The Trap (1)
What would make the ideal APEX for Adhai and me to hunt together?
The Skywhale was out of the question—it absorbed every kind of energy imaginable. Fighting one meant relying purely on physical ability, which put Adhai at a severe disadvantage, given that her body was far smaller than the rest of her kin.
Crystalwings were decent opponents for honing Adhai's skills, but there was a catch. Tracking them down took at least several days, and we simply didn't have that kind of time.
So, Crystalwings were also eliminated.
The Glacier Fiend was another candidate, but it, too, was a dubious choice. The narcotic secretion of the Glacier Fiend could beguile even a Gallagon. White Gallagons possessed high resistance to toxins, so Adhai would endure it to a degree, but avoiding the aftereffects was another matter entirely. With our battle against Ored Ghad drawing near, an enemy that left lingering debilitation was poor planning.
What about the Ice Horror, then?
Not a good idea. I had already eaten that one twice—the one I killed, and the one Ham Ort brought down. Eating the same prey multiple times meant I was unlikely to gain anything new from it.
Crossing out the Ice Horror left the Gallagons. Not a bad opponent in itself, but apart from Ored Ghad and Ham Ort's flock, none existed on this planet. So, Gallagons were out too.
That made five kinds of APEX eliminated, Gallagons included.
As far as I could remember, there were three more APEX species dwelling on this frozen world. One of them, the Arcane Orca, was the Skywhale's superior breed—also excluded. That left two.
One of the remaining two had no flight capability whatsoever, which made it entirely unsuitable for training Adhai, who needed to grow accustomed to aerial combat.
Which naturally left only a single APEX.
And right now, Adhai and I were moving to hunt it.
Our current location was far from the forest where our nest lay hidden. It was somewhat closer to the colossal mountain where we had taken the Skywhale, but even reaching that peak would take considerable time.
Since Ored Ghad's flock had shown no unusual movements, we had ventured out this far. Lingering too long was dangerous, so my plan was to spend a single day searching before returning.
Because I also had to factor in Adhai's stamina, we had periodically landed on mountaintops along the way to rest and eat.
[Vzz (Eat)]
{Thanks}
I handed Adhai the carcass of a small animal. While she slurped down its blood through her tentacle like a straw, I swallowed my own kill in a single bite.
Can't rush this one either. It's a hard beast to find.
Not quite as elusive as the Crystalwing, but an annoying type to track down all the same.
The prey we sought this time was an ambush-type APEX. Like the Ice Horror, it was the kind that built itself a home and hid within it.
Though 'pantry' would be a more accurate word for its home than 'nest.'
The creature had a peculiar habit: it captured prey, stockpiled it in a suitable location, and let it rot before eating. It was the kind of gourmet its nickname—the Connoisseur—implied.
Discerning about its meals, this next target of ours was also highly intelligent. It didn't possess the Gallagon's high sociability or advanced system of communication—but only because these creatures always operated alone.
In a sense, one could call it a type similar to me, Amorph.
With our brief meal and rest finished, we resumed the search.
Beneath our wings, the tree-choked forest fell away, revealing the long ridgeline of a mountain range spreading endlessly below.
Even in flight, my auxiliary organ stayed fixed on the mountainside. The creature preferred to build its lairs midway up mountains, so that zone demanded our closest attention.
Smart as it was, the creature hid its nest well—but it had one distinctive tell. I had already explained it to Adhai in advance.
{Big Adult} {Question}
I was scanning the mountains carefully when Adhai called out to me.
{Big Adult} {Knowledge} {Much} {Kin} {I} {Not-know} {Everything} {Knows} {Amazing}
[Vzzz (Is that so?)]
{Ham Ort} {Ored Ghad} {Both} {Not know} {Big Adult} {Only}
She seemed genuinely fascinated that I possessed so much knowledge. From where I stood, though, a creature who could memorize the movements of every star in the sky struck me as the more impressive one.
{Big Adult} {All} {Prey} {Everything} {Know?}
[Vzz-zzz zzz (No. I'm not quite at that level.)]
I had memorized roughly eighty percent of the creature data that appeared in Space Survival. For an Amorph, whose traits were its power, the more it knew about other organisms, the greater the advantage.
There weren't many players who knew as much as I did.
The Rank 4 Outspacer and the Rank 1 cyborg probably matched or exceeded my level of knowledge.
But this was reality, and a great deal had changed from the game. No. 26, once a Bubble Amoeba turned Sea Demon. Adhai, a mutant Gallagon. Neither had existed in the game.
The same went for the Ice Horror, the first thing I'd encountered on this planet that was unknown to me. Its body had been far larger than its established game size. The White Gallagon Ham Ort, likewise, possessed skills that towered over her kin.
So far, my knowledge has proven useful enough.
How long that would last, though, I couldn't say. In the end, there was only one way to minimize the risk born of the gap between my knowledge and reality.
Grow stronger, so that I don't die.
[Vzz-zzzz zz zzz (I don't know everything either. I'm still weak.)]
{Big Adult} {Body} {Black Kin} {Similar} {Strength} {Strong}
[Vzz-zzz zzzz zzz (Once you finish growing, you'll be stronger than me.)]
{True?}
It was true. Even an ordinary Black Gallagon outclassed me on paper. If Adhai ever became a Red Gallagon, she would become the single most powerful force among my companions.
Though her small body would keep her from matching the original, of course.
Hearing my words, Adhai wagged her tail from side to side in midair, clearly delighted.
{I} {Growth} {Complete} {After} {Wish} {Have}
[Vz zzzz zz zzz (I see. If there's something you want, I'll get it for you.)]
{Promise}
For my part, I needed to keep gathering Genetic Essence regardless of evolution. If there was prey she wanted, hunting it together wouldn't be a bad idea at all.
As we continued circling the mountains, a trace of the creature finally caught my eye.
[Vzzz (Found it)]
{Where?}
[Vz (Over there)]
Adhai and I touched down on a snow-buried mountainside. The terrain was sparse with rock, the slope thick with trees and vegetation.
The creature transplants trees and plants to the entrance of its lair.
Any ordinary animal—or anyone ignorant of its habits—would have passed right over it.
{There} {Nest?}
[Vz (Yes)]
I led Adhai toward the spot where trees, vines, moss, and all manner of plants lay grown thick and lush.
My conviction that this was both the creature's lair and its pantry came down to something simple. I tore a vine out of the ground.
This plant species doesn't grow anywhere nearby.
The winged creature always flew far afield to find its food—and every time, it gathered seeds and roots from the plants in the region where it hunted, then planted them at the entrance of its lair.
In other words: if you saw flora that couldn't have grown there naturally, you had found its den.
I plucked a fruit from the vine and swallowed it whole, then tossed another to Adhai. As she began eating it, I spoke.
[Vzz zz zz (Wait here for a moment)]
{I} {Together} {Go in}
[Vzz zz zzz zz zz zzz zzz (No. I'll lure it out first. Then we fight it outside.)]
The enemy we faced this time favored highly unorthodox tactics—lurking in ambush, or deceiving its prey to turn the tables. And on top of that, its attack power was ferociously high. One careless mistake, and Adhai's body could be cleaved in two.
Better that I go in myself and drag it out.
I seized the vines and trees and tore them away. Clearing the obstacles with my wing-arms and combat arms revealed a large cavern.
A faint smell of blood and rotting corpses drifted out from within. The moment it hit my olfactory senses, I was certain.
It's inside.
The creature I sought never left its lair until its stockpiled prey was fully consumed.
I lowered my body and slipped through the entrance. The passage was narrow at the mouth and grew wider as it went deeper—and it wasn't just the tunnel that widened. Like an ant colony, countless forks branched off in every direction.
But I had no need to follow them deeper. My job, after all, was simply to flush the creature out.
It'll be waiting for me, but so be it.
I stopped in a passage that was wide enough to accommodate me. The cooldown on my Paragon of the Hunt had ended just minutes before. I unsheathed the bio-weapon sleeping within my body.
The shape of my head carapace warped. My sight vanished, and every other sense sharpened dramatically. My body's structure twisted, the Human-Faced Beast migrating into my head carapace, while scythe-arms of bone erupted from my back. Crimson, vein-like patterns etched themselves across my wings. And the transformation didn't stop at appearance—my body lengthened beyond what it had been before.
My completed form filled the passage wall to wall. The slightest lift of my head pressed my skull against the ceiling.
Everything was exactly as I intended. I began ramming the walls and ceiling of the tunnel with my head carapace.
Come out. Now.
A collapse wouldn't kill the creature. But it would turn every morsel of its treasured pantry into garbage.
"Skraaaaah! Shaaaaah!"
Just as I'd planned, an enraged shriek rang out from deep within. Then came a sound like a paper book being rifled open at high speed, echoing through the narrow passage. The creature was charging.
Having successfully lured it, I backed out the way I had come.
The creature drew nearer and nearer through the cave's pitch blackness, thick with the same damp, fetid odor. Malice radiated from its very footsteps.
And just as the pincer at the tip of my tail cleared the nest's mouth—
An arm like a mantis's foreleg slashed through the air. The creature's forelimb, armed with monstrous cutting force, sheared off one of my horns.
I had known how close it was, and yanked my head back in time—no mortal wound, then. Having lost a horn, I scrambled out of the nest.
{Big Adult} {Horn} {Where gone?}
[Vzz zzz zz (It's coming. Get ready)]
Adhai, who had been sipping fruit through her tentacle like a straw, snapped taut the instant she heard my warning. Not more than a few seconds after I escaped, the creature burst out.
Its forelegs came flying at me again, scythes poised to carve—but I was ready this time. I threw my body into a wide sideways turn in the open space, evading the strike, then used the momentum of that turn to whip my tail around.
The pincer on my tail swung like a meteor hammer and smashed into the enemy. With a thunderous crack, the creature went tumbling across the snow piled before the cave.
Not strong enough.
As expected, the creature rose to its feet without so much as a stagger.
Its name was the Hellside Hornet. As the name suggested, it was an APEX with an insectoid appearance.
Though no insect like that actually exists anywhere in the universe.
The Hellside Hornet blended the features of a mantis, a hornet, and a botfly. Where a common insect bore six legs, however, this one had eight: two mantis-like forearms on its upper body, and six legs on its lower half.
Its upright torso and its forelegs, folded like a switchblade sickle, marked it as mantis-like in structure. But unlike a lean mantis, the creature's upper body was built like a bodybuilder's. Its thick carapace was packed with muscle so dense it was hard to imagine it belonged to an insect.
Its speed and strength both come from those muscles.
Perched atop that armored torso was a head shaped like a hornet's. Just as a hornet's bite is agonizing, the creature's jaws were a genuinely dangerous weapon.
On its back spread wings large enough to cover its entire body with room to spare. While its upper half evoked a mantis, its lower half looked as though a botfly's body had been grafted on whole, with a long, tubular bio-organ protruding from the tip of its abdomen.
[Vzzz zzzz zz (Watch its tail. Do not let it hit you)]
{Understood}
I hadn't compared it to a botfly for nothing. A strike from that tail meant parasitic infection.
It wouldn't puppeteer other organisms like my own or the Outspacer's parasites, nor send its victims into madness like the Glacier Fiend's narcotic secretion. Instead, hundreds—thousands—of maggots would erupt from the wound. In effect, it was much like the Tetanus Vine I had once used to make a fool of the Temple Guard.
In some ways, it's even more grotesque than the vine.
Imagine hundreds of maggots, each the size of an adult man's finger, churning through a wound and burrowing through the body. Visually shattering, yes—but above all, the sheer agony would be unbearable. I might manage it somehow; if Adhai were infected, she would be combat-incapacitated the moment it took hold.
The only consolation, if you could call it that, was the creature's own anatomy—it would struggle to infect Adhai with that tail.
Its body is just too big.
The Hellside Hornet before us stood roughly ten meters tall and stretched some fifteen meters in length. To curl that tail around Adhai, it would need a degree of flexibility it simply didn't possess.
Its dark olive hide barred with deep brown stripes, the Hellside Hornet glared at us through its repulsive compound eyes.
"Shaaaaah, skraaaaah."
Its gaze shifted to our wings. Checking, no doubt, what manner of mobility we possessed.
At last, its wings snapped open wide. In the same breath, Adhai and I spread ours as well.
Here we go.
All three of us rose together into the darkened sky.
An aerial battle between me—and two APEX creatures—had only just begun.