The events in the movie didn’t occur. Godzilla was genuinely weakened to the extre, and as the gunboats approached, it could only look on helplessly, utterly powerless to resist.
“Truly spectacular.” These gunboats, typically about thirty ters in length, were small compared to the over-100-ter-long Godzilla. Though they weren’t exactly tiny, they were barely “big” in comparison.
“Indeed. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d never have imagined such a creature could exist.”
“Look at the blue glow on its dorsal fins—so beautiful.”
“…” Hearing this, the captain was silently added to the “not fit to be left alone” list by his colleagues.
General Masai was also watching the scene remotely through the caras mounted on the gunboats. Though he shared a similar sense of awe, not being there in person made it hard to fully grasp the magnitude of the experience.
Still, since this creature was already close to death, bringing it back for study might yield so surprising discoveries.
“The orders are in. The General wants us to take this Behemoth back to Irwin Base (forrly Cross Base).”
“How long until it finally kicks the bucket?”
“Hard to say. This thing has already exceeded our understanding.”
“Then how do we transport it? Can our gunboats even tow sothing this big?”
“Shouldn’t be an issue. We’ve got twenty-one gunboats here, enough to haul sothing weighing thirty to forty thousand tons.”
“But it’s still alive. How do we tie it down?”
“Maybe we should ask for its opinion.”
“…”
Everyone was feigning ignorance. Wandering near Godzilla while it was alive was one thing, but actually trying to handle it was intimidating for all of them.
Five minutes later.
“We can’t just wait around. If we delay any longer, we’ll be violating orders.”
“Let’s go for another round of attacks. It might leave the body less intact, but at least it’s safer.”
Since they were in the water, the energy beams from the gunboats suffered severe attenuation while passing through. As a result, the Riken forces had to conduct a total of three more rounds of attacks before finally blasting apart Godzilla’s head.
This was only possible because Godzilla was so injured that it could barely dodge.
In truth, Godzilla still had enough strength for a last-ditch counterattack, and could have easily taken several Riken gunboats down with it. However, to prevent environntal damage to the surrounding area, it wasn’t given another chance to fight back.
Another dozen or so minutes passed. Once they confird that Godzilla was indeed dead, the gunboats released their ropes and hooks, fastening them to various parts of its body in preparation to tow it away.
Unfortunately, gunboats weren’t designed for heavy transport, and Godzilla was far heavier than the Rikens had anticipated. Furthermore, the earlier attacks had caused part of the cave to collapse, leaving the creature partially buried under rubble. Even with over twenty gunboats, they couldn’t pull Godzilla out.
Left with no choice, they reported the situation and awaited reinforcents.
“Rookie, where do you think you’re going? Don’t wander off,” a captain suddenly said over the communication channel.
The so-called rookie was Kaida. Having been promoted by Lieutenant Colonel Cross to special operations team captain, he was nicknad “rookie” by the more experienced captains.
“Treasure hunting. That’s how it works in movies, right? Monster lairs usually hide so kind of treasure,” Kaida replied.
“…” Everyone was speechless. Movies were nonsense—what reference value could they possibly have?
Yet, this ti, a movie-like plotline actually ca true.
About ten minutes later, Kaida’s voice ca through the channel: “Hey, everyone, co look at this!”
“What is it?”
“Don’t tell this guy actually found treasure?”
Curious, the other gunboats turned toward Kaida’s location.
“What’s this?”
“It looks like so kind of plant.”
Moving past Godzilla’s body and further into the cave, the team discovered the so-called “treasure”—a red-and-black vine-like plant with nurous fruits emitting a faint purple glow.
“Even though I’m not an expert, I can tell this is sothing unusual,” Kaida remarked.
“Yeah, I can see that too.”
“No kidding. With the radiation levels here, we wouldn’t last more than half an hour without protective suits. Yet, this plant is thriving. There’s definitely sothing special about it.”
“Those fruits look delicious.”
“Go ahead and try one, then tell us how it tastes.”
“Screw you, I’m not that dumb.”
“Why can’t we eat them?” one team mber quietly asked his captain.
“…Are you stupid? This thing grew in a radiation-heavy environnt. Even a tiny trace of radiation could give you multiple radiation-related illnesses at best or kill you outright at worst,” the captain snapped, glad that the others hadn’t heard. If they found out there was soone this idiotic in their team, they’d be laughing about it for years.
“…”
“Maybe we can take so back for the experts to analyze.”
“Agreed. We’re just killing ti anyway, and this might turn out to be another achievent.”
Using underwater robots equipped with radiation-shielding containers, they carefully cut and collected several samples of the plant and its fruit.
No sooner had the robots returned than reinforcents arrived. After detailed asurents, so smaller engineering ships blasted open the cave.
Several transport ships, each over a hundred ters long, landed on the water’s surface. Half-ter-thick cables were lowered to the seabed, wrapped around Godzilla’s body, and slowly hoisted it out of the ocean. The transport ships then began their journey back to the land-based facility.
The Swarm had gone to great lengths to bring certain elents into the Rikens’ view.
Considering the compatibility issues between the Fungal Carpet and the Swarm’s spacefaring organisms, Luo Wen had specially designed the new plants to be completely distinct from the Fungal Carpet. This rushed project was Luo Wen’s most intense research effort in a long ti.
Fortunately, these plants didn’t require the sa complexity as the original Fungal Carpet. By tailoring them to the physiology of the Rikens and adding so unique features and genetic nodes for communication purposes, Luo Wen managed to make the plants appear entirely unrelated to the Swarm.
This step was critical because the Swarm’s earlier creations—like the Fungal Carpet—had already been exposed. For these plants, it was essential to eliminate any visible connections to the Swarm while laying groundwork for future plans.
What concerned Luo Wen most was the potential existence of advanced civilizations. He was always wary of “coincidences,” often using asymtric information to create his own. But this also made him suspicious of seemingly random coincidences.
In the Dark Forest, he believed, there was no such thing as causeless affection.
Luo Wen needed more information to draw conclusions and had to uncover the true origins of that ancient spaceship. In the anti, he had to make preparations, restructuring parts of the Swarm as necessary.
What had already been exposed couldn’t be helped. What remained hidden had to stay that way, while so groundwork still needed to be laid.
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