Chapter 17

What is this sympathy?

What exactly is this? Is this sympathy good or bad? It seems to be a feeling that occasionally surfaces when Lin wants to engage in killing.

But isn't it strange? Lin occasionally takes cells from its own colony to sacrifice or kill for experiments with viruses, but feels nothing when doing these things to its own cells. Why, then, does it feel something for cells that are not part of its own kind?

Could it be precisely because they are 'its own' that it feels nothing?

Lin doesn't understand. Currently, Lin can only determine that this sympathy will prevent it from continuing to grow and expand its colony.

So Lin should not follow it.

Lin named the group of glowing cells "Light Bacteria," and then decided to attack them.

Lin made the colony disperse and attack the surrounding Light Bacteria. Although the Light Bacteria had no resistance, their swimming speed was quite fast, and none of Lin's cells could catch up to them.

Therefore, Lin began to use some encircling tactics, driving the Light Bacteria into the corners. After all, this is a cave, and there will always be an end.

Soon, Lin successfully drove the majority of the Light Bacteria to the end of the cave. With no way to retreat, the Light Bacteria piled up together, forming a large glowing mass, and the light seemed to become much brighter, almost blinding Lin.

But this would not stop Lin from attacking them.

To deal with a large group of enemies, Lin summoned the most powerful group-killing cells—Blast Balls.

These large cells, filled with lethal dissolving liquid and ready to self-destruct at any time, can easily destroy large-scale enemies. Although many of these slow-moving cells were washed away by the water, enough remained to kill all the Light Bacteria here.

Lin first sent dozens of Blast Balls forward, approaching the group of Light Bacteria piled up at the end of the cave. The Blast Balls did not stop after approaching the enemy; they wriggled their bodies to squeeze into the Light Bacteria group, then quickly absorbed water to expand their bodies, and—boom!

One Blast Ball exploded, releasing dissolving liquid that instantly dissolved hundreds of Light Bacteria into powder.

The Blast Balls exploded one after another. Each explosion reduced the Light Bacteria group by a circle, and the overall light they emitted became dimmer.

Lin did not enjoy the slaughter, but it would not stop until the last Light Bacteria was reduced to powder.

However, something special happened during this process.

Some Blast Balls absorbed some Light Bacteria while expanding. After entering the Blast Balls, the Light Bacteria were quickly dissolved by the dissolving liquid, but the undecomposed remnants still remained inside the Blast Balls, and these remnants continued to emit a blue glow like the Light Bacteria themselves.

Some Blast Balls that had absorbed more Light Bacteria became as bright as the Light Bacteria themselves.

Truly unique, a new cell—Glowing Blast Ball—was thus born.

Very interesting.

Lin immediately changed its strategy, from directly using Blast Balls to explode the Light Bacteria to having the Blast Balls ingest the Light Bacteria. This strategy was also quite efficient because the large size of the Blast Balls meant they consumed as many Light Bacteria as they would have destroyed by exploding.

Regardless, Lin did not stop the slaughter of the Light Bacteria.

Until the last Light Bacteria in the corner of the cave was consumed.

The destruction of the Light Bacteria did not return the cave to darkness; their light was stored in the Blast Balls, and now these large explosive cells also had a lighting function.

However, Lin had only killed half of the Light Bacteria. The other half was still crowded at the other end of the cave. They seemed to sense the slaughter of their companions and became even more densely packed, their light becoming even brighter, giving Lin the illusion that they were a giant organism.

This made Lin curious. It thought these Light Bacteria would escape through the crack or evolve some ability to resist, but they did nothing, just waiting to die.

Lin would not stop.

The Blast Balls that had ingested the Light Bacteria had already evolved into Glowing Blast Balls, and Lin felt that this number was sufficient. So, it decided to simply kill the rest.

Whether by eating, exploding, or slicing, the fragments of the cells would be almost completely recycled by Lin, with no waste.

Lin's cell colony swam forward, approaching the last of the Light Bacteria hiding at the other end of the cave.

This time, Lin planned to use Diggers and Cone Cells to tear them apart.

The Light Bacteria seemed to sense the approaching danger and became agitated. Some of them made strange moves, swimming towards Lin's colony and directly using their fragile bodies to charge at the Diggers or Cone Cells, allowing themselves to be shredded by the saw-like structures.

What were they doing?

Lin was very puzzled, having never seen such suicidal behavior before.

Of course, the Light Bacteria would not explode like the Blast Balls; they would not release any toxic substances upon death. They were simply committing suicide.

Lin found that about 30% of the Light Bacteria charged forward to commit suicide, while the rest remained piled up.

Could it be that they were trying to save the group by sacrificing a few? Perhaps they thought that if Lin obtained enough food, it would stop the slaughter.

A very simple and understandable strategy... a very reasonable strategy... this was probably the only method in the absence of any defensive means.

But Lin's colony stopped moving... why?

The sympathy seemed to resurface in Lin's thoughts. Lin was puzzled, as it often did this and had already analyzed that it was a normal survival strategy...

But why did the 'sympathy' still appear?

Lin looked at the last group of Light Bacteria piled up in the corner and ultimately did not move forward.

Forget it.

Lin pushed them away, intending to let these Light Bacteria leave on their own. Although it could continue to kill them, Lin felt quite uncomfortable.

Lin did not think this was a good thing. It might have compromised now, but Lin believed it would eventually have to expel this 'sympathy.'

Lin now turned its attention to the white, soft food it had named White Paste.

They really stuck to the cave walls like a layer of paste, and they were everywhere, occupying more than 90% of the cave.

Occupying this place meant Lin would gain far more resources than outside.

Although it excited Lin, it also made Lin curious. Where did these White Paste come from? Why were they so abundantly stuck to the stone walls? Lin remembered encountering a huge piece of White Paste before, and if it hadn't been frozen, Lin might have developed there.

Lin found the White Paste increasingly strange and believed it would eventually figure out where they came from and what they were made of.

But for now, with its current capabilities, it needed to slowly grow stronger.

Lin dispersed its cells and began to collect food. It noticed that the group of Light Bacteria was still crowded in the corner, and it wondered when they would leave.

But Lin didn't care. The number of Light Bacteria was small, and although they were not noticeable when dispersed, they only occupied about 10% of the cave's area. Now that there were so few left, ignoring them would not affect Lin.

Lin began to consume all the food in the cave, replenishing the losses from the water outside.

Although the cave was very comfortable, Lin did not plan to stay there indefinitely.

Lin discovered a problem: when facing living organisms, whether viruses or other cells, it had a good chance of winning. But when facing non-living things—such as water currents or ice crystals—Lin's colony had almost no resistance.

Moreover, these events always came suddenly, causing Lin significant damage.

Lin needed to find a way to counter these sudden threats...

For the water currents outside, Lin had already come up with a plan.

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