Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 596 "Excrement"

Sun Hang stepped on the sand beneath his feet. Compared to the deserts he remembered, the sand here was very fluid, almost like quicksand. One step and you would immediately sink into it. No wonder Professor Ouyang's team was stuck on this technical hurdle.

Sun Hang, who weighs over 130 pounds, can feel his feet and legs sinking as he stands on this shifting sand dune. He has to use mycelium to build a "net" on his feet that is hundreds of times larger than the area of ​​his feet in order to reduce the pressure to the point that he will not sink into the quicksand.

The return rocket weighs over a hundred tons, making it difficult to find a sufficiently stable support point on this terrain under limited conditions.

More than 90 percent of Egypt’s land area is desert, but Cairo is not.

The Nile is known as Egypt's mother river because this once world's longest river, as the "source of life," truly nurtured and nourished human civilization on both banks of the river.

The banks of the Nile River are arguably the most fertile land in all of North Africa, and Cairo, located on the Nile Delta, is the most dazzling pearl of this fertile land.

Unfortunately, the pearl has now turned into a handful of yellow sand, the mother river has long since dried up, and even the valley has been completely buried.

Sun Hang bent down, scooped up a handful of sand, and as his palm tilted, the sand quickly slid off, leaving not even the grains of sand between the lines of his palm on his hand.

Clearly, this sand is not the same as normal sand.

"These sands are not naturally formed. Strictly speaking, they are the excrement of the giant sand worms." The main brain seemed to see Sun Hang's doubts and took the initiative to answer. "The giant sand worms will devour everything they come into contact with and then transform it into this sand-like substance and excrete it from their bodies."

Upon hearing that what he had just picked up was actually the "excrement" of a giant sand worm, Sun Hang wiped his hands on his pants with some disgust.

"Zhulong told me that the Sand-Sinking Giant Worm has some characteristics of earthworms. So, it seems that besides being able to reproduce after being cut in half, excreting sand is also one of its characteristics?"

"Sort of," the mainframe replied. "The sand excreted by the giant sand worms has a surface smoothness more than ten times that of ordinary sand grains. Such a low coefficient of friction makes this desert resemble a swamp. According to the last footage taken by the drone, the remains of buildings in Cairo first sank deep into the quicksand before being digested by the giant sand worms and becoming part of the desert."

“A literal ‘sea of ​​sand,’” Sun Hang nodded with a sigh, but at the same time, he suddenly felt a slight tremor in the ground—very slight, but real.

"Is it the ghost train returning? Or the giant sand worm?"

"Analysis of the epicenter data is in progress... Analysis complete. The epicenter is 49 kilometers away, at a depth of 1700 meters, and is moving non-linearly in a direction of 23 to 27 degrees west-northwest... The probability of it being the giant sand worm is over 99%! Please immediately conceal your presence! Keep your aura quiet!"

As Sun Hang completely concealed his presence, a military telescope appeared in his hand, which he aimed at the epicenter.

Twenty seconds later, a giant tubular worm burst through the sand, soaring into the sky and swallowing a bizarre bird gliding three hundred meters in the air. Then, the worm's body made a sharp turn in the air before plunging back to the ground and disappearing into the depths of the sand without any obstruction.

The entire hunting process took less than three seconds.

"To be honest, I have serious doubts..." Sun Hang muttered, "that the nutrients provided by the prey might not be enough to sustain this big guy's energy expenditure from such a jump."

"In terms of energy alone, this hunt was definitely a losing proposition. However, the energy supply organs inside the Sand Giant Worm are very similar to nuclear fusion reactors. Theoretically, they have an almost unlimited energy supply," the main brain replied. "Besides modifying the environment, the main purpose of the Sand Giant Worm's hunting behavior is to acquire memes."

"They also have the ability of the Taotie?" Sun Hang was stunned for a moment, wondering if these big guys had something in common with him?
"The information we've gathered so far hasn't proven that the Sand Giant Worms have the ability to absorb other monster memes, but they are indeed affected by monster memes, exhibiting a behavior similar to insect phototaxis," the mastermind said. "This is also recorded in the First Monster War in Egypt."

"Tell me."

"The Battle of Alexandria," the mastermind said. "Alexandria is the second largest city in Egypt, located west of the Nile estuary, and is Egypt's largest port city. Seventeen days before the fall of Alexandria, the allied forces detected more than one hundred giant sand worms moving towards Alexandria, so they decided to assemble their troops in Nobariha, a city that had not yet fallen, to the west of the sand worms' path... At first, the sand worms' path did not change, but when a plane full of monster hunters landed at Nobariha Airport, all the sand worms turned around instantly, like sharks smelling blood, and headed straight for Nobariha."

"and after?"

"The Allied commander acted decisively, ordering all hunters to board the planes and leave immediately. Unfortunately, it was too late. Nobariha could not escape its fate of destruction, and the tens of thousands of troops gathered in the city were all wiped out."

“But that doesn’t necessarily prove that the giant sand worms were attracted by the hunters, does it? Suppose these big guys are quite intelligent, and they were just pretending to be stupid at first, and then suddenly changed their attack direction when the allied forces had almost assembled their troops… This kind of thing has happened many times in the history of warfare, hasn’t it?” Sun Hang questioned.

“Yes, some of the Allied high command initially thought so,” the mastermind said. “But the movements of the Sandworms in the subsequent battles proved to everyone that they are indeed attracted to the monster memes—in the Battle of Cairo, a force less than 100 kilometers away that had not deployed any monster hunters was ignored by them until this force took the initiative to attack the Sandworms. Only then did the Sandworms allocate a small number of troops to deal with them, while the rest of the Sandworms continued to advance toward Cairo… because Cairo is where almost all of Egypt’s monster hunters are gathered, and for the Sandworms, this target is the highest priority.”

"What if all the hunters and infected people were to leave Egypt?" Sun Hang thought of a solution. "Wouldn't these insects then quiet down?"

"Wherever there are people, there will always be strange creatures and infected people; this is unavoidable."

“I suddenly realized that the behavior of the Sand Giant Worm is less about hunting and more about eliminating threats within its territory,” Sun Hang pondered. “All non-species monsters or infected individuals are seen as threats by them, and eliminating these threats is the highest priority in their operational logic.”

[P.S. My recent updates have been very slow. Partly due to changes in the attendance policy and preparations for my new book, and partly due to some health issues. I've been experiencing unexplained low-grade fevers every evening for almost three weeks now, along with fatigue, chills, and significant stress. I've been to the hospital several times, but they haven't found anything wrong. My blood tests and inflammatory markers are all normal. The doctor suggested I observe for a while longer or be hospitalized for a thorough full-body checkup. I hope it's just a false alarm.]

(End of this chapter)