The scene people witnessed from the ship was nothing short of a miracle in the history of evolution and biological research—a coordinated hunting of the mutated krill swarm by the entire penguin community in the Weddell Sea. These clumsy birds, typically short and stout on land, exhibited a completely different, ferocious side at this moment.
Humans have designed countless types of torpedoes, yet none compare to the penguins' physical structure. Their movements in the water could be described as art; whether accelerating forward or making smooth turns, every action is perfectly executed without wasting any energy, swift, fierce, and unstoppable.
It was clear that the penguins were engaged in a coordinated group hunt. The female penguins moved faster, drawing the attention of the krill's tentacles, while the male penguins launched a fierce attack on the mutated krill swarm's body, darting through with incredible speed and feeding off them. Although they couldn't consume much in one go, they managed to disrupt the gathered krill.
Emperor penguins are already the largest in size among penguins and possess the strongest diving capabilities. They can dive over 500 meters deep, exactly matching the activity range of the krill, and swim at very fast speeds. Their burst speed can reach nearly 20 kilometers per hour, which is unimaginably fast for this size of a marine social animal.
This penguin community in the southern Weddell Sea comprises thousands of penguins. When they swim at full speed, the wave structure of the entire sea area changes. Even though the mutated krill swarm was massive and nearly filled the ocean, it began to gradually disintegrate under the penguins' relentless assaults and sieges.
Penguins maintained formations of dozens per squad, repeatedly moving quickly and feeding in an area, evidently intending to slice through the krill swarm. They first severed a cluster of tentacles, immediately followed by hundreds of penguins that feasted heartily, devouring all the krill in an instant. The male penguins promptly followed, charging through the opening in the tentacles, cutting through the entire body of the krill swarm to create more vulnerabilities.
They would even take turns hunting and feeding. One squad would rush in to carve out a section, followed by another squad to feast, and once the feeding squad regained their physical strength, they'd transition into a hunting squad to create feeding opportunities for other comrades.
Moreover, the strongest penguins autonomously formed squads, driving the scattered krill towards weaker penguins, allowing them to eat without having to swim swiftly. These weaker penguins were often injured or naturally small. Even though they couldn't immediately join the battle after eating, the penguins still helped them. Perhaps this is the fundamental reason why social animals can dominate the food chain.
Thousands of penguins took turns surfacing for air, attacking the immense krill swarm for over two hours. The energy humans provided them had been exhausted, but the nourishing krill gave them sustained power. Even with more than half of the krill swarm left, the penguins were mostly full.
However, they astonished the expedition members by regrouping and driving the krill swarm in a certain direction.
Professor Dexter immediately directed the crew to follow, and thus an incredible spectacle unfolded on the frigid polar sea: a visibly colossal krill swarm trailed by thousands of penguins, with a human ship at the end, heading to an unknown destination until they spotted the shadows of seals on the distant ice floe.
Lying on the shore was a group of Weddell seals, also known as monk seals, another major seal population in Antarctica. They similarly excel in underwater hunting and are large-scale social animals; the group on this ice floe appeared to have around a thousand seals as well.
More importantly, Weddell seals are much larger than penguins, growing over three meters in length and weighing over 300 kilograms. Although this group at first glance didn't seem that large, they were still significantly bigger than Emperor Penguins, and naturally, they had a much larger appetite.
Some penguins hunted the krill swarm underwater, while others jumped ashore. Almost all seals feed on penguins. Despite the excellent underwater hunting abilities of Weddell seals, they usually don't bother chasing penguins. Yet, looking at this group of seals, they seemed starved for a while. Upon seeing penguins hopping ashore, they wriggled into the water.
When the seals entered the water, the penguin group retreated quickly, yet the seals didn't dive for nothing. Upon entering, they saw a massive swarm of krill, which had been scattered by the fleeing penguins and hadn't regrouped. Jumping down, the seals feasted freely, with many krill jumping straight into their open mouths.
One seal surely couldn't contend with such a monstrous entity, but with over a thousand, it was a different story. Weddell seals were not only large; they swam at a decent speed. More importantly, they have enormous lungs, holding their breath for an hour and a half and diving over 600 meters. While penguins must surface for air every ten or so minutes, seals rampaged through the krill swarm, heedless, thanks to their longer stamina.
While penguins had to use water currents and swimming skills to scatter the tentacles, the seals opened their massive stomachs and devoured them fiercely, gnawing down entire tentacles from head to tail.
Due to the seals' social structure not being as strong as that of penguins, they rarely coordinated in hunts, often diving individually. Alone, none of them could get enough to eat. But this time, with the penguins driving the krill swarm to the seals' home, even if they didn't want to hunt cooperatively, they would inevitably end up collaborating, naturally benefiting.
Of course, both the penguin and seal groups suffered losses. The penguin group lost some previously injured females, while the seal group faced fierce resistance from the mutated krill swarm, with a few solitary seals injured in the counterattack.
Thankfully, humans act as benefactors in nature; the research team's ship roamed the nearby seas, rescuing those who were isolated and unable to swim further. These creatures weren't unable to survive out of water entirely, and with the robust vitality of wild animals, once brought onto the ship and fed, they mostly recovered.
Some seals were severely injured, continuously bleeding. Humans not only bandaged them but also gave them antibiotics. The medical methods of humans when applied to wild animals were a complete game-changer, saving them all.
The cats, however, faced another kind of trouble. The injured patients lay obediently on the deck, but the little penguins that came on board earlier were not so calm. Emperor penguin chicks are much bigger than people imagine. Previously, due to insufficient food, they were a bit weak and relatively quiet. After having a meal on the ship, just like the young of any species, they began causing trouble.
Firstly, penguins can make quite a racket, and their voices are incredibly penetrating, capable of traveling across hundreds of kilometers of ice and snow to call to their kind. During their chick stage, their calls are even sharper, meant for calling parents and begging for food. When dozens of chicks started crying out, humans might find it a bit noisy at most, but for the cats, it was truly torturous.
The key was that they couldn't run away because humans were busy rescuing the injured, and the cats had to ensure these little ones didn't run off the boat, taking on the role of sheepdogs. However, this time, they were goose shepherds. Shiller and Peter mimicked sheepdogs, taking turns rushing forward to scare the little penguins, preventing them from leaving the area at the bow of the ship.
But penguins are not domesticated animals, and they couldn't understand this setup. They had never seen household cats before. The encounter between these two species was really a miracle in the course of evolution—one originating from the desert and the other living in the polar regions, never supposed to meet. Nonetheless, the human race excelled at creating such fateful encounters, leaving Shiller eye-to-eye with gigantic Emperor penguin chicks.
Even though adult Emperor penguins only grow up to about 1.3 meters, and the chicks are even smaller, they aren't considered large to adult humans. But to Shiller, now a house cat, who standing up might not even reach a human's knee, the Emperor penguin chicks were already enormous creatures.
Peter headbutted an Emperor penguin chick trying to dash across the railing back, but the chick seemed unaware that felines were predators and wobbled back to the railing again. Shiller quickly ran over, intending to use fangs and claws as a threat. Unfortunately, the chick's thick down was completely immune to a cat's attacks, with scratching and biting proving useless, forcing Shiller to resort to bumping them with his body.
What was worse, the nearby penguin chicks that were still were emitting a dreadful noise, making the cats' heads buzz; the penguins that weren't calling were moving, while those that were still were continually calling. At that moment, the mental damage seemed even greater than that caused by an Outer God.
Fortunately, humans soon came to the cats' rescue, perhaps worried that contact with the wildlife would be dangerous. Students quickly came and took the cats away, then took charge of the penguin chicks. Biology graduate students knew their stuff; they imitated Emperor penguin parents, holding the chicks in their arms and covering their heads with a blanket to mimic the environment in their parents' embrace, which made the chicks much quieter.
In the lower cabin, Peter sighed with relief, though still somewhat shaken. He said, "Previously, a colleague of mine at the research institute went to study polar birds. I used to envy him a bit. Now it seems I'd prefer studying spiders."
Shiller shook his head as well, the chirping of the Emperor penguin chicks still engraved in his mind; it might linger for days. But that wasn't what agitated them the most. The most infuriating thing was that Constantine slept from the moment they boarded without doing any work or facing any hassle.
Peter bit Constantine on his backside, and as Constantine awoke with a jolt, he immediately received a flurry of five slaps per second from Shiller.
"What, what, what!" Constantine quickly jumped off, "What's going on? Did the Outer God attack?"
"You lazy cat!" Peter said, "All you know is how to sleep? When we were setting up the base, you snuck into the sleeping bag to slack off, and now you've slept from start to finish, unbelievably lazy."
Constantine appeared indifferent: "I'm a cat. What else can a cat do but sleep? Besides, I'm not just sleeping randomly; don't bother me."
Shiller sighed. He never really expected Constantine to work anyway, or perhaps it's better he's not active; if he were, teammates might end up having problems.
Peter jumped onto his sleeping pad, lying down while saying, "It seems the powers of the Outer God aren't omnipotent. It's quite a good piece of news that the food chain in Antarctica won't be disrupted."
"The survival will of animals far exceeds anyone's imagination," Shiller also lay down on his pad, "In this cosmos especially, life that manages to survive in such a harsh environment will not be easily defeated. One of the survival principles here is not to see oneself as an isolated entity; everything is part of nature, and we use nature to fight against nature."
"But we did lend them a hand," Peter lowered his head, nuzzling his paw, found a comfortable position, and closed his eyes, saying, "Let's hope Professor Dexter is lenient. I'll plead on our behalf."