Predators (2)

"You know who Rick is, right?"

"Chatterbox Rick? 'Course I do. What about him?"

"Word is they lost contact with his camp."

"What?"

Even in broad daylight, the pirates at the outpost were standing on high alert. The order had come down from the cruiser that served as their main base.

"Apparently another camp went dark recently too. Now this?"

"That's exactly why we're on watch at this hour."

"...Hah, and this area was supposed to be safe."

The pirate standing guard stiffened at his comrade's ominous tone. His partner, as if to put him at ease, went on.

"Don't sweat it. Word from upstairs is the boss'll be back at the cruiser in a day or two."

"Yeah? That's a relief. So what's got her out this long, anyway?"

"They wouldn't say. Rumor is it's got something to do with a prisoner they picked up a while back."

"Now·that·I·gotta·hear·more·of."

"Wish I could tell you, but I don't know anyth—huh?"

"Huh?"

The two pirates trading gossip turned to stare at each other at the voice that had cut in between them.

There were only two of them standing watch in this place.

Their eyes both traveled upward.

There, perched above them, was the thing that had been mimicking a pirate's voice.

It had been exactly one week today since I came to Saintopia 02.

In ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that time, I'd raided one pirate camp after another through the forest, all in pursuit of information about the players.

One of the pirates at a camp let slip that the Unyielding Mask I carried had originally been a gift the pirate boss bestowed upon her second-in-command. In other words, the Cult pirate I'd killed earlier had been the vice-boss of the Humanity Cartel.

Among the camps I'd struck since then while gathering intel, there had been one large outpost garrisoned by a sizable force of pirates. There, I'd encountered someone wearing Cult quest-reward gear strikingly similar to the Unyielding Mask's former owner.

That was enough to make me more than half certain.

The boss of the Humanity Cartel was a player — or someone with deep ties to the players.

Which meant I was facing a very serious threat.

I interrogated more pirates and pulled additional information about her out of them. Distilling all their testimonies, the boss's defining traits came down to three things: her species was Cult, her gender was female, and by some unknown means she kept acquiring one peculiar relic after another.

Being a pirate, she was hardly some benevolent soul. Add a cruiser and a stockpile of useful equipment on top of that, and the gap in power between her and the current me was by no means small.

No matter how well I fought in the jungle, a gap this wide wouldn't be easy to close.

And if she really was a player, there was a good chance she already knew about me — and about my tactics.

It's awkward to say it myself, but the strategies I'd used in the jungle — corpse bombs, skinned bodies, that sort of thing — were famous enough that most long-time players would know them on sight.

The one saving grace is that the boss isn't here yet.

I didn't know the reason, but according to her underlings she was off somewhere far away, and would return to the cruiser in two days' time.

The cruiser's crew, for their part, weren't making any moves to capture me before she arrived. Just as the pirates had said a moment ago, all they'd done was issue warnings that I was raiding the camps.

They're stockpiling information on me.

Toss out the outposts as bait, milk them for intelligence until the boss arrives, then launch an all-out offensive to take me down the moment she does. That had to be the plan.

Of course, the situation wasn't entirely one-sided in her favor.

I've got time until the boss comes back.

Time was usually my enemy — but this once, it was an exception.

I have to evolve into a Young Adult within the next two days.

Chewing through the loot I'd taken from the outposts, I brought up the translucent text box.

The condition requiring me to devour playable species ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is done.

All that remained was the type count. Evolving into a Young Adult required four Types in total. I already had the Physical Enhancement Type and the Psionic Enhancement Type, and three more Types existed that I could acquire going forward.

Over the past week, beyond the pirates, I'd also been snacking on wild animals whenever the opportunity arose, so I'd secured two new traits along the way.

One was Disease Resistance, a special-defense trait acquired from the Nightstalker. The other was Auditory Hallucination Worm, an infection-related trait obtained from the Redclown, a flesh-eater that resembled a walking mushroom.

Thanks to that, the Special Defense Enhancement Type had been ready to unlock since two days ago — but I was still holding off.

The moment I claim one Type, the number of traits required for the others goes up.

For example, if I took the Infection Enhancement Type now, the traits needed for the Special Defense Enhancement Type and the Nest Enhancement Type would each rise to eight.

So in my current situation, taking the Infection Enhancement Type first was the better play.

By that count alone, evolution still looks miles away.

But I had an ace up my sleeve.

Today marked exactly one week since I'd taken control of the spacecraft with my Erosion Tentacles.

Which meant I could use the Paragon of the Hunt.

Twenty minutes. I have to rack up as many Predation Effects as I possibly can in twenty minutes.

If this had been any other planet — any other continent — gathering the Genetic Essences required for evolution would not have been easy.

But this was the Saintopia 02 Continent, a place ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠positively crawling with creatures bearing rare Genetic Essences.

And as it happens, there's a spot around here perfect for unleashing the Paragon of the Hunt.

There was somewhere in this forest I needed to go.

Honestly, it was an extremely dangerous zone for the current me — but it was also a place where I could harvest the traits I needed in bulk.

The Great Swamplands.

Follow the river south from here and you eventually hit a swamp of staggering expanse, teeming with nightmarish creatures.

Strictly speaking, it's not that any single one of them is overpoweringly strong — it's the terrain, and how badly everything there counters everything else.

The monsters of the swamplands all shared one thing in common: they carried devastatingly potent poisons and viruses. Even veteran players couldn't clear that zone without pouring enormous preparation into poison and virus countermeasures.

Back when this was a game, I wouldn't have dreamed of entering the swamplands until I'd reached Young Adult or Adult. As a Sub-adult? Not a chance.

That's how it would've been, anyway.

Having finished off the last of the pirate corpses, I left the outpost behind.

Everything I needed to conquer the swamplands was already in place.

First of all, I possessed the Disease Resistance trait, which granted immunity to every category of illness.

If this were still a game, I'd never have taken it.

Upon reaching Young Adult, an evolution bonus grants automatic immunity to all biochemical attacks. That made Disease Resistance a fairly inefficient trait — but in a situation like mine, where I needed to breach the swamplands now, it was invaluable.

Better still, using the Paragon of the Hunt would amplify my trait effects, so even inside the swamp I'd take almost no damage.

And since the Paragon itself boosted every one of my physical abilities, fighting the swamp's monsters would pose no great difficulty. Fearsome as they were, their raw combat power fell short of things like the Horned Gigant.

And then there's this.

The small hand at my chest held up the shattered remains of the Unyielding Mask. This silver death-mask granted its wearer immunity to poison and psychic attacks, plus the ability to detect cloaked targets.

The crucial thing was that it was made of metal.

Which meant it qualified for Metal Absorption.

Apart from Unique-grade equipment, I can absorb anything metal.

If I gained the mask's poison immunity on top of everything else, it would be a massive help in conquering the swamplands.

And so, with every preparation complete, today was finally the day I attempted the swamplands.

Almost there.

The wide, blue riverbank narrowed by degrees, and yellow-green moss and water weeds began to crowd the surface of the water.

Everything around me was choked with rotting, snapped dead trees, mushroom spores belching toxic fog, and insects glinting in garish, riotous colors. A foul stench crept out of the air itself, and the miasma seeped through my thick outer shell.

No matter how many times I see it, this place is shocking.

Enduring the prickling pain spreading across my whole body, I scanned my surroundings.

The swamplands had none of the oppressive hundred-meter giants of the forest — but in their place stood mushrooms five to ten meters tall, leeches the size of grown men, and bus-sized giant water bugs prowling about.

There was a movie from before I was born — a giant ape as its star. In it, explorers wreck their expedition in some hidden valley, and there a horde of grotesque insects swarms out to devour them.

According to the chatter on the community forums, the swamplands of the Saintopia 02 Continent had been modeled directly on that very valley.

In other words: imagine nightmarish vermin dripping with toxins and viruses erupting out of every inch of space at once.

Plenty of high-tier players avoided this zone outright — the difficulty was one thing, but the revolting visuals were another.

Which makes it a gold mine for the current me.

Truly, it deserved to be called a treasury of Genetic Essence.

I activated Metal Absorption and bit down on the Unyielding Mask in a single crunch.

A ticklish sensation rippled once along the vicinity of my outer shell, and then the prickling pain simply vanished.

Just in case I'd imagined it, I decided to run one more test.

I snatched up a human-head-sized cockroach scuttling along nearby and swallowed it whole.

The creature's proper name was the Rascal Bug — its body carried an itch-inducing toxin, making it a debuff-inflicting monster.

Despite having eaten it, my insides felt perfectly fine.

Poison immunity confirmed.

Verification complete, I set down the Unyielding Mask's remains and activated the Paragon of the Hunt.

My body — already evolved once through Nightmare Horizon — transformed into the form of a far more perfect predator.

From my thick, heavy back burst two new arms, tipped with bone blades of extreme hardness and sharpness, capable of shearing through even the toughest metal with ease.

Next, all six of the Erosion Tentacles hidden inside my back came sliding out at once.

The tentacles had grown larger but changed little in shape. Instead, the six appendages at their tips shifted into claws like those on my combat arms, turning the tentacles themselves into vicious weapons.

Once the bone-bladed arms and erosion tentacles had all deployed, my back rapidly drew inward, slimming my silhouette into something sleeker than before.

Of course, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the nests where my darling tooth fairies resided still remained along my waist.

My build might have looked sleeker than when Nightmare Horizon was active, but my overall bulk had grown vastly larger. I now stood twelve meters tall — nearly the height of a four-story apartment building.

My tail had lengthened dramatically as well, bringing my total body length to just shy of twenty meters. In sheer size, I could rival a Horned Gigant.

The fine details followed as they always did: the carapace plating on my combat arms and legs had been reinforced as well.

Sharp spikes had sprouted from the plating, transforming my limbs into weapons lethal enough to inflict crushing damage with every blow.

Finally, the carapace of my head closed over my eyes, and the transformation was complete.

The Paragon of the Hunt, atop the foundation of the Nightmare Horizon.

A body the size of a four-story building, brimming to the seams with monstrous strength.

The kind of power that made it feel like I could do anything at all.

I flicked my tail lightly and lashed the dead tree behind me. The ancient trunk, five meters across even in its decay, splintered apart like a mere snapped branch. The giant centipedes nesting inside it scrambled out in a panicked flood, fleeing for their lives.

Good.

I swept my erosion tentacles out and snagged the fleeing insects. The hooked appendages sheared through their bodies clean.

As the tentacles sucked in their prey, translucent text boxes popped up one after another.

Watching them fill my vision, I drew in a deep breath and let out a thunderous roar.

The air detonated outward, and the contaminated water before me split apart in an instant. The cat-sized mosquitoes drifting over the swamp ahead of me met my roar and simply ceased to exist, wiped from the air without a trace.

Well then — let's get started.

The goal: gather enough essences to evolve within twenty minutes.

It had been a while. Time to feed.