sea, and the locusts infected by the plague fungus would bypass them. After that, Lin had never seen anything similar during the war against the fungus on the mainland. have this?

This echo egg is exactly the same as the ones I have seen before. It is surrounded by a layer of rock and can occasionally make the sound of "Gada". There are many scattered nearby, but it seems that only this one can make a sound.

Lin asked the assassin to break open a soundless Echo Egg nearby, and when they dug out the outer rock, they found that the egg inside was already dead.

It seems that the energy is exhausted, maybe only one that can make a sound is alive.

Lin continued to move forward, there were many echo eggs here, most of them were close to the crystal clusters, but only the one Lin saw at the beginning had a sound, and all these echo eggs were dead.

This underwater cave seems to hide quite a lot, and Lynn thinks that the history of fungi may be discovered here.

Now, Lin's troops suddenly stepped into an open space. The edge of this open space is full of crystals and echo eggs. These things seem to have been pushed to this position by some creature to clear out this open space.

In front, Lin suddenly saw a bunch of echo eggs forming a circle. In the center of the circle, there was a huge crystal. This crystal was about ten meters high and more than five meters wide. It looked like a huge rock. It seems that there is... something.

This location is not very clear, the assassins closely observed, through the transparent crystal surface, Lin found that there is indeed a strange shape in the center of the crystal.

This thing is gray, it seems to be very soft, and its shape is very irregular. It is about two meters in size, like a lump of meat, and it is still trembling slightly, as if it is still alive.

Lin also noticed that there were a lot of hyphae-like silk threads around this piece of meat. They were connected to the bottom of the crystal, and seemed to lead to the ground.

Could this be... the brain of the plague fungus?

Lin feels that it is indeed releasing a large number of signals. This signal is much stronger than that of the previous fungal lord, but because it is underground, Lin thinks that its signal cannot be transmitted to the plague army outside, so Is the fungal lord needed as a 'transfer station'?

This brain looks quite large, but the plague fungus can only occasionally show intelligence, so it is necessary to study it.

The assassins began to climb up the crystal, but just when they first came into contact with the crystal, Lin suddenly heard the nearby sand grains start to vibrate strongly, as if something was about to emerge from the sand. (to be continued...)