Chapter 342
Over the next several days, Jake was busy developing his second lair. The more he worked on it, the more he liked it. Unlike the first he built, this one offered much more space, and he appreciated it greatly.
He created multiple managatherers and arachnoxes, making his lair self-sufficient and ensuring a constant supply of mana and biomass for his needs. He had already begun to spread corruption over the surfaces on the ninth floor. This lair was quickly becoming his favorite, and he already considered it his main operational hub.
Occasionally, Jake enjoyed watching his creatures work through a vision link. One day, he witnessed a scene where humans attacked one of his arachnoxes. The creature was carrying the walker it had captured earlier back to the lair when a group of regular survivors spotted the massive arachnid.
They froze in their tracks, appalled by the sight of the enormous, tentacled spider they had never seen before. The arachnox, however, ignored the humans and continued moving in the same direction at great speed. Unfortunately, the humans were right in its path, and seeing it move toward them, they must have thought it was charging at them.
They opened fire on the arachnox, bullets chipping away at its hard exoskeleton. At first, the enormous spider completely ignored them. It changed direction, intending to scuttle around the group of survivors in its path. Bullets continued to rain down, tearing holes through its exterior.
Even though the survivors may have realized the arachnid wasn’t going to attack them, they kept firing. At one point, a bullet struck the cocoon on its back. That’s when the instinct to protect its capture kicked in. The spider spun toward the survivors and charged at them.
Seeing the enormous arachnid rushing at them with a clear intent to attack, the survivors lost it. One stumbled backward, lost his balance, and fell. Another spun around and ran off. However, a couple of them managed to stay focused. One cast a slowing spell on the spider while the other threw a grenade.
The grenade landed just beneath the massive monster, and upon detonation, several of the spider’s legs were damaged. The arachnid collapsed onto the ground, unable to support its weight on the remaining legs. Then, the survivors unleashed a barrage of devastating fire on the incapacitated creature, finishing it off.
As he watched his creature die, anger surged within Jake. He wanted to hunt down those responsible for its demise and make them pay the ultimate price for their actions. However, he forced himself to calm down. He shouldn’t get riled up over such matters. After all, the creatures he had developed could hardly be considered living beings. Even insects have plans for their lives, while his creations merely followed the programming he’d given them. They resembled robots more than living entities, so he shouldn’t lash out at humans who happened to kill some of them, especially considering that regular survivors were now his allies.
If the team that killed the spider was Los Demonios, he wouldn’t have any second thoughts about slaying them, though.
Just before the arachnox died, Jake heard one of the survivors shout to another that she received a helluva lot of XP for the arachnid. Since the XP for the arachnox was shared among all the survivors who had damaged it, the total amount must be enormous.
It was a disconcerting development. The fact that survivors were rewarded with XP for killing the creatures he developed, and quite a lot, to boot, meant that at some point, when the word spread, survivors might open a hunting season on his creatures for XP.
He had to tackle this issue promptly. He mentally noted to visit Catalina to request her to share the message: don’t harm his creatures. Managatherers and Arachnoxes were merely drones, focused on gathering resources and steering clear of conflict. If humans left them alone, they wouldn’t attack them.
However, he knew that while some survivors might heed Catalina’s message, others would likely continue to attack his drones for XP. He needed to address this by evolving them further, either to enhance their ability to hide and evade enemies or to make them more aggressive and powerful.
If he opted for the latter, it could lead to some humans getting injured or even killed. Then again, it didn’t really matter to him. Those foolish enough to attack his drones and ignore his warnings should face the harsh consequences of their stupidity.
Anyway, now that he had created the Arachnox, he realized he needed to upgrade his Ten-legged Acid-spitting Crawler as well. It was too small and weak compared to the Arachnox. Even in large numbers, they weren’t much of a threat.
Sure, they could handle a single human, but a well-armed and well-protected team of seasoned survivors could fend them off without much trouble, as was clearly demonstrated at the beginning of the battle against Skullface’s team of operatives.
So Jake decided to increase the size of the Ten-legged Acid-spitting Crawler to match that of the Arachnox. He spent some time working on that.
So he now had three well-developed creatures. Two of the creatures were more like drones designed solely for collecting resources for his lair. While the Arachnox could hold its own in a fight and protect the lair when necessary, its primary objective was to gather biomass, not to engage in combat.
It meant that Jake essentially had only one combat creature, the Ten-legged Acid-spitting Crawler, prompting him to develop another. He decided to create a winged creature this time, choosing the fly out of the three basic creatures and got to work.
He spent a few more days developing a new combat creature, and finally, it was ready. He named it “Wingclaw.” It was a huge, menacing creature, over six feet tall, blending features of various species into one formidable entity, but it mostly looked like a raptor with various insectoid features. One of its most striking characteristics was its four iridescent wings, reminiscent of a dragonfly’s, shimmering in a spectrum of colors when they caught the light. These wings allowed it to maneuver swiftly and gracefully in the air.
It possessed two sturdy back-joined legs, resembling those of a powerful insect, enabling it to leap great distances and traverse various terrains with ease. Its forelimbs featured clawed hands, equipped with sharp, curved talons for grasping and tearing. Its long snout was filled with sharp, jagged teeth, allowing it to tear through flesh with ease. The creature’s long, segmented tail resembled that of a scorpion, tapering to a sharp, menacing stinger. The stinger was venomous, capable of paralyzing its opponents.
So he now had two types of combat creatures: the acid-spitting, ten-legged crawlers and wingclaws. After spending some time producing several creatures of each type, he gathered the group together. It was time to see how they performed in action.