Although Hao Ren had dealt with the Firstborn many times, the Firstborn on this planet was still the largest and most incredible individual he had ever known. Within this unprecedentedly massive life-form were organs and tissues that perfectly matched its scale.
A gigantic nerve ganglion—or perhaps a cluster of ganglia—appeared before them like a mountain.
This enormous, irregular mass of connective tissue had a radius of nearly two kilometers. It resembled a rotten orange whose skin had wrinkled and warped. Dozens of thinner nerve fibers connected it to the surrounding area, leaving it floating completely alone in the vast space, with no other biological tissue visible to support it. Its bizarre surface, resembling the lair of an evil god, was covered in patches and veins emitting a dim red glow. Accompanied by a low, slow throbbing, the dark-red areas brightened and dimmed like breathing, displaying the still-surging vitality of this behemoth.
As a container for a brain core, this organ was far too huge.
Hao Ren had already studied the Firstborn sample in his possession, so he knew that these super-life-forms, capable of growing to planetary proportions, actually had brains that were astonishingly small relative to their size. A brain core was usually several meters in diameter, and even the largest did not exceed ten meters. Once a Firstborn grew beyond a certain size, its brain core stopped growing. From then on, the organ produced more backups instead of increasing in size, which was one of the Firstborn's unique physiological traits. However, this connective-skinned organ before them... The high-level nerve fibers surrounding it seemed to indicate that it was meant to house a brain core, but its size had far exceeded the conclusions of all previous research. Clearly, this organ had undergone a mutation.
When Hao Ren and the others