The Collector assessed itself and the environment around it.

First, a check of its status before it engaged in what was perhaps its final battle:

>>>

Metamorphosis Level 6

Biomass Level: 67/100

Stored Genetic Material:

-Black Ant

-Deer

-Black Hobgoblin

-Human

-Lesser Oni

-Frostborn Hobgoblin

-Horse

-Lesser Greatcentipede

-Lesser Greatbeetle

-Spitting Greatbeetle

-Leafblade Insect

-Frostborn Hobgoblin Thrall

-Vineswinger Goblin Champion [Core]

Adaptations:

-Ultrafiber Muscles Rank 6.4

--Coilboosters

-Autonomic Neuro-Bodily Matrix

--Metalloglottic Ossifier

-->Lightstone

-->Runewood

-Sensitive Hairs Rank 5.2

--Quill Spray

-Organic Hyperalloy Carapace Rank 5.4

--Longchain Chitinous Sublayer

-Monomolecular Claws Rank 4.4

-Pyrocatalytic Glands Rank 3

Current Form:

Assassin Bugbrute/Daemon/Dullscale Rohu/Jumping Arakka

>>

Mana Level: 100%

Active Cores [3/3]:

-Prime Core

--Trigger: Desire

-Daemon Core

--Trigger: Wonder

-Frostborn Thrall Core

--Trigger: Greed

Inhera:

-Sapia [Daemon Core]

Ethera:

-Devourer [Prime Core]

Primal Magic:

-Bone Binding [Frostborn Thrall Core]

Blessings:

-Blessing of Mount Oe

Primal Density: 5%

Root Consumption Limit: 100%

>>>

The Collector had slotted in the Frostborn Hobgoblin Thrall's core into its third slot on the way here, for if the Collector was to interface with the potential warp gate in the dungeon, then it would require the thrall's energy signatures.

Slotting in a core was possible without a full metamorphosis but modifying cores and replacing them would requite the processing power of the evolutionary cocoon.

The process of assuming the thrall's core was akin to regeneration.

When it occurred, the Collector had felt another heart growing within itself, this time located in its stomach area.

This meant there were now three hearts pumping within the Collector, and all of them linked to separate cores and operating a portion of its spirit roots.

Its prime core was responsible for the functions of sixty percent of its roots, and the remaining forty percent split among the daemon and thrall cores.

Must take care to shield the prime core at all costs, noted the Collector, for though it would survive having its main heart destroyed, it would severely compromise its magical abilities and deactivate powers from its secondary cores as well.

If the Collector had wanted to maximize its strength, it would have slotted in the Vineswinger Goblin Champion's core, for it possessed an Inhera called Wind-Up that allowed a limb to charge up power after undergoing full rotations, but the thrall's core was crucial to tap into the warp and could be useful in its own way.

The Collector had noticed for some time now that insects from the Deadwood were anomalously quiet, refraining from their usual indiscriminate feasting of each other on the forest floor.

Instead, as the Collector now neared the site of battle, the dungeon, it analyzed that the insectoids in the vicinity of the dungeon were all moving out.

Towards the center of battle. A whole swarm of them from every direction. Insectoids of all kinds and sizes.

An unending wave of chittering, many-legged creatures that shambled forwards, utterly ignoring the Collector and the daemon specimen behind it.

Only the Arakka were absent from this writhing mass unified in forward moving purpose.

The Collector noticed the lanky, dark green form of a Leafblade Insect scamper beside the Collector, its long antennae twitching as its oversized, scythe like front legs flared out in front of it.

It was larger than the smaller masses beneath it, the same kind the Collector had taken enough note of to consume before.

The Collector backhanded the insect's head, blowing it away with the strike. Now headless, the insect twitched as it still stood upright, the last remnants of its neural functioning fading away.

The Collector activated the trigger of the thrall's core.

Greed.

This, the Collector could approximate. It was similar in nature to its own trigger of Desire, simply a little less focused in its scope and more brutish at its base.

A pulse of faint blue energy spread throughout the Collector's ashen body from its stomach. It punched into the leafblade insect's stomach, cracking through the carapace and into the mushy innards within.

Bone binding. The primal magic of the thrall.

By binding the essence of a creature down to a remnant of it- the bones – the Collector could theoretically utilize the bones to manifest physical phenomena related to the creature itself.

The Collector activated the magic knowing that the insect possessed no biological structure like the bones that the thrall utilized. The closest analogous structure would be the carapace.

Yet, the Collector still tried in experimentation, wishing to scope out the limits of this ability.

A pale blue light flickered from within the insect, generating outwards from the Collector's fist still stuck inside of it, but nothing more happened.

The Collector clicked its mandibles. Combat data for bone binding updated. It would seem that without a bone structure at least somewhat compatible with mammalian forms, bone binding would not work.

It instead made final use of the corpse by feasting upon it.

>>>

*Biomass gained (+2)*

Biomass Level: 69/100

>>>

'So many…so many monsters,' said the female as she hovered above the Collector, eyeing down at the endless march of insectoids below.

The Collector infused magical energy into its eyes and observed the insects. It beheld faint tethers of mana from all of them joining in the larger swirls of blue leading into the dungeon.

'This 'dungeon' possesses the means to call upon specimen living in the biome surrounding it,' noted the Collector. 'A principle similar in fashion to the Hivemind's mass control of units, and yet drastically more primitive and unrefined in its processing.'

Good.

The mass movement of insectoids would provide adequate cover. And likely, the Arakka resisted this call to action for they formed their own rudimentary hivemind with each other.

Thus, only the weakest of the insects in the forest mobilized.

And judging from their lack of aggression to the Collector and the daemon specimen, they were called to engage in battle with other targets.

The Collector heard further sounds of battle.

The sound of a fire roaring.

This one was loud enough for the Collector to utilize its auditory systems to approximate a location.

One hundred and fifteen meters ahead. Margin of error ten meters.

Judging from the sounds emanating from that location, particularly the clang of metal against carapace and other hard surfaces, it was highly likely there were tinkering humanoid presences ahead.

The cover of the forest extended only a dozen meters ahead as evidenced by the glow of lightstone torches visible ahead, demarcating the perimeter of the main goblin encampment.

But this was range enough for the Collector make visual confirmation of the battle, the humanoids, and assess a combat plan.

'Prepare yourself for battle,' said the Collector to the daemon. 'If you truly wish to serve the Collective, to play a part in its dawning, then you will fight as the predator you are meant to be and are becoming.'

The daemon took in several deep breaths – a method of easing rising mental anxiety. She nodded, her eyes flashing purple. 'Got it.'

==

In the center of a sea of clicking, wriggling, writhing shelled bodies, three adventurers stood.

A man on the taller side with conventionally handsome and rugged features. Squared jaw, a head of full, slicked back black hair and surprisingly soft brown eyes. A scar ran from one eye to the chin that conveniently missed the lips, adding to his looks rather than disfiguring them.

Solid build, but not overly muscled. A body meant more for functional fitness, and the man exhibited just that as he backflipped with a grace like flowing water.

Where he had been but a moment ago, a club head of ice crashed, gouging out a small crater in the forest floor.

"Stop running!" shouted a musclebound, pale-skinned frostborn hobgoblin as he picked his everfrost club up.

To any ordinary human or even any one- or two-star adventurer, a trained hobgoblin with a weapon was quite the foe.

But to Furio, newly anointed four-star adventurer and a rising talent in the Adventuring community, this was nothing.

Furio gripped his Ethera construct, a wrench almost two meters long, in both hands like a spear.

A longsword gleaming with an orange tint lay stuck with invisible force to the head of the wrench, turning the whole thing into a makeshift spear of sorts.

"And why don't you stop talking?" said Furio.

He smiled as he parried the hobgoblin's second attack, angling his wrench above his head precisely so that the club's impact diffused away to the side, sending the hobgoblin off balance as his club crashed into the ground beside Furio.

As the hobgoblin faltered, Furio took a step back to get into striking range, and then in one swift motion that left an arc of gleaming orange light in the air, sliced forwards with his wrench-spear.

The hobgoblin stilled before he fell to the ground, a massive, burning gash almost bisecting him from the stomach.