Predators (3)

In Space Survival, planets were classified as Earth-type not for extreme ecosystems like rocky or ocean worlds, but for the way their varied environmental elements were distributed in a balanced, even measure.

And true to its Earth-type designation, PH-101 had abundant water, a diverse range of flora, and plentiful wildlife.

Seen up to that point alone, it looked like a wonderful place to live. But there was a catch.

While PH-101 did boast a hospitable ecosystem, the creatures inhabiting the planet were by no means weak.

Plant Lizards, individually feeble but gathering in herds of hundreds or thousands, or Horned Gigants whose raw physical specs rivaled those of top-tier players—the list went on.

Not a single creature on this planet was easy prey, and to make matters worse, the environment itself conspired against human survival with a host of hazards and events.

Magnetic storms that swept across the entire planet on rare occasions, or eruption events from the supervolcano on Sainttopia 01, the continent across from mine.

And the place where I now stood—the swamplands of the Saintopia 02 continent—would rank well within the top ten if you asked anyone to name the most dangerous environments on this planet.

Mushrooms spewing nightmarish toxic spores without pause, poisonous gases produced by the rotting corpses of animals that had died of poisoning, and a vicious cycle in which the swamp's native creatures absorbed those toxins and grew even more venomous. The result was a cursed realm where even someone in a full hazmat suit couldn't last five minutes.

'If this were the game, I would've come here only after evolving into a Young Adult.'

Reality, however, had forced me to venture out the moment I became one.

"Skree!"

A four-meter-long man-eating centipede thrashed about in the grip of my tentacles.

Its name was a Smogped. It sat fairly low on the swampland food chain, but it was a dangerous organism you could never afford to underestimate.

Smogpeds possessed the ability to spray acidic fluid like a mist. That acidic fog could melt through a gas mask, making it terrifyingly effective in a swamp already saturated with toxic air.

'Not that it matters to me.'

My erosion tentacles inhaled the Smogped they'd pinned with six appendages. The hard carapace covering its back cracked, its elongated body crumpled, and it was sucked down into my tentacles.

Poison-laden blood and fluids poured from its body, but the tentacles waiting below caught and swallowed every last drop.

Even while my tentacles fed, the rest of my body worked busily, cutting down the insects that lunged at me with combat arms and tail.

'Having Nightmare Horizon makes this so much easier.'

Amorph may have had plenty of arms, but it only had one mouth, which inevitably limited my predation activity.

But now that I had seven mouths, eating had become faster than hunting.

Having secured a massive number of traits since entering the swamplands, I now had two Types eligible for specialization.

'One more infection-related trait and two more nest-related traits, and I'll have filled every Type slot required for evolution.'

Each time an Amorph acquired a Type, the requirement for acquiring the next Type doubled.

Because of that, I had originally planned to claim the Infection Enhancement Type first, then the Special Defense Enhancement Type.

But far more nest-related traits had dropped than I'd anticipated, so I'd changed my plan: Infection Enhancement Type first, then Nest Enhancement Type.

Having checked my text box once more, I pressed deeper into the swamp.

There was a rare trait here that could only be obtained in this place.

As the water deepened, the number of visible creatures around me dwindled. In their place, the bones of massive animals lay scattered everywhere.

The fog blanketing the swamp grew thicker and more venomous, until the air itself could honestly be called pure poison.

If I hadn't been enhanced by the Avatar of the Hunt and my various traits, I would have succumbed to the toxins long ago.

'It's about time.'

At some point the water had risen to my chest. Yet my body moved as naturally as if I were on dry land, thanks to a new trait acquired here.

'Who knew I'd get Webbed Fins here of all places.'

Just as the name implied, webbing had grown between my hands and feet, and thin but broad fins now sprouted from near the wrists of my combat arms and from my tail.

On land they stayed folded tight and inactive, but in water they spread wide like now, aiding my movements underwater.

'Though actual swimming would be a stretch in this state.'

My body weighed far too much for true deep-water swimming; the fins were only useful for swift movement through the shallows of the swamp, as I was doing now.

Half-swimming, half-wading through the swampland like that, one of my auxiliary organs suddenly detected something moving beneath the water.

A small lantern light appeared in the middle of the silent swamp. The pale glow swayed gently for a moment, then froze as it caught sight of me.

'Here it comes.'

The lantern—the eye of a colossal creature lurking beneath the swamp—withdrew beneath the surface.

Then the water churned violently as the thing began to reveal itself.

First, ten long legs, shaped something like a spider's, rose from the swamp. Each one was sheathed in hard chitin and stretched nearly ten meters in length.

Next, two massive pincers broke the surface alongside the legs.

No—could those really be called pincers?

Each claw was a full two meters across. One direct hit from those things would be enough to put even me on the back foot. They looked absolutely vicious.

The legs and pincers alone were staggering in scale, but the torso was broader and far more massive still. While the legs resembled a spider's, the body was oval like a crab's, wrapped in a thick carapace.

Of course, no one would look at a creature with a fifteen-meter-wide shell and think 'crab.'

Spines as thick as a grown man's forearm studded the top of the shell, while holes the size of human palms pocked its underside.

At the front of the torso, I could see a mouth ringed with spiral-arranged teeth like a lamprey's, and four lantern-like eyes.

The name of this thing, which looked like a crab and a spider mashed together, was the Swamp King.

The most dangerous creature in the swamplands of the Saintopia 02 continent.

Four lantern-like eyes turned toward me.

The instant I felt its gaze, the two pincers came hurtling toward my head at a speed that defied belief.

Having sensed the attack's approach through my auxiliary organs, I bent my knees and dove into the swamp. The colossal pincer swept just over my crown-like head carapace.

Before its next attack ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could land, I kicked off the mud at the swamp floor and launched myself upward.

The bottom was closer to quicksand than solid ground, so I couldn't leap high—but if I could get on top of the thing, that was all I needed.

Perched on its back, I brought every weapon I had to bear on its shell.

I stretched my jaws wide and tore at its hard eyes, raked it with my combat arms, and hammered the shell with my Bone Axe. The spines jutting from its carapace sheared away in showers every time I swung.

｢Gyiiiiiii｣

The creature shook its body in irritation, and mine lurched violently, as if I were riding a mechanical bull.

To keep from being thrown off, I drove the bone-blade arm on my back down into its shell.

When shaking me off failed—it clung like a leech—the creature reverse-bent the joints of some of its legs and pincers to strike at me directly.

The target: me, on top of its shell.

The claws at the tips of its legs were as hard as its pincers, with monstrous penetrating power—they could punch clean through even my head carapace.

Before the leg-claws could strike, I leapt down from its shell.

But the attack had come in too fast; one of my erosion tentacles was torn away.

A searing pain shot through my head, like someone had lashed my back with a whip.

｢Gyii?｣

Its attack having failed, the creature let out a short cry of apparent surprise.

'It's strong.'

As expected of the apex of the swampland ecosystem—it was no pushover.

The creature was completely immune to poison, parasites, viruses, and every other such weapon. Which meant that none of the infection-type traits I'd acquired since entering the swamplands worked on it.

And its carapace resisted every kind of psychic power.

That was why I hadn't used Ghost Claws even when raking its shell with my combat arms earlier—it wouldn't have done anything. Even a Psychic Breath would only crack it, at best.

Which left exactly one way to bring this thing down.

'Overwhelming brute force. Nothing else.'

Its attack speed was blistering, and its strength considerable.

On top of that, a thick shell, high psychic resistance, and immunity to poison and viruses.

Looked at that way, it seemed perfect. But it wasn't.

'I can win this.'

After that first exchange of blows, it had done nothing more than damage its own shell, while I'd lost a single tentacle.

On paper, that looked like I'd come out badly. But I was actually relieved.

'Just as I predicted. The current me can crack that shell.'

It might sound surprising, but that hard, thick-looking shell was in fact the creature's most vulnerable point.

Swampland creatures were characterized by the erratic, outlandish methods they used to hunt their prey.

The Swamp King was no exception.

Seeing its crab-like body and those thin spider-like legs, it would be easy to assume you should disable the legs or pincers first. That would be a fatal misjudgment.

Its legs and pincers were so hard that a plasma heat beam wouldn't leave so much as a scratch.

They might as well have carried an 'indestructible' flag; targeting them was meaningless.

The shell, on the other hand, was comparatively softer than the limbs. With enough raw physical force, it could be smashed.

And the current me had plenty of raw physical force.

｢Gyiiiii｣

Having apparently registered me as a threat, the creature only growled, unwilling to move rashly.

I too circled slowly around it, waiting for an opening.

As the brief standoff stretched on, it was the creature that attacked first.

｢Gyik, gyii, gyii｣

From the holes beneath its shell, white serpent-like things wriggled out. Corpse Catfish—the same loathsome creatures I'd seen in the space city's sewers long ago.

'To be precise, these are an enhanced version of those.'

The Corpse Catfish spawned by the Swamp King were a different beast entirely from the ones in the sewers.

In the game, the Corpse Catfish a Swamp King summoned ignored player defense and dealt fixed damage—thanks to the lore that they secreted digestive fluid capable of melting virtually any substance.

This was reality, so there was no telling what had changed.

'Not that I plan on finding out by taking a hit on purpose.'

The swarm of Corpse Catfish came swimming toward me, eager to devour me whole.

I swung my long tail, which had been submerged beneath the swamp, in a great arc and smashed through them. The water split like the Red Sea, and fragments of the burst Catfish whirled into the air.

Before the ripples could settle, I dropped low and charged.

Four arms and two legs kicked off the muddy bottom, launching my body forward at tremendous speed.

｢Gyiiiiiik!｣

The Swamp King roared and swung both pincers, trying to crush me flat.

The moment the pincers were about to fall on my head, my bone-blade arm rose to meet them.

A sound of rupture—hard to believe it came from the collision of two living body parts—echoed across the swampland.

'Guh!'

The bone blade was fairly hard, but not hard enough to lock pincers for long.

The blade cracked, and beyond that, the entire arm on my back twisted in a grotesque direction.

The back arm was disabled almost instantly, but thanks to it, the pincer's trajectory shifted. Both claws swept past my body by a hair's breadth and slammed down hard into the swamp bottom.

And for one very brief moment, the Swamp King was defenseless.

I concentrated my charging momentum into my head and rammed the underside of its shell. My two horns punched straight through.

｢Kwik, kyiik!｣

It hadn't expected this, and the creature panicked badly. Super-acidic digestive fluid came pouring from the wound.

'I can hold!'

My head carapace was the hardest part of my body. Now was the time to trust it and endure.

Instead of pulling back, I drove my legs against the creature and forced my horns in deeper. Its reddish-brown blood mixed with the digestive fluid, soaking my body.

｢Kyiik!｣

When I refused to budge, the creature spread its two pincers wide and clamped them around my waist and legs.

A two-meter hydraulic press began to squeeze my body.

One leg snapped in an instant, and my waist slowly started to crumple under that monstrous strength.

If I were an ordinary person, I'd have suffocated to death before the pain even registered.

Rather than putting distance between us, I wrapped my erosion tentacles around its shell and pulled my body tight against it. The horns buried in its body drove in even deeper, shredding its organs.

｢Girirrik!｣

The creature shrieked at the agony of its ruptured insides.

The pressure from the pincers began to slacken bit by bit, and I seized one claw with my lower combat arms and pushed it away.

The Corpse Catfish swarmed over my body to defend their host, but I neither wavered nor retreated.

With my upper combat arms, I reached into the broken shell.

Unlike the hard carapace, I felt soft innards and flesh.

I seized them and dragged them out.

｢Gyiiii!｣

Some of its legs shifted, angling to skewer me.

I released the erosion tentacles wrapped around its shell and seized the leg instead.

Even so, the strength in that limb was nothing to scoff at. The creature tore my tangled tentacles loose and stabbed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the claw at its tip into my back.

｢Kik, kik!｣

｢Grrrrrrr｣

From here on out, it was a contest of who could endure longer.

Had I lacked a regeneration trait—

Had I not possessed a body hyper-enhanced by my Types, the Avatar of the Hunt, and the effects of Nightmare Horizon—

the one left standing at the end might have been someone else entirely.

｢Gyiii...｣

With a dying rattle, the Swamp King toppled onto its side. It vomited foamy reddish-brown blood a few times, then moved no more.

I placed my foot atop its head and roared.

To proclaim that the master of the swamplands had died by my hand.

And to declare that its corpse belonged to me.

The swamp dwellers that had crept close hoping to scavenge a free meal scattered in fright.

Having chased off every thief, I plunged my head into the Swamp King's belly.

I could have eaten with my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tentacles, but I'd gone to all the trouble of catching this thing—surely I deserved a taste.

I bit into the tender flesh lining the inside of the shell, tore it loose, and chewed lightly.

'Oh.'

I'd barely put it in my mouth and already the sensation was extraordinary. I hurriedly swallowed before the Swamp King's flesh could melt away on my tongue.

'Mm.'

The undisputed number one meal I'd ever eaten belonged to Sihyeon Yujin—a record that had never once been broken.

So I had reasoned that the more finely and abundantly balanced a target's Genetic Essence, the better it would taste.

But I'd been wrong.

Admittedly, before eating it, I'd assumed that since it resembled a crab, it would taste something like crab meat. That could not have been a more mistaken notion.

The Swamp King's flavor was so superb that I almost felt guilty for having dared to judge it with such an irreverent thought.

'And the best part of all is...'

Sihyeon Yujin had tasted wonderful, but there hadn't been ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠much. Human-sized, after all.

But the thing before me was a fifteen-meter deluxe king crab.

'I never got to eat crab dishes as a human, and here I am sampling the whole menu.'

If I hadn't been racing the clock in Avatar of the Hunt form, I would have taken my time and feasted on it for days.

'Tsk. The kids would have loved this.'

When I met No. 26 and Adhai again, I'd have to consider returning to the swamplands. Not for the Genetic Essences—purely for the sake of gourmet indulgence.

I hurriedly scraped and devoured every scrap of flesh and organ clinging to the inside of the king crab's—no, the Swamp King's—shell.

As for the legs, I couldn't break their carapace myself, so I slipped my erosion tentacles and blood-sucking tentacles inside and extracted only the meat.

And when I had neatly polished off even its lantern-like eyes, a window appeared announcing the Predation Effect, just as it did whenever I devoured another creature.

'Excellent.'

Evolution wasn't far off now.

Having claimed the Swamp King's Genetic Essence, I continued roaming the swamp after that, dispatching the other creatures.

My wounds were far from light, but none of the remaining creatures posed any threat to me.

And so I safely secured two more Types, and slipped out of the swampland with roughly three minutes left on the Avatar of the Hunt.

My combat arms and five remaining erosion tentacles were laden with the corpses of numerous creatures.

I piled the food inside a cave I had scouted out in advance.

'That should spare me from wandering around outside because of the side effects.'

Then, just before the Avatar ran out, I checked the message I'd seen in the swamp one last time.