sinovels Chapter 354 Devouring the Forest
Chapter 354 Devouring the Forest
"Does it possess consciousness?"
Bruce stared at the line he had just written in his notebook, and remained there for a long while.
But then a mocking smile appeared on his face.
He was laughing at himself, laughing at how he could have come up with such an absurd idea.
A plant is a plant; no matter how much it mutates, it cannot develop consciousness.
At best, it can be considered a stress response, making these plants more sensitive.
For example, biological instincts such as phototropism and hydrotropism in plants. Perhaps this plant has a stronger tendency to react to radiation, so it looks like it is "sensory".
Thinking of this, he closed his notebook and took one last look at the sapling under the observation window.
The light from the patterns was steady and regular, without any abnormalities.
"Forget it, I should go and rest first. If I keep pushing myself like this, I'll probably break down sooner or later."
He rubbed his temples, turned off the recording equipment, turned around and walked out of the cultivation area, locking the door behind him.
From the moment he began cultivating this seed until now, he has taken no more than four hours of rest in total. Such intense work would be unbearable even for someone of iron.
Back in his room, Bruce collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep within three seconds.
……
At the same time.
Lin Fan was leaning against a wall outside the main building of the nuclear power plant, basking in the sun.
A rare day of leisure.
Bruce took care of the seeds, Miller oversaw the breeding area, and Helen was in charge of logistics. For the time being, he didn't need to interfere with the work here.
He simply stood there, spacing out for a while.
But I hadn't had a chance to relax for long.
Hurried footsteps came from afar, and Miller ran over with a walkie-talkie in hand, looking somewhat nervous.
"Mr. Lin!"
Lin Fan turned to look at him: "What's wrong?"
Miller ran up to him, catching his breath: "The matter you asked me to send people to scout north... has yielded results."
"Any results?"
Lin Fan stood up straight.
He did indeed have Miller arrange for several drones to conduct reconnaissance north of the nuclear power plant, mainly to understand the ecological conditions of the surrounding area.
Both Little Crow and Big Crow frequent that area, and he wanted to know what the situation was like there.
"Tell me the specifics."
Miller pulled out a tablet and handed it over, which displayed aerial footage taken by a drone.
"About 120 kilometers to the north, there is a very large primeval forest. This was discovered by our drone after flying over there..."
He traced a line on the screen with his finger.
Lin Fan looked down and his pupils contracted slightly.
The footage shows a vast forest area that has been almost completely destroyed.
It's not the kind of destruction that comes after a fire; it's physical.
Trees were felled in large numbers, some uprooted, some broken in half, leaving huge craters and drag marks on the ground.
The area of destruction in the entire region is roughly estimated to be several square kilometers.
"Based on trace analysis..."
Miller's voice trembled slightly, unable to contain his emotions. "The creature that caused this destruction was at least eighty to one hundred meters tall."
Lin Fan didn't say anything.
Miller swiped the screen again: "And that's not even the most crucial point."
As he spoke, he brought up another video.
This time it was a completely black area.
It wasn't the kind of shot that turned out to be black; the entire scene was just pitch black.
It's like a signal interruption.
"It's this area."
Our drones were completely unable to film this area.
"As soon as someone gets close to this area, all monitoring equipment malfunctions."
Miller pointed to the edge of the screen.
"I sent a total of four drones there. Two of them crashed right after approaching the area, and I manually recalled the remaining two."
Hearing this, Lin Fan was slightly surprised. He stared at the pure black area and remained silent for a few seconds.
"Have you discussed what was interfering with the drone's signal?"
"I don't know. Our equipment simply can't get close to that area."
Miller shook his head.
"Normally, only extremely strong electromagnetic interference could achieve this level of effect. But there are no known electromagnetic sources in that area..."
Upon hearing this answer, Lin Fan's brows immediately furrowed.
To the north, in the forest, there were traces of a giant creature locked in combat, nearly a hundred meters in size...
The first person he thought of was Xiao Wu.
Although Little Crow wasn't as exaggeratedly large as Big Crow, it was still a behemoth. In his previous memories, Little Crow's reminder completely corroborated this point.
But here is the problem.
Little Wu can't just do nothing and destroy the forest for fun, can it?
What was fighting with Xiao Wu?
Within his current knowledge, apart from Big U and his own Godzilla form, he has not seen any creature whose size can rival Little U.
If it's some kind of newly emerged mutated behemoth...
That would be a bit of an exaggeration.
Of course, there was another thing that concerned him even more, and that was the signal blind spot.
What can cause all electronic devices to malfunction when they get close?
Are the marks from the fight new or old?
"Judging from the recovery of the surrounding vegetation, it should be within three to five days."
Three to five days.
It's very new.
Lin Fan handed the tablet back to Miller: "Get a car ready, I'll go check it out this afternoon."
Miller paused for a moment: "You're going in person?"
"If I don't go, who will? You go?"
Miller opened his mouth, but in the end he could only manage an awkward smile.
Are you kidding me?
Let him go?
If something really happens, what's the difference between that and suicide?
"Then I'll arrange for someone to follow you—"
"Need not."
Lin Fan directly rejected it.
"The drones over there can't even get a signal. What's the difference between sending people there and sending them to their deaths? I can go myself."
Miller hesitated for two seconds, then nodded: "Then please be careful."
"Um."
Lin Fan turned and walked towards the garage.
"By the way, keep an eye on Bruce for me. Ask him about the saplings every four hours. Contact me via walkie-talkie if there are any changes."
"clear."
……
That afternoon, Lin Fan drove off alone in a pickup truck that he had salvaged from a nuclear power plant warehouse.
The car drove north along the broken road, with the city's outskirts, ravaged beyond recognition by the disaster, on both sides.
The streets were deserted, the buildings collapsed, and occasionally a few low-level mutated beasts could be seen wandering among the ruins.
As soon as the car drove by, these low-grade goods instinctively ran away into the distance.
It was as if they could sense that the people sitting in the car were not to be trifled with.
Lin Fan rested one hand on the steering wheel, and with the other hand, he took out a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and started smoking.
To be honest, these American cigarettes are really not that great; they smell like horse manure.
Oh well, I'll just have to make do with this draw.
The further north the car drove, the fewer traces of the city remained, replaced by vast stretches of wilderness and mutated vegetation.
An hour later, he had completely left the city area and entered a vast plain.
The weeds and low shrubs on the plains have all mutated, their colors are darker, and some leaves have strange patterns. But overall, they are still considered normal.
At least in this mutated land, it looks quite normal.
Half an hour later, trees began to appear on both sides of the road.
At first, there were only a few scattered trees, but they gradually grew denser. Soon, both sides of the road were surrounded by tall trees.
But at that moment, Lin Fan also noticed something.
That is, the color of the leaves on both sides is different from the mutant trees we usually see.
At first, it was a normal dark green, then it gradually turned yellow, then grayish-green... but the further you drove, the stranger the vegetation on both sides became.
The vegetation, which was originally green or dark green, turned into a very strange bluish-gray.
Seeing this, Lin Fan slowed down and carefully examined the vegetation on both sides.
The leaves were bluish-gray, the bark was bluish-gray, and even the weeds on the ground were this color.
This color...
It gave him a strange sense of familiarity...