For Luo Wen, the safe landing of just two Spore Capsule teors was sufficient to achieve his strategic goals. Adding more bugs would simply accelerate the developnt speed.
As such, even if the remaining two Spore Capsule teors were destroyed, it wouldn’t significantly impact his plans.
However, having the Spore Capsule teors traverse through regions inhabited by atmospheric organisms presented an excellent opportunity to observe their behavior. Their genetic material held imnse research value and should ideally be integrated into the Swarm Genetic Bank to aid the Swarm’s future evolution.
Therefore, Luo Wen was almost hoping the latter two Spore Capsule teors would encounter atmospheric organisms and provoke their attacks. This would allow him to better study these creatures and develop strategies to hunt them down.
The third Spore Capsule teor entered the atmosphere. Compared to the hydrogen-oxygen propulsion system, the braking performance of its jet propulsion system was significantly inferior.
Despite engaging its jets at full throttle to decelerate, the Spore Capsule teor streaked across the sky at astonishing speed.
White clouds floated lazily in the sky, utterly indifferent to the fireball streaking past. Luo Wen and his Intelligent Entities knew far too little about atmospheric organisms. If they didn’t actively attack, it was nearly impossible to distinguish them from ordinary clouds.
After a period of anxious anticipation, the Spore Capsule teor landed without encountering any attacks, leaving Luo Wen and his team disappointed.
An hour later, the fourth Spore Capsule teor finally entered the atmosphere of planet A7B5.
Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, as soon as it began igniting flas in the atmosphere, three distinct clouds in its vicinity started to move.
These three clouds transford into atmospheric organisms, rushing toward the Spore Capsule teor.
Luo Wen observed that these atmospheric organisms seed to lack a fixed form. All three looked distinctly different.
One resembled an abstract giant bird, about forty ters long. Its triangular limb structure at the front could barely pass for a head, followed by a long, cloud-like neck. Its flat, elongated body extended to asymtrical “wings,” with no apparent tail.
Another looked like a massive whale, over thirty ters long, though still abstract in shape. Its overall edges were jagged, giving it a soft, billowing appearance.
The last cloud creature was simply unclassifiable, resembling an irregularly shaped cloth spread out. Its size, however, was the largest, exceeding fifty ters.
Luo Wen soon realized these creatures were not randomly shaped but seed to be so form of soft-bodied organism. When idle, they coiled and compressed, creating bizarre shapes. However, when they moved, their forms gradually morphed into an octopus-like structure with a large central body and dozens of trailing, tentacle-like limbs.
As they accelerated, faint blue arcs of electricity began to ripple across their bodies.
Luo Wen and the Intelligent Entities speculated that these blue arcs represented many things.
For example, the simplest and most verifiable hypothesis was that the frequency and brightness of the blue arcs correlated with the creatures’ output power. When they exerted greater force, the arcs beca more frequent and intense. At a certain threshold, these arcs could envelop their entire bodies.
Another theory posited that the arcs might serve as a form of communication among the atmospheric organisms. The Spore Capsule was equipped with Eagle-Eye Bugs capable of detecting most wavelengths of light, as well as hidden cochlear and sensory hairs capable of picking up a wide range of sounds.
Based on their observations thus far, the Intelligent Entities had not identified any behavior suggesting the creatures communicated using light signals. As for sound, while the first atmospheric organism had roared when intercepting a Spore Capsule, no actual soundwaves were detected.
Even though the Spore Capsule’s cochlear structures were integrated with multiple superior genetic traits, enabling them to detect extrely high and low-frequency soundwaves, it remained possible that the creatures emitted soundwaves outside the capsule’s detectable range—albeit unlikely.
Additionally, during earlier encounters, when the first atmospheric organism failed to intercept the Spore Capsule, losing several limbs in the process, and when it was completely blocked by an “air wall,” its body emitted abnormal flashes of blue arcs.
This suggested that, at the very least, the flashing frequency of the blue arcs served as an emotional indicator for these creatures. It was possible that their peers could glean information from these displays.
The Spore Capsule teor, under the relentless attacks and tugs of the three atmospheric organisms, was soon halted mid-air and captured. Its own weight was insufficient to escape their grasp.
What happened next reshaped Luo Wen and the Intelligent Entities’ understanding of these organisms.
Initially, when the largest of the three—asuring over fifty ters—secured the Spore Capsule teor, the two-to-three-ter-long object looked like a basketball in its grasp.
Luo Wen had assud the creature would imdiately consu the Spore Capsule teor. After all, why else would they expend so much effort to capture it?
Reality proved otherwise. The atmospheric organism treated the Spore Capsule teor more like a fascinating new “toy.” It dragged the capsule along, flying back and forth through the air.
Blue arcs flickered frequently across its body. While Luo Wen couldn’t discern how these flashes differed from the ones during its enraged state, he speculated that the creature was feeling excitent or joy rather than anger.
The other two organisms, which had failed to secure the “toy,” also emitted flickering blue arcs as they floated and swirled around the largest one.
Luo Wen guessed they, too, were experiencing joy, given that they had jointly captured the “toy.” However, he was quickly proven wrong.
The blue arc frequencies on the two “toy-less” organisms began to spike, as did those on the largest one.
Just as Luo Wen assud they were reveling in excitent, the three organisms suddenly began fighting.
The two smaller ones tead up to attack the largest one. For a mont, the intense flashes of electricity left Luo Wen and the Intelligent Entities utterly dumbfounded.
Was this play or combat? Luo Wen could no longer tell.
The intensity of their battle had far surpassed the boundaries of re playfulness.
Reviews
All reviews (0)