From Trilobite to Titan

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Chapter 68: It is said that the stranger the thing looks, the tastier it is!

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The heavy and mighty iron legion shed their disguises, and the iron giants stood tall on the land!

As the first to get the warning, the followers of the Giant God were well prepared. They quickly readied their "monster-repelling" units—the "armed miners."

These heavy constructs had a lower body like human "legs," with some joints and pipes exposed in a "steampunk" way; their upper parts looked a bit like big crabs, with a huge, wide shell. Arm-like structures stuck out from under the shell on both sides, and there was a thing like a "head" in the middle.

These giant constructs weren’t made for war at first.

They were work vehicles the ocean people used to mine and carry "divine grace mounds"; but with the big battle coming, they were quickly fitted with magical cannons and chainsaws. Elite ocean miners ran them and carried out mass slaughter on the battlefield!

No doubt, this army of mechs was truly the "armed miners."

But the "armed miners" were also followers of the Giant God. Because they handled "divine grace mounds" for so long, they got the "holy" feel from them, letting them control demons completely!

This feel didn’t come from the Giant God’s outside Holy Light, which was kind of "shallow." It seemed to come from deep inside the Giant God’s great body—holy but also greedy, like it wanted to eat up all chaos.

Any demon that sensed these mechs felt like it was facing torture—falling down a long tunnel into a scary abyss, struggling in lava lakes, turning into pus, getting crushed, ground, or smashed into tiny bits, with no bones left whole…

"No—!"

"Ah!"

Whether it was Abyssal Abominations or other demons, they couldn’t beat the "armed miners" and kept falling back.

Where the "armed miners" went, demons screamed without end.

At that time, on the other side of the battlefield…

"Hurry up! You lot!"

"You move fast in the sea! Why so slow on land? Are you seals?!"

"Line up! Fire!"

From the bay’s side, a group of musketeers made of sailors, soldiers, and a few Solar Knights came ashore with a big fleet; they sailed from the harbor, moved along the coast, and dodged the chaos fleet.

After the Sea God Agor fell, most sailors on the sea switched to the "Holy Light from the Sun."

They weren’t as strong as the Solar Knights’ big army, but they could face demons without flinching!

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

"Boom!"

Magical muskets and cannons fired one after another. Bullets blessed by the "Holy Light from the Sun" cut down demons, hitting them hard!

But…

"Oh, we’re losing at this rate…"

Looking at the good fight, a heavy-armored warrior stood at the army’s center, sword in hand, and sighed sadly.

He was Bohimond, the Solar Knight Captain. His job was Chief of Staff, but he really led the "Giant God Army."

This Captain saw the whole battle, not just the "Giant God Army" part.

"One army doing well or one weapon being sharp can’t turn the whole fight around."

"The big picture… the whole Order God camp was still too weak."

In regions beyond the reach of "Giant God followers," chaos surged forward relentlessly, crushing the disorganized Order-side army. The "Giant God Army" now found itself dangerously overextended after allies’ constant retreats and its own unchecked advances, nearly severed from the main force.

If this continued, they’d drown in the endless demon tide spilling from the "Demon Arks."

To reverse the tide, Bohimond halted his frontal assault, dispatching elite squads to shore up collapsing battlefields.

Yet even then, Order-side had played all cards except the "Giant God"—while chaos held reserves.

Just then, the Soul Network crackled with grim news:

"This is Turtle, monitoring the demon fleet! Massive demonic signals near the sea surface—"

"That’s…"

"Gods! Demon Arks! Twelve of them!"

"Closing in on the coast!"

Bohimond’s eyes snapped wide.

"Twelve Demon Arks!?"

"Chaos barely held the line with three. Twelve more…"

Not even the Holy Light from the Sun could withstand that.

And misfortune struck twice—

"Agh—!"

The Turtle captain’s scream tore through the network, followed by shattering metal and bodies crashing.

Demons had attacked Turtle.

Bohimond shut his eyes, resigned.

"Hah…"

"Must it all end like this…?"

—-

"Hah—!"

Below the waves, Trilobite flexed his body, rising slowly on air from his swim bladder.

"A belemnite?"

"One of the chambered belemnites."

Though belemnites, hornstones, and conodonts all bore "stone" in their names, they shared little else.

Belemnites were hemichordates—kin to vertebrates. Take Haikouella, that fish-like swimmer: a hemichordate too.

But unlike vertebrates, hemichordates drifted toward shell-building, shed their brains, and became fixed filter feeders like corals.

Except belemnites. They mastered inverted filter feeding: inflating their lower tubes to float upward.

Buoyant tubes bobbing at the surface, tentacles dangling below to sieve plankton from currents.

Two perks in one: energy-saving like fixed feeders, yet mobile with the flow. Clever little opportunists!

Yet Earth scorned such shortcuts.

The Ordovician Mass Extinction’s plankton collapse nearly wiped them out—leaving one lineage. Just as echinoderms invaded the floating filter-feeding domain.

With those versatile creatures claiming the niche, belemnites stood no chance.

They vanished, leaving only pencil-scribble fossils in rock layers. Hence their name.

Chambered belemnites were the oddest: strange bulbs below, a dorsal plate, and radial tentacles—utterly cyberpunk.

"Leaving those earlier ones was wise."

"They’re beached now—no escape."

"But here’s their main force!"

Trilobite flicked his tail, gathering speed.

"They say the weirder it looks, the tastier!"

"Squid are bizarre—delicious! Crabs look vicious—delicious!"

"So belemnites…"

"*Slurp*!"

He stared at the strange belemnites, mouth watering.