Chapter 510
Chapter 510
Jake towered over the body of the elite monster he’d just killed. It was the last one from the list of elite beasts he needed to defeat to get the required genetic materials. He received a bit of experience, but he barely paid attention to the text flashing before his eyes. He wasted no time opening a Transfer Maw and using it to transfer one of the monster’s limbs, which had been severed during the battle, to the Apex Hollow.
His drones inside the lair already knew what they needed to do. They’d bring the creature’s limb to the Extractor, and the structure would then harvest the unique genetic material from it. After that, it would be transferred to the Bio-Fusion Chamber to join the rest of the genetic materials that had been harvested from the flesh samples of the elite monsters Jake had been fighting over the past several hours.
He quickly looked around and mentally instructed his surviving combat units, which had aided him in the battle, to return to their respective duties. After that, he stepped into the fleshy tunnel of the portal, letting it transport him to his main lair. Once there, he immediately approached the Bio-Fusion Chamber and checked the unique genetic materials he’d collected over the past several hours for any possible abilities.
As he already knew, the combination of these particular genetic materials could indeed unlock a special ability that could be imparted to any of his creatures. The structure gave him the description of the ability, and he took a moment to study it.
Name: Void Siphon
Description: This ability allows the Kaiju to develop a specialized organ during an evolutionary cycle. This organ is located deep within the creature’s chest, and it can generate a gravitational beam called the Void Siphon. When the Kaiju opens its mouth to use the ability, everything caught in the Void Siphon beam is seized by an overwhelming gravitational pull. Debris, vehicles, and large creatures can be dragged toward the Kaiju’s mouth as if falling into a temporary gravity well.
The effect is scalable. By diverting additional mana into the organ, the Kaiju can drastically increase the power of the Void Siphon, allowing it to drag extremely heavy objects like tanks across the ground, uproot structures, and even pull low-flying aircraft from the sky. The greater the force of the beam, the more mana it consumes.
When the structure asked him if he wanted to proceed with the procedure to combine the genetic materials and unlock the Void Siphon ability, he thought, Yes, and the process began. It took just a few seconds to finish. Sure enough, the genetic materials used in the process were lost, but the ability could now be imparted to any of his creatures during an evolutionary cycle.
Now all he needed to do was evolve the Saurian Prowler to Rank II. As he checked on the Kaiju, he saw that it was just shy of fifty thousand experience points. It just needed to gain a couple of thousand XP more, and after that, it would be ready to evolve to the next stage.
Jake used the Fleshport to teleport to the Dead City. As he emerged from a wyrmcaller’s riftmaw, he clung to the beast and made use of Symbiotic Merge, merging with the winged creature. For the next several minutes, he circled over his Kaiju, watching it tear apart ravagespawn one after another as they charged at it from all directions.
Finally, the Saurian Prowler’s experience bar filled completely. The beast defeated the remaining monsters, but its XP didn’t go beyond the fifty-thousand mark. It was time to initiate the evolution process. But as Jake quickly learned, unlike him, the Kaiju couldn’t evolve just anywhere. As it turned out, he needed to bring the beast back to the Behemoth Cavern to evolve it.
It was unfortunate. It had taken the Saurian Prowler several hours to get from the Apex Hollow to Dead City. Sending the beast back and forth every time it needed to evolve was far from desirable. He definitely wasn’t going to waste so much time. So he needed to create a transfer maw large enough for the Kaiju to use instead.
He located the frame of an empty building where a nest had once been. This would do. For the next half hour, he was busy bringing tumors from the Apex Hollow and placing them on the ground inside the building. Once they spread, creating a patch of Corruption large enough to cover the entire floor, he mentally instructed a dozen transfer maws to be created on the splotch. As they developed, they merged together, transforming into one huge entity.
The whole process was time-consuming, but it was still much faster than it would have taken the Kaiju to get back to the Apex Hollow on its own. Finally, the massive transfer maw finished developing and was ready to use. It was large enough now for the Kaiju, so he instructed the saurian beast to step into it.
The Saurian Prowler tore several beams and girders out of the building’s carcass so it could slip through. It then dropped to all fours and crawled into the huge transfer maw. Moments later, it was in the Apex Hollow. Jake followed soon after. Following his instructions, the Kaiju entered the Behemoth Cavern. After it sealed shut, the structure filled with greenish fluid. Now everything was prepared to set the evolution process in motion.
Jake approached the structure and checked his options. He quickly learned he could indeed make his Kaiju even bigger than it already was, but it would be at the expense of its speed and agility. At that moment, the Saurian Prowler was perfectly balanced, both incredibly agile and powerful. However, if he were to increase its size, while it would become stronger, its agility would inevitably decrease.
After taking a moment to think it over, Jake decided he valued the Kaiju’s speed and agility more than raw power, so he chose not to increase its size. At least not during the current evolution cycle.
So what would change after the Kaiju evolved into its next form? First of all, a second slot would be unlocked where an additional ability could be inserted. Second, all of the Kaiju’s basic stats would be increased. So he checked the requirements for evolution. All that was needed to initiate the process was a certain amount of basic materials like biomass, mana, and rigidbone. Jake had those in abundance.
So he picked the Void Siphon ability to be inserted into the second slot during the evolution and then initiated the process. He checked how much time it would take for the Kaiju to evolve: a few hours. While the saurian beast was undergoing evolution in the Behemoth Cavern, Jake used the time to work on improving some of his other creatures, namely the Blastfiends and the Wasps.
Unlike his other creatures, these two hadn’t evolved to the top tier yet, so Jake spent the time doing exactly that. Blastfiends and Wasps were pretty small compared to his other creatures like Crawlers and Wingclaws, but he wasn’t going to change that. Their strength came from sheer numbers, so what he worked on instead was making the Blastfiends’ acid more potent and increasing the penetrative ability of the Wasps’ stingers.
Since Blastfiends and Wasps were relatively small, they could evolve much faster than any of his other creatures. By the time he finished upgrading them to the final stage, the Kaiju had completed its evolution to Rank II. He instructed the Behemoth Cavern to release it, and once the huge beast emerged, he studied its updated stats.
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Name: Saurian Prowler
Type: Reptile
Rank: II
Special Abilities: Transfer Maw, Void Siphon
XP: 0 / 125,655
HP: 1,775,500 / 1,775,500
MP: 1,250,000 / 1,250,000
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Its HP had gone up from 1,245,000 to 1,775,500, and its MP had increased from 900,000 to 1,250,000. Also, while not by much, its physical power had increased as well. The Saurian Prowler was now even more damage-resistant than before, judging by its armored scales, which were visibly sturdier than they had been before the evolution.
Jake decided to test out the Kaiju’s new ability right away. He climbed atop the beast’s head and employed Symbiotic Merge. Once he became one with the Saurian Prowler, he crawled into the Fleshport and emerged from the transfer maw in Dead City that he had constructed earlier.
For the next several minutes, he jogged through the city, battling various groups of ravagespawn. Defeating them was even easier than before. After he reached a four-way intersection, he turned toward one of the ten-story buildings surrounding him. It was time to test Void Siphon in action.
He opened the Kaiju’s mouth and employed the ability with a thought. While the beam that emanated from the Kaiju’s mouth was imperceptible, it caused visible distortions that rippled through the air as the void siphon shot forward. The air warped and bent like a heat haze. A deep, bass-like hum accompanied the visual effects of the beam.
The fleshy matter covering the building began to shake, then started to flake off. The loose shreds of the organic covering shot through the air, being dragged along the void siphon and directly into the Saurian Prowler’s parted jaws. The result was even better than he’d hoped. More and more of the organic matter was torn from the nest’s exterior.
Soon, a hole appeared at the point where the void siphon was aimed, through which the inside of the lair could be seen. Sure enough, the nest was hard at work trying to regenerate the damaged section, but to Jake’s delight, the void siphon turned out to be stronger than the nest’s regenerative abilities. Despite its best efforts, the hole kept widening, albeit more slowly than it would have if he had not been using his ability.
When the hole became quite large, Jake stopped using Void Siphon. He immediately made use of the Kaiju’s first ability. He opened his jaws even wider as a transfer maw opened at the back of his throat. One by one, several wingclaws emerged from it. Jake directed them all into the nest. While the nest tried hard to repair the damage, now that a hole had been punched all the way through it, it couldn’t repair the breach as quickly as it could superficial injuries.
Jake managed to send a dozen wingclaws into the nest before it finally managed to seal the breach shut. He then instructed the wingclaws to attack the nest’s core. He wasn’t sure if they would be able to destroy it on their own or deal any lasting damage to it. If not, he would make use of Void Siphon again to personally destroy the core.
He spotted a glimpse of movement to his side and turned his head to look that way. He saw a swelling growing on the ground about a hundred yards away. It grew and grew, becoming much larger than the regular growths that transformed into various types of ravagespawn. This swelling continued to grow, gradually taking the shape of a monster.
Even though it would be a few more seconds before the monster finished developing, judging from the general shape of its body, Jake could already tell it was going to be a monster he had never encountered before. He knew what that meant.
A Titan was being formed.