Ou Zhanpeng stared blankly. "What is this thing?"
Ling Xiao's eyes widened, and he snapped back to attention. "You think I'm a search engine? I just learned a bit these past few days... It's definitely a whale."
Blindly accepting hearsay, that's what Ling Xiao was like. He could talk a bit about global affairs, but he couldn't name some strange sea creature.
Ou Zhanpeng rolled his eyes. "I know it's a whale, but blue whales are only about thirty meters long, right? This one is at least seventy, if not a hundred. What kind of whale is it?"
He knew the difference between a whale and a fish, but the problem was this giant whale was at least a third the length of the behemoth ship. What kind of whale had such a massive size?
"It must be another alien species creation!" Ling Xiao said.
Ou Zhanpeng thought the same, but what unspeakable purpose did the alien species have for creating such a colossal whale?
A beach landing was immediately crossed off the list. Although whales are mammals, their prolonged life in the water had re-adapted them to the marine environment. Their fragile bones could not support their immense bodies, and even with eight legs, they wouldn't be able to come ashore.
So, was it meant to deal with ships at sea?
But the giant whale, while circling the behemoth ship, showed no intention of harming it. After devouring the giant squids scattered around the ship, it suddenly spouted a column of water from its head and then happily dived into the sea, disappearing without a trace.
With such a gentle disposition, it didn't seem like a creature created by an alien species at all.
The whale swam away, the spaceship flew off, leaving only the lone behemoth ship drifting on the sea.
However, everyone's minds were still on the giant whale. They immediately lowered their heads and tapped their personal terminals, searching for relevant information online.
"Hey, it's even a网红!" Xu Qing exclaimed in surprise.
"What?" Ling Xiao doubted if his ears were working correctly. How was a giant whale related to a网红?
Xu Qing displayed her personal terminal. The screen clearly showed a line of text: Titan Whale!
"That's quite a fitting name!" Ou Zhanpeng said.
With a length of sixty to seventy meters, it was almost as long as a small destroyer. Calling it that was indeed fitting.
"There's more!" Xu Zhen swiped his terminal, and the screen successively displayed many mutated creatures: a giant snail the size of a washbasin, a sea cucumber over a meter long, a abalone as big as a tabletop, and starfish of the same size.
Ling Xiao almost drooled. "So much delicious food?"
"You only think about food!" Xu Qing glared at him, annoyed. "Many giant creatures have been discovered in the past two years, mostly crustaceans and mollusks. There are also fish and mammals, but they are very rare... There's also a theory that in the past two years, the crustacean populations in the ocean have experienced explosive growth, becoming the dominant species. Many other types of creatures are suppressed by crustaceans, especially fish, which have now become a vulnerable group urgently needing protection... What is all this nonsense?"
At a time like this, humanity's most important task was to fight the alien species, and yet there were people who jumped out and caused trouble without considering the priorities?
"What's that to you?" Ling Xiao also displayed his personal terminal. "There's a theory here that if this continues, the marine ecosystem will regress four to five hundred million years, becoming the dominion of giant invertebrates. This isn't just turning back history, it's turning back biological evolution... Damn, are these people just bored?"
"I have good news!" Xu Qing flipped to a webpage with a very fresh style. "It says the gigantism only occurs in marine life; terrestrial and freshwater creatures are unaffected."
"Don't we already know that?" Ou Zhanpeng finally seized an opportunity to speak. "This isn't natural evolution causing gigantism, it's deliberately done by the alien species. I think it's highly likely that the alien species isn't familiar with Earth's creatures and doesn't know which ones are aggressive, so they just tried it on all the creatures they could find!"
"So, that whale happened to be gentle by nature, lacking the genes for aggression, which is why there are only a few giant whales in the sea, is that what you mean?" Ling Xiao said.
"Exactly!" Ou Zhanpeng replied.
Ou Zhanpeng actually thought having more giant whales wasn't a bad thing. Imagine this: a swarm of giant squids surrounding a behemoth ship, about to launch an attack, and a group of giant whales arrives, surrounding the giant squids in turn. A fierce confrontation unfolds in the sea, the giant whales devour the giant squids, and then swim away contentedly to find their next target.
The behemoth ship remained safe, the giant whales got food, and even the coast would become safer with the presence of the giant whales. It seemed the only ones to lose out were the怪海 (guài hǎi - strange sea creatures), a non-natural population.
Xu Qing suddenly felt that these two had remarkable chemistry, and with them, she felt like the odd one out.
She quickly shook off her stray thoughts and voiced her opinion: "Perhaps it's because the giant whales eat the giant squids that the alien species had to abandon the giant whales."
The number of giant squids one whale could consume was limited. If they created a whole pod of giant whales, the alien species' giant squids would have nothing to do but become food for the giant whales, and even then, it might not be enough.
The three of them were engrossed in their lively discussion when Ou Zhanpeng suddenly noticed a small island appearing in front of them.
The island itself wasn't strange, but the vegetation on it wasn't the usual green. Instead, it displayed an extremely eerie blue-purple hue.
"What is this?" Ou Zhanpeng's first thought was that the island had been contaminated by some chemical agent.
His voice was not quiet, causing many people to look over. Upon seeing the condition of the island, they also exclaimed in surprise.
Xu Qing didn't chime in and immediately went online to search for answers.
"What else could it be, alien species, of course," Ling Xiao glanced at it, his tone filled with helplessness. "I heard that these islands are all occupied by the怪海. At first, everyone thought the alien species were going to land, but later discovered that wasn't the case at all. They were just sending alien plants ashore to encroach on the living space of native species. Now, several islands along the equator have fallen into the hands of the alien species, and they are covered with strange alien plants."
Ou Zhanpeng's mind struggled to keep up. "An island, just left like that, letting the alien species ruin it?"
Ling Xiao shrugged. "This is Monkey's territory. Do you think they have the ability to solve the problem?"
Although he used a serious tone with evidence, everyone heard a hint of schadenfreude in his words.
Ou Zhanpeng understood immediately. Monkeys were known to bully the weak and fear the strong, excel at infighting but not external conflict. Lazy and greedy, they loved to gain without effort and were notorious opportunists, considered utterly useless. Expecting a group of monkeys to resist alien species was like expecting a sow to climb a tree!