Chapter 382: Deeper Exploration
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
No one knew where the anomalies came from.
How they came into existence, their social structure, whether they had a “leader” or “brain,” and what their existence truly meant…
For people like Lu Ming, these questions remained unanswered.
At this moment, as the Whale Harvester arrived at the nest, a corner of the mysterious veil shrouding the anomalies began to lift.
The Whale Harvester slowly swam into the flesh-colored passageway.
This flesh-colored passageway was extremely spacious, and even with the whale form fully immersed, it did not feel crowded.
The wall on the side of the passageway was filled with layered folds, and tendrils emitting a faint blue glow gently swayed.
Fortunately, there were no defenses or detection methods here. Everyone was on tenterhooks, but they safely followed the Whale Harvester through the passageway and deeper into the nest.
The view suddenly opened up.
What greeted everyone’s eyes was a spacious and blurry dream space.
This space was enormous, roughly more than half the size of the nest, with dozens of Whale Harvesters swimming inside.
The anomalies here were only of the Whale Harvester variety. Apart from them, there was another type of creature that might or might not be considered an anomaly—a monster about ten meters long, resembling a tadpole.
The glow emanated from them.
The tadpoles also had sparkling blue tentacles on their bodies, adorning this expansive space.
As if sensing that a new Whale Harvester had entered this place, a large number of tadpoles wagged their tails and surrounded it. The Whale Harvester also stopped moving.
The densely packed ten-meter tadpoles around gave the Desolate Demon Lord goosebumps.
Just as he was about to attack, Lu Ming stopped him.
“Don’t move.”
This was because Lu Ming did not sense any danger from these tadpoles.
Lu Ming’s voice calmed the Desolate Demon Lord.
Upon careful perception, he also sensed that these tadpoles seemed to be indeed harmless.
The tadpoles climbed onto the whale form.
The scales on the whale form began to open.
A faint golden light flowed from the whale form, falling onto the little tadpoles, and was then swallowed and absorbed by their tendrils on the little tadpoles’ bodies.
Soon, the blue tendrils on the tadpoles transformed into a golden hue.
This scene confused the Desolate Demon Lord. It was Lu Ming who spoke uncertainly.
“Are they absorbing the Divine Source within the whale form?”
After a closer look, Lu Ming finally confirmed, “Yes, they’re absorbing the Divine Source within the Whale Harvester.”
The most significant characteristic of the Anomalies were their absorption of Source Power and the Divine Source (Spiritual Energy).
However, no one knew why the anomalies consumed source power and spiritual energy, and where the consumed source power and spiritual energy went.
At this moment, the interaction between the whale form and the tadpoles seemed to explain the answer to this question.
The whale form was equivalent to a transport ship.
It, along with other anomalies, consumed spiritual energy and source power in the outside world and then gathered it within its body. On the other hand, the whale-type transport ship would return to its nest after collecting enough source power and spiritual qi, depositing its harvest to these tadpoles.
“It’s like a transportation chain… The whale form is just one of the links.”
“And the next link after the whale form is these tadpoles.”
It could be clearly seen that the well-fed tadpoles left, distancing themselves from the whale form.
The sparkling blue tendrils transformed into a golden color.
They seemed to be tired of eating and leisurely flew into the distance like they were on a stroll, not in a hurry.
As a batch of tadpoles ate their fill and left, more tadpoles swarmed in and attached themselves to the surface of the Whale-type—clearly, the Whale-type had an extraordinary reserve of source power…
The good news for Lu Ming and the others was that these little tadpoles had very poor perception abilities.
They seemed to be just a transportation tool and lacked the sensitivity to source power and spiritual energy that anomalies possessed.
—Like a group of pre-programmed robots.
This made the Desolate Demon Lord, who was clinging to the surface of the whale-type, to remain undetected even though he was squeezed and his face was distorted by the tadpoles….
Not until a full hour later, while the interaction between the tadpoles and the Whale-type continued, did Lu Ming speak again.
“Catch a tadpole and follow it to see where it goes.”
Desolate immediately did as he was told.
Releasing the scales of the Whale-type from his grasp, the Desolate Demon Lord, as if riding a horse, mounted one of the tadpoles.
The tadpole’s body sank slightly, but it seemed oblivious to anything, continuing with its own activities.
It was not until it was full that it carried the Desolate Demon Lord, wagging its tail, and flew downward.
The tadpoles were not fast and swam very slowly.
However, it also gave Lu Ming and the others more time to inspect the space inside the nest.
On the outer walls, openings occasionally cracked open, and Whale-forms entered and exited.
Those coming in were Whale-forms returning laden with source power, and those going out were Whale-forms that had unloaded their cargo.
“This place is like a factory…”
Jiu Han muttered, making an analogy, but Bai Zhe immediately shook his head,
“Not a factory. It’s more like a transportation hub.”
Bai Zhe’s analogy was more fitting.
The Desolate Demon Lord also spoke, “In short, everything here gives me this feeling of programming and industrialization.”
That was indeed the case.
It was like a smart factory.
Or perhaps an ant nest.
The monsters were soldier ants that went out to fight and hunt, while these tadpoles were the worker ants doing laborious tasks.
Lu Ming suddenly spoke, “You’re all right.”
“So I want to see what the ant queen of these anomalies is.”
“And what is the purpose of the source power they swallow and where it goes.” Desolate said, “But the road ahead is long, and there might be unknown risks.” Lu Ming responded with a wry smile, “With everything as it is, why worry about risks or no risks?”
Desolate was immediately speechless.
From the beginning, they were not actively exploring the Dead Sea.
They entered the Dead Sea because they were being hunted by Vicky.
As for the matter of finding a passageway out of the Black Mist Zone in the Dead Sea…
Wasn’t they looking for it now?
Speaking of which, the Dead Sea outside the nest had no exploration value to begin with—it only had liquefied black mist and nothing else.
If there was really an escape channel in the Dead Sea, the interior of the nest would be a more valuable exploration target.
After riding the tadpoles for about two to three hours, the surrounding environment gradually changed.
A dense white light was flickering faintly from below. After riding the tadpole for another half hour, the white light finally revealed its true appearance.
There were many passageways that emitted the pure white light.
Desolate immediately exclaimed, “Spatial power. 1 sense dense spatial power!”
“This is a natural teleportation channel!”
After exclaiming, Desolate said excitedly, “Could this be the legendary escape passageway?!”
Lu Ming, on the other hand, remained calm.
“I have no idea.”
“But 1 have a vague feeling that it’s not.”
“Not only that, but 1 also have a bad premonition.”
With this mumbling, the next second brought a shocking change..