If it truly has no natural predators, then it should cover the entire rift valley region, and even if the ambient temperature is different near the rift valley entrance, it should still develop adapted subspecies.
Wen Jing has been eating here for half a day now, but has not found any other natural enemies of the bryophyte colony, nor has he seen any variant subspecies.
That actually indicates a bad situation...
Suddenly, the insect sensed something, paused, and stopped eating.
There has always been a strong airflow rising from the bottom of this wind-eroded rift valley, which has even formed a large number of Wind Blade that are deadly to ordinary Wilderness Beast, but this has not changed at all as Wen Jing devours the moss.
At that moment, she keenly noticed that the wind was weaker than before.
Soon, the weakening became more and more obvious. In just a few dozen seconds, the previously chaotic yet orderly airflow channel fell into a state of impending chaos.
Wen Jing did not choose to leave, but instead pressed himself against the stone wall, his eyes fixed on the bottomless abyss below.
"Boom... Boom!!"
The increasingly loud noises and vibrations were comparable to a volcanic eruption, but the temperature dropped instead of rising, clearly indicating that it was not a volcanic eruption.
Instead, something enormous was moving Extreme Speed upwards from below.
The insect's antennae twitched uncontrollably, a primal instinct sending it continuous warnings of danger.
Having passed through its weakest period, it had been a long time since any Wilderness Beast had elicited such an instinctive reaction from Wen Jing.
Of course, the Stellar Beast are on another level; if it weren't for the special nature of the Tactical Glasses, she wouldn't even be able to detect them.
The colossal object drew ever closer, and finally, a red light appeared in Wen Jing's otherwise pitch-black vision.
At the same time, a string of gold and purple entries appeared, along with mysterious question marks that were impossible to decipher.
[ Stellar Furnace ]/[ Cold Nuclear Fusion ]/[ Giant ]/[ Thick Armor ]/[???]...
"Whoosh!"
The moment the entry flashed by, a dark red light illuminated the surrounding dark space.
Driven by strong winds, it accelerated its way forward and arrived at the underground behemoth.
"Splash..."
Its elongated body, estimated to be over 100 meters long, stretched out freely in the wind. The surrounding Wind Blade did not damage its outer shell at all, but only polished it smooth and shiny.
At the same time, a specialized mouthpart, tens of meters wide and resembling a row of sharp teeth, swept past the spot where Wen Jing had been moments before, taking away all the remaining bryophyte swarms.
A sonic boom echoed in the howling wind, barely perceptible.
The little insect unleashed its full power in an instant, using a Extreme Speed of Wind Blade to teleport almost instantly to a stone wall dozens of meters away, where it remained motionless, its energy completely gone, entering a state of complete invisibility.
"It's at the level where you can sense the gaze of Tactical Glasses..."
Wen Jing's size made it impossible for him to see the creature in front of him in its entirety. He relied on fragments of its form within his field of vision, as well as his sense of energy and mass, to piece together the creature's complete shape in his mind.
This is a Giant insectoid beast.
It resembles a centipede in shape, but its body structure is more robust and sturdy. Its huge head is covered with a thick shell, and its body is also made up of segments of carapace. At the joints of each segment of carapace are pairs of giant, blade-like abdominal legs.
Meanwhile, along the other's long spine, there grew a row of translucent biocrystalline tubes with dark red light flowing inside.
The red light illuminating the surroundings is emanating from this row of distinctive crystal tubes.
After the initial attack, perhaps because it no longer targeted Wen Jing, or perhaps because it thought it had already killed her, the giant worm paused briefly before resuming its activity.
"Splash..."
Wen Jing, who had been observing all this from a hidden spot, finally understood what the top of the food chain of the bryozoan swarm was.
The giant insect's comb-like mouthparts scraped across the stone wall, harvesting moss.
Given its size, the efficiency compared to Wen Jing is like the difference between harvesting in the agricultural era and modern large-scale harvesting.
What made Wen Jing grit her teeth even more was that this guy had no sense of sustainable development at all. Wherever he went, the fluorescent light spread, and the moss swarm along with the hard stone wall below disappeared.
I should have known better than to keep her!
However, Wen Jing knew that he couldn't confront such a terrifying creature head-on right now; it would be good enough if he could remain undetected by using stealth.
After wandering around and scraping away all the moss in the area, the giant worm did not return to the depths, but continued upwards without stopping.
"As expected, this swarm of bryozoans is not its primary food source."
Such a behemoth could hardly be satisfied with just a little moss, which is 'microorganism' to it. Wen Jing hadn't forgotten the entry he'd seen.
While in stealth mode, she drifted with the wind alongside the giant insect for a while. From a distance, she could see it break through the ground and emerge from a crevice in the valley.
"Boom..."
The giant insect's body thrashed about at the mouth of the rift, but it did not leave the area. Large amounts of white mist emanated from its body, only to be dispersed by the strong winds below.
A good half hour passed, until the dark red crystal tube on its back turned bright orange. The giant insect twisted its body again and, carrying Scorching Heat heat, crashed into the bottomless underground.
Only when the light and flames carried by the terrifying giant insect completely disappeared did Wen Jing, who had witnessed the entire Wen Jing, finally breathe a sigh of relief and emerge from his invisibility.
"It turns out that such terrifying creatures lurk underground. Unlike ordinary small Wilderness Beast on the surface, which can only evolve adaptive traits like ' Drought Resistance ' due to Scorching Thirst Contamination, this creature can now absorb the power of Stellar Beast to strengthen itself."
Wen Jing evoked both emotion and longing.
In retrospect, it seems that the entire chasm canyon was caused by the other party.
Its habit of coming to the surface to absorb heat is somewhat similar to that of a whale breathing, but we don't know how deep underground it actually lives.
Excluding the Stellar Beast whose true forms were never even visible, the giant insect before her was definitely the strongest Ancient Wilderness she had ever encountered.
It's rare for Wen Jing to be able to enter stealth mode and evade enemies these days, especially since the opponent is also an insect.
Remembering the [ Gigantification ] attribute she obtained from the Empowerment Stone, which only allowed her to grow to the size of a washbasin... she couldn't help but shake her head.
Small has its advantages, and big has its strengths, but big has to be big enough to be effective.
Just as the light carried by the giant insect completely disappeared, darkness returned, and everything calmed down.
Wen Jing suddenly noticed that the stone wall that had been scraped by the giant insect was now shimmering with a thin layer of light.
"Huh?"
Confirming it wasn't an optical illusion, the small insect quickly approached and discovered that the texture of the stone wall scraped by the giant insect seemed to have changed.
Moreover, as she approached, she also simultaneously detected the unique energy aura contained within it.
This smells like treasure!
Chapter 116
The insect approached the stone wall, studying the residue on it.
The stone wall scraped by the giant worm's mouthparts was not uneven, but rather perfectly smooth.
Before getting close, Wen Jing subconsciously thought that the swarm of bryozoans was produced by some kind of biological enzyme in the saliva left by the giant insect.
However, upon closer examination, it was discovered that the remains of a creature possessing attributes such as "[ Stellar Furnace ]" and "[ Cold Nuclear Fusion ]" were clearly extraordinary.
"Melting? No, it's not caused by high temperatures, but rather... extremely low temperatures."
Compared to the interference of thermal deformation, cutting at low temperatures can produce a neater cross-section, as seen in the stone wall before us.
The only residue left on it was a faint fluorescent layer.
Upon closer inspection, the fluorescence appears to be powder sprinkled on top, unevenly distributed, and rapidly fading.
"It looks like it's already at the molecular level... I didn't expect the giant worm to be such a '..."
Farming
party'."
The previous bryozoan colony clearly grew in this way.
Each time the giant insect goes to the Earth's surface to absorb the energy of the stars, it also eats up the moss fields that grow there. These residues then catalyze the creation of new fields, which it then harvests.
So, it turns out that Wen Jing actually beat them to it and stole the giant insect's food this time.
She stretched out her upper foot and scraped it against the surface, finding it smooth and hard.
Only after applying serious force, producing a teeth-grinding scraping sound, was a layer of special substance mixed with gravel finally scraped off.
Staring at the stone powder, Wen Jing paused subtly. "Could this be considered the saliva of a giant insect?"
But thinking about it, bird's nest is made from swallows' saliva. How can we eat bird's saliva but not insect's saliva?
She's an insect now, so she can't engage in this kind of species discrimination!
Wen Jing put a little powder into his mouth...
"Ugh!"
However, the next moment, Wen Jing's mouth opened and closed violently.
"It's... Digestion!"
Although he didn't specifically evolve his mineral Digestion, this was the first time Wen Jing had encountered such a situation after acquiring the [ Advanced Rapid Digestion ] trait, which allowed him to eat anything that 'melted in his mouth'.
This never happened before, whether it was eating surface gravel or the crystal armor of the Bulbasaur.
Is it because the giant insect is exceptionally powerful, powerful enough to belong to a different level of being...?
Looking at the abyss where the giant worm had disappeared, Wen Jing couldn't help but sigh.
Next, she stopped eating and instead searched the area for this special 'cold ash', intending to take it back to the academy for research.
Although this substance contains abundant energy, Wen Jing's current Digestion rate is insufficient, and it's unnecessary to expend Skill Points specifically for this residue.
It's better to wait until it grows into a bryozoan colony before eating it; it won't lose much energy and will also replenish its water content.
*
Carrying the newly collected cold ash and crystals, Wen Jing went to the research institute.
Upon seeing Xie Ming, his eyes lit up. "You've finally arrived! Come, come, the testing equipment is all ready."
Because of the previous blunder involving the bronze shard, Dean Bai specifically instructed Wen Jing to have the Wilderness Weapon Wen Jing obtained from the Secret Treasure Gate tested again by Xie Ming for added security.