4.6 Billion Year Symphony of Evolution Chapter 13

Recap from last chapter: Lin started his fight against the crystal microbes and ran into a sticky substance which hampered its troops.

Chapter Thirteen Explode!

When the diggers which were accompanied by cnidocytes neared, the crystal microbe seemed to detect danger. They started to a.s.semble around the large crystal microbes. At the same time, a portion of them charged towards the diggers.

About three hundred crystal microbes swam over. Lin immediately had the diggers move back and only a few dozen go forward to face the enemy

Because the cnidocytes would attack automatically when the enemy came near, Lin could not have all of them in battle at the same time. It would be a waste to use them all at once.

The diggers which had cnidocytes swam towards the crystal microbes. When the cnidocytes detected that the enemy was coming closer, it would immediately shoot. Large numbers of crystal microbes sank before they even had the time to react.

However, they were not able to be killed in one wave. About a few dozen of the three hundred or so crystal microbes had survived. They did not continue to charge. They stayed where they were nervously and shook.

Lin knew that they were calling their fellows.

As expected, all of the group that were protecting the large crystal microbes charged in Lin’s direction. Lin could not kill all the thousands of microbes, and Lin would not try to do that.

Lin first had the diggers whose cnidocytes had already shot out their thorns to charge. The other two hundred were being directed to take another path before the first group were all killed.

Right now, those large crystal microbes were completely undefended.

But Lin made a mistake. When the diggers tried to move around the group, the cnidocyte on one of the diggers shot a crystal microbe. This caused a chain reaction. All of the crystal microbes started to charge towards the group that had been trying for a sneak attack.

Retreat!

Lin immediately had the group scatter but it was too late. The crystal microbes were just slightly faster at swimming than the diggers. Because of the large number of crystal microbes that came close, the majority of the cnidocytes on the diggers had attacked and were now depleted.

In the end, there were only 23 diggers that were further away who still had cnidoctyes with stings.

Was it a mistake?

Lin only had one eye and could not see more of the situation. It was hard to avoid making a mistake in estimating the distance. Lin had not correctly calculated how far the cells had to be so that the stingers of the cell would not be activated.

Lin needed an increase in its perception ability.

But it first had to finish this fight!

On the battlefield, there were only three thousand left of the diggers that had numbered more than seven thousand. There wasn’t even one of the cone-shaped cells left.

Even if Lin lost, Lin would not go extinct, but that meant that Lin had to start over again. This fight was about the future of Lin’s cell group!

The remaining twenty three diggers did not stop and continued to charge at the enormous crystal microbes that were exuding sticky fluid. This time, Lin could feel that it was about to win … …

Go near, and then shoot!

The poison stinger thrust into the body of a giant crystal bacterium. It immediately started to twist in pain but still appeared to be far from death. Only when Lin’s digger had shot all five stingers into the microbe did the enormous body of the crystal microbe lose all signs of life and sink down.

It seemed that because of the size of the body, the effect of the poison stingers was not high.

On the other side, the crystal microbes swarm had almost killed all of the diggers that had used up all of their stingers. But when the enormous crystal microbes were attacked, they immediately hurried back to this side.

But Lin was even faster. The few diggers once again charged towards the next giant crystal microbe. Five poison stingers were shot out and this crystal microbe fell.

It was the same for the next four. Because the large crystal microbes were too slow, Lin could easily kill them before the crystal microbes arrived.

Lin had the diggers who still had stinger cells remaining scatter. It did not want all of these stinger cells to die out. Now, it was time to return to the battlefield.

The state of the battlefield was not good. Even though the enormous crystal microbes had all died, large amounts of the sticky fluid they had secreted were still floating into the air. It was impossible to avoid being affected.

So the only way to end the battle was –the acid ejectors.

From the beginning, Lin had not allowed the acid ejectors to partic.i.p.ate in battle because Lin had been afraid that the enemy would acquire immunity to the dissolving fluid. It would be best to use the acid ejectors as the last attack.

But Lin had miscalculated. Lin felt that it would have been more effective to have the acid ejectors attack the giant crystal microbes rather than the stinger cells.

Whatever.

There were 2977 diggers remaining on the battlefield. The great majority of them were affected by the sticky substance. Also, there were more than seven thousand crystal microbes.

If Lin continued to fight, it would definitely lose. The crystal microbes could easily kill the diggers that were affected by the sticky substance.

But Lin had the acid ejectors prepare a special gift for them.

Lin started to direct special cells to enter the battlefield. This was something that Lin had started to prepare after discovering the sticky substance. This type of cell had enormous bodies about five times the size of Lin’s basic cells. They had been altered from cachers but the substance they stored within their bodies was not fat and oil but dissolving fluid.

All of Lin’s cells had immunity towards the dissolving fluid. Of course, that had not been true at the start. They had gained immunity over time as Lin had the cells to come into contact or consume with the dissolving fluid of the acid ejectors.

Lin called these cachers that had consumed large amounts of dissolving fluid “Exploding b.a.l.l.s.”

Yes, the only use it had was … … explode!

Hundreds of the exploding b.a.l.l.s drifted into the battlefield. The crystal microbes that were fighting with the diggers saw these unwelcome guests and surrounded them to use the sharp spikes on their bodies to attack the exploding b.a.l.l.s.

The exploding b.a.l.l.s would open their membranes when they were attacked to take in great amounts of water and swell their bodies to their limit … ..

Then, they would turn into art!

What was art?

It wasn’t the first time a strange term appeared in Lin’s thoughts so it only wondered for a moment before disregarding it.

In any case, when the exploding ball exploded after swelling to the limit, the dissolving fluid within would be expelled and could immediately kill dozens of the crystal microbes that surrounded it.

If the acid ejectors were sent onto the battlefield, the openings they used to expel would possibly be sealed by the sticky substance. But the exploding b.a.l.l.s were not affected by any sticky substance and the flows of water produced by their explosion would wash away the sticky substance in their surroundings.

A large patch of crystal microbes would die after an attack by the exploding ball. Lin would wait for them to gather together again before detonating another explosion. Consequently, it could use the least amount of sacrifice in exchange for victory. There also wasn’t just one way that the exploding b.a.l.l.s could explode. When they were facing just a few crystal microbes, they could engulf the microbes and use the dissolving fluid inside their bodies to dissolve the microbes.

The exploding b.a.l.l.s that had originated as cachers had strong abilities to consume to start with.

When the crystal microbes were attacked by the exploding b.a.l.l.s, they started to lose. Even before the acid ejectors entered the battlefield, there were only approximately one thousand crystal microbes left on the field.

Even though there were not many exploding b.a.l.l.s left, it was alright.

Lin had thousands of acid ejectors that could easily destroy these crystal microbes. The following battle would not have any suspense.

What Lin was puzzled by was that all of the crystal microbes were fighting. Even until the last moment, they did not have any thoughts of running away

Of all the cells that Lin had killed before, regardless of the kind, they would run if the situation was not right. However, the crystal microbes were not like that. They did not run. Lin was very curious about that.

For what had they continued to fight?

But while Lin was curious, Lin still killed all of them. The corpses of numerous cells caused this section of water to turn turbid.

Lin had lost more than 70% of its cell group in this battle but did not regret it. Lin’s cachers and basic cells had reached the battlefield. They acted as cleaners and took back all of the resources.

Even if Lin did not calculate the new food crack it took over, just the corpses of these crystal microbes was enough for Lin to grow a cell group that was two times as large as the one before.

Translator Ramblings: Exploding cells full of corrosive chemical … …

More SEM images of diatoms. Picture taken by Dr. Paul Hargreaves and Faye Darling.

The video isn’t exactly the same explosion that occurs but still cool.