Chapter 81 Caterpillar

The beam of light projected by the flashlight in my hand shone on the ground. I saw that the tree hole seemed to be artificially repaired, and the ground was paved with a square meter of bluestone slabs.

However, the ground is not flat, but there are some mushroom parasitic plants growing. Most of those mushrooms are gray-brown, belonging to ordinary mushrooms, which are non-toxic. They are as big as waist-high and grow out of the gap between the slates, and some of the slates are turned upside down, making the ground uneven.

It's the first time I've seen such a big mushroom, but in this underground world, when the humidity is so high and there is no natural enemy, it's acceptable for me to grow bigger.

We looked up and down with a flashlight and found that there were not many traces of artificial decoration in other places except that the floor was artificially paved. The top of the whole tree hole was a semicircular wooden structure, but it was not smooth, but like an axe cut, which was very rough.

The area of the tree hole is very large. The walls of the trees on both sides of our left and right extend into the invisible darkness. In front of us are giant mushrooms, and we can't see what is in the distance.

* While looking at the surrounding environment, I walked forward carefully.

He obviously knew that these mushrooms were non-toxic, but he also deliberately and carefully avoided them.

I followed * and slowly walked deep into the tree hole.

As he walked, he said to *, "I don't think this is a naturally formed tree hole. You can see that there are traces of chiseling on the tree walls above your head. Obviously, it was later chiseled."

We walked forward while exploring, and after a few steps, * suddenly stopped.

Before he could speak, I have found that not far ahead of us, there is a particularly dense group of mushrooms, most of which are waist-high, and several of them have exceeded the height of me and *.

This is not surprising. Strangely, there seems to be some movement in the cluster of mushrooms, and several mushrooms are shaking slightly.

* looked back at me, motioned to follow, and then pulled the bolt and walked over to the cluster of mushrooms.

Just as we were five or six meters away from the cluster of mushrooms, the outermost stems suddenly moved violently, and then a black beetle about the size of a basin slowly climbed out of it.

I know that this is a shovel-shaped worm, a kind of carnivorous insect that likes dark places and is more active in the evening and at night.

This insect is very common in Asia, and its huge front jaw is very conspicuous. Although it is highly aggressive, it poses no threat to people.

That's true, but it's for smaller shovel worms. I don't know if they are so big.

* and I stopped and looked at the shovel worm like a small tank.

But the guy just raised his upper jaw slightly, probed in the air with his short and clumsy tentacles, and then turned around and got into the mushroom bush.

Looking at the movements in the depths of the mushroom bush, I know that there may be more than one big bug.

So we continued to walk forward, pushed away the huge waist-high mushrooms and walked deep.

This time I walked ahead and wanted to catch a big guy to see how this species is different from other places.

But when we really came to the deepest part of the mushroom bush, I was immediately shocked by the scene in front of us.

Originally, in the center of the mushroom bush, there was an open space of about 20 to 30 square meters. There was no mushroom in the open space, but a lot of things piled up.

When I saw these things, I was almost suffocated.

Because most of the people lying on the ground are green thorn monsters, but here they are all dead things.

The strange-shaped green thorn monster lay on the ground in various postures, just like the scene in a mass grave.

However, it is obviously not as horrible as mass graves. Although there is a smell of blood, there is no smell of corpses, but more of the smell of rotten wood. And more than a dozen huge shovel worms are eating the bodies of these green thorn monsters.

Most of the worms here are fragmented. Although I don't know how they died, judging from their wounds and broken limbs, the constitution of this green thorn monster is actually made of wood!

That is to say, although this monster looks like a human figure, the place that should be a muscle is all replaced by wood.

No wonder these guys can grow so many spikes. It turns out that their whole body is like the stem of roses. In this way, those green thorns are only part of their bodies, maybe some kind of organ.

Thinking of the corpses covered with green moss I saw in the research institute before, I originally speculated that these green thorn monsters were also monsters infected with those moss by humans, but now it seems that this is not the case.

So, the statue of the woman with spikes on her belly that * and I saw outside before is most likely the real cause of the green thorn monster.

But what kind of person can give birth to a monster like wood? This is so incredible.

Thinking of this, the more I look at these corpses under my feet, the more strange I feel. From the last black bamboo ditch to this Rob Bodi Cave, I completely subverted my previous knowledge.

Although I have long known that there are many undiscovered species in this world, when I saw so many strange, strange and inexplicable things that I have never seen before, I felt that there is really everything in the world.

*Squatted next to me, dug a piece of the tissue of the green thorn monster with a dagger, studied it for a while, and said to me, "It looks like wood, but it seems to be softer than wood. Look."

"Oh?" I also squatted down, took over the organization in his hand, and looked carefully.

The previous speculation is correct. The muscle tissue of these guys is divided into two layers. The first layer is beige, like wood-like substances, just like human muscles, and on the epidermis of muscles, there is a layer of green hard skin, just like human skin, except for the lack of adipose tissue between skin and muscles.

I poked the general part of the muscle with my hand and found that it had a certain softness, but it was much harder than human muscles. Obviously, that's why their bodies are like copper walls and iron walls.

In addition, these guys have no blood and bones, so even if they are shot, they will not have any impact on the body.

I guess this green thorn monster should not have a brain and heart, because we have seen a green thorn monster with a full of bullet holes before, but that guy is still not dead.

But how did such a tenacious monster die?

Soon, we found the answer, because * found these dead green thorn monsters, and basically part of their bodies had withered.

He said to me with a flashlight on the body of a green thorn monster, "Look, there is a big hole in the right half of this guy's body. Looking at the color of his skin, it seems to be poisoned."

I nodded and came over to see that there was indeed a big hole in the right chest of the corpse of the green thorn monster. The hole was very round and the incision was very flat, running through the whole right chest, and the muscle tissue around the hole turned black, and the dark green skin also turned black when the trees withered. Brown, and even the thorns on the body have withered.

I don't know why, it makes me feel a little uncomfortable to see such a regular wound.

The missing parts of these green thorn monsters can't be found. This can't be an accident. There must be a huge predator who feeds on green thorn monsters for a living.

I really can't imagine that any animal can cause such a regular wound.

Obviously, it will not be the shovel worms here. These things eat relatively little. Although they use this place as a nest, they are only attracted by these rotten green thorn monsters and do not have the ability to prey on them.

At this time, * pointed to a place in the middle of the corpse pile and said to me, "Look there, the monster that attacked your grandfather's team is probably the same as the one that hunts the green thorn monster."

I looked at the place where his flashlight was shining and saw that in the middle of the corpse pile, there were many human blood stains that had not completely dried up. Obviously, they had just been put up. The faint smell of blood we just smelled came from there.

I'm afraid to see fragmented bodies, and since I know that there is a poisonous giant hunter here, I don't want to stay here for a long time. In case that thing comes back, it's not fun.

Even if we really want to understand what is here, on the one Hand, we don't need to take risks. Second, since Grandpa and the others didn't come here, it's business to chase Grandpa quickly now.

So I patted* and said, "Let's go. I've also collected this specimen. I'll go back and do my time to do research. I don't think it's appropriate to stay here for long."