Chapter 1279 The Seed

The *Jugui Yantai*号 slowed down, circling slowly above the lunar ruins, scanning every detail of the city as it approached the amber-red "earth." According to data from the remote sensing equipment, the red substance was indeed similar in composition to the Blood Lake of Beinz.

The entire red area was extremely vast, roughly estimated to be over six million square kilometers, forming an irregular oval shape. The original Blood Lake of Beinz was insignificant compared to this area. At the edge of the red zone, a large number of corroded and melted ruins could be seen. The twisted state of these ruins was even more severe than in other places, obviously the result of prolonged contact with the red substance. And at the junction of the red substance and the surrounding ruins, the most striking things were undoubtedly the tentacles.

The spacecraft landed in a slightly flatter area on the edge of the red zone. Hao Ren had everyone put on their life-support collars before leading several autonomous robots out of the ship.

Nangong Sanba bounced around excitedly on the spot. "So this is what it feels like to land on the moon… it's really light and floaty."

"The gravity here is actually greater than the gravity of the moon back home," Hao Ren casually said, then looked up at Lily. "Lend me your *Huozhi Gaoxing* (Flame of Joy)."

Lily floated over, conjuring her claws while muttering, "Actually, I wanted to rename it the Sword of Damocles…"

Vivian and Hao Ren glared at her together. "Don't you dare!"

Lily let out two mournful *awoo* sounds in her throat, then ran off to the side with her tail between her legs, looking dejected.

Hao Ren carefully carried the still-warm *Huozhi Gaoxing*, cautiously crossing the boundary between the two areas, stepping onto the frozen red lake. He scratched the ice layer with his claws, collecting some ice shavings and melted liquid. The properties of this stuff were almost identical to water. He didn't know why the "source blood" would degenerate into this form after completing its mission of destroying the world and creating life.

Then he returned the claws to Lily, came to the tentacles by the lake, and found that these tentacles were shriveled and withered, and had indeed been dead for a long time. Moreover, these tentacles were different from those he had seen on the surface: they were thinner, the patterns on their surfaces were more regular, and they had a strong metallic feel. It seemed that they were another part of the First Born's body… or perhaps another type of functional clone.

The data terminal flew around, observing the surrounding situation while speculating about the scene after the lunar apocalypse. "The ancient people's lunar ecosystem may have been entirely maintained by human effort, so after the city died, the atmosphere and temperature control were all gone. When the blood tide contracted to this area, it became a large sheet of ice. These tentacles should be the last batch to grow out of the blood tide. After that, the lunar environment was no longer suitable for life, so no new tentacles grew out—the result is that they are all concentrated at the edge of the blood tide."

"Take a look at the bottom of the lake." Hao Ren lowered his head and pointed to the red ice surface. With everyone's extraordinary vision, they could vaguely see some shadows of wreckage under the thick ice layer—the human relics and building foundations that had been almost completely decomposed by the blood tide. Originally, they should have been completely dissolved while immersed in this red liquid, but the unusually rapid loss of temperature caused by the shutdown of the lunar temperature control device caused the blood tide to terminate prematurely and turn into red water, and those half-decomposed remains were frozen.

These phenomena could not be seen on other ecological planets. Only the special artificial environment of the lunar city preserved these valuable research materials.

As soon as the data terminal saw this situation, it excitedly started hitting the ice surface. "Hey! This is a good thing! Things that have been half-decomposed by the blood tide—we can see what the decomposition process is like!"

Hao Ren glanced sideways at the data terminal going crazy, the latter already spinning rapidly on the ice surface like a drill, trying to drill a hole. "Do you know you're a PDA? I've got three autonomous robots with me!"

The data terminal realized this, quickly floated back into the air, and issued an order in an imposing tone, "Then let the autonomous robots start drilling."

While the autonomous robots were drilling holes in the ice, Hao Ren glanced at the data terminal. "Download less Korean dramas in the future, or your CPU will rot, you know?"

The data terminal was still furious. "You think I want to! Your dog likes to watch Korean dramas, the bat wants to watch cooking shows, the siren likes to watch animal documentaries, and your fish daughter wants to watch *Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf*! There are seven or eight TVs in the house and nobody watches them, but every night at seven-thirty I have to put on *The Big Bang Theory* on the coffee table because you guys like the 3D! And after it's over, you start playing *DotA*, playing *DotA*! I'm an X-880 series thinking core, a fully intelligent AI, with a three-meter-wide high-definition holographic projection and a minimum network speed of 1PB, and you use me to play *DotA*, and you can only beat the easy computer! My memory is filled with your whole family's goofiness, and you still complain about my brain being waterlogged—and speaking of waterlogged, who's the one who puts me in a bear-child fish's fishbowl every night?"

Hao Ren was stunned and couldn't interrupt. "…"

The people around him also turned their faces away, pretending they didn't know anything, and busily continued to do their jobs—or what they could pretend was their job, like Lily, who went around digging up rocks.

Vivian watched the autonomous robots cutting samples and drilling in the ice, and felt that she should also play her usual reconnaissance role, so she casually summoned a large group of bats. "I'll go check the nearby tentacles…"

But before she could finish speaking, the little bats fell to the ground with a thud, giving the impression that a bat rain had suddenly fallen around Vivian. In the blink of an eye, there was a group of little guys flapping around on the ground. Vivian was still stunned, but Hao Ren was already covering his face, laughing and crying. "This is the second time—it's a vacuum here, your bats can't fly, okay?"

Hao Ren felt that it was not easy for this team of his to have made it this far.

While he was feeling emotional, Nangong Sanba's voice suddenly came from the communicator. "Hey, can you hear me—well, I found something here, I don't know if you guys are interested?"

Hao Ren didn't expect that the first one to discover something would be that half-baked demon hunter, so he quickly led the others over. He saw Nangong Sanba standing on a large rock, pointing to the edge of the red ice. "There's something frozen under there that looks like a seed—a super-sized seed."

Hao Ren looked and found that there was indeed an oval object diagonally inserted into the thinner edge of the ice layer, about three meters long, shaped like an olive, with a tendril growing out of the tip like a sprout. He quickly directed an autonomous robot to knock the "seed" out of the ice, and then a group of people curiously gathered around to study it.

This giant "seed" looked almost like a small spaceship, and its structure was very complex. In addition to the tendril at the top, there were also circles of raised patterns on the lower half, with several strange fleshy bumps between the patterns. On the "seed's" waistline, there were several cracks, and some sharp organs protruded from them, as if they were some kind of sensing device. This was undoubtedly created by the First Born, and for some reason—perhaps because the lunar ecosystem ended—this "seed" did not activate and died automatically.

The data terminal flew around the seed and quickly understood its structure and basic functions: it was much simpler and easier to understand than the Origin Ancestor or the First Born's main body.

"These protruding nodules are some kind of antenna, using gravitational wave communication, probably used to contact the First Born's main body on the surface. These concentric structures are some kind of high-efficiency engine, biological tissue, but capable of generating powerful thrust. According to the remaining structure, it can form a circulating magnetic field outside the seed, collecting particles from the solar wind and accelerating them backward to fly quickly, like paddling in water, enough for use within the solar system. These things in the middle that look like thorns are some kind of sensor, perhaps used to capture life signs," the data terminal paused at this point, "Also, it cannot be ruled out that this thing has other more advanced capabilities—its core has an organ with an extremely large mass. Although it has dried up and deformed, the high-energy acceleration ring of that organ is still clearly distinguishable. It is either a fusion reactor or a super bomb."

Hao Ren was a little dazed, and touched the "seed's" shriveled shell in disbelief. "...This thing destroyed the lunar ecosystem?"

"At least it's one of the weapons," the data terminal floated up and down. "There is no First Born's main body on the moon, so the First Born on the surface must attack the Second Born on other planets by launching some kind of interstellar firepower to other planets. This seed is its warship—as long as it can create a blood tide, it is enough to destroy the ecosystem of any planet."

(I actually misread the time!)