Just as the Alliance Institute of Biology had initially guessed, the forests of Baiyue Province were the child born of "Gaia" and Earth.
The forests here did not merely refer to the trees within them.
They also included the flowers, grasses, insects, birds, beasts, and even the humans who had once lived here.
The Broodmother Nest that had landed upon this land had opened its genetic repository, granting every living thing here the ability to exchange genetic material with one another.
Of course, that exchange was not a chaotic, ruleless migration.
Rather, within the framework of natural selection unique to Earth, it allowed the finest genetic fragments—and the combinations of those fragments—to emerge through evolution and flourish through extreme survival of the fittest and continual trial and error.
In only two centuries, they had traveled a path that Earth's ecosystem would originally have needed two million, twenty million years to traverse—or might never have been able to traverse at all.
Leaves rustled beside them, accompanied by the chirping of insects.
Hearing this staggering conclusion, Fang Chang stood stunned for a long time. His Adam's apple bobbed slightly as he swallowed.
"...This is fusion?"
Chen Yutong nodded.
Old White, standing nearby, could not help pressing further.
"What about the people here? Did they also undergo that fusion... fuse with the DNA of mutant creatures?"
Chen Yutong nodded again.
"Most likely. There were fewer survivors in this region than in Clear Spring City, but some people must have remained."
Old White stared blankly at her.
"But... aren't the survivors in the southern waters doing fine? We didn't feel like they were any different from us."
As though she had anticipated his question, Chen Yutong patiently explained.
"The evolution of an individual and the evolution of a population are matters on entirely different