* "I knew it."
* Traces of Corruption detected in biomass, there is a limit to the use of biomass to avoid health damage or genetic corruption.
This bird had some sort of contact with a source of corruption that changed it, and I became the spark that detonated its change.
As I kept eating, I began to feel sick; it's not severe, but it just doesn't feel right either.
I will have digested it without further problems in a few more hours.
The bird gave me 10 full points of biomass. Despite being corrupted, it's a significant amount. It nearly took me 4 hours to gather that much before just with trees and plants.
I now accumulated a little reserve that will be used to increase my level asap. But first, I wanted to check the new biome to have a better understanding of what I will find.
I climbed back to the rock aperture. I'm getting better at this after so many falls.
Silence… I can feel danger lurking, but cannot see it.
And actually, I don't see many of the blood pools that I saw before… That's the weirdest thing; I haven't even been out of there for 15 minutes. "Should I go down?"
My body is not yet recovered, and neither am I. I will just call it a day and rest. Then level up. I deserve that much after the fight.
I went back to my precarious refuge and dug a hole near the entrance to rest for a few hours.
I then connected myself with the support biomorph and started the level up process.
It’s painfully slow and hurts like hell, but I have no choice but to suffer in silence and keep pushing my limits to be prepared.
I do a mental checklist, a plan of sorts.
"Okay, what I do know is… well, not much. I’m on a distant, isolated lab. It's thousands of years out of my comfort zone and without my old memories.
The AI I talked to told me this place was a sort of investigation or containment laboratory created to “save” me. I’m not sure about what it meant by that."
Why would they need to do so many experiments on animals? Why did they keep investigating for so long? Did they really just want to save me, or use this place as a way to create weapons?
The bird was vivid proof that this corruption thing is deadly dangerous. It can quickly transform a seemingly inoffensive creature into a killing machine in no time.
Well, for what I know, there are many biomes, and several of them have had breaches on the cages. So I could expect wild and dangerous creatures around. If a simple bird was already that dangerous for me, I don’t want to imagine what can a tiger, elephant, or shark turn out into.
And last but not least, a fucking spaceship is coming this way. A sort of battleship that will arrive in a few weeks and nuke this lab or raid it.
I don’t know why the AI made it sound like the second one was a worse option than the first.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
* We will survive!! We can kill and grow again!
"Okay, I'm happy that you see it as a minor problem and while you think about food again… I will try to think of a way to escape from this place. I’m sure there must be some docks."
Well, let’s just check the new stats, that's always nice to look at.
Primal Larvae - Ripper
* Stats:
Level - 3 (40 biomass to level up)
Health - 8/15
Energy - 60/60
Biomass Reserves - 17 biomass / 10 corrupted (processing)
Str - 14
Res - 11
Vit - 10
Agi - 8
Int - 4
* Biomorph list:
Support level 1 → 2
Enhanced senses level 1 → 2
Maw level 3
Chitin level 1
Poison sting level 1
Spores level 1
Two of my biomorphs upgraded, so I am quite happy about it.
I will wait until I have full health and upgrade the support one, I need more help, and if that biomorph grows, maybe it will give me better clues to evolve.
After that, I think I will upgrade the sensors to help me scanning the new biome to detect enemies and possible traps. "Any advice that I should keep in mind, Norn?"
* "More food!!"
"YES NORN, I know we need food. Thanks. And what is that about being slow? We’re doing just fine, c’mon. Give me a break.
We’ll get some more food tomorrow. Good night to you too, little one."
-------------------
I wake up after 4 or 5 hours of sleep, a sort of long rest for the Tyranid standards.
Norn has been nagging me to wake up for the last 10 minutes until I could not take it anymore and exited the little cave hole.
Well, I will get some more biomass and samples from here and stop kicking around the bush.
Okay, I pushed the support biomorph to the next level, and weirdly, it doesn’t hurt too much. I feel my brain being super active, and after some minutes, I think some new nerves have being connected all over my body. "Great, as if I didn't feel enough pain like I used to be."
* “The extra nerves do not influence the pain sensors, Host.”
"WOAH, what was that? Who said that?!!"
* “Your support unit. I can detect duplicity of psyche waves in the host, should I remove or merge them?”
"No, no, no, nonononono, do not do that. We’re just fine. Enough with the mind jumble."
* "Understood"
"Okay, so…. Are you the support biomorph?"
* “Indeed. I just evolved into a new stage where I can be of better help to my host. Or hosts. I can analyze more efficiently the DNA ingestion, biomorph control, and unit control.”
"Wait, what? Unit control?!"
* “The host has just developed the spore biomorph and should be able to command some simple units called mites. Those are not proper Tyranids yet and depend on the energy from the host to be created.”
"Ahh, that makes sense. Wait, I can have an army??"
* "Summon your brood! I told you were too slow!"
"Oh damn, I didn’t know it could work like that. So, how many units can I have?"
* “You need psychic energy to control them, and they have to be near you, so they do not lose the connection to the hive mind, but with your intelligence level, you could control 4 minor ones at the same time.”
"That’s useful! 4 minions are better than none. Okay, let’s create them and salvage what’s left of this biome!!"
I focused on my spore biomorph, and with the new support function, it got much more convenient to have a clear picture in mind of what I can do and what I can expect to happen.
After a few seconds, I started to feel extremely tired, and 4 small objects fall from my back, near the spore tubes. I checked the energy, and each one of them cost me 5 energy units. Plus, some biomass, but it's as negligible as their size.
Those 4 small balls of chitin start moving frantically and go to the nearest source of food they can find and began eating like crazy. In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if they are insects or black holes. "How the hell do they eat so much!? Well, I will join the party too."
After a couple of hours, 30% of the biome has been devastated, devoured, and processed. During that time, I ate a huge number of mites and grew them back again.
Once they were to their fullest, the small creatures came back to me, and somehow, they died.
That shocked me the first time, but Norn and the support biomorph told me that it’s their lifecycle, eat a lot and drop dead as a highly packed biomass snack. Efficient and ruthless.
If I think about it from my human perspective,,, yuck. I mean, I kind of got attached to the mites for the few hours we were together, like with pets. The whole issue of sharing my mind also influenced me.
But nonetheless, I kept devouring them.
“They were never really alive, those units were always part of the collective hive mind.”
I see. That’s why I felt some small inputs here and there these few hours, and after their death, those little consciences came back to me?
I’m not sure, Norn is the one which understands the Tyranid biology better than me, I just took the wheel provisionally.
* "Brood! They kill, we eat, all grow!"
"Give me a few minutes to get used to it."
It's a philosophy so alien to what used to be reasonable as a human… but on the bright side, it's proven to be really adaptable and capable of increasing my power and chances of survival.
My idea should be able to grow enough to get a body of my own someday despite how useful this body is.
I have collected enough biomass to level up my senses. With the help of my little helpers, I also got a few new samples of plants and vines, new DNA is always a good thing for Norn to try new combinations and maybe produce a biomorph or unit that help us out of here. She might be a Norn queen, but she has no access to the right tools yet.
I climb the rocks for the last time and proceed into the second biome.
My senses and support unit will help me navigate this area. I create a bunch of new mites to investigate and get some food for us.
After a few minutes, I see something moving on the ground. Those seem like rocks? "Hey!! That rock just ate one of my units! That was mine to eat! Don't worry, mite, I will avenge you."