Chapter 536 - 16: The Black Shadow in the Molten River (Part 2)
Chapter 536: Chapter 16: The Black Shadow in the Molten River (Part 2)
Baining asked in surprise.
"Heh heh!" Lin Yu chuckled, patting Baining’s trunk. "The enemy won’t always be the same. Just as I have many different types of units under my command, they naturally have different types too, and their nests will vary."
"But don’t worry. While we can’t eliminate this nest, it’s not very dangerous. No need to fret."
"For now, let’s get back to clearing out those large nests!"
...
In the time that followed, Lin Yu (Main Body) exchanged for more Bone Silver and had the dwarves craft more stealthy surveillance and detection devices capable of resisting Undead Energy.
Meanwhile, Lin Yu (Avatar) summoned more members of his territory. While helping Baining propagate offspring and teaching them how to feed and hide, he continuously cleared out one large virus nest after another.
Inside each of these large nests were one to several controlled trees acting as energy conversion devices and virus factories. After Lin Yu cleared them out, he would send people to periodically collect the high-grade natural energy.
Lin Yu (Main Body) placed all this high-grade natural energy into a specially constructed pool far away from the World Tree, where it continuously provided natural energy for the territory.
Although he didn’t know the principle behind how this high-grade natural energy could generate more natural energy without depleting itself, with the World Tree standing guard, Lin Yu wasn’t afraid of any hidden traps.
However, he didn’t dare let the World Tree try to absorb it. If this stuff turned out to be toxic, getting tricked would be disastrous.
...
Another month passed. All the large nests within a thousand-kilometer radius of the first nest Lin Yu had cleared were now eliminated.
However, the small tunnels connecting to the underground would still erupt with dense Undead Energy every night, spewing forth viruses and viral creatures.
Through these tunnels, Lin Yu set up more reconnaissance outposts to study the massive dark shadow that passed by every night.
After continuous adjustments, the surveillance equipment finally captured a clear image of the dark shadow.
"My Lord, you’re here!"
"Yes. I hear we can finally see its true form?"
"Yes, My Lord! Please, look!"
In the intelligence briefing room of Camp 1, Lin Yu sat down to review the data sent from Outpost 3.
In the video, the Molten River flowed as usual. As a sinister wind carrying Undead Energy swept in, the river’s color began to shift from a bright white to a bright orange.
But at a certain moment, this transformation suddenly stopped, and the river quickly returned to its normal bright white.
The gloomy wind in the air did not diminish because of the Molten River’s resistance; it continued to howl across its surface.
The Undead Energy and fire elements in the air entered a state of conflict, constantly repelling and annihilating each other.
This balanced struggle was broken the moment the dark shadow arrived.
The shadow had originally been submerged at the bottom of the grayish-white part of the Molten River. Upon arriving here, where there was no grayish-white lava, it walked directly onto the ordinary molten rock.
It was a giant Ku Shu. The entire body of the Ku Shu was covered in strange patterns, which were especially dense at the ends of its branches and roots.
At first glance, they looked like ordinary bark textures, but Lin Yu, a polymath who knew a little about everything, could tell with a single look that they were Magic patterns. Because the video was still not clear enough, he couldn’t determine the specific meaning of these Magic patterns.
After the giant Ku Shu appeared, it paid no mind to the searing heat of the lava and plunged its roots directly into the brightest part of the Molten River.
In response to its insolent act, the Molten River instantly churned up monstrous waves. Countless torrents of scorching lava poured down on the giant Ku Shu, and any Undead Energy in the sky that touched this lava was instantly annihilated.
But the patterns on the giant Ku Shu’s body lit up, allowing it to completely ignore the lava.
Meanwhile, in the part of the Molten River where its roots had penetrated, the amount of bright lava rapidly decreased. In the end, this section of the river reverted to a normal bright orange.
Then it swiftly grew dark, turning grayish-white.
The giant Ku Shu seemed very pleased with itself. It swayed its body and slowly sank into the grayish-white lava, then drifted off-screen with the current.
"What is that bright lava?"
"Why can it command the fire elements to resist?"
"And that Ku Shu, how did it make the bright lava disappear?"
"I don’t know. We have no data on them. The Wisdom Library should have it, but we don’t even know their names. Unless we get very lucky, it will be difficult to find anything."
Chenxi had watched the video before Lin Yu. She had already scoured her memory for all the information she had ever read, but she couldn’t find anything relevant.
’This is troublesome!’
’I thought this would be an easy job. No wonder the reward for the Feiming Race’s mission looked so generous, yet no one took it.’
’But since we’ve accepted it, we have to find a way to finish it.’
"Chenxi, set up more observation posts. I need to know if this confrontation between the Ku Shu and the lava is an isolated incident or a regular occurrence."
"Yes!"
...
To complete the task Lin Yu had assigned, the members of the territory began deploying surveillance devices along the Molten River.
Although the equipment was often inexplicably damaged and quite a few members were accidentally injured, after several weeks of hard work, they still managed to establish an incredibly long, continuous surveillance line along the Molten River, centered on Camp 1.
Given the giant Ku Shu’s movement speed in the Molten River, this was enough to monitor it continuously for over an hour.
With the intelligence from this continuous surveillance, Lin Yu and his team discovered that the confrontation between the dark shadow and the lava was a frequent event. Sometimes the lava’s resistance was weak, other times it was strong, and the time the Ku Shu needed to win varied accordingly.
On average, the Ku Shu would clash with the Molten River every few minutes.
"Say, this Molten River seems to be the planet’s own counterattack, doesn’t it? Why doesn’t it concentrate its power and destroy the Ku Shu all at once?"
"Counterattacking with piecemeal reinforcements like this will just get them picked off one by one, right? It’s completely ineffective!"
Baining asked Lin Yu, completely baffled after learning of this intelligence.
"Of course, it’s because the planet itself doesn’t know if its own counterattack is effective."
"Most planets don’t possess a sufficiently strong, independent consciousness."
"When faced with this kind of invasion at the level of energetic principles, they rely mostly on instinctual defense mechanisms to fight back."
"Once you understand these defense mechanisms, you can easily toy with the planet’s defenses."
"Of course, you must have sufficient strength. For an ordinary person or faction, these instinctual planetary defenses are still lethal."
Lin Yu answered Baining’s question with ease.
Back when he learned he had the potential to become a Creator, he had made a special trip to the Wisdom Library to read books on world defense and offense.
This relatively simple knowledge was something he could recall at will.
After hearing Lin Yu’s explanation, Baining looked at him with adoration. He never imagined that his friend would actually understand the secret knowledge of worlds. ’Is that something an ordinary person could possibly know?’
"Sir, if we can intercept that giant Ku Shu, or even kill it, does that mean this world will recover on its own?"
"That should be the case!"
"However, I see that when that bright white substance fights the Undead Energy, it uses energy annihilation. That method is just garbage!"
"If the planet’s remaining energy is less than the total Undead Energy, it’s very likely to kill itself off in the process of eliminating the Undead Energy!"
"So, when the time comes, it will still need our help."
Lin Yu sighed. This planet’s independent consciousness was too weak, its ability to learn too poor.
Otherwise, if it had just noticed Baining and the other trees, it could have learned the method of converting Undead Energy into natural energy.
Then it could have converted all the Undead Energy in the lava into natural energy, and the crisis would have resolved itself.
"It’s too early to talk about that now. Accurately intercepting that Ku Shu is already a difficult matter; stopping it is even harder."
"Until I have a clear understanding of its strength, I can’t risk bringing the main force of my territory here."
"For now, we observe and look for patterns. Everyone else, continue clearing the large virus nests!"
"Let’s take it slow. No need to rush. Haste makes waste. They’ve been fighting for so long; it’s not like the planet is going to collapse the moment we arrive!"
...