The early warning from the Northern Base was succinct.
Pauli said, "They've discovered it too."
An Zhe looked outside.
The Highland Research Institute lay on the top of the highest mountain. Looking down, all of the Abyss was visible. The fault zone was like a hideous wound on the earth's pale gray skin, and the dense forests and bogs were the wound's blood, plasma, and pus. In the distance, the faraway east bank was the sea, or a huge lake. All in all, the end of it couldn't be seen, spread far beyond the horizon. During times of utter silence, whispers were mixed in with the sound of the wind, and the vast roar of the surf was faintly audible in the fog.
In short, it was like a monster silently entrenched on the ground.
This was not the Abyss that An Zhe was familiar with. He had realized this earlier as well. In the past, the Abyss was a place full of blood and pillaging. There had never been such a calm moment in it before.
A shadow appeared in the distant sky, and it became bigger and came closer before finally stopping in the sky above the white building.
With a whoosh, Tang Lan folded his wings and landed directly on the corridor outside. Then he pushed open the laboratory door.
"I've returned, sir." Then he turned to Rum. "Have there been any attacks recently?"
Rum said, "No."
Pauli Jones lifted his head and examined him from head to toe, seemingly confirming whether his condition was normal or not. If the person performing this action was Lu Feng, An Zhe would have thought that he was judging the person and deciding whether to shoot or spare them. But as Pauli's warm gray-blue eyes looked at Tang Lan, An Zhe was sure that this was only a case of a kindly elder showing concern over whether or not Tang Lan had gotten hurt outside.
As expected, Pauli asked, "Did you run into danger outside?"
"Yes, but I didn't get hurt," Tang Lan said. "I'm quite experienced when it comes to that place."
Pauli said, "You have always allowed me to rest assured."
Tang Lan smiled. His eyes were sharp and beautiful, with a faint biting chill to them. An Zhe remembered that Hubbard was the most exceptional military team leader, so his lieutenant was most certainly not an ordinary person either.
Pauli Jones asked, "How was it outside?"
"About the same as what you expected," Tang Lan replied. "They've reached equilibrium."
As he spoke, he pulled out a data cable from a drawer and connected the miniature camera that was in his hand to the computer. Up to a hundred photos were uploaded and tossed onto the big screen nearby.
At first glance, there was nothing in those pictures save for the indescribably strange scenes unique to the Abyss. It was like they were just landscape photos taken by novelty-seeking tourists. But upon closer look, they made people involuntarily hold their breaths.
The most eye-catching one was a photo of a massive lake that was taken from above. It had frozen over, the white ice having frozen the brown algae, floating remnants of limbs, and fallen leaves on the lake surface. However, beneath the vacant span of ice, a huge irregularly shaped shadow was visible—it was an aquatic organism's back, and it was quietly staying in the water, its shadow like an abstract painting.
Right on the shore of this lake, the jungle's withered branches were enveloped in giant clumps of dull red vines. The next photo was a close-up of a vine. Its exterior was smooth like an earthworm, and underneath its skin were star-shaped radial patterns. Crowded black blood vessels seemed to be pulsing. An Zhe immediately realized that this was no ordinary plant. All the vines in the entire jungle belonged to the same tentacle monster.
"I only took one photo here. It noticed me," Tang Lan said.
Pauli took the remote control and went through the photos one at a time.
"After three months of slaughter, the ones alive now are all large monsters, and the few remaining small creatures are nowhere to be seen," Tang Lan said. "I had a few fights with them. Sir, I'm certain that right now, out of everyone in the entire research institute, only my strength is enough to escape from them. But I'm completely unable to fight them head-on. Furthermore, the vast majority of the monsters in the Abyss are polymorphic-class, and I'm not sure exactly how terrifying they are right now."
"I understand." Pauli nodded slowly, a solemn expression in his gray-blue eyes. "Supposing genes are a type of resource, they've already finished consolidating what's in the Abyss. Now the monsters have reached an equilibrium of strength between themselves, and their intelligence has also greatly increased during the consolidation process. They understand that fighting may result in damage to both sides, threatening the whole. If this conjecture isn't wrong, there must be some monsters that have already started leaving the Abyss to hunt outside of it. Humans are certainly one of the targets of their hunts as well, but it's just that they haven't noticed for the time being. We must defend against the monsters' combined attacks at any given moment."
"It is indeed the case," Tang Lan said. "But there's one thing that differs from your conjecture."
Pauli asked, "Did you discover something?"
Controlling the computer, Tang Lan pulled up an image. It was difficult to imagine exactly how ugly this image was—by no means did An Zhe have a frame of reference for aesthetics, but he was certain this image could be described as "ugly" because it assaulted people's senses to the greatest possible extent. On the crowded surfaces of two mollusks grew all of the organs that the human language could describe and the ones that couldn't be described, and they had reached out with mucus-covered tentacles to interact with the other. In the next photo, their tentacles had separated, and in the photo after that, one of the two had gone off in another direction.