《Chapter 2: Twin Apocalypses》

"The plankton in the sea have appeared… Mother Hive, initiate the gene‑lock to limit the spores' body size!"

Yate frowned and issued the silent command. The orchard was only so large—it could not sustain oversized forms. The previous Queen Mother's memories had made it clear: evolving gargantuan bodies was a mistake.

There was no need to force the brood into larger forms. Retaining their original, diminutive size was the correct path. The smaller the frame, the easier for an energetic phase‑shift to occur. From that moment on, every species in the sandbox would remain smaller than a common ant—the truest form of the insect race. Even if one evolved to "dinosaur" complexity, it would never exceed the size of a housecat.

A cat‑sized insect was already extraordinary. To that insect, Yate's hundred‑acre orchard would feel like a small province.

On the afternoon of the sixth day, after five days of ancient‑sea single‑cell evolution, multicellular life finally erupted in the artificial ocean. In mere minutes, Yate watched his pond like a hyper‑accelerated nature documentary: new planktonic species flickered into existence, died, and gave rise to the next generation. Soon, strange aquatic plants drifted across the surface.

Yate had only meant to test spore evolution, never expecting such ferocity.

"Ten thousand years condensed into one day—and in just six days' time, sixty millennia of evolution have transformed single‑celled spores into Cambrian‑style plankton. This hive's spores are unstoppable…"

Although unfamiliar with Earth's eons, Yate turned to his laptop to cram Earth's evolutionary timeline: Cambrian, Silurian, Devonian…

But night was falling—and his greatest worry loomed: the sandbox world was about to crash.

He gazed at the pond and then at the darkening sky. Dusk's last glow vanished behind the walls. With cell‑division accelerated ten‑thousand‑fold, one day equaled ten millennia—five thousand years of daylight, five thousand years of night. Now dusk meant the onset of a five‑thousand‑year night. Deprived of sunlight—the source of all life—the young marine flora would perish.

Sure enough, at that first moment of night, the water turned violently. Vast mats of newly formed plants wilted and sank, as lifeless as a dead sea.

"My first mass extinction in this—my evolutionary epoch—has begun… much sooner than I thought."

Yate took a deep breath. He had looked up Earth's great die‑offs. Across Earth's long eons—from single cells to complex life—five catastrophic extinctions had occurred. The most famous was the end‑Cretaceous event 65 million years ago, when 80% of species died. But the first was the Late Ordovician extinction over 440 million years ago, triggered by rapid cooling and sea‑level drop that wiped out 85% of marine life.

Here, however, his ocean died because the sun had "set" for five thousand years in a flash. Earth's vast biosphere could rebound through sheer numbers; his sandbox, so small, offered no such buffer. Yet these were the spores of an ultra‑resilient race—if they could endure barren planets, they should survive here…

Moonlight streamed across the courtyard, illuminating the corpse‑sea. Half an hour passed in silence—then a faint blue shimmer rose from the depths. An ant‑sized plant with delicate, leaf‑like fronds floated to the surface. Deprived of direct sun, it had rerouted its photosynthesis to the meager moonlight and struggled on.

Having survived the first die‑off, it immediately lifecycled through growth and decay, like a sped‑up film. Thriving amid darkness, it generated countless variants: angular forms, elongated shapes, disc‑like leaf‑pads that maximized lunar absorption.

An hour later, that lone species—dubbed "Blue‑Moon Grass"—had branched into two distinct lines. One line honed its lunar‑energy efficiency; the other went carnivorous, using a faint bioluminescence to lure and consume its kin.

Yate marveled at life's tenacity. This surviving plant had endured the first mass extinction and spun its own micro‑civilization in the dark ocean.

He retrieved a black notebook and pen to chronicle the sandbox's epochs.

Darkwu Era

Heaven and earth transformed: sun set and moon rose, plunging the world into a 5,000‑year night. Ninety‑nine percent of marine life perished; only Blue‑Moon Grass survived and flourished, becoming the era's supreme species.

Yate looked at the life‑sea and mused:

"On Earth, life began in the ocean with plants—then animals. What marine creatures will the hive's cells birth next?"

He stayed up through that night, awaiting Day Seven.

But the seventh day brought no animals—only another terrifying mass extinction: the sun rose.

In that instant of dawn, the thriving blue‑moon flora, having adapted to darkness, was scorched by sudden sunlight and sank dead.

"The second mass extinction… so swift, so brutal."

This was the annihilation of life. In Earth's epic, species rose and fell over eons; here, Yate witnessed the rise and collapse of entire biotas in hours, a spectacle that left him awestruck.

Yet by afternoon, a hint of blue reappeared among the dead. A star‑shaped variant of Blue‑Moon Grass had mutated to survive the inferno. Bathing in the harsh sun, it thrived anew, generation after generation cycling in minutes. Its color deepened from blue to a mysterious purple‑black, forming mats of five‑pointed fronds that could retract or unfurl.

At night, it spread its points to catch moonlight; at midday, it folded like a shy flower bud to shield itself—much like a mimosa.

Mass extinctions also clear opportunities for the meek to become mighty. With no rivals left, this "Purple‑Zhao Grass" exploded into countless offshoots, carpeting the ocean in vibrant life.

"Having endured five millennia of sun and five of darkness, you stand alone as the true hero of this world. I shall call you Purple‑Zhao Grass."

Yate opened his notebook to the second page and penned:

Lightwu Era

Heaven and earth transformed: moon set and sun rose, unleashing a 5,000‑year blaze overhead. The Darkwu Era's Blue‑Moon Grass majority perished, but the hardy Purple‑Zhao Grass ascended to become this era's dominant species.