“And [artificial intelligence] could not provide that for us, even though it provided a solution to almost everything else. On the surface, it was puzzling that even after so long, biological systems could perform better in certain domains.”
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The humming seemed to come from deep within the forest, roughly in the direction of the clearing that he had woken up in. The trees began to vibrate, and even the ground started trembling. For some reason, the sound was familiar to his ears. Realizing that he might have to prepare for battle sooner rather than later, Alex decided to try to find a better weapon than the stick he had been using. He would have liked to use something from a kaphdor carapace, but it had too many joints, and the mandibles were too small. He looked around the trees at the edge of the clearing, making sure never to step within more than a jump away from the clearing. After searching nearby for large, relatively sturdy branches, he found one that was decent enough. It was about five feet long and far thicker and heavier than he would have been able to carry before his upgrade to Physical Power. He estimated that it weighed thirty pounds, although it was hard to tell due to his increased strength.
The branch was already hanging from a dead tree, but he finished the job with the help of the rock that the woman had been using. He also took the time to sharpen the end into a stake so that it could be used as a spear. While the kaphdor could be smashed, the woman had been right that the placement of the blow was crucial. Stabbing in the right area could turn a hard fight into an easy one. On the other hand, smashing in any place with enough force would kill them. With this in mind, he knew the stick would probably break, so he went to find some backup branches.
By now, the humming was much louder and it had become hard to focus. The ground was violently shaking as if there was an earthquake. Alex didn’t know what was going on, but he went into the center of the clearing. He almost fell as he walked because of the trembling ground. If the woman was right about the forest, it was best to stay as far away as possible. The volume of the sound had become deafening; it was a low sound, but it was far louder than the bass coming from the speakers at a nightclub. Alex adopted an athletic stance at the center of the clearing in order to keep his balance. Two of the stakes that he had fashioned were on the ground beside him, and he held the other in his hands.
As the sound became almost too much to bear without covering his ears, he finally remembered why it was so familiar. When he had hit one of the kaphdor with his makeshift club, it had let out a low-pitched hum that sounded similar to this one. Could it be that this was a storm of kaphdor that was inbound towards the clearing? A cold sweat ran down his forehead. The vivid image of how he had tortured the last kaphdor came to his mind, along with the eerie death rattle that had seemed to echo along many dimensions of sound. If he was responsible for this because of the rage that had consumed him, he would face the consequences.
Faint cracking sounds echoed out from the forest. After a minute, he saw what it was — the tops of trees began to disappear in the near distance. After staring at the scene in confusion for a minute, he spotted a massive dark gray outline looming on top of the line of trees that was falling. Some thing was so massive and moving at such a speed that it was bulldozing the forest. And then, through the gaps in the trees, he saw black dots. The darkness soon became a sea of black that was rushing towards him. Except that it was not a sea. His worst fears were confirmed as the dots came closer. Each dot was one of the kaphdor that he had fought earlier, and it seemed that they were crawling in his direction.
The sheer number of kaphdor was absolutely overwhelming. They blotted out the ground in the forest, and they were approaching at a frightening speed. Alex could see in the front lines that they were tumbling over each other in a crazed swarm, the ones at the front that were too slow crushed by ones behind them. The vegetation was trampled, and smaller trees were collapsing from the momentum of what looked to be tens of thousands of the insectoid creatures pushing forward. But that was not even the most terrifying part. In the middle of the swarm of kaphdor, Alex now saw the massive beast that was the source of the cracking noise.
It was a beast twice the height of the tallest trees, which were already around the size of adult oaks. Even the strongest trees were utterly crushed in its path. It had a round shell of dark gray, which was covered in large black spheres protruding from the top. There were kaphdor swarming around and on top of the giant beast, but there were none that dared to crawl directly in front of it, leaving a clear aisle in front of it for a few hundred feet. The beast was still in the far distance though, preceded by a countless number of the insectoid creatures.
In the face of the swarm and the giant beast, Alex felt his confidence in the woman’s fear of the forest wavering. Surely there could be nothing in the forest worse than this, he thought. But he also knew there was no chance he could either outrun or hide from this swarm. It was a feeling of intense inevitability. There was essentially nothing he could do, and so he stood there awaiting his fate. He watched the wave of black dots approaching him, three hundred feet away, two hundred feet, one hundred feet. He felt an odd sense of tranquility. When he had tried to flee from the zombified humans before the integration, he knew he would be caught and probably killed, but he did not accept his mortality. But now, in the face of such pure, inexorable force, a calm descended over him. Despite recognizing his own weakness, he stood in a battle pose with his crude stake, the ground vibrating beneath him furiously.
The first of the kaphdor arrived, thousands of insects at the front line crashing in a wave. But something odd happened: the second they swarmed out of the forest, it was as if they crashed into an invisible barrier. As more and more of the insectoid creatures arrived, the boundaries of the invisible barrier became extraordinarily clear. The crawling kaphdor became arranged in a dome shape around the clearing, piling up to almost ten feet. A wave of relief crashed over Alex, and he once again silently thanked the woman for implicitly showing him not to leave the clearing.
But he was not entirely safe. The barrier started to open up in several places, slits that passed through one or two kaphdor and then quickly closed. In a moment, over a dozen kaphdor had entered the clearing from all sides. Given that the clearing had a radius of about 20 feet, he only had a few seconds before they reached him. Now that Alex realized it might be possible to survive, his tranquil acceptance of his death changed to a grim resolve. He took the [Nature’s Rage Pill] out of his Spatial Bracelet. He had no idea what it did, but he really didn’t have many options. He put it into his mouth and swallowed it.
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A massive rush of strength entered his body, as if he had become a bodybuilder in a second. At the same time, he felt a sense of rage not unlike the one he had experienced when he tortured the kaphdor. This time, though, he was more prepared, and he was able to resist it to a large degree. Amazed at the effect, he opened his status view with a thought.
Physical
Mental
Power
44 (boosted) | 12
8
Resistance
40 (boosted) | 8
8
Speed
8
8
Recovery
8
8
He also noticed something else:
Flow Rate: 248.0
It had previously been 256. Well, that wasn’t great, but everything had a price. He didn’t have time to dwell on it, because there was one more thing he needed to do. He quickly swallowed his Enhancement Pill as well. A prompt appeared asking him to select an attribute. The obvious choice was Physical Speed. But — he thought in a split second of hesitation — what if he chose Mental Speed instead of Physical Speed? With no time to question his intuition, he made his choice.
Everything shifted. Time dilated, and the kaphdor looked like they were swimming in sludge. He didn’t know how much his mental processing speed had increased, but he estimated that he was now able to think 50% faster. Alex felt a surge of inspiration. If he could move as fast as he was able to process the world, then maybe he would actually be able to survive this battle. He would be able to both process threats and react in time to deal with them.
Based on his prior experience, all he needed to do was kill two more kaphdor without getting overrun in order to get another Enhancement Pill. So instead of maintaining his defensive posture, he sprinted in the direction of the kaphdor farthest from the swarm outside the bubble, although his “sprint” felt more like he was trying to walk in water because of his increased mental speed. Three kaphdor next to the one he was charging at adjusted their angle slightly to face him, and just as he swung his stake down to crush his target, they attacked his legs. Seeing the threat while being unable to move in time was incredibly frustrating, and long cuts were opened on each of his calves and his left thigh. Fortunately, it did seem like the resistance pill was paying off, since the cuts were not deep. But Alex definitely could not afford to take too many of those cuts, especially since he never fully recovered from his previous battle.
The stake came down on the head of his target and crushed it, sending a surge of energy into him. He turned and smashed another, feeling himself get cut in the process once more. He forced the flow of energy into his body as fast as he could without it burning too much. Then, he immediately opened the Shop, purchased another pill, and activated it to boost physical speed. Finally, his body was able to keep up with his mind. He turned and stepped on the mandibles of one of the kaphdor sweeping at his legs, and in the same motion fluidly smashed the other into the ground. A small nick appeared on his thigh from the third kaphdor, which he hadn’t been able to dodge, but he ended its life soon after with a blow to the midsection. He then swiftly stabbed the head of the one whose mandibles he had stepped on.
Considering how high attributes could go, this was but a small taste of true power, Alex realized, and it was a huge rush of dopamine. Any one of these kaphdor would have killed him before, and he was now moving through them like a farmer with a scythe. Even if it was because of an artificial boost from pills, there was something immensely satisfying about defeating enemies that had almost killed you. The remaining nine or ten kaphdor were now charging towards him from the other side, but luckily he didn’t have to protect his back anymore, having broken the circle. Just as he had that thought, however, four more kaphdor entered through slits behind him, from the same direction as the ones he had just killed and began charging towards him.
It was at this moment that he had a crazy idea. Since there were more than a dozen in the circle and charging from all directions, all less than a stride away, if he could jump in the air at the right moment, then they would all collide and he could smash down in the center. It was something that would be found in a trashy martial arts film, but maybe he now had both the physical and mental speed to actually pull it off. And so he did. Just as the kaphdor were about to reach him, he jumped over five feet into the air, and the charging kaphdor collided into each other in a jumble. He then slammed the spike into the ground with all of his body weight. Three or four surges of energy entered his body, too quickly to distinguish, and he had crushed the mandibles of several more. He then made short work of the rest of the kaphdor, dodging and then slamming down at the opportune time.
More kaphdor entered the circle, but he had a short break of several seconds before they arrived. In that time, he took stock of his state and surroundings. He had gotten several more scratches, but nothing too bad. But as he directed his awareness to his internal state, he noticed that he had a weird sensation, so slight that he wouldn’t have noticed it unless he was paying attention. It was like an oppressive fog, and it distinctly felt like it was coming from the direction of the massive beast that was coming with the kaphdor. It was still a few thousand feet away, and it had seemed to slow down. It was now inching towards him at a grave pace, and he could feel the weight of its attention. This was troubling to say the least. Unfortunately, he had no time to ponder this issue, as the next wave of kaphdor was upon him.
Alex used the same strategy as last time, jumping up into the air and taking advantage of the fact that there were so many of them. Unfortunately, it seemed that they were more wary this time, and he only killed two or three in his first blow. This was not good news. While they didn’t seem too intelligent, any ability of the kaphdor to learn would work against him in the long run, since he couldn’t be too predictable. For now, though, he weaved through them as with the last wave, smashing them with heavy blows and dodging most of their cuts with ease. He felt his aim getting better, and he was able to more reliably target the gaps between their scales. In another hard half-minute of fighting, the corpses of more than a dozen new kaphdor lay still around him.