Borderlands: Unnatural selection

The conversation ended there and I let her take a minor piece of information to keep Jack from getting suspicious. Her job was to try and slowly corrupt the signal transmitters in her chamber so when I spring this rescue for real no alarms go off at first. From there I rushed through my paperwork before putting the data my exploration department had already sent to good use. They had logged a small planet without life in a sector of space rarely traveled that no one would notice if it just vanished.-

I wasn't joking about the amount of lifeforce this was going to take. I knew how much Eridium Hyperion mined and how much they sold and if the missing part was all getting funneled to her she was in as deep as a siren probably could be with the dependency. In truth I underplayed how bad it was since I didn't want to convince her to call it hopeless before we even tried. The reason I was going to need so much lifeforce is because the moment that flow was removed from her the energy would start burning away in a small amount of time, seconds really. -

Once it was gone her powers would start cannibalizing her own lifeforce until it was gone in a mad attempt to maintain itself. To stave off death I'd need to constantly give her slightly more lifeforce than was being drained, a not small amount. It also didn't help that I had to damage her body even further to take out those tech pieces in her that Jack left there to control her. All in all I'd probably need a small planets worth of lifeforce so naturally I chose to get it quite literally.-

Taking my ship to the small red planets coordinates took me only thirty minutes and I stepped out of my ship in it's orbit before holding out both arms as I focused. A sort of large red energy layer formed around the planet as I felt my lifeforce stores tank hard and keep falling rapidly until the first return of energy from the planet slowly breaking down into energy hit me. Not only did my hemorrhaging stop but my lifeforce began to shoot up at a terrifying rate.

1 million

10 million

100 million

1 billion

The amount of lifeforce flowing into me was intoxicating. Boundless and extreme the lifeforce flowed like a great many rivers forming the sea. From an outside perspective the scene would likely be a terrifying one as the planet was visibly shrinking within the bubble and hundreds of streams of rainbow hued energy flowed through the void before sinking into my body that glowed in a sun-like radiance. Great crystalline wings of green extended behind my form as if to cover the sky as the inflow temporarily expanded their size many times. Eventually though a day passed and the planet was gone and I had the final amount of lifeforce gained from devouring it.-

2,729,992,771,300

Well on the way to three trillion lifeforce from devouring a single small planet. For the first time since I got my powers my internal "hunger" was gone. Satiated with the vast and delicious meal. It was off putting to say the least as I had gotten so used to that constant urge to devour everything around me that I felt almost hollow without it. Still I didn't let that distract me and set off back to Promethea to gather a few traits. -

Mostly vitality traits to be honest as these would bolster Angels lifeforce as I siphoned my stores into her slowing the decay by a good amount. twenty five copies of [Strong vitality-Uncommon grade] later and I was looking at a single [Supreme vitality-Legendary grade]. I then worked to modify and fuse five [Caloric bolstering-Rare grade] traits to create a trait that made adding lifeforce more efficient but didn't require a higher metabolism to work. It was tricky as the traits didn't want to cooperate and mutated in all sorts of odd ways but I eventually succeeded.-

I even ended up also creating a trait that I could use to punish someone if I felt like it called [Life drain-Epic grade] that rather than bolstering lifeforce and making it stronger did the opposite and drained it even faster than normal. I tested it out on a bandit with 1,722 lifeforce and roughly clocked the drain at a five times loss compared to normal. In other words the trait dropped the longevity of it's host by five times. If this bandit were to have a natural lifespan of two more decades then now they'd die of old age in four years.-

It was a frankly horrifying punishment but the sort you might expect from a petty god after a slight so fitting I suppose. Naturally my test subject wasn't being punished and was killed after I finished my tests. Still now that I had the [Tuned vitality-Epic grade] trait I then fused it into [Supreme vitality] to create a new trait that should be quite familiar, [Agelessness]. The trait itself stopped aging by buffing the hosts lifeforce to a certain point and then looping it so it never dips below a certain point leaving the one with it unaging.-

There was naturally a bit more complexity than that but if I explained it I'd be here for a long ass time and I'd rather not. I did end up creating a few extra copies of the trait in the end which left a chunk taken out of my lifeforce but so little overall you'd barely notice it. I ended up with exactly five copies of the trait, one for Brick, Mordy, Bloodwing, Ladon and Angel. Not including the one I had from before that was reserved for Maya of course. With this settled I just needed to get everything ready for the snatch and run that was the rescue itself.

https://www.pa treon.com/user?u=81578854#:~:text=pa treon.com/pa treon_loskro

_______________________________________________

Alexander Drake

Lifeforce: 2,729,962,652,300

Integrated Traits: [Clever mind-Rare grade],[Enhanced senses-Epic grade]X2, [Energy projection-Legendary grade], [Supreme vitality-Legendary grade],[Lesser dragon breath-Epic grade],[Regeneration-Epic grade]X2, [Disease resistance-Epic grade],[Amphibious lungs-Uncommon grade]X2, [Thermal sensing-Uncommon grade], [Water resistance-Rare grade],[Active camouflage-Legendary grade], [Eridian engineering expertise-Mythical grade], [Efficient lungs-Rare grade]x2, [Biometallic bones-Legendary grade], [Quick thinking-Rare grade], [Minor spatial awareness-Epic grade], [Adrenal rush-Rare grade], [Mechanical engineering expertise-Rare grade]X3, [Gunsmithing expertise(degrading)-Common grade]X3, [Mechanical Savant-Epic grade], [Embodiment of destruction(partial)-Mythical grade], [Demi-god body-Mythical grade], [Martial savant-Legendary grade], [Tinkering instinct-Rare grade], [Phase-god(Incomplete)-Mythical grade], [Impenetrable hide-Legendary grade]

Stored traits: [Agelessness-Legendary grade]X6, [Elemental lifeform-Epic grade], [Elemental embodiment(Fire)-Legendary grade], [Elemental embodiment(Cryo)-Legendary grade]