Ch.3131. Upgrade

After the laser barrage hit Teresia, silence filled the alley as dust and smoke obscured whether she had survived.

Everyone remained tense with their weapons aimed, and as the smoke gradually cleared—what appeared was Teresia, covered in blood with holes throughout her body, yet still wide-eyed and aiming her pistol.

“What—”

*Pew!*

*Whoosh—thud!*

The laser from her gun pierced through the head of the man who had been their leader, and she immediately aimed at the female hunter beside him—but the pistol didn’t fire another shot.

“Shoot! Shoot!”

*Pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew!!!*

Laser machine guns mounted around the area unleashed a barrage at Teresia, and unfortunately, with her head shot through, she collapsed.

*Thud!*

“W-we killed her!”

“We avenged the boss!”

“Serves you right, whore! Good to see you dead!”

As the noisy bunch proclaimed, Teresia’s life signs had indeed ceased.

But these thugs, who couldn’t care less about their dead leader, were just loudly celebrating their self-proclaimed achievement. Among them, one hunter who still had his wits about him spoke up.

“Wait! Let’s confirm the kill first!”

“Her head’s been shot through, but she might still be… alive, I guess.”

“Fine, then you who brought it up can cut off her head.”

Since Teresia had continued moving despite having a large hole blown through her chest earlier, they all agreed that they needed to make absolutely sure she was finished.

“Huff… here I go.”

So the hunter who had spoken up approached the corpse with a hunter knife in hand.

The enhancement-type psychic user boosted his physical abilities as he brought the knife to Teresia’s neck and slowly began separating her head from her body.

*Slice, slice, slice, slice… squelch.*

“…ugh.”

When Teresia’s blood splattered onto his skin during the cutting process, the hunter grimaced in disgust at having a non-Korean’s blood on his body, but he managed to completely separate the head from the body.

“Is it done?”

“Can’t you see? …Got this filth on me, I want to wash it off quickly.”

The hunter who had been staring at the severed head looked up at the hunter who called him. He lifted the head to begin dismantling the body to sell the implants when—

*Blink.*

“A-AAAAHHH!!!”

*Splash!*

Startled by the corpse’s eyes suddenly blinking, the hunter dropped the head onto the ground.

“What the hell?!”

“What’s wrong? Did a bug crawl out of the corpse or something?”

As the other hunters snickered and mocked the startled hunter, the agitated hunter was about to argue that he saw the decapitated corpse blink.

But he couldn’t say it.

*Whoosh—squelch!*

“Guh-guh…”

*Slash! Thud!*

Because the moment he tried to speak, four tentacles suddenly emerged from the back of Teresia’s torso, moving rapidly to kill him.

One tentacle with a harpoon-like blade at its tip pierced his heart, and the remaining three tentacles, wrapped in psychic energy, sliced him into pieces.

“F-fuck, what is that?!”

“I don’t know!”

“Shit! Shoot! Shoot!”

The hunters, shocked by tentacles sprouting from the corpse’s body and openly slicing a person to pieces, panicked and couldn’t regain their composure.

*Boom—bang!*

“AAAAARRRGGGHHHH!!!”

And during this chaos, suddenly one of their heads exploded with what appeared to be psychic force.

The sight of brain matter, bone fragments, flesh, and blood spraying in all directions was enough to shock everyone’s minds, and meanwhile—the corpse continued to move.

“F-fuck! Hey! Look there!”

“It doesn’t have a head!!!”

Teresia’s headless body walked steadily forward, aiming the four tentacles protruding from its lower back, and suddenly began to transform.

Its size swelled to about 2.5 meters, causing muscles throughout the body to expand and skin to tear away.

The legs twisted as the skeletal structure changed to a reverse joint configuration, and an additional claw grew from the heel area, revealing sharp hook-like talons.

The arms lengthened disproportionately to the body, with fingers grotesquely distorted and fingernails transformed into something resembling hunter claws.

Finally, in place of the severed head, a new one regenerated. It had two pairs of eyes, all completely red with no distinction between whites and irises, and a long, strange tentacle resembling hair grew from the back of the head.

The mouth opened vertically rather than horizontally, filled with densely packed sharp teeth and a long, elastic tongue.

And this transformation—or more accurately, return to original form—took only 4 seconds.

*Pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew!!!*

“Throw! Throw the grenades!”

The hunters, panicking at the monster-like transformation, unleashed attacks at Teresia, but she absorbed them without concern and attacked the hunters.

She wrapped them with her tongue and threw them, swung her tentacles that could extend up to 7 meters to dismember hunters’ bodies.

She charged forward while blocking laser machine gun fire with her psychic barrier, plunged her sharp hunter claws into bodies, and used the hunters as meat shields.

The narrow alley allowed her to maximize mobility, so it didn’t take long for Teresia to dispose of the handful of hunters.

※ ※ ※

‘That was a close call…’

At the same time, watching the dismembered bodies through Teresia’s eyes, I hurriedly called other monsters—the Nina series—to clean up the scene while breathing a sigh of relief.

Even with my Hive Mind superintelligence, I couldn’t predict the reckless actions of extremist groups acting without considering consequences.

[Mother… I’m sorry.]

‘No, this was just an accident. You… take some time off for now.’

I comforted the self-blaming Teresia while ordering her to take a vacation to secure some time.

[Understood, Mother.]

‘…Right.’

This was to repair some of Teresia’s functions damaged in this battle, while also enhancing her combat abilities.

This would serve as a reward for her work so far, but more importantly, I was shocked that she had been defeated by such opponents while in human form without reverting to her monster form.

In this battle, to be honest, if I hadn’t retrieved Teresia’s mind and soul into the Hive Mind when she was riddled with laser holes, she would have simply died.

This was partly due to Teresia’s carelessness, but the real issue was the disparity between her monster state and human form—specifically, that her human form’s specs were too weak compared to her software.

In her monster state, she has specs far beyond a low-grade monster. Basic regenerative abilities that allow her to move even with her head cut off, overwhelming physical abilities, and high-tier 7th grade psychic powers.

While she might not match a mid-grade monster, she could easily dispatch low-grade monsters or hunters, but in human form, it’s a different story.

Her body’s durability is penetrated even by civilian-grade laser machine guns, and with injuries as severe as decapitation, she can’t regenerate—at best, she can burn her last life force to return to monster form.

Therefore, I decided to grant Teresia, whom I now judged to have an extremely low possibility of betrayal, abilities befitting a mid-grade monster to prevent her from dying foolishly again.

Teresia

Grade :: 4

Level :: 85

Stats

Strength :: 105

Agility :: 135

Vitality :: 100

Intelligence :: 145

Resistance :: 100

Energy :: 135

Leadership :: 50

Traits

Monster Gene(B), Predator(B), Hive Mind(B), Subjugation(EX), Human Mimicry(B), Versatile Psychic User(B), Bio Core(B), Degraded Subject Control(C), Psychic Repository(C), Close Combat Expert(C)

Skills

Wave Blocking(B), Self-Camouflage(B), High-Speed Mobility(C), Telekinesis(C), Psychic Barrier(C), Psychic Suggestion(D), Psychic Lightning(D)

Bio-weapons

Plasma Shooter(B), Barbed Tentacles(C), Hunter Claws(C)

That said, I didn’t add any additional functions. Though her overall values were low, her traits, skill composition, and stat balance were already complete.

Therefore, I planned to simply increase the ranks of her stats, traits, skills, and bio-weapons, while adding two attack methods to compensate for insufficient offensive power.

First, there’s the skill Psychic Lightning(D). To be blunt, this For** Lightning attack is not only powerful but also so fast it’s nearly unavoidable, with added effects of paralysis and stun, making it significant as a means to set up the next attack method.

Plasma Shooter(B) is a ranged weapon boasting the highest firepower at the cost of many sacrifices. It’s infamous for its poor accuracy due to the characteristic that increases monster bio-weapon power at the expense of hit rate.

But my design was to compensate for this low accuracy with the paralysis and stun effects of Psychic Lightning—and while the actual effectiveness remains to be seen, it should work more or less as intended.