The First Catastrophe - Part 4

The Jelly-lineage creatures were originally classified into four distinct types.

Jelly. Producers that synthesize Nectar and consume rock. Some possess mobility, others do not.

Pudding. Consumers that hunt Jelly because they cannot digest rock. All of them are mobile.

Gumi. Organisms that root themselves like coral or trees, building hard structures. They either house Jelly inside themselves or perform Nectar synthesis independently.

Candy. Predators that evolved to an extreme from Pudding, specializing in body-ramming attacks.

Gel life forms are not part of the Jelly lineage but a separate category, so these four groups all share Nectar Jelly as their common ancestor.

However, because these creatures turned out to be more closely related than expected, introducing a sexual reproduction mechanism caused them to hybridize wildly. The resulting phylogenetic tree became an absolute mess.

“But did the Candies become hybrids too? I thought you set them to reproduce asexually?”

“Ah. The Puddings raped the Candies.”

“Excuse me?”

“In nature, forced copulation is surprisingly common. In this case, instead of injecting gametes into the Candy’s body, they ambushed them, tore them open, and sucked the reproductive cells out to produce hybrid offspring.”

“I… have no words.”

All sorts of bizarre things happen in nature, so I decided it wasn’t worth dwelling on.

Which meant I needed to reclassify these four groups. After all, the ecosystem now contained carnivorous Jellies, Gumis sporting dangling tentacles, Puddings as hard as Gumis, and every other possible combination.

First, the Jellies. Slow, massive organisms that create elaborate external structures—shells, horns, spikes, and the like. They use these both to hunt and to defend themselves.

Producer-type Jellies that eat Nectar and rock developed defensive horns and armored shells, while predator-type Jellies that tear into other Jellies or vegetation evolved hardened tentacles and protruding teeth. They occupy the herbivore or producer niche.

Puddings. These are fast and small. Instead of investing in “expensive” rigid structures like shells or horns, they attract mates through courtship dances, vibrations (songs?), flowing “manes” or hair-like tentacles with minimal structural support, or striking colors. They are significantly faster, can leap great distances, and possess powerful muscles—true aggressive predators.

Gumis. These are animals, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠yet they lack mobility. They simply root in place, continuously synthesizing Nectar to expel magical energy while absorbing nutrients.

Rather than shells, they evolved flashy scales, branches, and thorns. Many spread scents or emit light through the Syrup inside their bodies to lure partners from afar.

Some developed genuine chlorophyll for photosynthesis, while others evolved to consume raw magic power and convert it directly into nutrients.

Coral Gumis and Gumi Trees are essentially the same species in different habitats. They grow far faster than real coral or trees.

And they are enormous. We’re talking significantly larger than humans, with some reaching the size of full-grown trees.

Candies. The ones that devote their entire lives to perfecting a single, final body-ram to hunt camels continue to reproduce asexually. Appearance is irrelevant to them. They love themselves regardless of how they look.

However, the most aggressive predators in my ecosystem—the lone-hunting fox Candies that relentlessly pursue prey, or the elongated snake Candies that specialize in attacking Gamchi—have begun displaying horns, vivid patterns, courtship dances, and other flashy traits.

Broadly speaking, differentiation occurred along these four lines. There are exceptions, of course… actually, there are more exceptions than rule-followers at this point.

“An impressive transformation. Your life point reserves were once close to seventy thousand. They’ve been utterly devastated down to roughly twenty thousand.”

“It couldn’t be helped. The fact that they managed any optimization at all while species boundaries collapsed through sexual reproduction is already a miracle.”

The truly important development lay elsewhere.

“Here are the three traits I’ve drawn for you.”

Wait. Wouldn’t picking the last one immediately solve the core disaster?

“I cannot say for certain, but it would certainly help a great deal. The other two traits are also excellent.”

I glanced toward Yogur-tosoth, who was honing magic on the far side of the Nectar Well. Its Charm stat, originally 729, had now surpassed 2,500. It was raising its Charm at an absolutely insane rate.

It appeared to be researching beauty-related spells. It might resolve the disaster on its own.

After some thought, I selected Beautiful Structures. The Coral Reef was already massive and highly useful; turning it into something that boosted the Culture score seemed like the superior long-term choice.

The moment I chose it, messages flooded my vision.

It felt as though the fragment of the old god had observed the scene like a game cutscene, expressed satisfaction, and then withdrew. Since it had been an inevitable disaster, no additional rewards followed.

But the messages weren’t finished.

“Wow. The efficiency is far better than I expected.”

I wasn’t particularly surprised. In games, it was common for a single trait to trigger explosive growth after you had neglected a particular stat for a long time.

The Nectar Well was now nearly eleven kilometers in diameter, with a depth of about 120 meters at its center. The entire basin floor was densely packed with Gumi coral, forming a vast reef. Some sections even rose above the surface or encroached on land.

Just judging by its scale, the reef was probably already Level 8. Its sheer size caused the level-proportional Charm to skyrocket, which in turn sent the Culture score soaring.

It was only natural that the moment it was designated a unique structure it immediately ascended to heroic rank. With the terrain at Level 10 and Abhojuth’s bonus, the path to narrative and legendary ascension had opened as well.

“A crossroads of choice. Promoting the Gumi Coral Reef to a higher rank will require enormous resources, but the benefits would undoubtedly be beyond imagination.”

If only we had the resources to spend.

“Then please draw two more Culture traits for me.”

My other clone had already selected them in advance.

I really hadn’t expected this. Selecting traits raised Culture, which let me select even more traits—a positive feedback loop. Might as well pick one more.

“You’re investing broadly and shallowly rather than focusing heavily on specific life forms or methods?”

It matched my personal preference. My overall strategy relied on sheer numbers, so this approach was more suitable. More fundamentally, I didn’t want to create imbalance within the ecosystem.

Once balance collapses, one species inevitably becomes dominant and begins raising its intelligence to build a civilization on its own.

“I respect the strategic choice. The Charm value is rising dramatically. Oh, look. Another mystical change is occurring.”

What the angel pointed out was passionate courtship behavior. A Pudding was dancing while emitting light using the bioluminescent power of the Syrup and Toppings inside its body. With bonuses from both Color Art and Optical Art, it was worth the effort.

But there was something peculiar. After watching for a while, I noticed they only danced during the “evening” according to world time.

Obviously, glowing while dancing at night would stand out more than dancing under the bright midday sun.

Objectively and rationally, however, it was insane.

First, Jelly-lineage creatures in the Dessert Desert slow down dramatically when light levels drop. On top of that, emitting light through Syrup consumed massive amounts of energy.

And that wasn’t all. Gamchi still roamed during evenings and nights. Dancing while glowing like that was practically begging the Gamchi to come and eat them—an act of self-harm.

It was a frenzy of dance that completely ignored common sense, reason, and logic.

Yet as I continued to observe, another Pudding approached the dancer. The pair slipped into a quiet spot, mated, and died. (Roughly half of all Jelly-lineage creatures die immediately after mating, offering their bodies as food for their offspring.)

More time passed, and something bizarre happened. Because dancing in the evening resulted in higher reproductive success, more creatures gradually began dancing in the dark.

The light they emitted grew brighter. The tentacles they waved during their dances became longer, thinner, and more luxurious—evolving purely for reproduction until they resembled cheerleader pom-poms.

Creatures that performed this suicidal behavior naturally died in droves, but the few that survived despite the madness continued the lineage. They kept performing the insane dance every evening and night, desperately signaling for someone—anyone—to notice them.

As this behavior repeated across generations, hundreds, then thousands of Jelly-lineage creatures began dancing wildly at night, glowing and thrashing about.

Strangely, their frequency of being eaten by Gamchi actually decreased. By being slightly less visible to predators than their neighbors while still standing out enough to attract mates, they struck the perfect balance.

And the individuals who chose to conserve energy for producing offspring rather than wasting it on ostentatious displays began selecting partners from these frenzied dances, carrying them away to continue the bloodline.

Over generations, this would likely evolve into males performing insane displays to beg for attention while females evaluated them, selected mates, gave birth, and raised young.

At one point I saw a Pudding that had somehow grown over three meters tall and a nearly four-meter-tall red bean jelly performing the same ritual. It was slightly disconcerting, but they at least behaved with some dignity. The smaller ones were far more frantic.

Thousands danced in synchronized formation. Some were eaten, some escaped, yet all of them thrashed desperately, displaying themselves to the world.

It was brutal, violent, and grotesque, yet at the same time…

“Yes. This is without question the most ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠beautiful sight I’ve seen in the Dessert Desert. I mean that sincerely. It is truly beautiful.”

Well, of course it is.

Life is beautiful precisely because they pour everything into living.

Their desperate, fierce struggles are the very definition of beauty and sublimity.

A magnificent, multicolored swarm of dance filled the Dessert Desert and the shores of the Nectar Well so completely that there had never been any need to meddle with something like coral.

From the card the angel showed me, I selected one without hesitation.

Since they’re working so hard, the least a god can do is give them a helping hand.

“An excellent choice. Even intelligent beings would struggle to perform such displays…”

No, they couldn’t. Only creatures with low intelligence could pull this off.

At any rate, we had climbed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠quite high, but we were still far from the target of 4,085 points.

Filling in the remainder was the real challenge. The Jelly-lineage creatures seemed to be progressing on their own, so I decided to give the Gamchi a little push.

They still hadn’t solved their parasite problem, after all. Adjustments needed to be made quickly.