Chapter 575

Chapter 575: Herbivores Actually Have a Tough Life

“Damn it, I’m stuffed.”

“Burp——!”

Trilobite happily let out a burp, but soon he looked worried.

“Is my stomach a black hole?!”

“What I ate doesn’t match how full I feel at all.”

He had just finished eating all the prey.

Two "Colossal Creature Cranogryphus" and six "Megalania" were reduced to skeletons, with even the guts and intestines cleaned out.

While eating the intestines, he faced a long-puzzling question—there was no excrement at all inside the Cranogryphus and Megalania intestines, and almost no smell!

“This makes it easy to eat the guts, but it still seems off…”

How could animal intestines have no food scraps?

For the "Colossal Creature Cranogryphus," it might be explained; even back then, most predators ate irregularly, sometimes going a whole week without food.

Carnivores often have shorter guts, so the time from eating to waste is short.

After starving for days, their bellies would be empty.

But for an herbivore like "Megalania," having nothing smelly in its belly was strange.

Trilobite remembered watching the BBC documentary "Walking with Monsters" as a kid, where one scene stuck with him—Deinosuchus would shake excrement from its prey’s intestines before eating them.

One Deinosuchus even swung the guts at the “camera,” flinging the “waste” onto the lens.

Though the scene was gross, it was vivid.

“Hmm…”

“Had they been starving for days?”

“Seems like beasts in the Permian period weren’t doing well either…”

“Compared to them, you guys are much happier.”

Trilobite turned to gaze at the group of "Plateosaurus."

“Hiss——!”

“Crack——!”

That was the sound of branches snapping and leaves tearing; the "Plateosaurus" used their dense, nail-like teeth to shred the "Scalebark Ferns" foliage.

Their long necks swayed back and forth, their teeth and tongues gulping things down like a leaf vacuum, sucking “leaflets” and “tender branches” into their big bellies.

Trilobite guessed those “branches” would ferment and digest inside them, making energy for the "Plateosaurus" to move.

These creatures were feasting greedily to celebrate their win.

Of course, they were also gathering “Chaos Energy” to pay back the “loan” Trilobite gave them.

“But, well…”

“Hehe.”

Trilobite looked at the System.

By eating two "Colossal Creature Cranogryphus" and six "Megalania," Trilobite had accumulated two million points of Chaos Energy.

But the growth afterward was sluggish.

Although the Plateosaurus swallowed large amounts of leaves into its body, digestion took a long time. Plants were hard to digest; they needed complex fermentation to make stuff like starch and polysaccharides, and the conversion rate was low.

That was why Sauropod Dinosaurs and Tapirus gave up on brains—those creatures were okay, but they used too much sugar.

Plus, eating plants didn’t need tricky thoughts or logic; it didn’t even need complex actions. After all, plants didn’t grow legs and run away, so herbivores just ate whatever was dumb and easy.

As a result, many herbivores ditched their brains altogether.

But even with their brains "optimized" away, many herbivores spent over ten hours a day chewing plants, which was tougher than a 996 or 007 work schedule.

Don’t think eating plants was "cozy" for herbivores.

Most animals had weak taste senses and couldn’t enjoy food like humans do. They either swallowed plants whole or chewed non-stop, just to fill their bellies; it was like us being forced to work to live.

Worse, even though plants didn’t move, they didn’t just wait to be eaten.

They grew thorns, waxy coats, and poisons as defenses, shouting to herbivores: "I’m not tasty!"

"I’d rather let bugs eat me than you herbivores!"

But the most common trick was putting silicon crystals in leaves, like mixing sand into food.

"Go ahead and bite; if you can chew it, I lose!"

This defense made today’s top plants—grass—and wiped out many early herbivores.

In short, eating all day while fighting these nasty plant tricks meant eating was no fun and brought little joy for herbivores.

The Sauropod Dinosaurs, like the Plateosaurus, had similar troubles, maybe worse.

To keep their huge bodies going, Sauropod Dinosaurs probably had no time to sleep; they just gobbled plants non-stop, stacking them from neck to rectum, fermenting in their long guts.

They kept growing larger to make bigger fermentation tanks and grab more energy.

They were truly the most miserable creatures.

"Slow Chaos Energy growth was good!"

"Slow growth meant slow repayments!"

"Slow repayments meant more interest!"

"Why else would I offer ‘consumer loans’? I’m counting on that little interest from you."

Trilobite was happy.

"Well then, next…"

He looked at the thick canopy of Scalebark Ferns that blocked the sun, now chewed up by the Plateosaurus, leaving bald patches. Trilobite nodded happily.

"This way, sunlight gets through, letting the new trees breathe."

The Scalebark Ferns grew too fast, like they were on drugs; they shot up first to form the canopy, stealing most of the rainy season’s scarce "sunlight," giving Trilobite’s trees no chance to grow.

"And I can…"

He opened the System’s "spawn interface" and checked the spawn in the area, while he pondered whether he could transplant more spawns here.

“Right, to prevent the Plateosaurus from mistakenly eating them, I need to add some markers to my plants or make them a bit toxic…”

But at that moment…

“Thud—!”

Trilobite’s calf suddenly felt a slight impact.

“Who is it?”

“Watch where you’re walking…”

“Oh, it’s you?”

“Why do you look like a little rat!?”

“Um…”

“However, it seems that the ‘Plateosaurus’ doesn’t handle shorter plants and roots very well.”

“For the sake of biodiversity and layers, perhaps you can play a role.”

“Come! Young one!”

“Do you want to grow bigger!?”

—-

“Ah!?”

The small "ordinary Pan-Spirit Deity·quadrupedal type" was startled by the massive "Giant God."

He was completely stunned.

His soul was completely overwhelmed by the overwhelming fearsome divine might, and the quadrupedal Pan-Spirit Deity even felt like a tiny boat in the sea, with the pressure from the Giant God resembling towering waves and an all-encompassing storm.

He felt like a poor soul clinging to a small wooden boat, constantly at risk of drowning in this boundless storm.

“Drip…”

A drop of divine blood fell from the shallow trench on the Giant God’s saber teeth, landing right in front of him.

Those sharp, steak knife-like teeth and short sword-like saber teeth intensified his fear!

Now, the soul of the quadrupedal type could hardly do anything.

He could only rely on the instincts brought by his divine body, pressing tightly against the ground.

His tough skin and the uneven bumps on his back could indeed defend against some weaker spells and less powerful impacts.

But he also knew that this was useless in front of the Giant God.

This terrifying deity could end him with just one foot!

“It’s over!”

“I’m going to die!”

“I’m going to be eaten by the Giant God!”

“Ahhhhh—!”

He desperately opened his mouth, trying to scream out his fear.

However, in the face of that suffocating pressure, even making a sound became a luxury for the weak deity.

Just when everything seemed to be coming to an end…

“Buzz—!”

Darkness did not come; instead, there was a feeling of his “soul” being lifted constantly, as if his soul had entered a strange domain.

An immense amount of information spread out like the vast galaxy, extending infinitely in the "sky."

At that moment…

The sensation of his divine body suddenly returned!

Severe pain also came flooding in!