==

The Collector halted the biotrigger of its pyrocatalytic glands when the forcefield fell down. It stood up back into its bipedal form, hunching into the gap in the now steaming, molten rock walls as it trudged into this 'sorcerer's territory.

Countless tools, not meant for war, but for study, it seemed, laid strewn across the floor. Glass tubes and vials shattered. Tables flipped over. Piles of rocks scattered about.

Movement.

The Collector watched the new specimen, humanoid in appearance but possessing of significant physiological differences compared to the average human, move. She was smaller than the humans, further back in her growth stages, likely, judging from her more neotenous features.

She stumbled forwards, not fully in control of her body.

In her hands, she held the two halves of the younger human's body, having torn it apart clean in two with prodigious strength that far belied her small frame. Blood and entrails poured from the separated halves, drenching her lavender skin and white sackcloth in red.

This specimen was special, no doubt.

The female specimen gazed at the Collector in a dazed expression, her mind likely unable to fully process the Collector, and dropped the savaged human corpse. She fell to the ground, drawing in deep breaths, but still remaining alive.

She was merely paralyzed.

The Collector clicked its mandibles. Its calculated plan to victory had worked without much variation in execution. It knew that it could not penetrate the forcefield this 'sorcerer' conjured, but at the same time, it understood that the forcefield could not have been an absolute barrier.

The sorcerer and his fellow human still managed to breathe. And, as the Collector came to realize the second time it latched atop this floating territory, they could even perceive its scent.

That meant that particles in the air necessary for continued sustenance of respiratory functions still passed through the barrier, as did wavelengths of light necessary for visibility. In that case, it became exceedingly likely that the forcefield only repelled certain types of energy.

A deduction proven correct when the Collector unleashed its flame breath upon the forcefield. The flames did not warp the forcefield, but the heat from the flames did permeate through. The heat alone could not travel far enough to the specimen, but it did prove further the suitability of the Collector's strategy.

These primitives did not understand it, but the Collector's flames were the result of a highly reactive chemical reaction.

The byproduct of the rapid oxidization of the reactive chemicals ejected from the Collector's pyrocatalytic glands hitting its biotrigger was toxic to humans in sufficient quantities.

The Collector could even enhance this toxicity with further sub-adaptations to its glands.

The Collector knew that the tinkerers of this world possessed 'magic' but that this substance did not make them advanced to any significant degree technologically. They would likely not have the capacity to conceptualize that beyond fire, there was an additional chemical threat.

Thus in unleashing a continuous stream of fire, the Collector had injected sufficient quantities of toxic particulates into the air, incapacitating the sorcerer, physically the frailest among them, first.

Certainly, this 'sorcerer' which had the capacity to alter the flow of wind within his territory could have developed a means to filter out these particulates, but the thought had not even occurred to the primitive's mind for the particulate was odorless and colorless to the undeveloped human eye.

The other human, younger and more physically imposing, naturally was more resistant, but he had met his end to this new variant of humanoid.

The Collector stepped over to her, picking up the still body of the sorcerer under one of its arms. The sorcerer was still alive for the Collector had mediated its toxin output to ensure incapacitation, not death, and if extracted from this area soon, would regain consciousness to answer the Collector's questions.

The corpse of the other human, however, the Collector consumed, tossing both halves into its stretched-out maw.

>>>

*Biomass gained (+5)*

Biomass level: 35/100

>>>

This human, too, was special to a degree. The Collector sensed that he was approximately as strong as the 'adventurers' it had consumed. But did not seem to possess any notable 'magic' judging from his actions and reliance upon the sorcerer.

Now then, to investigate this other specimen, this younger female that too must have been special, being an object of high desire for both the sorcerer and the other human.

Possessing of significant abilities as well, capable of halting the younger human's mental functioning, regardless of how primitive they were, to an instant stop before tearing him apart with pure physical force.

"Emergency heartrate threshold reached."

The Collector stood up in alert, monomolecular claws clinking out of its fingers as it searched for this intruder's voice. It realized it echoed from all throughout the sorcerer's territory in a way almost identical to the announcement systems placed in tinkering vehicles.

"Initiating atelier knowledge preservation protocol. Self-destruction initiated-"

The walls of the structure began to light up as circuits hidden within them glowed bright. The hovering crystal at the center of the room began to crack, energy crackling from it in arcs that emitted searing heat.

The Collector clicked its mandibles in irritation. It had wished to investigate this structure and the knowledge within, but there simply was no time. It first spent a second checking the purple skinned specimen's vitals, ensuring she was still alive but still unconscious to prevent her from enacting any harm.

The specimen was unconscious, affected by the burnt-up chemicals but still possessing higher resistance than the sorcerer. Likely, it was the nature of her prior bonds that had imposed this somnolence upon her.

The Collector took the limp specimen's body and then left the way it came. It stood out the edge of the open circled with molten white rock and tensed up its leg muscles, swelling them to nearly twice their size as it engaged its coilboosters.

The coilbooster sub adaptation changed its flexible ultrafiber musculature structure such that when engaged and pumped with blood, the fibers would warp into taut, coiled structures packed with power, allowing for short bursts of high-speed movement.

The blood engorged muscles in its legs tensed up into interlocking, coil-like structures efficient for storing potential energy, and like a crushed spring being released, when the Collector leaped off into the night, all that potential energy converted to kinetic, sending it soaring into the sky.

With occasional flutters of its single functional wing, the Collector maintained elevation, keeping itself away from the scolex worm below. By now, the worm had been reduced to slithering around the river, unable to sense the Collector now that it was airborne.

Wind whistled by the Collector as it adjusted the movement of its wing, directing itself to a safe landing zone near where the forest began and the scolex's territory ended.

Despite lacking one wing, the Collector possessed enough finesse with its aerial systems that the lack of the other wing only really compromised its ability to generate more lift.

In terms of gliding and directional guidance, it could more than operate with a single wing, and as it neared the ground, it spread its wing flat at an angle, using it as a sail to catch a draft and land it right at the edge of the forest

It landed with a solid thump synchronized with the explosion of the sorcerer's structure above. The Collector turned to see a brilliant blast of green and black curls of energy swirling around a white dot like winds whipping around the eye of a hurricane.

The scolex worm below sensed this disturbance and threw itself into the river, disappearing in a few seconds.

Debris from the initial explosion sucked into this vortex of energy, breaking apart into nothingness before the miniature singularity closed in a flash, leaving nothing but the empty, dark night sky as the only testament that a sorcerer had spent decades of his life in the pursuit of knowledge here.