Doubts

Huo Gu repeatedly went over all its previous deductions and soon noticed several anomalies that did not quite make sense.

First, judging by the power the enemy had displayed in their earlier clashes, it should have been able to extend its power deep underground and scan the strata. That was how it had used lava to sever the supply lines between the rhizomes and the octahedron within the geological layers.

Because the situation had been urgent at the time, Huo Gu had not given this much thought. Now that it considered it carefully, a wave of dread rose within it.

This was a major oversight. If it had known from the beginning that the enemy could detect underground lifeforms, Huo Gu would never have implemented its current plan.

The current plan had been designed on the premise that the enemy possessed the power to affect the underground, but lacked the ability to detect it.

If it wanted to kill Huo Gu, why had it not gone all out from the very beginning?

This was the first thing that puzzled Huo Gu.

Even a lion used its full strength when hunting a rabbit. Even beasts that ate raw flesh and drank blood understood this principle—could the enemy not understand it?

Even if it had made such a basic mistake through a momentary lapse in judgment, why had it made the same mistake again beneath the sea?

Was the enemy brainless?

Clearly not. Otherwise, it would not have reduced Huo Gu to such a sorry state.

Of course, this could be explained by saying that the metal walls within the underground cavern blocked the enemy's ability to scan beneath the surface.

However, that explanation was somewhat forced. If the metal walls could block its underground detection, why would the enemy indifferently allow such a "blind spot" to exist within its own territory?

The massive underground cavern was no small thing. The underground space it occupied had already reached a scale that required the unit "hundred million" to measure.

For an enemy capable of using lava to carry out pinpoint strikes against rhizomes within the rock layers, there was absolutely no way it could have failed to notice it.

Its continued existence could be explained if the enemy had been unable to affect the underground. But the crucial point was that the enemy clearly possessed that ability, and its flexibility, precision, and destructive power were all extraordinary. Moreover, the massive underground cavern was an antique from eight hundred million years ago, practically the sort that would collapse at the slightest touch.

Then came the second question: the question it had asked during their first contact, followed by its unprovoked attack.

If it had been hostile from the start, there would have been no reason for it to ask that question. In other words, it had only become hostile after asking it...

"No. Before it asked that question, I was already attacked by tornado columns and lightning."

"In other words, it was hostile toward all intelligent life from the very beginning..."

"That doesn't seem right either. I never replied to that thing from the start, so why was it certain that I was an intelligent lifeform and treated me differently from other microorganisms?"

"In other words, that thing wasn't hostile toward intelligent life. It was simply filled with hostility toward 'me.'"

"Why did it harbor such immense hostility toward 'me'? Did I inadvertently do something that made it so furious?"

After searching through its memories for a while, Huo Gu failed to find even the slightest useful information that could explain this question. This was another unsolvable problem, one that required asking the other party directly.

The third question was something Huo Gu had only just noticed, and it concerned the octahedron.

Judging from its behavior, the octahedron's existence seemed to severely provoke the unknown enemy. At first, Huo Gu had assumed that the enemy was hiding in the planet's outer space, and such a reaction would have been perfectly reasonable.

But now, the truth was that the enemy was not outside the planet. That made its reaction highly suspicious.

If the enemy's terrifying attacks on the octahedron were explained by the fact that it was a cell cluster under Huo Gu's control, then comparing this matter with another would make that explanation very difficult to sustain.

Launching shells created a tremendous commotion, because Huo Gu needed to produce an explosion powerful enough to give the shells an initial velocity sufficient to escape the planet's gravity.

The shockwaves produced by the explosions could be felt even hundreds of miles away, along with faint vibrations and a subtle humming sound.

The powerful thrust that had propelled the shells had come from nuclear explosions. It was middle school knowledge, yet it was also the point Huo Gu remembered most clearly.

Excavate a cavity underground and attach dozens of layers of explosive charges around its perimeter—whatever worked, as long as it could provide a conventional explosion.

Then place metallic uranium in the very center. If the cavity was large enough and there were enough conventional explosives, the purity did not necessarily have to be very high. Ten or fifteen percent could also serve as nuclear fuel.

However, the amount of metallic uranium determined the power of the nuclear blast. If its purity was too low, the explosive power could very likely be reduced.

When the metallic uranium was subjected to simultaneous conventional explosions, it would immediately exceed critical mass and release the terrifying power contained within matter—nuclear fission.

The other two explosions had also been nuclear blasts, though they had differed somewhat from the first in method.

This behavior of releasing nuclear explosions consecutively at intervals should have drawn particular attention. Yet the reality was precisely the opposite.

After the shells escaped the planet's gravity, the enemy's attention remained focused on the octahedron. It completely ignored the huge commotion caused by Huo Gu's nuclear explosions elsewhere. There were no tornado columns, not even a single bolt of lightning. That was very suspicious.

It seemed incomprehensible, but viewed another way, it could be easily explained.

"Could it be understood that, compared to nuclear explosions, the octahedron posed a greater threat to the enemy, so it had to be eliminated first?"

"After that, the enemy did more to destroy the rhizome system. It still did not investigate the source of the explosions. Either it knew very clearly what was exploding, understood the principle from the outset, and knew the place had already been abandoned, making an investigation meaningless."

"Or it knew that, compared with the octahedron and the rhizome system, that thing posed such a pitifully small threat to it..."

Huo Gu felt as though it was about to touch upon the enemy's true nature.

But something in the universe interrupted Huo Gu's deductions, pulling it from its thoughts back into reality.

The cell cluster in the planet's low orbit had never stopped collecting electromagnetic waves from its surroundings. At this moment, while the enemy on the planet was dismantling the rhizome system, ultraviolet and infrared radiation at a certain location both showed a clear increase.

Huo Gu immediately adjusted its viewing range and caught sight of the source emitting the electromagnetic waves. It was a comet!