Jeweled Wings (1)
It hadn't been long since I first sensed the Crystalwings when Mother of the Sky stirred awake. She hadn't seen them herself, but her sharp instincts had caught on just the same.
[Zzzzzz zzz zzzz (I can't see them, but I can feel them)]
"They got here faster than I expected, though."
[Zzzzzz zzzz zzzzzz (Wake up PS-111 and stand by)]
"On it."
The voice that had been whispering beneath me went quiet again, and I sent a pulse out to No. 26.
[Zzzzzz zz zzz (The flying ones are here)]
"Mmhm."
No. 26, who had been playing with the air, pulled her tentacles back into her body and began waving them in great sweeping arcs. The idea was to lure the creatures in so they'd be visible even from a long way off.
Even as she did that, my auxiliary organs were picking up the electromagnetic waves drifting through the space around us. These things hunted with a principle much like radar, so the fact that I could feel their signals at all meant they were closing in.
I kept my eyes fixed on the sky, waiting, and soon something began to emerge from between the black clouds. Two orbs of light flickered in and out of view, gliding along like a pair of UFOs.
*There they are.*
The Crystalwings were close. They didn't descend toward the nest, though — they just circled around it.
*Wary, aren't they.*
For an apex predator of the upper tier, they seemed surprisingly cautious — though in a way, it made perfect sense. These were creatures that competed with Galagons for prey. Without that degree of vigilance, surviving in nature as brutal as this would have been impossible.
When the creatures refused to come down, No. 26 waved her tentacles even harder. Perhaps her effort paid off, because the glowing orbs between the clouds began drifting slowly toward the peaks.
Through the swirling snow I could finally make out their shapes.
Massive pterosaurs sheathed in metallic material. The Crystalwings' form resembled the Quetzalcoatlus, a pterosaur famous for its enormous size — the long snout, the unusually long neck for a pterosaur, the colossal plane-like wings.
*Though they're far bigger.*
Their wingspans measured at least thirty meters. Judged by wings alone, they were larger than those of their competitors, the White Galagons.
Beyond the wings, their most striking feature was that gleaming outer hide. Not just the wings — their entire bodies looked as if they were carved from diamond. This was the work of a bodily fluid that hardened into a jewel-like crystalline form.
Because they had been coating themselves with this fluid since childhood, every last corner of their bodies glittered like gemstone.
The metallic hide reflected off the black clouds and the falling snow, so that the pair looked like a squadron of enormous mirrors soaring through the sky.
"Kuaaak!"
"Kuek."
The two Crystalwings beat their wings as they approached the nest, their eyes locked onto No. 26, who was wriggling about beside it.
*Good.*
With their attention fixed on her, they hadn't noticed us hiding near the trees. I didn't move a muscle, just watched them.
One of the two Crystalwings bore a distinctive crest on its head, and its wings were roughly one and a half times larger than its companion's.
*That one's the male.*
Among Crystalwings, it was the male that provided for the family — which meant the male's combat power was far superior.
*And the female is Mother of the Sky's mark.*
We'd leave the female to PS-111 and Mother of the Sky, while the male would fall to No. 26 and me, fighting together.
"Over here! Come on!"
As the Crystalwings drew closer, No. 26 readied herself to move. Pink fins that served as legs sprouted from beneath her body, and using them she darted rapidly away from the nest.
"Kuaaak!"
"Kueeeek!"
The sight apparently triggered their hunting instincts, because the pair shrieked. Their voices were as enormous as their bodies — the cries carried all the way across to the Twin Peaks.
After letting out a great roar, the two dove down at No. 26 to snatch her up. The wind pressure thrown off by four wings, each tens of meters long, raked across the mountaintop, and the snow piled around the nest swirled up into the air all at once.
「Flap-flap, angry!」
No. 26 nearly went flying off with the snow, but she caught herself with her tentacles anchored to the ground. Landing safely, she paddled her fins furiously and sprinted toward our position.
The Crystalwings hot on her tail. The male in front spread its jaws wide — clearly about to bring its most powerful weapon to bear.
[Zzz (Now)]
"Got it!"
I shook the snow off and rose. The moment a creature covered in dark brownish fur burst out of the snow, the Crystalwings' eyes went wide.
And then PS-111, carrying Mother of the Sky on her back, leapt out of the pit beneath me.
Half-crouched atop PS-111, Mother of the Sky's eyes blazed with an eerie blue radiance — the telltale effect of *Ice Evil Spirit*, one of the Wendigo's signature abilities.
Blue flames poured from her amber eyes and hurtled toward the creatures. Sensing the psychic power, the male snapped his wings open and jerked himself sharply upward.
But she had never been aiming for the male in the first place. Her target was what came behind him. The female, trailing after her mate, belatedly registered the incoming attack — far too late.
"Kuek?!"
The instant the blue flames touched her, the female froze rigid in midair like a puppet with its strings cut. Unable to move, she plummeted straight toward the ground.
"Kuaaaak!"
[Zzzzz zzz (Your opponent is me)]
I threw myself at the male as he moved to aid his mate. In my *Clever Underdog* mode I was far smaller than him — but strength was another matter entirely.
"Kuak!"
We collided, and the horns on my head punched clean through his wing. I tried to wrench my head and tear the wing apart completely, but I couldn't.
A turquoise beam fired from his mouth and slammed into my body.
「Pain Mitigation activated!」
*Ugh!*
Thanks to a biological trait, Crystalwings could instinctively manipulate electromagnetic force, and they channeled that power into devastating particle beams — powerful enough to casually surpass the destructive capability of plasma weapons.
*I can't tank any more of this!*
My shrunken body had reduced defenses; taking hits like this for long would be dangerous. As if reading my mind, No. 26 rushed in to support me.
「Don't you dare bully our Big Baby!」
"Kep!"
Hundreds of violet threads burst from her small body and lashed around the Crystalwing. Bound by the Sea Demon's restraint, the creature wrenched sideways at a bizarre angle.
In the moment his particle beam stopped, I broke away from the Crystalwing.
[Zzzzz (Follow me)]
「But I already scolded the bad one?」
[Zzz zzzzzz (He's not dead yet)]
"Kuaaaak!"
I touched down lightly, scooped up No. 26, and plunged into the deeper forest. Almost simultaneously, the creature screamed — his neck had snapped. Within a heartbeat he'd mended the broken vertebrae and the shredded wing, and he came after us without pause.
*The Crystalwing's recovery speed is incredible.*
He had no armor as hard as an Ice Horror's, no swarm of minions like a Glacier Fiend's, no overwhelming psychic arsenal like a Galagon's. What he had instead was every tool survival demanded.
The particle beam for hunting prey, hyper-regeneration that sealed wounds great and small in moments, superb detection ability — and even the capacity to fly for days without rest.
These traits were precisely what qualified the Crystalwing as an APEX.
*Not that I have any intention of running.*
Not far behind me, the creature was blasting trees apart with his particle beam. The dense forest had slowed even a winged giant like him.
Once I'd put a comfortable distance between us, I set No. 26 down.
The moment she touched the ground, she swelled back to her original size. Fins sprouted by the dozens beneath her, while her upper body bristled with hundreds of tentacles studded thick with serrated blades.
She entered combat mode, and countless eyes bloomed across her body. Every one of them turned toward me. I nodded without a word.
We were companions who had clawed our way through battle after battle together — we could read each other's hearts even without speaking in wavelengths.
The eyes facing me curved into crescent moons. Having understood my intent, she charged toward the Crystalwing.
"Kuaaak!"
「Bad one! Be scolded!」
The hundreds of eyes that had smiled at me now reared up in terrifying menace. The Sea Demon's racial technique, *Fear of the Deep Sea*, unfurled before the creature.
"K-Kuaa…"
The beast that had been laying the forest waste with his particle beam froze mid-attack. His eyes, fixed on No. 26, trembled violently.
The Crystalwing male possessed stronger psychic resistance than the female, but not strong enough to fully overcome a Sea Demon's power.
Still, the world rarely cooperates that neatly.
Shaking as he stared at No. 26, the creature twisted his head around to look behind him. There, Mother of the Sky and PS-111 were locked in battle with the female.
"Ku, Kuak! Kuaaak!"
Perhaps it was the will to protect his beloved. He let out one tremendous roar and readied his particle beam once more.
「No you don't!」
"Kuak!"
Before he could fire, No. 26 gathered up a cloud of wood debris and unleashed a Demon Crash. The mass of timber slammed into him, and he shook his head in clear irritation.
In that gap, her sawtooth tentacles flew in to entangle the Crystalwing. But he had already recovered his senses — the particle beam scorched the tentacles and the surrounding trees to ash.
Undaunted by the searing loss of her tentacles, No. 26 countered instantly with another bind. The tip of the Crystalwing's wing crumpled like crushed paper, but he was no pushover either. Sacrificing the wing, he lunged forward and struck at her with the point of his beak.
While the two apex creatures fought their ferocious duel, I examined the spot the turquoise beam had struck. The fur there had long since evaporated, and the chitin plating had peeled away entirely.
*I need a body strong enough to overwhelm him outright.*
Clever Underdog had served me well, but it was time to return to my sub-adult Amorph form.
*And the Paragon of the Hunt besides.*
The original plan had been to neutralize him first with No. 26's Fear of the Deep Sea and take him down afterward, but things had drifted slightly off script. Nothing to do but adapt.
I released Clever Underdog and activated *Paragon of the Hunt* in the same breath.
My body, which had barely topped five meters, ballooned in size. Along with the explosive growth, my skeletal structure transformed as well — the centaur-like frame flowed back into its serpentine shape, and with it the four combat arms that had been serving as legs reclaimed their true function.
The countless hairs covering me sloughed away in a rush, exposing the chitinous carapace and synthetic scales beneath. The Human-Faced Beasts that had hidden under the fur, and the membrane-sheathed vortex concealing my erosion tentacles, came into view once more.
Six imposing horns, an elongated skull reminiscent of a large theropod, a massive serpentine body out of myth encircled by hardened carapace, six arms sheathed in that armor — and, at the tail's tip, a ponderous set of pincers.
The transformation was only days old, yet somehow it felt like coming home after a long absence.
But my body had no time to rest — Paragon of the Hunt, the transformation mode of *Perfect Organism*, demanded my frame be rebuilt around it.
My head carapace had always been large, but in Paragon of the Hunt state it grew larger still. Thick plating slid down over my eyes, and my bifurcated lower jaws mutated into something far more extreme than before.
The four auxiliary organs beneath my well-developed jaws, like my eyes, became wrapped in bony plating.
The carapace sheathing those organs was thin and sharp as a blade. The auxiliary organs that had once served only detection were now weapons for carving flesh from the enemy.
The Human-Faced Beasts migrated from my back to my cranial carapace. Two more arms, bearing organic scythes, extended from my spine. And the stubby talons on my lower body and tail stretched long and slender, like the legs of a centipede or a spider.
A body optimized for the hunt and the slaughter — there was not a single inch of it that wasn't threatening.
Except for one thing. Of all these familiar changes, exactly one was new.
*What's this?*
The Monster's Tentacles, enriched by the Color of the Abyss, had transformed into something far more striking.
Where the tentacle cluster had once spread from the rear of my cranial carapace down over my entire neck, its reach now extended all the way to my lower jaws. In my present form, I appeared to wear a beard and mane made entirely of writhing tentacles.
Like some wicked god torn from the pages of an out-of-print horror anthology.
*…Appearance can wait.*
Every evolution complete, I slowly raised my body. The treetops that had loomed far above my head only moments ago now stood right before my eyes.
"Kuak?"
「Big Baby is back!」
The Crystalwing stared in shock as I came crashing through the trees.
*Your essence is mine.*
Toward the enemy before me — no, toward the prey — I let loose a roar that rang out like a declaration of war.