Down in the tunnels which the moles entered through the protrusion, combined several other tunnels, all fed by a single large tunnel. The flow of the water was slowed down by a large semicircle that was a few meters thick on the bottom portion which the water filled up half of the main tunnel and then some. Occasionally water flowed over the perfectly flat top of the semicircle but most of the water flowed through a hole many times smaller than the actual tunnel itself. The reason why there was a buildup of water was actually that when the designers of the sewers first designed the system, they took into account the elevation of the various dumpsites to let them lay horizontal pipes, which was less labor intensive than sloped pipes. Of course, the dump sites weren’t on the same elevation, thus why there was a pool of water to keep them all flowing. The main tunnel wasn’t just a single tunnel from the city that branched out to various places in dumpsite-19, but rather it consisted of a hub of tunnels like a star, branching out in every direction.

Besides the difference in elevation though, there was another reason for the pool of water. Had all the water been simply piped through, the debris would begin to clog up the exits and the water would build up such that the entire sewer system would fall apart. To counter this, bacteria that ate plastic was dumped and left to thrive in the pool. But plastics aren’t the only thing dumped down drains. A whole swathe of bacteria was dumped in to dispose of the organic matter, oils, and synthetic fibers that threatened to clog up the system.

A side product of one particular bacteria that feasted on a certain type of plastic, however, contained a mixture that slowly poisoned the microbes in the pool. Due to the sheer amount of bacteria that were living there however, a few were resistant and continued to reproduce, but rats and other insects were unable to live there, leading to the sewers being self maintaining and nobody ever checking in on it.

This chemical was directly piped out into the dumpsites, where they rendered the land near uninhabitable. The bacteria were washed along with the water out, but there existed a layer near the very bottom where the water didn’t move at all, which was made slightly larger by the objects that fell to the bottom and waited to be consumed.

But exposed to the sunlight, the bacteria quickly died and turned into nutrients that kept the plants that developed directly outside of each drain alive. Nobody ever resided there as everybody knew that the area was wide open and lying in wait all around were predators.

However, the colony of moles with its scavengers simply sat there in peace, a testament to their combined power.

--Underground--

A long worm passed through the dirt littered with rocks. Behind it ran a bug with twelves legs which seemed to blur against the ground, never touching them. Attacked to the back of the shell however, was a squishy tubular creature that flapped against the ground and drove a slight ditch in it. It smacked the small balls of compressed dirt that the worm left behind and the cockroach ran over.

“Hey Alejandros you think we’re done yet?”

“Go ask the useless one flapping behind me. What are you looking at me for!”

“You sure he’s even conscious? He looks pretty dead to me.”

“Eh probably just motion sickness, should we stop and wake up him?”

“Nah let's keep running.”

“See? It wasn’t that hard to give a definitive answer!”

“Arghhh!”

--Laboratory holding area--

This place existed as a temporary area where the samples would be tagged, tested, and contained. The eight samples which had just recently been transported in and awaited basic scans.

The creatures inside each box lay on the first underground layer out of three, the second which held the already processed creatures and the third which held the creatures unable to be contained by the cages in the second layer. The holding cages were located behind the elevators on the second layer behind a set of doors that formed a lock where at least one door would be closed. The room was as tall as the cages that were already processed, but due to the lack of information on samples that came in, the room featured concrete walls twice as thick.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Taps came from within the box. No sound came back. Their cages weren’t shocked like before. Bang. Bang. A cage burst open like a finger through a wet tissue. The decimeter thick plate wrenched apart under the force of the creature that burst out.

The creature had a large sandy shell and featured a long horn that curved upwards. The metal around it didn’t even leave a scratch on the shell at all. The body of the insect was split into three seconds, the first of which featured the pointed horn that the insect had used to bash a hole into the metal wall. The second section was just like the first section, except that it was much thicker. The very top of the shell reached the same level as the horn and the second section was twice as wide as it was tall but just as short as the first section. The third section was the largest with it having the same height as the second section, but being several times longer and slightly wider. The legs were thick, but they were actually hollow within and had small holes in which air rushed in and out.

The cages had several extensions that were bolted into the ground, being able to secure the heaviest of creatures. Obviously it worked since the walls of the cages gave way before the bolts did.

The beetle tapped against the ground, to hear more taps from the other cages. It stood right next to the cage beside the one that it came out and rammed it. The metal tore apart to reveal a lizard whose skin blended in with the wall behind it.

The beetle backed off to allow the lizard to step out. Each and every one of them here all existed in close proximity in the same cage before they were transported here.

--Before in the Husao Foundation--

Large swathes of land were irradiated. An archaic but effective tactic for mutating animals. Forests were gone, completely decimated by agent orange after several successful ambushes took place where soldiers took a route under the dense canopy. The only thing left was giant swathes of land in the centers of the land reserved for agricultural use. Even those were minimized however, by angled reflectors all over the city which reflected sunlight onto the layers of land stacked atop each other. Beneath the land where sunlight couldn’t reach and was blocked by skyscrapers lived countless farm workers whose entire lives were spent in that building that was wider and thicker than it was tall.

Several layers however, were allocated to the various research groups for the purpose of breeding animals which they could then imitate with technology to gain an edge over their enemies. The country, known as Lunera, was at the forefront of biological development while the others focused on optimizing mechanical weaponry, laser weaponry and even launching bricks into the high atmosphere which would then start raining down. Fortunately, the idea of launching anything into near space was doomed because of the field of debris that blocked anything from exiting earth’s atmosphere. Myths though, tell of a group of rich people who flew off the planet and dumped all the debris there to block people from ever getting out. Knocking down the debris with lasers would probably be possible, but there existed too much and it would simply be better to wait for another millennium when the cloud began to thin out.

The several layers which were allocated for the development were located at the very top, where the atmosphere was thinner and the life there would have to develop in harsher conditions. The layer the Husao foundation got was half of the third layer. This layer they put to great use, replicating the environment which most battles were fought on. They took sections of land and kept them under high radiation by continuously irradiating an area and watching it compete with the existing life.

All while that was happening, a series of drones hovered above, monitoring any animal that began to establish themselves as the apex predator to study them. The method of capturing was simple, just walk several exos in and have them fire large tranquilizer darts. For those who had a hide too tough or a shell too hard however, they used small machines which linked up to one another to form a shell which restricted every movement of the animal with some tolerance to allow for breathing.

These captured animals would then be shipped off into smaller plots of land which were walled off. In these pens, several creatures would be stored in the same place to let them compete on which would fight one another and determine who was the strongest overall.

The pen that those seven came from was special though. They had recognized that the pair who fought first would fall in strength and would immediately lose. The most important thing to do would be to preserve their own strength and energy. The first ones who began starving and lost control were the ones who lost along with those besides them.

These seven were the ones left who lasted until the end and avoided all the others in the pen, either by hiding underground or escaping. There were a select few who even ate the grass and weeds there to stave off the hunger.

However, the pen was only so large and it was inevitable that they would bump into one another either by running away from other animals or finding food. In those cases, it was possible for the other side to ambush the other while they were sleeping so those few animals had formed a tacit consent to not attack each other.

Slowly, trust built up amongst those seven and they began to roam together and overpower the other animals together as well as to guard their prey from others. This trust paid off at this moment when the beetle decided to save the others since its normal activity was the equivalent of tearing its muscles apart with the force it attempted to contract them with.