Bizarre living meander trap, the end of the still pond swimming passage.

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"It's ...... What is the situation? ”

Xinglan was a little stunned, staring blankly at the ordinary-looking stalactite, she didn't think there was anything wrong with this stalactite before, but considering the fingers that were sucked by the indented part above, the four words plain and unremarkable could obviously be removed.

The surface of the stalactites begins to deform softly like plasticine, but you can feel that it is not easy to change...... In other words, it is like liquid metal, which can actively change its own shape, but it will not be easily squeezed and deformed by external forces.

"Hmph, these are really not such harmless things on the outside!" Xinglan slammed her hand out the sunken part of the stalactite, and she watched as those deformed parts quickly returned to their original shape in front of her at a speed visible to the naked eye, "Strange thing, there will be a large number of stalactite pillars when the water surface completely overflows the ground, it's not as simple as the difference in the formation of the age." ”

Even though everything quickly returned to its original state, Xinglan didn't dare to relax at all. She stared at the stalactite, which didn't look anything out of the ordinary, and the latter didn't behave like a dead thing...... If the depression alone could be said to be some kind of chemical change, then the sudden restoration of Xinglan a few seconds after Xinglan withdrew his hand was obviously similar to the characteristics of living beings.

After briefly turning on the infrared perspective, the stalactite was quickly exposed to Xinglan's eyes: its infrared response was obviously much stronger than that of its surroundings, which indicated that its own temperature was much higher than the normal ambient temperature, and this change was probably the body temperature it maintained.

As expected, there was more than one living stalactite, and when Xinglan turned her perspective to look around, she found many similar temperature anomalies, and these strange creatures that could not be distinguished in the visible light band even accounted for more than 90% of the stalactites on the ground.

Their camouflage ability is almost seamless.

"Although the force of the adsorption is not too great, you can break free with a little force, but I'm afraid this is not for creatures of this size......" Xinglan looked at the stalactites with life reactions with some solemnity, and quickly reached out and grabbed a scavenging insect from the water flow next to him, "Maybe it would be better to do an experiment to prove this guess." ”

Ignoring the scavenging insect's struggle with its limbs, Xinglan directly reached out and threw it onto the living stalactite, this action did not make the out-of-control insect feel at ease, it hissed even more in horror, jumped up and wanted to escape from this dangerous place, but it seemed to sense something through the change of pressure, and the incredible change happened directly in the next moment.

The surface of stalactites, which originally looked like ordinary calcium carbonate deposits, suddenly wriggled like living creatures, and the places that came into contact with the scavenging insects began to sink at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the sides of the depressions began to squeeze into the middle.

This process happened very quickly, perhaps because of the forced break free by Xinglan just now, and once again felt that the living stalactites that appeared in the prey moved faster, and the scavenging beetle didn't have time to struggle before most of its body fell into the inside of the living stalactites and was firmly clamped...... It didn't have the strength of Xinglan to force it free from its restraints, and this dangerous environment was as terrifying as a swamp from which it could not escape.

There was no second fate for it, the living stalactites devoured it mercilessly, enveloping the entire scavenging beetle inside, and the breath of life was far away before it was completely devoured, and the sound of the outer carapace being forcibly crushed was unusually clear in the cave.

"Is this an animal or a plant? Or is it a separate classification? Xinglan quietly watched as the living stalactites regained their composure after devouring the scavenging insects, and even the places that had just been stained pale blue by the body fluids of the insects that had just been splashed on it were directly purified by some unknown mechanism, "After devouring the prey, there is really no trace left on the outside." ”

The tragic death of a scavenging bug did not affect the atmosphere here, and Xinglan could see at least hundreds of similar bugs wandering in the water stream alone, and the death of one bug would not affect the survival of other animals at all, similar things would happen many times a day, and there would always be bugs falling into the traps of those living stalactites, which was not worth making a fuss about.

Still, Xinglan's swaggering movements seemed to attract someone's attention. Deeper in the cavern, a low roar faintly came from the cavern...... This immediately made Xinglan serious, it seemed that this underground cave was not as devoid of any large animals as she had imagined, there was some kind of creature much larger than a bug hidden in the depths.

"Looks like there's going to be trouble." Having said that, there was no fear in Xinglan's tone, only a strong curiosity, she had a faint premonition that she seemed to be able to find something very amazing, so she didn't waste any more time for those live stalactites and scavenging beetles, "These stalactites are completely useless for slightly larger animals, at most they can only catch some small insects, even the size of a mouse is enough to choke." ”

This is an all-natural underground passage, there is no doubt about it, there are no traces of artificial polishing around the cave, but it seems to have been carefully designed, and the path inside is not bifurcated, but it takes on a form of nine twists and eighteen bends.

Those living stalactites and scavenging insects have never disappeared, their existence seems to be all over the underground passages, and Xinglan has not found the complete corpses of other animals except for the previous skeleton, at most there are only scattered bones, which can't help but make people a little puzzled: what did those insects rely on to survive in this desolate place?

Perhaps as it approached the lowest level of the cavern, at some point, the water stopped flowing to the depths, but somewhere stopped flowing and turned into a calmer pool, but the depth of the water increased as the distance progressed.

The water under his feet gradually overflowed the instep of his feet, and he continued to submerge Xinglan's knees, the temperature here was already very low, and the temperature of the water was even colder, no less than real ice water.

Suddenly, Xinglan heard the long-lost whistling sound again, the sound of the wind faintly coming from above, and when she turned the bright searchlight to that side, she could see some loose and porous rocks scattered together in a mess with each other. Perhaps some of the pores could be directly connected to the outside world from here, and even the breath in the air regained a trace of the freshness of the outside world from the dull and decaying cavern breath, and the oxygen level also rose a little.

During the day, there may even be a glimmer of sunlight leaking through the pores.

The light flickered, and Xinglan was a little surprised to see a dark gray little guy in front of her...... That's right, it's a ghost mouse, it can't take off freely where there is no height difference, so at this time, it is just four limbs tightly fastened to the side wall, and a pair of small eyes can't help but squint a little uncomfortably when stimulated by the light.

The next moment, the little creature jerked loose of its claws that had firmly grasped the wall, and with a gentle push, he jumped into the pool below. For Xinglan, the knee-deep water could have made it a swimming pool, and the folds under its limbs spread slightly, and a little shaking drove it through the water.

The wings that used to soar in the sky suddenly turned into fins in the water.

"If I hadn't seen it this time, I really wouldn't have imagined that the ghost rat was so good at swimming......" Xing Lan watched in a bit of a daze as the ghost rat flexibly grabbed a scavenging beetle with its claws, stuffed it directly into its mouth and ate it, "But can they feel it so clearly?" ”

She didn't detect any regular ultrasound signals, suggesting that ghost rats don't use ultrasonic's echolocation capabilities like bats, but they still catch scavenging bugs with such ease...... Perhaps they have already memorized every inch of the terrain here, and how to catch those nimble bugs is not a big problem, as long as they have an extremely keen sense of hearing, it is easy to judge where the other party is.

This means that the brains of the ghosts and rats must have a strong memory and positioning ability, and they must clearly remember all the details of the terrain and the route they are traveling.

However, this layer of limb folds of the ghost mouse aroused a lot of interest in Xinglan, whether it was flying or swimming, it was half-toned, but it was interesting to be able to switch freely between the two...... Water and air are also very similar in a sense, they are both fluids, but the huge difference in density makes them look different. You know, purely in terms of evolutionary differences, fish are more likely to evolve the ability to fly than land creatures.

However, this ghost mouse swimming in the water like a seabird is not a big discovery that Xinglan feels, and the front seems to be approaching the end of this underground cavern, and several echoes in the environment are superimposed on the original sound, forming a strange buzz that sounds a little ethereal and weird, and the infrasound waves that have been reverberating in the air and are easy to make ordinary creatures feel creepy are also getting stronger and stronger.

Xinglan walked in a knee-deep pool, each step inevitably making a loud noise, coupled with the constant searchlight in the palm of her hand, anyone who was not a deaf and blind animal could feel her approach, and at the same time, she also faintly felt the presence of some kind of creature in front of her, and that low roar sounded again.

Something is strange, though...... That's right, it's a little weird.

This wasn't the angry roar that a normal animal should have when facing a territorial invader, Xinglan was very sure of this, she had seen many creatures, so it was not because she was born low, but because it seemed to be a little ...... Feebly?

It's not so much a rant as a whimper with fear.