The Most Vicious and Ruthless Predator 3

The term Pudding refers to the predators that exist within my ecosystem.

There are the giant puddings that slowly devour large jellies, and the strong-jawed, tough puddings that crunch through small, hard-shelled jellies.

Those two make up the mainstream, but I deliberately cultivated a third type of pudding that wasn't particularly advantageous for survival.

The mobile pudding. These carnivorous puddings can curl their bodies into balls and bounce or roll, or sprint on elastic legs to capture and devour fast-moving jellies or other puddings.

They account for a significant portion of the carnivorous puddings, including the meat-eating puddings.

They generally measure over 60 centimeters in diameter and weigh about 15 kilograms. There are two variants: one specialized for rapid running at speeds of up to 12 kilometers per hour without scales, and another with scales that rolls a bit more slowly.

Objectively speaking, they're not particularly powerful creatures. An average adult human male on Earth could kill one with a simple kick, let alone a club.

The spiky ones can just be beaten with a stick. They don't have any ridiculous regeneration like fantasy slimes that reform after being crushed.

Still, these are the fastest predators currently present in my ecosystem. They're agile enough to hunt down the reptiles and birds I've incorporated into the Dessert Legion, and strong enough to tear apart large herbivorous mammals or livestock.

They haven't developed any concept of social behavior yet, but they've at least evolved to the point where they roam in packs, swarm their prey, and rip off huge chunks of meat.

I'll make use of them.

In the cactus forest, there are massive camel-like creatures that graze on cacti and rapidly growing grasses, along with smaller camels—though still much larger than a Homo sapiens.

“Why are you making it so complicated? Just say there are camels.”

“They're clearly two different species!”

“Ah, yes… Still, they're both camel-types, so just call them camels.”

There used to be hamsters and ants too, it seems, but now that those two civilized races have vanished, these creatures are thriving. Thanks to the endless nectar rain poured down by Yogur-tosoth's magic.

They're multiplying explosively by feeding on the plants near the Teimong River and wetlands adjacent to the cactus forest.

The problem is, these things are quite large and fast, so the existing carnivorous puddings can't catch them.

The jelly-eating crocodiles I've turned into Dessert Legion members are specialized for catching fish, so they can't handle these massive herbivores.

Time to deploy the carnivorous puddings and observe the results.

“Alright. Let's see what happens.”

I gave the carnivorous puddings even more powerful muscles and reduced their mineral content to increase their speed.

I restored the mineral carapaces to the carnivorous puddings and reduced their size further.

It seems the carnivorous puddings need improvement in a slightly different direction…

“What will you do?”

I left them alone.

“Huh?”

At this level of refinement, the carnivorous puddings had already become predators that bounced around, charging at every living thing they saw and tearing off ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠meat.

For the prey to survive, they too would have to evolve. I accelerated time with divine power and watched how the survival competition among these creatures played out.

So I bought some quicker creatures from the community. Rodents that could live in wetlands… in other words, creatures similar to capybaras or beavers—large, fast, and capable of swimming.

When left alone, the carnivorous puddings couldn't cope at all with the abnormally fast capybara-like creatures. Those rodents were surprisingly well hunted by the Dessert Legion crocodiles and even the giant frogs.

At the current stage, puddings cannot handle fast creatures like capybaras, nor massive ones like camels.

In the end, they increased their body size, entered the water, and evolved into aquatic predators that hunted jellies, fish, crocodiles, and frogs. It seems puddings can evolve by easily increasing or decreasing their body size.

Perhaps because their body structure is so simple? Or maybe because their internal organs can expand and contract relatively freely according to body size.

I continued to observe. The carnivorous puddings that remained on land were gradually pushed out of the competition, but some occasionally succeeded in hunting and reproducing.

Those that survived spread their genes. As a result, the evolutionary direction of the puddings became quite clear.

I had thought they would need to reach 60 centimeters in diameter to hunt camels, but instead they began to shrink. 50 centimeters. 45. 40. Then down to 35. They went all the way to 20 centimeters before finally settling at 30 centimeters—the optimal physique that balanced weight and speed.

Their carapaces became harder, and their bodies more elastic. Their magic consumption decreased, and they began consuming herbivorous jellies and rock-eating jellies rather than minerals.

The carapaces they originally possessed evolved into spikes. I thought they would be unnecessary, but some developed powerful muscles and demonstrated the ability to impale crocodiles with a single body slam, killing them instantly with their spikes.

I was encouraged by these results. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I made their spikes even more vicious, but that made molting difficult, so I directly intervened, gradually shifting them into more efficient forms.

Evolution continued.

I chose Cooperative Warfare as the new trait. It grants bonuses when fighting in groups.

I smiled with delight.

“Perfect.”

“Oh. Did something work out with that trait card?”

After testing the puddings further with the new trait, I reached a conclusion.

No, it feels wrong to still call these creatures puddings when they no longer even retain the shape of one.

They are Candies. Hard, charging once before exploding and melting away—these are carnivorous desserts that embody agility and toughness as their core principles within the Dessert Legion.

“Finally completed: the Camel-Eating Candy. Hunting success rate against camels is a whopping 5%.”

“…Isn’t that low?”

“Hunting success rates for carnivores are originally all pathetically low. As long as they succeed often enough to reproduce, it’s fine.”

Behold. This carnivorous predator, roughly 30 centimeters in diameter, has now escaped the sluggish movements of snails or rubber balls. Using dozens of tube feet, an elastic body, and powerful muscles, it can leap more than a meter in any direction.

Its running speed using the tube feet averages 30 km/h—fast enough that a human sprinting at full speed would barely escape. It can easily outpace a camel, but with a momentary spring-like acceleration, it can charge about 30 meters at over 70 km/h in a single burst.

A hard mass weighing around 4 kilograms, covered in glass-like and mineral carapaces, charging with spikes evolved from horns—if it slams into a Homo sapiens, the victim’s bones will shatter instantly or their organs will be pierced, resulting in immediate death. Even a camel would be knocked down or injured if struck in the leg.

These creatures have no social intelligence whatsoever, but they can roughly release pheromones, form packs, swarm their enemies, and tear them to shreds.

The time it takes for one to grow into an adult is a mere three days. Its lifespan after reaching adulthood is only three hours.

Thanks to their budding reproduction method, if they’ve eaten enough food, they produce nearly 100 offspring the moment they die.

The 100 offspring have the drawback of dying if they go without food for just ten minutes, but in exchange they devour any organic matter or rocks in sight, eating and defecating nonstop until they fully grow from 15 millimeters to 30 centimeters in diameter.

“Uh… You’ve truly created a monster.”

I expended an enormous amount of divine power to raise the species’ specs to the limit of what the current ecosystem could coexist with. Once the life level rises a bit more, I’ll be able to tune them even more boldly.

“And then?”

The camels have already overpopulated the desert. I’ll use these camel-eating candies to hunt them mercilessly and raise about ten thousand of them.

“And then?”

As soon as the next world opens, I’ll open a dimensional gate and dump these camel-eating candies in at maximum capacity.

The next dimensional gate, and the one after that—I’ll keep pouring in nothing but candies. When the dimensional passages open, these things will naturally leap in after smelling the corpses of their own kind.

If the next race consists of meat lumps or plant-based organisms, they’ll be ground to paste. These candies eat camels well, but they’re even better at eating softer, smaller prey like Homo sapiens. They can handle both herbivorous and rock-eating diets too.

“What if it’s a spirit-type race made of mystery? Ah, that doesn’t matter, does it? Since we’ll be choosing another world through the auction anyway…”

“No. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠won’t do that. I’ll just collide naturally with another world.”

“Excuse me? But then it’ll be meaningless against races that rely on mystery.”

“That’s why I’ve been scouring the community for a long time, looking for ways to grant magic abilities to non-intelligent ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠beings. Maybe fusing them with toppings? Since I lack knowledge about magic, I’ll just create ‘yogurts’—the magical creatures that will form Yogur-tosoth’s legion—and drop them in massive quantities.”

Combining those two creatures will probably shatter any half-assed forces.

This is the most vicious and ruthless predator.

There’s no need to bother with slow strategies like ecosystem destruction or whatever.

Honestly, I originally planned to go with a more ecosystem-destruction-focused strategy, but if the opponent is likely to be a ‘good loser’ player who focuses on cooperation and internal affairs rather than military power, then there’s ab-so-lute-ly no reason to do that.

If I quickly reduce the enemy population and turn the situation into a dessert apocalypse, I win.

If the initial candy strike doesn’t work, I’ll deploy Yogur-tosoth right after the rift opens and let it ravage everything.

An opponent who exhausted all their resources trying to stop the candy and yogurt legions would find it nearly impossible to defeat Yogur-tosoth.

“Wait. Hold on. That… your strategy sounds completely insane. Why are you so certain the opponent will just roll over for a blitzkrieg strategy? What if they handle the candies and yogurts without much trouble and even… well, it’d be incredibly difficult, but what if they just manage to defeat Yogur-tosoth too?”

I’m not certain.

“Huh???”

The angel asked in return, but I was the one who wanted to ask that.

Where in an ecosystem is there such a thing as a ‘surefire strategy’? Did the dinosaurs go extinct because they planned their strategy poorly? Their strategy was excellent, but a meteor suddenly appeared and incinerated the ecosystem, causing extinction.

I’m simply choosing the strategy with the highest probability.

“How do you know it has a high probability?”

It’s the elimination method.

Assume the opponent is a mid-tier or higher player. Then they won’t drop out. It’s only the third round, after all.

And if they’re mid-tier or above at this stage, there’s a very high chance they built their way up with a cooperation-focused build. Because that’s the ‘optimal strategy.’

Now assume they’re a low-tier player. Low-tier players currently have a clear way to avoid high-tier forces: buy the worlds of the dropouts. That way they can survive. They might even buy enough time during the collision phase to rebuild their civilization, or leap straight into the mid-tier or higher.

And the bottom-tier players dropping out at this stage are probably those whose civilizations met other civilizations and were forced to drop out due to near-mutual destruction or total annihilation.

In other words, all the worlds that dropped out at this stage will have pathetically low scores. Which means they won’t be very attractive to mid-tier or higher players.

And the fact that their civilizations reached mutual destruction or annihilation inevitably means that ‘predators’ fought each other until their forces were exhausted and depleted.

So, if we don’t hold a world auction right now, what would logically be the most common type of player in the game?

Think about it.

“Cooperative players who didn’t invest much in military power?”

Correct.

I’ll refine the Dessert Legion properly and strike at those ambiguous mid-to-upper tier forces.

“What if you encounter a top-tier player strong enough to defeat even Yogur-tosoth?”

In short, what if you meet a meteor?

In that case, I’ll threaten them.

There may be forces I cannot defeat, but there are no forces I cannot ruin.

Let’s see if any civilization can refuse to negotiate against the Dessert Legion backed by Yogur-tosoth, who can single-handedly wipe out half of any civilization’s score.

“Just so you know, you, Biin, are in the position of the meteor that fell on the dinosaurs who were diligently living with well-established strategies.”

Then from now on, you can call me the Lord of Mass Extinction.

“……”