The Descent into the Sea

The Green Shrimp can catch up with the Mantis Shrimp, but its attack power is too weak; it can't even penetrate the opponent's armor and can only serve a scouting purpose.

Fortunately, Mantis Shrimp often hide in the sand on the seabed, waiting to ambush passing prey. This area is also Crab territory.

After hundreds of Green Shrimp scouts roamed for hours, they finally spotted a Mantis Shrimp at a depth of over 200 meters. The Crab army, having received the intelligence, then rushed to the scene.

To avoid scaring away the Mantis Shrimp, only two Crab crawled towards its hiding place.

Perhaps because the Crab are similar in size to the Mantis Shrimp, it surprisingly took the initiative to attack when the Crab approached. It swooped down on one of the Crab, Crab hurriedly raised its claws to defend itself. But as the Mantis Shrimp swam past it, one of its claws detached from its body and flew away.

However, the Mantis Shrimp underestimated the collective combat capabilities of the Swarm; the two Crab were essentially using each other as bait. Now that one was being attacked, the other wasn't idle either.

As the Mantis Shrimp turned back, there was a brief pause as it prepared to strike again. Another Crab seized the opportunity, leaping forward to grab the Mantis Shrimp and clamping its body with its two claws.

The Mantis Shrimp was covered in sharp spines and struggled fiercely. Although the Crab's carapace was highly protected, its abdominal shell was relatively soft and was pierced in several places by the Mantis Shrimp.

Having lost one claw, the Crab used its other claw to clamp down on the gap between the Mantis Shrimp's head and carapace. Although the Mantis Shrimp immediately retaliated with a powerful blow, its remaining claw was also severed from the Crab's body.

However, although the crab claw had detached from the main body, it remained stuck in the gap of the Mantis Shrimp's armor, causing it serious harm.

At this moment, the Green Shrimp that had been lingering in the distance arrived. Although they could not break through the Mantis Shrimp's armor, they were able to carry it towards the Crab army.

When this Mantis Shrimp was placed in an encirclement of dozens of Crab, its fate was sealed.

After enjoying a plate of Mantis Shrimp sashimi, Rowan ate a lot of wild Crab and Green Shrimp before hurriedly returning to his Mother Nest.

After uploading new genetic data, I was astonished upon reviewing it. No wonder the Mantis Shrimp is a dominant species in the sea; it possesses quite a few advanced genetic technologies.

After a period of deep sleep, a layer of skin shed from the Pincer Limb. Although the Pincer Limb did not turn into hammers, they gained many new structures, and even the armor structure of the Pincer Limb changed.

Unfortunately, some accidents occurred during the testing.

A month later, the Swarm- infested Mantis Shrimp was freshly produced. Through various tests, Rowan gained a better understanding of its various parameters.

First, there are its eyes, which have six pupils, allowing it to see more primary colors. However, because these eyes are somewhat incompatible with Rowan's, Rowan has only integrated a portion of them so far. But even this small part makes the world before Rowan's eyes much more colorful.

Secondly, there's its hammer-like forelimbs.

A Mantis Shrimp that is ten centimeters long can use its hammer, which is about one centimeter long, to generate a force of more than 150 kilograms, which is why it was able to break through Rowan's armor.

Furthermore, their hammers strike at an incredibly fast speed; they can accelerate from 0 to 80 km/h in 1/300 of a second. Because the punches are so fast, they can even create a supercavitation effect at the moment of impact.

The bubbles generated by the supercavitation effect collapse instantaneously, creating a small-scale shock wave. The released energy can also heat the water to an extremely high temperature, producing a sonoluminescence effect.

The flash of light that appeared in the corner of Rowan's eye when he was hit by the Mantis Shrimp came from this. However, this requires extremely high light sensitivity in the eyes to be able to see it.

At the same time, the ability to strike the hammer so quickly also relies on the coordination of other body structures. On the forelimbs of the Mantis Shrimp, there is a Hyperboloid System. The hyperboloid contracts to store energy and then explodes in an instant, propelling the hammer out.

Of course, to perform these operations without harming oneself, these physical structures alone are far from enough; it also requires a remarkably strong material to work with.

The surface of the Mantis Shrimp hammer has three special nanostructures arranged in a microscopic shock-absorbing pattern, which can absorb energy, inhibit cracking, and has very strong impact resistance.

Unfortunately, while this material is indeed robust, it only supports Mantis Shrimp up to a length of about ten centimeters. If they grow any larger, tragedy will occur.

Don't ask Rowan how he knew; he was incredibly excited when he first obtained this super-technological marvel.

He excitedly went to test it out, activating the hyperboloid launch system at full power, but due to its excessive acceleration, a huge airburst followed, and his body was blasted away.

At the same time, his Pincer Limb were forcibly pulled off his body in an instant and shot away into the distance.

Upon inspection, it was found that although the Pincer Limb had acquired a new type of nanostructure, it was still severely burned. Fortunately, it was now a separate individual, and these burns did not pose any problem for Rowan.

The pain of having one of his Pincer Limb forcibly torn off still caused Rowan to convulse, and the thought arose again that he had developed pain receptors—was this evolution?

Afterwards, Rowan used Mantis Shrimp to conduct continuous experiments and derived this system and materials, which could at most support a hammer about two centimeters high. This system could only be used in water, as it could only be rapidly neutralized and cooled in water, and generate instantaneous high temperatures when the Hyperboloid System was activated.

If he got any older, he would be courting death, ending up like Rowan did. Fortunately, Rowan could regenerate his limbs, emerge from his cocoon, and be a healthy, strong man again.

Given Rowan's body length of over 60 centimeters, the main structure of his Pincer Limb, even just the tip, is close to 30 centimeters long, making it impossible for him to replace them with a hammer weapon that is only 2 centimeters in size.

The scene was too beautiful; he couldn't bear the embarrassment.

Moreover, this system is only highly lethal to targets of similar size. For example, when the Mantis Shrimp attacked Rowan, it only caused minor cracks in his Pincer Limb.

Therefore, this system was somewhat like a double-edged sword for Rowan —tasteless to use, but a pity to discard. However, Rowan was unwilling to give up the hard-earned advanced technology for nothing.

So he kept testing and fine-tuning, losing countless Pincer Limb and going through countless pupal stages, before finally making some minor improvements to the system.

It's called an improvement, but in reality, it's just sealing off most of the capabilities of that hyperboloid catapult system, weakening it, weakening it, and weakening it again.

Ultimately, it will reach a point where Rowan can be used normally.

Even so, Rowan's claw-like Pincer Limb moved several times faster, and combined with his enhanced dynamic capture system, he was sure to give the Mantis Shrimp a pleasant surprise if he encountered it again in the sea.