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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator – Seraph]
[Proofreader – Draxx]
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Chapter 335
Green, purple, and countless other pigments mixed together, staining the black carapace. The impious colors, as if they were the embodiment of chaos itself, slowly crawled into my head.
｢Ssss!｣
｢Ssss!｣
The Collection bugs, seeing the ominous light emanating from me, hastily retreated. As always, those greedy 'Hues' didn’t care what the enemies did.
The predatory glow, resembling an amoeba, wrapped around the monster’s tentacles. The gathered energy was much lower than when enhanced by the Tyrantroid, but that shouldn't be overlooked. The psychic breath, enhanced with the Abyssal Hue, was far more threatening than anything else.
Like droplets falling along a stalactite, the energy that gathered at the tips of the three branches of my heads took shape as spheres.
Given my large size, the psychic spheres, enhanced with the Abyssal Hues, were considerable in size. Number 26, perched on my back, manipulated the movement of the spheres in time.
The enhanced psychic breath sped toward the enemy. Like bubbles bursting when hitting an object, it exploded above the swarm of collection bugs.
There was no intense roar like before. The multicolored bubbles quietly absorbed the group of bugs. As one bug fled, many more deaths followed.
‘Good. This should end it.’
The moment I thought that.
An unbelievable event occurred before my eyes.
The bugs that touched the enhanced psychic breath's bubbles turned a bluish hue and soon vanished from my sight.
Through the gap formed by some of the bugs disappearing, the Queen's figure became visible. The blue afterimage remained in the countless eyes of the creature.
Alshas, atop the Queen, smirked and mocked me.
‘That just now, that was Warpboy’s ability.’
According to the setting, Outspacers are beings who came from another universe. Therefore, their method of superluminal travel differs from other species.
For an Outspacers to move, they must have a bio-portal. No matter how much they devour metallic gremlins, they cannot steal Warpboy's teleportation ability, the ‘Warp Guide.’
So, the answer is clear.
A player perk.
Unlike in the game, there were no restrictions, allowing me to enhance the legion, or perhaps I obtained superluminal travel capabilities through some unknown means.
‘...The fortunate thing is that it’s not exactly the same as the original.’
If they were capable of superluminal travel without penalty, like Warpboy, there would be no need to send troops through a bio-portal. They could simply bring the entire legion with many Queens.
The Queen with Alshas could be a specialized unit for movement, or perhaps there are limitations to the superluminal travel of the entire legion.
‘Either way, I need to deal with them first.’
Originally, I had planned to destroy the bio-portal in the pit, but the situation had changed. The Queen was a greater threat than the portal. I had no idea what abilities it possessed or what effects it had.
I deactivated the Abyssal Hue and prepared a normal psychic breath. After clearing the enemies in front of me, I planned to approach the Queen in one swift motion.
Just as I was about to execute that plan, a powerful energy reaction from outside the bio-dome caught my attention. It was familiar God's lightning, Thunder God, something I had already experienced twice.
A golden heat ray pierced through the dome’s outer wall and struck my wings. My body was thrown off balance, causing the psychic breath to veer off in the wrong direction. The purple breath made a new hole in the dome of the Fortress of Water before disappearing.
I lifted the central head and looked above.
Beyond the gaping hole, unwelcome enemies awaited.
A multitude of ships filled the red sky. They were the elite fleet of the Watchers, the ones I had seen before infiltrating Verzan-02. Among them were the Thunder God and imperial warships.
‘Alshas!’
It wasn’t just that it was perched on the Queen and watching. It must have used the clones to contact the Watchers outside the planet.
“MPS-05’s situation is dire. There are too many enemies on the ground as well.”
｢That big one is bothering the bad flapping one.｣
Outspacers below, elite warships above.
This was the first crisis I had faced since maturing.
‘How should I break through?’
Though there were Imperial Carrier, the Cosmic Bolt required charging time, so it couldn't be used immediately. Other attacks, however, could be withstood by my carapace.
‘Should I try to provoke the Outspacers and Cult to fight each other?’
For a moment, that thought crossed my mind, but I quickly dismissed it.
Alshas and the Outspacers Queen were no fools. Even if I tried to create a distraction here, the chances of succeeding were slim.
‘Should I become a giant by using the Bone Beast? Or should I use the Symbol of the Hunt now?’
Both were decent options, but neither had the decisiveness needed to turn the tide. The sheer number of enemies made it difficult for me to eliminate them all on my own.
Moreover, the enemies were no rabble. Even if they didn’t fully understand my intentions, they would at least try to counter me in some way.
‘To stop that, I need a decisive blow.’
Just like how the Collection Bugs, upon seeing the Abyssal Hue, retreated out of instinctive fear.
What I needed was overwhelming terror.
‘What could it be... wait.’
A characteristic I had obtained from the pirate fortress flashed through my mind.
A characteristic I hadn’t used since acquiring it.
‘Black Devourer Cannon!’
I confronted the charging Collection Bugs again and opened the text box.
｢Black Devourer Cannon: Infinite power is at your hands. It consumes 50% of the total energy you can store in your body to fire a shell.
*Note: Please be cautious.｣
The Black Devourer Cannon was the only characteristic I had created after escaping from the pirate-occupied space fortress. The biotic cannon on my left tail existed solely for this characteristic.
This was the simplest tooltip of all the unique characteristics made using the Transcendence System. The only explanation was that it consumed energy to fire a shell. The only warning was that it used 50% of the maximum energy my body could store.
‘It seems fine, but...’
I realized I shouldn’t let my guard down when I read the note at the bottom.
I had seen many characteristics in both the game and this world, but I had never come across one with a simple warning to be cautious.
‘I was thinking of using it against the Gigacracker before, but I hesitated.’
I had decided against experimenting, thinking it would be more beneficial to steal the Gigacracker's ability. Since then, I hadn’t had a chance to use it and had forgotten about it.
‘This is a good opportunity.’
I grabbed a collection bug that came flying at me and tore it apart as I flew outside the bio-dome. The swarm of flying monsters, including Alshas and Isabel atop the Queen, followed closely behind me.
As I emerged, multiple warships greeted me. The Thunder God was activated, and the main guns of the warships fired.
The red sky, now tinted with the rising night sun, turned golden and purple. In response, I pulled out my best shield.
The intangible heat waves emanating from my body coalesced into a flat disc shape. This transparent disc refracted and dispersed natural light like a prism.
This was the only unique characteristic capable of reflecting energy: ‘Complexified Spectrometer’.
The energy beams filling the sky collided with the completed Complexified Spectrometer.
None of the beams managed to pierce the transparent disc. The light that had come to kill me returned to the place it originated from. The energy and the elite warships’ ships collided, and the sky lit up brightly.
“The attack has caused an estimated 1% to 3% loss in the Cult’s elite fleet's power.”
I heard PS-111's voice from above. For such a dramatic explosion, the damage was minimal. Alshas must have ordered a response.
‘Doesn’t matter.’
The real attack hadn’t even started yet.
Having blocked a barrage of fire, I immediately charged toward the elite fleet. The Outspacers swarm that had been following me shifted their target and moved toward the fleet with the elite warships.
Now that the fleet formation was disrupted, they made that choice to protect themselves from my attack.
‘It’s not a bad choice, but...’
In this situation, it was a big mistake.
The Cult and the Outspacers. These two factions, enemies in the game, had gathered in one place.
I moved my left tail and aimed it at the target. The cannon’s muzzle was directed at the enemy as I activated the unknown characteristic, the Black Devourer Cannon.
The moment the characteristic was activated, an overwhelming sense of exhaustion hit me. It felt similar to when I first fired the Psychic Breath back in my adolescent stage.
My head went blank, and then came a rush of energy. Massive energy gathered in my left tail. It felt like all the blood in my body was rushing to one place. As a result, I almost stopped flapping my wings and nearly fell.
Just before the "thing" was fired, my auxiliary organs detected an anomaly.
The surrounding space distorted strangely, as if some unknown force was warping the very space itself.
As soon as I realized this, ‘it’ was fired from my tail.
How should I describe it?
If the Abyssal Hue clearly showed the excess of colors and light, this was the complete opposite. True to its name, the ‘Devourer’ was absorbing every color and light.
"It" devoured light, air, color, and all natural elements as it flew. The place where it passed was left with nothing but a deep darkness, something vaguely resembling the unknown shell.
And when "it" became invisible to the eye...
An anomaly occurred among the gathered enemies.
At first, I thought it was just a tiny dot. Small enough that I could have mistaken it for nothing at all.
But it wasn’t.
It spread quickly, like ink dropped on paper.
Just like how the sun hides and night falls.
The black ink stole the colors of the ships and the Outspacers swarm.
No one could resist the black "thing". Not the Cult’s shields, not the Thunder God’s lightning, nor the Outspacers’s blue glow. No one could escape "it".
What seemed like it might swallow the sun itself vanished in an instant.
The blackness that had consumed the sky withdrew, replaced by red.
Everything returned to its original state as if nothing had ever happened. Except for the ships and Outspacers swarm that were consumed by "it".
The surviving collection bugs and elite warships, by my estimate, had only about 20% of their original strength left. The Queen, carrying Alshas and Isabel, was also there.
They didn’t attack me.
No, to be exact, they didn’t dare to attack.
What would it feel like to watch all your comrades disappear in just a few seconds?
I am certain that the only emotion in their minds right now is one thing.
Overwhelming fear.
‘Activating Bone Beast.’
Now was the time to drive the nail in deeper with that fear.
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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator – Seraph]
[Proofreader – Draxx]
Join our Discord for release updates!
https://discord.com/invite/dbdMDhzWa2
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