As I kept eating the bird's flesh and restoring biomass, I chat with Norn and the Support.

“I think we should prepare for a corrupted battlefield from now on. I’m not sure why the investigators did this, but the AI already told us that there were many animals and experiments corrupted.

And from the looks of it, we are just scratching the surface. We will fight worse enemies as we advance, that’s for sure.”

"We kill and eat them! Then we can create a great hive fleet and destroy them!" "I strongly disagree with that, my Queen. The host is right, despite his strange human ways and irrational intuition, it has proven pretty adept to surpass our enemies so far."

“HEY, a little respect? I just took down a powerful foe right now.”

They both laugh at me. Why do I feel I'm being looked down upon by both of them?

"That was no foe, just a prey. It barely could stand your current strength. Tyranids fight with millions of units usually as strong as this foe you just took down, if not even more."

“Wow… that’s,,, okay. Okey, NORN! WHERE ARE OUR STRONG AS HECK UNITS!!!!!”

"Kill and grow!!! LAZY HUMAN is always waiting… TSCH."

"Okay, I might like to keep my body as intact as possible! I don’t wanna die, is that so wrong?!

You guys might not like all the decisions I make, but I take them thinking in improving as much as possible without taking crazy risks that could take us down.”

They both began to think about that while I try to calm myself; I'm still affected by the battle mood from before.

I don’t know how Norn can just take things so easily without breaking a sweat. It feels… well, too difficult for me to understand right now.

"Human, we fight the way of the Swarm. For the Great Devourer."

“The great what?”

"Host, the Queen is talking about the Hive Mind in control of nearly every Tyranid, we call it the Great Devourer. And it has sent many fleets to test this and many other galaxies."

Oh, Tyranid history 101, right.

“So, is your species some sort of eusocial insect species with an abnormal hunger? Or there is more behind the decision of sending fleets through the void between galaxies just like that?”

"We will explain it to you, but not now, you are not yet ready to understand the meaning and would just demoralize your weak mind. Keep hunting. We need strength."

Huh, so dull, I really wanted to know more about that, but it seems I will have to wait.

As we were talking, the brood and I finished the meat and even ate the bones. The beak was hard as hell to bite, and I wasn't sure what to do with it yet.

Just as I was inspecting it, I found a little crystal gem. It was purplish-dark in color and seemed to suck all the light into it, without reflecting none of it. It looked to be some sort of metallic alloy or crystal structure.

I really don’t know.

"Host, that is a corrupted core, you should use it as an external energy source through your evolution path to upgrade your DNA and biomorphs. Despite the risks involved in genetic tampering, with Queen Norn supervising it, we should not worry about any mishap."

“Oh, great. Let’s leave the potentially lethal DNA therapy with corrupted energy to the hungry obsessed psycho. Psycher, I said Psycher.”

"Hunt more! We need new DNA to splice it and do some tests! Unlocking new Gene paths is possible."

“That sounds promising! And expensive. I don’t know why I can't just level up if given enough biomass to do it all the way to the next evolution.”

"Host, it is not advisable. We told you that this body is way too weak to do that without repercussions. We need an equilibrium of both energy, biomass, and then give Queen Norn enough time to find the best genetic path to surpass the obstacles without degrading the DNA purity."

“So, you mean that she is working on that all day long? I thought she was just looking for some biomorphs from the DNA we took, as well as the samples.”

"That is only a tenth of her time. The rest she is calculating and reworking onto our next level up, as you called it. Without her, you could have taken a month or more to unlock the second level. And in just a week, you’re almost ready to jump into the 4th."

“Wow, that sure feels like cheating.”

"Why do you think Norn queens are the core of every hive fleet? Their work allows jumping millennia of evolution in a fraction of that time. Any feral animal or Xeno would take hundreds or thousands of years to naturally arrive at the state she works to unlock for us."

"Huh, so any alien or feral beasts could potentially evolve through this corrupted energy, right?"

"It burns bright but fast! It needs more and more energy!"

“True, that first corrupted bird was completely messed up, it seemed to be exhausting its lifespan just to get strength.”

Right! I should check my status before proceeding to walk further into the biome.

I even have left some green areas to devour, and some bird nests into the ceiling that I could not reach before without the fear of being attacked. “Status!!”

Primal Larvae - Ripper

Stats:

Level - 3 (40 biomass to level up)

Health - 11/15

Energy - 24/60

Biomass Reserves - 18 biomass / 11 corrupted (processing)

1 Corrupted core (small)

Str - 14

Res - 11

Vit - 10

Agi - 8

Int - 4

Biomorph list:

Support level 2

Enhanced senses level 2

Maw and claws level 3

Chitin level 1

Poison sting level 2 - (1 level up)

Spores level 2

Pincer level 1 (new)

Unit list:

Minor -> Collectors, Fighters, Bomb (New)

“Yes!! there it is.” My winning trap card against that bird.

The pincer helped, that was a nasty surprise that managed to score a hit, but it was impossible to come up again with such a surprise a second time.

But the new unit! That was the nail in the coffin for our prey!

We managed to produce a new breed of ‘mite’ that can contain massive amounts of liquid or gas elements, so I just poured into it some venom, newly developed toxins, corroding spores, etc.

A terrible combination, I might say. And with a mental order, it can just mix everything into a highly exothermic and powerful explosion of corroding acid and toxins.

Okay, so I should focus on getting more biomass to upgrade my level.

With that, I could get an overall improvement in my stats. And for the next level-ups, I will try to get my hand into some more of those energy cores.

It is going to be hard to manage every detail and balance my growth.

Too much biomass spent into speeding the level ups, and my biomorphs will be left behind, rendering me a big fat duck to be hunted.

And the opposite, with too many biomorphs leveled up, will give me a considerable amount of options, but not the final kick to pass through every fight and survive them.

Decisions, decisions.

"Well, we will see how I manage to keep it balanced. For now, gathering more biomass is undoubtedly the best option for everything."

I summoned 8 collectors, and we began to deforest every inch of soil that we could, devouring some more trilobites by the way.

We managed to gather the required biomass to advance to the next level after consuming food for several hours.

"Okay, I know it will hurt, I hate this. Fuck! Okey, Norn, go on, do it."

I went back to the cave and created four fighters to scare any possible enemy that might try to approach us.

"You sure, human?"

"Yes, Norn, just do it, I was just talking to myself. But I don't think that it will… AGHHH!!! DAMN IT!"

I felt my whole body breaking apart, even the fighters I left to protect me are rendered useless and fell to the ground convulsing.

Our psychic link is a bitch sometimes.

As I suffered the evolution process in absolute silence, we were entering into the next stage, adult Ripper.

"Human, stop crying already!"

"Aghh! Shut up Norn..." I hate her so much at times like this.