novelraw Chapter 687 - 8: Sand-Buried Behemoth
Chapter 687 - 8: Sand-Buried Behemoth
"So, you think that if I go to Egypt, there's a possibility I might encounter this... 'Buried Sandworm'?"
"It's not a possibility; it's a certainty," Candle Dragon said solemnly. "Or to put it another way, the country of Egypt was destroyed by these buried sandworms."
"Them?" Sun Hang immediately realized the problem. "Are there many of these 'Buried Sandworms'?"
"According to the information provided by Cairo at the time, the number of buried sandworms appearing in the regions of Egypt, Libya, and Sudan, just from confirmed sightings, exceeded eight thousand. While some of these records may be duplicates, given the extent of destruction in those African cities, the total number of active buried sandworms in the Sahara Desert is estimated to be over thirty thousand," Candle Dragon explained.
"Thirty thousand... Well, that's not actually a lot," Sun Hang said, unimpressed. "The Sahara Desert is so vast, if you think about it, thirty thousand worms scattered across it means only one worm per over three hundred square kilometers."
The Sahara Desert's area is comparable to the complete territory of the Xiazhou Federation, both being nearly ten million square kilometers. In such an extensive area, thirty thousand might sound like a lot, but when diluted by the land area, it's merely a drop in the ocean.
"Do you know why there's the word 'Giant' in 'Buried Sandworm'?" Candle Dragon's tone remained serious. "A mature buried sandworm can exceed three kilometers in length, with a body diameter of over a hundred meters... In the Sudan region, there have been discoveries of underground tunnels, with diameters reaching as much as five hundred meters, which are not naturally formed, and within those tunnels, remnants of buried sandworm memetic reactions were found..."
Candle Dragon swallowed and continued, "The mouthparts of the buried sandworm are extremely sharp, not only able to open a path in compacted sand but also able to move unimpeded even through hard bedrock... If the tunnel was 'drilled' by a buried sandworm, judging by the proportions of a mature one, there might be super-sized individuals within the species that are up to fifteen kilometers long."
"Is that thing really that big?" Sun Hang was somewhat surprised. "Then how big was the buried sandworm you encountered in the Taklamakan Region back then?"
"It didn't show its entire body, but judging by its diameter, it should not be a mature buried sandworm. Its diameter was only a bit over thirty meters, and by converting at a ratio of one to thirty, its full body length buried under the sand should be around nine hundred to one thousand meters... But after we compared the memetic sample we risked our lives to obtain with the one provided by Cairo at the time, we found an 8% variation between the two memes, so we couldn't determine whether this 'subspecies' of the buried sandworm was 'immature' or a smaller variant mutated due to environmental factors."
Candle Dragon paused and continued, "After all, the area of the Taklamakan region is much smaller than the Sahara, and resources like food would be correspondingly scarce. Reducing body size could possibly be a survival strategy for this mysterious creature."
"How strong is this thing?" Sun Hang asked, "If there's a chance, maybe we could try some giant worm sashimi?"
"Very strong. Its defense and regeneration abilities rank at least in the top three among the Class C mysterious creatures I've seen... Additionally, it has characteristics similar to those of an earthworm."
"You mean... cutting a buried sandworm in half would result in two buried sandworms?"
Candle Dragon nodded.
"Then how did you deal with the buried sandworm back then?" Sun Hang asked again.
"We didn't manage to deal with it. Before we encountered the buried sandworm, we had only lost one Hunter, but it caused us four major casualties—two were directly devoured by a buried sandworm that drilled up from beneath the sand during our journey, and two were sacrificed while obtaining the memetic sample," Candle Dragon said. "My ability couldn't constrain such a colossal creature. After obtaining the invaluable memetic sample at the cost of our companions' lives, another surviving Hunter and I immediately decided to end the exploration and return to the border."
"It didn't chase you?"
"The sacrificed Esper had the ability to create a spatial barrier. She exhausted all her power by burning herself to create a space barrier large enough to trap the entire buried sandworm, giving us the chance to escape," Candle Dragon recalled. "As for the speed at which the buried sandworm moves, according to Cairo's data, 'its maximum speed in desert areas is 160 kilometers per hour.' And its speed within rock layers depends on the hardness of the rock."
"This thing can hit the highways," Sun Hang muttered to herself.
"Not only that, the skeletal structure inside the buried sandworm has extremely strong load-bearing capacity. In the combat record footage from the Old Egyptian Republic, there was even an image of the buried sandworm breaking through the sandy soil, shooting straight into the sky, and swallowing an airplane a thousand meters up... They can maintain this upright posture for several hours..."
Candle Dragon continued, "After discovering the buried sandworm in the Taklamakan region, the Dubhe Tower and the Federation Government fell into a state of heightened tension because they had never been seen outside the African Continent before. This time, not only did they appear in Asia, but they also appeared so close to us in the Taklamakan Region... Once the buried sandworms start migrating towards human-controlled areas, vast territories of the Federation would fall... These mysterious creatures are nearly destructive to human cities."