(This chapter involves theoretical and experimental plots, although the author has simplified it, but there may still be some brain-burning, if you are not comfortable, you can skip directly to the conclusion at the end of this chapter)

In Todd's view, there is no microorganism in the world with such a strange form as a "tyrant".

After magnifying the sample to tens of thousands of times, the "tyrant" looks a bit like a prototype bacteriophage virus. Its head is a large sac containing DNA fragments, its body is a thick, straight stalk of the virus, and its tail is hundreds of extra-long hoses that resemble tentacles of an octopus.

In order to test the physiological characteristics of the "Tyrant" virus, Todd specially designed a set of live experiments.

The twelve mice were divided into four groups of three each, namely:

The first group of subjects did nothing, and were very ordinary mice.

The second group was injected with paranormal bacteria.

The third group was injected with both Sutherland archaea and paranormal bacteria, but the ratio of the two was controlled within a certain range to ensure that there would be no mutation.

The fourth group was injected with Sutherland archaea and paranormal bacteria, but the number of paranormal bacteria exceeded the carrying capacity of archaea, deliberately causing mutation in the test subjects.

The experimental subjects of these four groups correspond to four types of people: ordinary people, ordinary xenomorphs, normal inheritors, and mutated inheritors.

The "Tyrant" virus was injected into the bodies of each of the four groups of mice, and after a period of time, all the subjects changed.

The first group of subjects, representing ordinary people, developed high fever, vomiting, convulsions, fainting, and finally all died within 30 minutes of being injected with the virus.

The second group, which represented the normal xenomorph test subjects, suffered the same fate as the first group, and all of them died.

The third group of test subjects, representing the normal heirs, did not escape their fate of death after ten hours of struggle.

The last group of test subjects, representing the inheritors of the mutation, gradually stopped mutating their bodies after being injected with the tyrant, and the body surface and organs returned to their normal state, retaining their basic ability to cope with external stress.

What's going on?

Todd selected one mouse from each of the four groups and began dissecting it.

Opening the skull of the first mouse, Todd was startled by what was inside, although the brain had stopped functioning, the cortical cells in the brain had all been covered by a black mesh membrane that had shrunk and shrunk.

It looks like someone has used a layer of black plastic wrap to tightly cover the subject's entire nervous system.

Todd put the brain slice of the mouse under the microscope, and after some observation, he finally obtained the physiological information of the "tyrant".

The working principle of "tyrants" is somewhat similar to that of bacteriophages, they use protein-made tentacles to "land" on the surface of cells, and then pierce the tentacles into the nucleus to extract high-quality DNA fragments in the cells (the preferred strategy is not yet known), and then inhale these DNA into the cysts of the virus for preservation.

When it has completed the phagocytosis of one set of cells, it selects the next set of targets to continue the process.

When the DNA fragments in the cyst reach a certain number, the "Tyrant" virus will stop engulfing and instead act like a larva as a cocoon, using the surrounding free proteins and other nutrients to form a large spherical "virus nest".

The process of the birth of this sphere is the most incredible part of Todd.

Tens of thousands of "tyrant" viruses gather together to stretch their protein tentacles to the limit, and each two viruses use the ends of their tentacles to overlap each other to form a hollow tubular channel as a "bridge". Through the tentacle pipes connected to each other, so many viruses work together to form a three-dimensional grid-like spherical "virus nest".

What happened next was the most exciting scene.

The "Tyrant" virus conducts the DNA fragments of the head through the stem of the virus to the tentacles of the tail, and then transmits them to the heads of other viruses through the pipes built by the tentacles, just like a high-speed three-dimensional pipe network, and the viruses are constantly exchanging and screening DNA between them.

In this process, the "tyrant" activates all the non-coding genes in the sleeping state of the DNA and replicates them in large quantities, and then these "tyrant" viruses are like pickers on the assembly line in the workshop, comparing and examining the fully activated DNA fragments, throwing away those inferior and useless fragments, leaving those high-quality parts, and finally reassembling these fragments in the "virus nest" to form a new and evolved biological gene.

But for some reason, most of the genes in the existing organisms were all characterized by the "Tyrant" virus as inferior and useless genes, which caused the death of the first three groups of test subjects.

Now that the Tyrant virus works clearly, let's talk about its relationship with the Sutherland archaea that "love and kill".

Sutherland archaea is a very special bacterial body, when it is in its normal state, it is not much different from other bacteria, and it cannot defend itself against the invasion of the "tyrant" virus.

However, when it mutates, the bacteria undergo drastic physiological changes, and a very special catalytic enzyme is produced on the surface. This catalytic enzyme, which is mainly composed of proteins, greatly improves cell activity, promotes the process of archaeal mutation, and provides energy for the entire mutation. But this enzyme also has an interesting "side effect" - they use their own enzyme proteins to temporarily protect the main tissues of the organism from damage when the "tyrant" virus invades.

The fourth group of subjects, the mutated successors, did not die because of the catalytic enzymes secreted by the mutated Sutherland archaea.

Moreover, when the confrontation between viruses and archaea reaches the final stage, the "tyrant" virus will stop devouring and connect to each other into a nest of viruses to assemble and release those evolutionary genes, and Sutherland archaea also consume a large number of catalytic enzymes, so the mutation process is terminated, and the archaea return to their normal state and begin to accumulate new enzyme proteins.

Does this process sound complicated?

If you compare Sutherland archaea and tyrant viruses to a couple, it will be much easier to understand.

The "tyrant" virus is a short-tempered wife, who usually turns the family upside down (attacking all cells) for a little thing, and as a husband, the "Sutherland archaea", although she is usually a strict wife, she swallows her anger and does not dare to resist, but as long as she drinks a few sips of wine (archaea mutation), she has gall in her body (archaea produce catalytic enzymes), and she dares to fight against his wife. But after some fighting, the couple will always reconcile in the end. (The tyrant virus stops phagocytosis and begins genetic assembly; Sutherland's archaea catalyze enzymes are exhausted, causing mutation to cease.) ）

After figuring out how the Tyrant virus works and how it relates to Sutherland's archaea, Todd finally understands the series of anomalies caused by this strange virus.

In the lab journal, Todd wrote the preliminary findings of the Tyrant virus:

1. Definition of "tyrant": This is a virus similar to a bacteriophage, which can be assembled into new evolutionary genes by extracting DNA fragments from other microorganisms.

2. The "tyrant" devours normal cells, plunders the DNA fragments in the cells, and stores them in his own body.

3. The "Tyrant" virus can be connected to each other, combined and built into a "virus nest", in which DNA fragments are activated, screened, recombined and assembled, and finally a new and evolved biological gene is generated.

4. Ordinary people, ordinary xenomorphs, and unmutated inheritors, after coming into contact with the "tyrant", will be devoured by the cells in the body tissues, and eventually die.

5. The mutated successor, the mutated Sutherland archaea in its body, can produce a catalytic enzyme that maintains the mutation process, and this enzyme can resist the devouring of the "tyrant". When the tyrant reaches a certain limit of phagocytic cells, the virus will stop attacking and form a "virus nest" to begin genetic recombination and evolution. During this time, the catalytic enzymes of mutant archaea are also depleted to a certain extent in defending against viruses, and the entire mutation process is terminated at the same time, and the archaea revert to their normal form and begin to re-accumulate enzyme proteins, also preparing to resist the next viral attack.

6. The strange creatures such as griffins and manticores should have been mutated and then exposed to the "Tyrant" virus, which eventually caused the genetic evolution in their bodies to become what they are today.