Ch.341Vortex One (5)

Voltex One stopped its attack when it saw the massive mining ship that tore through space.

It was deliberating whether to strike me or the mining ship first.

Taking advantage of that hesitation, I pulled out my final card.

‘King of Monsters.’

‘King of Monsters’ is one of the special states of ‘Organic Evolution.’ Using this trait transforms my body into a colossal creature.

I’ve used King of Monsters before after consuming Psyonium and becoming an Adult. At that time, I couldn’t use it together with Mark of the Hunt because of cooldown.

In other words, this is the first time I’m using King of Monsters while in Mark of the Hunt state.

My body grows at a terrifying rate in the empty space. The Ring of Agony, which had boasted a much larger size than me, suddenly became smaller than me. I think my current body is almost one-third the size of the Gigacracker.

Of course, I paid for this enormous growth with a massive amount of energy. I’m barely maintaining it thanks to the dragon heart pumping psychic power.

Still, I instinctively knew I couldn’t hold out for more than a few minutes.

‘Good. Let’s end this here.’

Mark of the Hunt and King of Monsters.

Equipped with my strongest weapons, I charged at Voltex One.

「-」

Seeing me rush forward with overwhelming size, Voltex One clapped its hands. A force manipulating gravity seized my body and twisted it. My carapace shattered, and pipes throughout my body snapped. My arms and legs broke as they twisted in grotesque directions.

「-」

「-」

The Ring of Agony didn’t stop there, clapping twice more in succession. My left head and right tail made a chilling sound as they were crushed by an invisible force.

‘I can still do this!’

Despite the pain, I continued to advance.

Just as it was about to clap again, Adhigh Orr pierced through it.

The force crushing my body disappeared, and instead, energy projectiles composed of the Power of Deep were fired from the numerous hands on the ring’s surface.

Adhigh Orr’s red afterimage glowed faintly within the shower of black meteors. He skillfully avoided the barrage of energy projectiles.

As I felt in Beryan02, his flying skills were masterful. He wouldn’t lose in a dogfight even against rankers.

The Ring of Agony, seemingly realizing it couldn’t catch him with energy projectiles, changed its posture. It was trying to crush him with its gravity manipulation ability.

This time, No. 26, riding on Adhigh Orr’s back, stepped forward. Purple stems flowed from the tips of her pink tentacles, surrounding them like a web of threads.

The sight of them protected by a sphere made of a vivid purple light mandala reminded me of the shield Cynthia once used to protect herself.

「-」

Soon, an invisible force descended upon the protective barrier No. 26 had created. Even Voltex One couldn’t easily break through the barrier, and the two of them were holding out well.

Taking advantage of this opening, I approached the enemy.

Before it could clap again, I rammed into it with all my might. Its posture crumbled from colliding with me, who had a more massive body than itself.

「—-」

「-」

「-」

「–」

The position of its arms changed three times in succession. Energy projectiles, gravity manipulation, and anti-elasticity struck me one after another.

Excruciating pain shook my head, and messages about pain reduction being activated kept appearing. I could barely endure thanks to the AMorph’s unique vitality and the enhancement effects of various traits.

‘I can’t be pushed back here.’

Enduring the barrage of attacks, I wrapped my elongated neck and corrosive tentacles around Voltex One. Now that I was larger than it, enveloping its thin-circumferenced body was no problem.

「—–」

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

It tried to escape by separating its body, but I had anticipated this. When its body tried to split, I grabbed the parts where the core was hiding with my tentacles to prevent it from escaping.

「— —」

When I refused to give up, it tried to twist its body once more. It intended to maximize its destructive power to completely shatter me.

Not a bad judgment. If it had changed form five minutes earlier, it would have won.

At a considerable distance from where we were floating.

Energy gathered at the center of a massive structure resembling a blooming flower.

While I was distracting it by using King of Monsters, the Gigacracker’s ion cannon had completed its preparation.

「–」

Detecting the ion cannon, it desperately tried to shake me off. I relaxed the strength in my neck and tentacles just as its anti-elasticity was about to burst forth.

‘Now!’

The moment I was repelled from it, the ion cannon fired.

A heat ray capable of splitting an asteroid with a single blow rapidly approached the Ring of Agony. Its arms tried to distort gravity to change the direction of the heat ray, but it was too late.

Because the cyan death had already incinerated its entire body.

All the arms on the ring’s surface burned away, and its body sustained by the Power of Deep collapsed like a sand castle.

The heat ray, after delivering a critical blow to Voltex One, continued past its original target and flew toward Beryan02 behind it.

The Gigacracker is one of the super weapons, but its essence is a mining ship. It’s impossible to destroy a planet as large as Beryan02.

However, that doesn’t mean it can’t cause any damage. At the very least, it can wipe out civilizations built on the planet.

When the ion cannon’s massive beam struck, the red planet’s clouds scattered. Crustal fragments and sand generated by the explosion at the impact point rose to the atmosphere before falling back to the ground.

The city hit by the heat ray would naturally leave no trace, and cities far away would also be destroyed by falling debris.

Now the Cult Empire’s “Red Jewel” no longer exists. Only a desolate planet covered in sand remains.

After the heat ray was fired, the Gigacracker returned to its spherical form.

「·」

Voltex One, directly hit by the ion cannon, was in poor condition. Its body was full of cracks, and few arms remained. Black liquid continuously flowed from the cracked parts.

It had reached the point where it could no longer maintain its physical form.

I flew toward it with my battered body.

The Ring of Agony tried to resist by moving its arms, but it was just a meaningless gesture. I wrapped my right and central necks around it.

Holding it tightly, I bit into its body using my double jaw. When its arms flailed, I grabbed and tore them off, and when it twisted its body to escape, I bound it firmly with my tentacles.

I slowly devoured it like a snake coiled around its prey.

And soon, the ‘Abyssal Core’ touched the tip of my mouth.

‘This is the end.’

Without hesitation, I swallowed the core whole.

「Predation Effect Activated!」

A cosmic demon incompletely summoned from Beryan02.

The message announcing Voltex One’s death was not much different from usual.

–

“Please work! Please work! Please!”

Alshas was trying desperately to contact her comrades.

Her ship had been completely wrecked after getting caught in the battle between Voltex One and AMorph. With the rocket propulsion system at the rear of the ship damaged, it was impossible to reach even the nearest planet.

That was unfortunate enough, but something even more terrible had happened.

The communication monolith, the tool for contacting her fellow Returnists, had been damaged and broken by the impact.

‘This can’t be happening! Why do I have to suffer like this!’

Faced with consecutive unbearable misfortunes, Alshas felt like she was going to lose her mind.

She already knew she wasn’t a good person. But was she evil enough to deserve such a miserable fate?

She didn’t think so.

Most people live like her, exploiting others to a moderate degree. If she was a sinner, then everyone in this world, no, in the real world, was a sinner.

Moreover, the Returnists, the faction she belonged to, worked to help “everyone.” If their grand plan succeeded, everyone could be saved.

While she didn’t fully sympathize with that noble intention, she felt it was necessary enough. That’s why she had dedicated herself to the cause.

‘If only I could contact them! If only I could contact them, they would come to rescue me!’

Alshas struggled to fix the monolith. Her fingers were bloody from being pierced by wires and metal fragments, but she didn’t care.

She looked less like a beautiful Cult and more like a hideous monster.

In truth, her fate had been sealed from the moment the Outspacer retreated.

“Just a little more…”

Just as she was about to connect a wire to the monolith, the hull shook violently.

She froze at the impact, which felt like something had collided with the ship from outside.

“W-what was that?”

She hurriedly turned her gaze to the front window.

Until just a moment ago, she could see a black background dotted with tiny white grains. But now, only perfect darkness was reflected in the glass.

‘Should I just jump out into space?’

If she protected herself with a psychic shield and moved using levitation technology, she might somehow escape. It wasn’t an entirely unreasonable method for someone with high psychic power output like her.

The problem was oxygen.

Even if she escaped wearing a mask and protective suit, she would need a lot of oxygen to reach another planet or ship. Otherwise, she would most likely run out of oxygen before her psychic power depleted.

‘I don’t want to die!’

Her selfish nature, carried over from the real world, negatively affected her judgment. She only pondered what would be advantageous for survival without taking action.

And time would no longer wait for the indecisive.

“Eek?!”

The hull shook violently. Startled, Alshas dropped the monolith she was holding.

Unlike before, when it shook once and stopped, this time was different. With a sharp noise, one part of the ship’s inner wall began to cave in.

“N-no…!”

The wall was torn away like an aluminum can being crushed. If it were in space, air would rush out due to the pressure difference, but that didn’t happen.

Beyond the torn wall was not space but a dark hangar.

Only then did she realize what had collided with, or rather, captured her ship. The Cult’s slender body began to tremble like an aspen leaf.

The head of “it,” which was enveloping the entire ship, descended.

“I’d like to eat you right away, but I suppose I should wait my turn.”

Seeing “it,” AMorph’s white pupils, Alshas wished she could faint.

Of course, fainting wouldn’t change anything.

From now on, it’s AMorph’s time.