Second evolution has commenced. Your accomplishments and subtypes have all been kept track of by the Myrmidon Control System, and your selection of evolution options has been tailored to your existence.
As the first Myrmeke to reach the third stage among the 23rd batch, you have been granted a special privilege: Access to random Greater Myrmeke evolution.
Direct the evolution of your Lower Paths. You are capable of utilizing 402 Biomass (Articulate Springleg), (Springblad…), (…)
Acid (Hydrochloric)
Articulated Arms
Bladed Legs (34)
Durability
Lockjaw Mandibles
Venom (Neurotoxin) (41)
Size
Strength
Springlegs (100)
Scorpion Stinger (40)
Slingshot Feeding (39)
Superior Compound Eyes (42)
Wings (34)
! Poisonous Gleam (153)
Biomass Essence Combinations
Acidic Lockjaw Mandibles (96) (Conflict)
Articulated Springlegs (34)
Bladed Articulated Arms (23)
Blad… (23)
… (…)
Absorbable Commendations:
Part of her wanted to pick and choose in order to be as efficient as possible, but that wasn’t a realistic choice when she was being actively pursued. So, as much as it hurt her, she decided not to be very thorough and only very briefly look at her options outside of strength and durability.
She was aware that investing so much of her biomass into her fundamentals- strength and durability- had diminishing returns, as it was progressively harder to make any enhancements to them at all, but she knew exactly what she’d be getting from it, and it’d be quick.
Springlegs having a minimum cost again was interesting; upgrading them this time wouldn’t just increase the durability and efficacy of the legs, but would instead change them drastically. Luckily, the Myrmidon Control System’s insightful text was nice enough to explain how it’d change them: it’d allow her to retract the springs.
After her experience with the weaknesses of the Springlegs just a few minutes ago, she decided it was necessary.
Poisonous Gleam was strange, and she honestly wasn’t even sure if she wanted it at all. It made it so that her exoskeleton would produce a very deadly poison, hurting whatever bit her. The issue was that it wouldn’t affect the ants that attacked her, as their mandibles weren’t their mouths. It was a Greater Myrmekes’ evolution, though…
Very briefly glancing over the long, long list of Biomass Essence Combinations, discovering that a lot of the Biomass Essence Combinations seemed to conflict with things she already had; like Acidic Lockjaw Mandibles, which were incompatible with the Venomous Lockjaw Mandibles, thus raising the cost drastically to make it possible to have both.
There were only a couple of them there that she felt that she needed to have at a glance, and so she was very quickly done.
You have chosen:
Springlegs (100) 100
Durability (118) 218
Strength (119) 337
Superior Compound Eyes(42) 379
Bladed Articulate dArms (23) 402
You cannot change your mind once your Evolution begins, and your form won’t grow or change until you reach the Fourth Stage. Are you certain?
She suddenly remembered the horrible pain that she endured during her first Evolution. She suddenly really didn’t want to tell it to go… but the alternative was dying while defenseless within her egg, so she agreed.
…and instantly regretted putting most of her Biomass towards her Strength and Durability.
Her body was carefully, precisely shredded and regenerated a hundred times in an instant. Each time, she returned slightly stronger than before, but the agony was enough to knock her unconscious. Such a thing had long since been mostly bred out of the Myrmidons, just like their fear.
∑
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She didn’t want to have to do anything anymore. She hadn’t even been alive for a day, and had endured constant killing, fear and pain, but the nail in the coffin was the two instances of evolving. She didn’t want to keep going anymore. The transformation had stopped, the black goo filling the egg long-gone, the egg itself riddled with cracks, but she could still feel shadows of the pain.
Your Evolutionary Sta-
She shut it up with a furious clack of her mandibles and a mental waving away of the text.
Unfortunately, the universe didn’t allow her to rest or give up. Her antennae twitched as she registered nearby Myrmekes, and soon, she could feel the vibrations through the ground. She wanted to give up, but didn’t want to die. She seriously looked through her eyes for the first time, and she was a bit shocked at the efficacy of her eyes. The darkness was a bit more easily pierced, and even in spite of the aforementioned darkness, she could make out a tiny bit more color than before. More importantly, her vision was sharp, and she guessed that she’d have a much easier time locating the tell-tale signs of what evolutions her opponents had.
With a mountain of reluctance, she stood up and crawled out of her egg. As she did, she looked at her body VIA the ‘pseudo-feature’ she’d been granted earlier, self-affirmation.
Her body hadn’t grown an inch, luckily. Her Articulated Arms were the same for the most part, but were clearly intended for both combat and utility. They were thicker, longer and stronger. The claws at the end of the limbs’ fingers had transformed into something much more reminiscent of blades than claws; sharper, longer, and without the slight curve that they’d had previously.
Aside from that, her compound eyes now had a slight glow to them, and the only sign of springs that her legs had was a very slight spiral-shaped perturbance running along each of her legs. When she willed it, the springs popped out of grooves in the exoskeleton of her legs.
Technically, it left bits of her leg exposed, but the springs surrounding them would act like a guard of sort, protecting them just as much as if they’d been retracted. Other than these minor changes, her form was identical.
She didn’t have any time to do anything more, because a second stage ant finally found her. It was twice her size, and looked like it had gone pretty heavily into the venom or poison path. Its stinger had the tell-tale signs of being venomous, and its Venomous Lockjaw Mandibles looked significantly more developed than hers.
None of that mattered, of course. She’d invested a boatload of her biomass into her strength and durability, to the point that One and Two from earlier likely wouldn’t be able to move her even an inch as long as her Springlegs were retracted.
It seemed to hesitate upon seeing her form remade and changed slightly, but it didn’t matter, because the moment it came across her, its life belonged to her. She didn’t use her Springlegs, instead shooting forward using only her many powerful legs.
If they wouldn’t allow her to rest, she’d destroy everything until she could.
∑
You have slain…
You have…
You have obtained knowledge of the…
You have…
Her body was not tired, but her mind was reaching its breaking point. Frequently, she would inexplicably let out screeches or dig the blades of her Articulated Arms into her own flesh. The pain helped to clear her mind, but the relief only lasted for so long.
There was no way for anything within the cavern to stop her. She’d been clever and intelligent before, but she’d invested enough Biomass into her strength and durability that nothing could stop her and nothing could hurt her, for the most part.
Unless forty or so second stage Myrmekes gathered to attack her together, there would be nothing they could do. Fortunately, even though second stage Myrmekes were becoming increasingly common, it was nigh impossible for forty of them to work together like that in this environment.
Soon, the entire cavern was empty. Anything that tried to linger was mercilessly slaughtered, and everything else was forced to flee.
For a while, she simply stood there like some sort of statue. Her mind demanded sleep, but was that realistic when she was laying in one of the most highly contested areas?
It wasn’t, but she decided that she didn’t care. She lowered herself to the ground and let her mind stop.
∑
She woke up only thirty minutes later, when a small group of five ‘allied’ second stage Myrmekes entered the cavern and began approaching her. For a moment, she considered simply going back to sleep, but was not stupid enough to do such a thing when they clearly intended to fight her.
So, she stood up and tiredly moved towards them.
She was back asleep five minutes later.
∑
Nothing bothered her for a while after that, as the numerous corpses of second stage Myrmekes surrounding her left a powerful enough impression on even the dumbest of them.
Thus, she had been able to rest for an extra hour, and by then, she finally felt good enough to begin pushing herself forward again.
Her first order of business was to bring the System’s text back and read it.
Your Evolutionary Status has changed significantly.
In order to evolve to the second stage, you must expend 1023 Biomass.
…That was it?
‘Well? Show it to me.’ She demanded.
Nameless Lower Myrmeke Pupae
Greater Path: Scout
Current Subtype: Springarmed Venomjaw
Third Stage
Acid: Average
Articulated Arms (Bladed): Above average.
Durability: Powerful
Strength: Powerful
Size: Lower
Springlegs: Powerful
Venomous Lockjaw Mandibles: Average.
Biomass: 0
Commendations: “Extraordinary mental faculties.” – Lower Queen Andromeda. “Good senses.” – Lower Queen Burhun.
Beseech Lower Queen Andromeda for a name?
Beseech Lower Queen Burhun for a name?
The very first thing that she noticed was that Lower Queen Andromeda’s commendation had changed from “Intelligent” to “Extraordinary Mental Faculties”. Now that she thought about it… was she so tired because of how her mind had suddenly quadrupled in processing speed during her fight with One and Two?
Until then, she’d actually been relatively alright, despite the pain of her first evolution and all of that.
Not expecting much, she chose to beseech the pair of Lower Queens for a name.
Lower Queen Andromeda has declined your request for a name. Reason: Unworthy.
Lower Queen Burhun has declined your request for a name. Reason: Unworthy.
She’d expected it, but the text still made her angry. She banished it quickly, though, feeling that the Myrmidon Control System didn’t like it.
She clacked her mandibles together tiredly as she stood. There were still dozens upon dozens of first Stage Myrmidon lurking in the tunnels, and even a couple of second Stage Myrmeke. They all stared into the cavern, but none of them dared to move more than a yard or two into it.
That was fine with her; she still needed to gather the Cores of her many victims, and those of the thousands of first Stage Myrmekes.
Using her Articulated Arms, she very easily managed to retrieve all of the second stage Myrmeke’s Cores, shoving them all into her mouth. Her moral quandaries from earlier were returning, and she felt guilty as she shredded her kin, many of which had only died hours ago and stole their Biomass. On many of the bodies, she could still detect their pheromones of pain, fear, confusion and everything else.
Don’t.
The System’s word struck her mind like a hammer. It was filled with tremendous power, and she only then noticed the faint resentment that had been building towards the Queens.
The text disappeared ten seconds later, and her legs only barely managed to hold her. She could tell… that if she began to harbor those feelings again, it would end badly.
The issue was that it didn’t seem possible to truly remove the grudge that’d subconsciously formed towards the Queens. She suppressed it out of fear, but knew that it would pop up again, the moment that her mind began to wander again.
She hastily found a band-aid solution; to simply not let her mind wander. It wasn’t hard to do; after all, there were plenty of things to do down here… like eat, kill, sleep and-
You were warned.
Her exoskeleton suddenly began to glow, and a new sentence was added.
Kill the third Stage glowing Myrmeke for a considerable reward.
For a second, she was confused, but after looking at the second message for a minute, she realized.
‘That was sent to everybody.’
All around the cavern, she could suddenly detect distinct pheromones of violence.