...
The battle came quickly and ended quickly.
When it pierced the central point of another sub-nest eye with its evolved tail hook, the outcome was already decided. The rapidly spreading neurotoxin would destroy the opponent's meager will, and the uncontrolled "Blades" and "Feet" would scatter and flee.
Watching the sub-nest eye's body collapse with a crash, it retracts its tail hook with satisfaction.
It used to be like these poor creatures, repeating aimless collecting and waiting for the Main Nest Mother to decide their fate. Now, the latter hasn't changed much, but it has become a hunter of nest eyes.
Compared to its original appearance, its transformation can be described as earth-shattering.
Using pheromones from some deep-sea fish, it separated its eyes and organs, attaching them to its skin, while evolving magic-filled armor around its ribs. This greatly enhanced the body's defensive capabilities, so even if it encountered that detestable two-legged bug again, it wouldn't be easily invaded.
In addition, long-range combat is obviously safer than close combat. It can now synthesize potent explosive elements in its body to launch gallstones and bone spears. Although it borrowed the structure of another type of lower-level insect, it is generally much more effective. At least the attack does not rely on magic and will not be interfered with by God's Stone. To accommodate these organs, its entire body has expanded more than threefold, and ordinary "Blades" can't do anything to it.
Finally, there is the poisonous tail hook, which can deliver a fatal blow to large targets while preserving the complete body for acquiring pheromones, truly a multi-purpose weapon.
Undoubtedly, it and those sub-nest eyes can no longer be considered the same type of creature.
To distinguish itself from its former self, it even learned from those insects and gave itself a name—"Devour."
Devour everything, evolve itself.
And the sub-nest eyes scattered throughout the sea collecting pheromones are undoubtedly the most valuable prey.
Next is the time to enjoy.
"Devour" opens its armor, and countless tentacles surge out, pulling the opponent into its body bit by bit.
Just then, it suddenly felt an extremely strange fluctuation—
The amplitude of the fluctuation was so great, it was as if the heavens and earth roared together!
It looked to the sky. Apart from the dense clouds and the high-hanging red moon, the dome seemed unchanged, but in its eyes, the gray sky seemed to be rippling, constantly spreading into the distance.
A strong unease enveloped it.
Whether it's the violent eruption of underwater lava or the earth's spontaneous tremors, various fluctuations are produced, but none have ever been like what it is feeling now. It is too pure and full of rhythm, which is why it seems so terrifying.
The ripples quickly dissipated into the sky, but before "Devour" could recover from its shock, a familiar taste surged into its body through its tentacles.
This is—the Main Nest Mother's issued evolution directive!
A large number of directives were received by the sub-nest eye's central point, and new bridges were built because of the devouring. After losing contact with the Main Nest for so long, it didn't expect to hear the clan's call again in this way.
Not only that, its body immediately identified the content of these pheromones and subconsciously wanted to follow them!
No!
It is no longer an ordinary nest eye!
It is—a unique individual!
Spitting out the sub-nest eye's body, "Devour" rolled from side to side to resist the instinctual reactions remaining, and the "Blades" and "Feet" guarding nearby were so frightened that they didn't move. Several were directly smashed into minced meat by its sweeping tail hook, and the surrounding seawater stirred up huge waves. Almost with all its strength, "Devour" controlled the impulse in its heart and forcibly suppressed the cause of change.
After catching its breath, it hesitated again and again, but in the end, it let the "Feet" retrieve the sunken nest eye. After all, knowing the clan's evolutionary direction would undoubtedly make it more convenient to hunt other nest eyes in the future.
It cautiously re-inserted its tentacles into the opponent's central point, sensing the will of the Main Nest, and memorized the pheromone-rich directives one by one.
The final result shocked it!
These directives are too… many!
Evolution has always been a very cautious matter. No reconstruction can be perfect in a single aspect. For example, flexibility is always relative to sturdiness, and high burst means low duration. To achieve perfection requires overall balance. Because of this, the Main Nest makes decisions only after repeated analysis and screening each time it issues evolution directives, basically no more than two at a time, and the priority of nest eyes is far higher than that of secondary vassals.
However, this time it read many evolutions that simultaneously acted on nest eyes and vassals.
For example, "Endure Suffering," "Quickly Coagulate Blood," "Rapidly Reproduce," "Sharp Shells," and so on… Some pheromones were even from unscreened native fragments, which was completely the opposite of what the Main Nest Mother had done before! Not only that, some directives even covered the native beasts that provided mutation pheromones, completely disregarding the consequences!
Indeed, these evolutions can greatly enhance the clan's strength in a short period, but they are also ruining the clan's future. It vaguely remembers that tendency engraved in its blood—the ultimate purpose of their evolution is not to continue, but to fly to higher skies.
But once evolution is complete, the defects brought by inferior pheromones will be difficult to compensate for, and such a price is too great.
It cannot understand the basis on which the Main Nest Mother made this decision.
Fortunately, its fate has been completely separated from the clan. Whatever this change means is irrelevant to it.
After decomposing the nest eye, "Devour" dives towards the deep sea and quickly disappears into the waves.
...
Too late...?
The Watcher stood on the calm seaside, looking towards the north.
Shallow waves washed onto the shore of the island, making a monotonous and gentle rustling sound. But she knew that this was probably the last peace in this sea area.
The distant horizon was stained with a rich dark red, and arcs of magic could be seen flashing from time to time, as if a huge storm cloud was slowly forming. Before long, this bloody red cloud will reach the Dawn territory and become part of the battle of fate.
And in another, more distant direction, the sea was stirring up black "waves," stretching for hundreds of kilometers, like a mobile reef.
Under the guidance of God's will, they will eventually converge.
She has witnessed such scenes countless times.
But this time, it's probably the last time.
Of course, that doesn't represent the end. For the entire world, it's just a new beginning. But such a beginning is just another round of millions of years of repetition, and the person watching here will no longer be her.
I wonder if that little girl found her way back smoothly. She turned to look south, hoping that there would be a chance to see her again in the future.
A little faster, she murmured in her heart.