Became an Evolving Space Monster - Chapter 117



Only Noblemtl

Ep. 117

–

“We have arrived.”

“let’s go.”

Six heavy walkers and one beast disembarked from the transport ship.

They came here at Muriel’s command to investigate the place where the thunderbolt struck to see if there were any survivors.

What had been a rich land teeming with life just hours before was now a desolate wasteland of fire, sand, and death.

They roamed the gnarled wastes with their various detection devices activated.

“Huh? Hey! There’s something over here!”

Then, one of the walkers noticed a trail on the ground and called out to his colleagues. While another walker approached with a metallic sound, he filmed the trail with a video camera attached to his walker.

“Boss, have you seen this? There are drag marks.”

“Mr. Ha, that crazy monster bastard. He’s not dead?”

“I think so.”

“Ask the Heavenly Mother. What is his condition?”

“yep.”

One of the walkers yanked the large chain he was holding in his hand. Heavenly Mother, who had been chained around her neck, was dragged out helplessly.

“Huh!”

“Hey, this is his footprint.”

“As far as we know, it walks on two legs, and here you can see marks on its body where it was dragged. What happened?”

“You’d better speak straight. If you don’t want to see your ‘family’ die.”

“… Tch, wait.”

The Heavenly Mother had no choice but to examine the traces closely. With her superior senses that surpassed even the most advanced machines, she figured out what kind of condition the object that left the traces was in, and opened her mouth.

“… He was half dragged. Judging by the pieces of his outer skin that fell between the marks and the traces of acid reaction on the floor, he was also injured. Judging by the direction, he went into the forest over there.”

“You’re not lying, are you?”

“You can figure it out, right? Why don’t you check it out?”

Currently, the back of Heavenly Mother’s head has a special chip implanted by Muriel.

It is a device that reads the wearer’s brain waves to determine whether he is lying or having impure thoughts. As long as this chip is implanted in the head, the Heavenly Mother cannot tell lies.

“Huh? Well, that’s good. There’s no way I’d be safe after being hit by a thunder god.”

“What should we do?”

“She’s injured, so she won’t be able to go far. Find her and kill her. If she’s the Mother of Heaven, she can kill her. Right?”

“If it’s an injured adult, you can kill it.”

“Hehe, did you hear that, brothers?”

“yes!”

With the communications cut off, the Heavy Walkers picked up the fallen pieces of casing and followed the trail into the forest.

Above their heads, transport ships flew, checking for signs of movement deep within the burning jungle.

Muriel’s men had no doubt that they would be able to easily defeat the monster that had left these marks.

But there was something they didn’t know.

Clearly, the Heavenly Mother did not lie. Instead, she only answered Muriel’s questions accurately.

There was a trail in the opposite direction they were going that the walkers had not discovered.

It was a half-collapsed pit.

There were many pits created by the redwoods and rocks that had been buried in the ground around them being uprooted. So the pirates thought it was the same as other traces, but the Heavenly Mother, who had extraordinary psychic powers, was able to notice them.

That’s a hole dug by a long-bodied creature like a snake.

‘Ha, that Morphpack. It finally evolved into a semi-adult.’

The Heavenly Mother hid the truth that only she knew.

Her eyes, tethered to the pirate’s neck, glowed coldly.

–

There are some things I check first when I start hunting.

Information, time, location.

First, information.

Knowing who your enemy is, what equipment, traits, and skills they have, what strategies they use, and how much they know about you will make the battle easier.

The Aimorphs are a species that becomes very powerful as they evolve, but the path to get there is very difficult. Everyone except me is an enemy. So the importance of acquiring information is bound to be inevitably great.

Next is the time.

Choose the right time to go hunting and prepare by considering whether it is day or night, whether the enemy is aware of your attack, and if so, when.

Finally, location.

You need to know the enemy’s location, the terrain, where to lure them, and where to make the final decision.

So how much advantage do I currently have in attacking my enemies?

From the information perspective, she and I don’t know much about each other, but at least I have an advantage over her.

‘Muriel is mistaking me for an adult.’

Her using the Brain God would have been a good choice if I were an adult. No matter how fast I ran away, it wouldn’t be easy to escape the Brain God’s range.

‘I’ll try to check though.’

She’s the one who’s planting the bomb in case the cruiser she’s riding on is hijacked. She’s going to check if I’m dead or not. If she investigates the explosion area, she’ll soon realize that I’m alive.

‘This is the important point.’

She’ll think I was fatally injured by the brain attack.

In fact, I was injured, albeit slightly, by the explosion of the brain and cruiser. My outer skin was so hot that part of my shell was torn off.

Even now, there are still pieces of fallen skin left in the traces of my crawl into the forest.

They were all left there on purpose.

To make my enemies believe that I am not in good condition.

Hide my evolutionary stage, hide my status, so that the enemy misjudges my status.

The information war began when I came out of the underground and hid in the jungle.

‘They will try to chase me by following the trail…’

In this jungle, the detection machines often malfunction. That doesn’t mean they’ll miss me, but it’ll take them a while to find me.

While the enemies slowly pursue me, my work is set.

Find out where Muriel is and turn the battlefield in my favor.

Fortunately, before the cruiser flew away, I had access to the data stored on the ship’s computer.

Thanks to that, I was able to figure out where she would be in advance.

There are two large campsites where she is believed to be.

It is a vast jungle area that spreads from the center of the continent and a canyon area with a village of Wolf indigenous people.

I was sure Muriel would be in the jungle.

‘Because there is a temple of the forgotten land at the center of the continent.’

The ‘Temple of the Forgotten Land’ is a kind of dungeon in other games where powerful, one-of-a-kind equipment is stored.

However, the entry conditions are quite strict and the Wolf statues inside are also powerful, so a lot of preparation is required to conquer it.

For example, we can cite the special energy field around the temple.

Even if you try to detect it from a distance, it cannot be detected due to the energy field, and the closer you get to the temple, the more frequently the communication equipment malfunctions. If you are unlucky, the transport ship in motion may stop working and crash.

So, players who wanted to attack the temple would set up a supply camp some distance away from the temple. Like other players, Muriel would have set up a large camp inside the jungle to attack the temple.

‘When I checked the details of the transported goods, there were only weapons.’

And judging from the fact that there were records of periodic transfers, it must have all been used for temple conquests. By now, they may have already finished the conquests and received their rewards.

‘Was the reward the priest’s golden spear?’

This is equipment that increases attack power when you kill intelligent beings. The attack power that increases when you kill one is very low, but there is no limit to the increase in attack power, so the more intelligent beings you kill, the more powerful it becomes.

If they knew I was alive, they would kill all my subordinates and slaves to increase their attack power.

‘I think I’ll have to check this part myself to be sure.’

I raised my head from being half buried in the ground because of work.

About 30 minutes ago, I arrived near the large campsite where Muriel was.

I ran as fast as I could without stopping even once to get here, so I was able to get there in one and a half days.

I am located a few kilometers away from the campsite.

There I was preparing a ‘battlefield’ that was advantageous to me.

There was no place that wasn’t covered in black mucus as far as my eyes could see.

The lush green grasses were all twisted and replaced by blood-red vines. Between the vines, spores were constantly releasing poisonous mists.

The giant redwood trees standing on the degraded land looked fine on the outside, but they were rotting inside. When the thick bark peeled off, black mucus and bugs came out from the inside.

A tiny insect the size of a fingernail, a hallucinogenic bug flies around to see if there is anyone nearby it could infect.

After confirming that the nest was growing well on its own, I released the link and stood up.

‘This is the third.’

I was making a nest that surrounded the campsite. Just as the physical and superpower types each have perks that enhance their related abilities, the nest-strengthening type also has perks.

This means that when multiple nests are combined into one, the special effects are multiplied.

If that happens, the campsite where Muriel is will be attacked by a more toxic fog than the swamps inside the continent of Saintopia 02.

‘If you fight there, your human sacrifice trait will shine.’

Before evolving into a semi-adult, one of the traits acquired from the swamp is called ‘Human Sacrifice’. It has no effect on its own, but it becomes a different story when a corpse appears in the nest.

If you have the Human Sacrifices trait, your nest will absorb corpses and provide their energy to the nest’s owner. Even if your arms are cut off, the energy absorbed through Human Sacrifices will accelerate your recovery, restoring you to your original state within minutes.

In other words, if only corpses continue to be supplied, I will become no different from a living zombie.

‘Besides, it also serves as a counter to the Golden Spear.’

I moved to find a new place to set up my nest.

Since nest building is a task that consumes a lot of energy, they do not forget to replenish their energy from time to time.

“Huh?!”

I swallowed a gorilla with an ant head with my erosion tentacles.

It is a carnivore named ‘Andril’, and although it has specs higher than that of a Nightstalker, it is no match for me as a semi-adult.

‘If I had the time, I’d at least try it.’

It’s just a shame that it can’t be done.

After catching a few more Andrills, I found a suitable spot to plant a nest and lay down.

As the mucus poured out of my body and the nest was being made, a loud noise was heard above my head.

‘hmm?’

It was the sound of a transport ship flying.

The transport began to fly low, heedless of the canopy of trees. Then, seven large objects were felt to fall to the ground.

‘Have you found me already?’

Even with a bio-scanner, it’s not easy to find me in this jungle. The detection device often goes dead or gets reset midway.

‘Huh?’

The enemies that landed from afar started moving in a completely different direction, as if they had found me with the bio-scanner. They were heading towards the place where I had crawled all the way here.

‘I don’t know what happened.’

I have to clean up before the nest gets caught. It’s more damaging to the nest than to me.

I unlinked myself from the fourth nest I had made and climbed up the tree.

And then he moved silently towards the enemies.

Thanks to its long body, it can move by simply stretching its body if the distance between trees is not too far, and if the distance is a bit farther, it can use its gliding membrane.

After closing the distance with my enemies, I could see how they had been chasing me.

Their composition was six heavy walkers and one beast.

That beast in the lead is something I’ve seen a few times in games.

‘Wolf, who learned deification?’

That creature with the head of an eagle, the body of a lion, and the body of a mythical gryphon was clearly a wolf.

Unlike Aimov, whose goal is endless evolution, Wolf’s journey to reclaim the divinity within himself is a major part of the story.

Wolf’s ability to transform is also closely related to this setting, as he gets closer to divinity and can transform into a divine beast such as a griffon or unicorn rather than a normal animal.

Therefore, the Wolf that transformed into a griffon can be considered to be somewhere between an adult and semi-adult stage in terms of Aimorph.

‘It’s possible if it’s a griffon, but it’s strange.’

The griffon’s eyes are as sharp as Aimov’s super senses, so he can track the traces I leave even from high in the sky.

I understand how they came after me on the transport ship, but a fundamental question remains.

‘You seem to be a named person, but why are you with pirates? Huh?’

I was watching the pirates with my camouflage activated, when my eyes met with the griffon’s, who had suddenly turned his head.

The bastard naturally turned his head away, as if he hadn’t noticed me. However, with Aimov’s special senses, I could tell.

He recognized me but pretended not to know me.

‘I don’t know why, but.’

You can get more detailed information by grabbing it and checking it out yourself.

I moved carefully above the heavy walkers.