Became an Evolving Space Monster - Chapter 278
Only Noblemtl
Episode 278 – Collapse (3)
‘Visual impairment?’
Hanging on the silo, I checked my physical condition.
Color Night deals heavy damage to the opponent while also causing random negative effects. The latter is more annoying than the former. It weakens bodily organs such as senses and muscles, or disrupts concentration, etc.
My vision was severely impaired after being hit in the stomach with a rainbow-colored energy bullet, to the point where everything around me became blurry.
‘It would have been quite difficult without the auxiliary organs.’
The most important of Aimorph’s sensory organs is the accessory organ located under his jaw. Even if it cannot be seen with his eyes, he can clearly sense what is happening inside this silo.
I hung on the silo wall and watched the opponent’s movements with my auxiliary organ.
Currently, Cynthia is concentrating on healing her wounds. The smell of blood flowing from her wounds and the smell of cold sweat flowing from the pain are gradually fading away.
In the meantime, I organized the important new information I had acquired.
I did some experiments while fighting her.
I tried hitting it with my own hand to see if it only defended against projectiles, and I also tried to see if I could eat away at the shield with the ‘Hand of the Predatory Leech’.
As you can see, the result was a failure. In return, one of the fingers of the combat arm and the inside of the palm were blown off.
The next thing I tried was a joint operation with No. 26.
The shield she installed is a dome-shaped shield that is placed on the floor. In that case, attacking through the floor would also be effective.
I poured my acid breath over the shield. Cynthia thought I was attacking the shield, but I was actually trying to make a hole in the floor.
No. 26 safely made it downstairs, hiding from the toxic fumes that came from the melting floor. There, he grew larger and used his tentacles to strike the floor beneath the protective shield.
Meanwhile, I wasn’t playing around either. I used ‘Herald of Chaos’ right when the guy broke the floor, and drove one of the pirates into a frenzy.
Unfortunately, Cynthia responded by changing the shield into a sphere, which also blocked the effect of the Herald of Chaos. As a result, the pirate failed to kill Cynthia.
‘Still, I got some important information.’
The shield does not stop attacks from within. She is wounded by a bullet fired by a bodyguard.
Among the defensive techniques used by boss-level creatures, there is a type that never takes damage within the protected area. Her technique is not that type.
‘However, it doesn’t seem like it would be easy to induce an attack from within.’
Cynthia, who was unexpectedly attacked within the shield, pushed the bodyguard out and eliminated the threat. As expected of a ranker, she judged that he had been infected by something and quickly responded.
It was a bit disappointing that if the bodyguard had died inside the shield, there would have been a slight chance that the madness bomb would have spread.
They’ve been hit once too, so they’ll be on high alert. Their opponents are also rankers, just like me. They wouldn’t be hit twice by the same trick unless they were out of their minds.
‘Or should I turn this around?’
It’s been quite some time since I fought Cynthia. By now, she probably knows that I have no means of penetrating her defenses. So it’s only natural that I’d try a different approach to attack.
The only weakness of the shield that has been revealed so far is that it is vulnerable to attacks from within. Both she and I know this, so this is the key to the strategy.
‘… you might think.’
While she’s deluded like that, I plan to look elsewhere.
My assistants twitched and watched Cynthia’s reaction.
She felt her exhaled breath escaping through the protective shield. Her panting was gradually becoming less frequent, perhaps due to the pain being alleviated by the healing technique.
‘good.’
I have an idea of how to attack.
Finally, after checking the most important time for this plan, I sent a message to number 26 who was waiting downstairs.
[Zuzu zuzuzu (Are you okay?)]
“Yeah! It’s okay!”
[Zuz …
“What? What?”
[Zu …
I told number 26 what was needed.
The guy didn’t seem to want to leave, but eventually gave in.
“Big baby, don’t get hurt any more!”
[Don’t worry]
After reassuring the guy, I fired a psychic breath from the monster’s tentacles. The target was not her shield, but the space around it.
“Tch!”
She clicked her tongue briefly as she realized that I was about to destroy the entire floor around her. Under her will, a scythe of supernatural power shot out of the air and struck me down.
Perhaps because I couldn’t see, I became more sensitive. I sensed that psychic power was concentrated in the air, so I spread my wings and flew up. I easily avoided the Ripper’s Hand and tried to fly to the wall on the other side and hang on.
As I was flying through the center of the wide silo, my body suddenly became heavy. I felt a strong psychic power concentrated on Cynthia’s left hand below me.
She grabbed me with her ‘bonds’ and pulled my left arm back sharply. My body was thrown downwards and collided with the floor.
It didn’t hurt, but it didn’t feel good. The bio-cannon on my back fired a shell to express my frustration. Two explosive spores flew in an arc and passed over the shield.
The spores burst and a shallow vibration shakes the floor we stand on. Cynthia reaches out her hand toward me, unconcerned.
Psychic techniques that caused various negative effects poured over my body.
My body slows down as if I’m stuck in quicksand. She who has tied me up shoots colored bombs at me recklessly.
In response, I activated the ‘Complex Spectroscope’.
The smoke that flowed out of my body quickly gathered in the air. The complex spectral body that had transformed into a huge plate shape that covered not only my body but also the walls behind me defended against the color bomb that Cynthia had shot.
“!”
Reflected colored nights flew out in all directions like popcorn popping out of a pan. Deep pits began to appear on the floor around her, as well as on the walls of the silo. Her heart rate increased at the sight.
You must be wondering how many hidden abilities that guy has.
Since then, a passive exchange of attacks has ensued.
After identifying the complex spectral body, she attacked me primarily with techniques that bound and hindered my movements rather than techniques with strong destructive power.
As Jason said, he was definitely skilled as a ranker specializing in rear support. He only lacked a decisive blow, but he was able to hinder me with the necessary techniques at the right time and place.
After the complex spectrometer disappeared, I was hit by Cynthia’s colored bombs a few more times. One of them didn’t have any negative effects thanks to me destroying it with my horns, but the rest just accumulated damage to my body without any noticeable effects.
One of his fighting arms was numb, and the acid fungal glands in his neck were severely impaired in their ability to produce fungi.
And the gravity manipulated by psychic powers crushed me. Cynthia prepared a color bomb for me, who was unable to move properly with my head down on the floor.
‘You’re aiming for the right wing arm.’
Using my auxiliary organs to read the flow of psychic power instead of my poorly seeing eyes, I prepared to force my still body to move to block it.
Soon, the rainbow energy bullet she shot flew in. The color bomb flew at a fierce speed with the intention of taking away my ability to fly, but it flew in a completely different direction than my wing arm.
“…shit!”
About ten minutes into the fight, her attack missed for the first time. Her short curse was laced with confusion.
Meanwhile, I crawled out of the area of gravity control she had deployed. She shot the color bomb behind me again, but this time it flew off in the wrong direction.
“Why is it like this… .”
She lets out a questioning mutter. It seems as though her mind is not working properly even though she wants to figure out why she keeps getting off track.
I know why she is like that. I kindly pointed behind her with the finger of my wing arm.
She turns her head in the direction my finger is pointing.
The pirates behind him. Their faces were very pale, as their speech had been reduced significantly since a while ago. In particular, the pirate who boasted a considerable size was panting, clutching his chest with his hand.
“no way?”
She turns her head sharply and glares at me with bloodshot eyes. Her red eyes aren’t just caused by anger.
The weapon I chose to break through the protective shield she had spread was none other than this.
‘hour.’
This fortress is experiencing a real-time oxygen shortage due to PS-111’s operations. In an hour, there will not be a single human left standing upright inside this fortress.
Normally, each command center would have its own oxygen supply facility for situations like this. However, it is not functioning properly now. Since I came up while destroying the command center, the amount of oxygen that is being wasted is greater than the amount being supplied inside.
It’s been over 20 minutes since the guy started pumping oxygen into space. It’s time for her and the pirates to start reacting.
“If you can’t breathe, you die. It’s the same with cults.”
In this respect, Aimov is really good, because he can last a long time without breathing.
“… Mr. Montana, please come inside.”
“Okay, are you okay?”
Instead of responding to me, she loaded the pirates behind her onto the transport ship. The ship has a small supply of oxygen, so they can hold out a little longer.
Of course, Cynthia is an exception because she has to deal with me.
As I prepared to fight again, she opened her mouth.
“5th place, I have something to say.”
It’s surprising that you wouldn’t know that stalling would be more detrimental to her than to me.
‘Has it become impossible to think properly?’
It was easy to tell that she was in a desperate situation, judging by her ceaseless cold sweat and unsteady breathing.
“I don’t know if it’s in a game, but this is reality. There’s no need to avoid it when conversation is possible, right?”
That’s not wrong, but there’s no need to talk about it now. She and I are fighting to kill each other, and this conversation could give her a chance to fight back.
“Are you so absorbed in Aimov’s life that you refuse to even talk to fellow humans?”
The moment I heard those words, I stopped without realizing it.
“The same human being?”
“yes.”
“I don’t think that’s something you should be saying, as you’ve been hunting other players.”
She is one of Jason’s party members. They tried to enslave the Heavenly Mother and killed other players to steal their perks.
“That’s also why I asked you to talk.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t sympathize with their intentions at all. In fact, I didn’t receive any special benefits.”
One of the things she said was something I had heard from Jason, because Cynthia said that she never tried to get any special favors while working with Jason.
In my experience, perks can only be taken by killing the opponent directly. Muriel and Jason’s perks were both taken that way.
“That excuse is meaningless. It is true that you contributed to the death of another player.”
“It was to further the goals of the faction I belonged to. The reason I hung out with them was for espionage.”
“Spy?”
Cynthia put her hands under her chest, feeling like she was having trouble breathing.
“5th place. Isn’t the reason you prey on others to see the end of evolution, that is, ascension?”
“okay.”
Since there was nothing to hide, I answered simply.
Then she continued speaking in a more steady voice than before.
“My colleagues and I are aiming to clear the game and return home.”
The moment I heard those words, I remembered what Mother in Heaven had said before.
There was a conflict between players who wanted to see the ending and players who wanted to rule this world.
And I am closer to the former among these.
“Would you like to cooperate with us?”
So what came out of Cynthia’s mouth was quite predictable.
‘Cooperation.’
Even without thinking about it deeply, her proposal is quite attractive.
Cynthia’s faction probably knows that the players once tried to cooperate with each other to see the ending, but failed for some reason. However, those who are still aiming for the ending are likely to know a lot of information that I don’t.
Now that the game has changed a lot, there is a huge gap between knowing in advance and moving without knowing. Especially if the difficulty of the ending mission has increased sharply, it will definitely be advantageous to cooperate with them.
‘Of course it would be so…’
But there was a catch to her suggestion. After thinking about it for a moment, I made my choice.
“I refuse.”
“Think carefully… Yes?”
Cynthia, who I naturally assumed would accept.
She looked at me in disbelief when she heard my rejection.