Chapter 275: Becoming the apex predator
10:55 am, 2nd day
T009 [DN: 0.1543P]
Kai felt a stirring in his mind as if someone was scraping off his brain using a chisel. He pressed his eyes, grinding his teeth, and hissed.
The pain came suddenly. Excruciating and unforgiving pain shot through his left leg, shaking his entire body.
Kai forced himself to open his eyes, and through the slit-like gap, he looked down. The source of the pain was right in front of him.
His leg, below his knee, had gone, leaving behind a bloody stump. He was standing on one leg, and only now did he feel a stabbing pain in his chest as well. His entire body shook, and he fell.
The moment he reached out for support, he realized he was wielding his swords.
Kai let them go, and crawled to a nearby rock, turned around, putting his back against it.
Only then did his eyes see the entire scene in his surroundings.
Right in front of him, some dozen meters away, a massive, ugly creature was bleeding thick acidic blood. It had been cut in four pieces, and even from here, he could see its sleek cut exoskeleton as if it was made of black butter.
Kai's gaze moved inward. First he saw his Power Sword, and he guessed some powerful blow must have undone his Skill, making him lose the armor. Then, as his gaze proceeded inward, he saw his two swords. The bloody glow of Afro's Tachi he had expected, but not the odd attraction he was feeling towards Murasame. Yes, he admired the sword, just not enough to have these feelings.
The three swords lifted with his one thought, glided low over the rocky grounds, and landed beside him.
'I must have used Little War Horn and Titan's buff to kill that fucking thing,' he reasoned. Is this attraction an aftereffect of that Skill?
Kai looked down at his body again. Other than dark blue bruises on his entire body, and the bleeding stump on his left leg, there wasn't anything remarkable to tell about the use of a Named Sword.
His military jacket had been torn off in the fight, it seemed to him. His hat had gone too.
Suddenly, he recalled.
'Where's my backpack?' He questioned himself, his head bobbing around with a jerk. 'I must have put the Book and Tablet in it before attacking the lair.' But no matter where he looked, he saw no sign of any backpack.
What he did see were hundreds of Facehuggers crawling towards him from all directions. They were on the roof, on the walls, and the ground.
Kai's heart thumped.
Since the first time he had read about them, he was as fascinated with these creatures as he feared them. Somehow, his Glitch wasn't working after coming here. Kai had reasoned that it was because this place didn't exactly fall into the definition of a Random World. Otherwise, he would have already devoured either the Yautja or the Xenomorph. Both species were at the top of the food chain with no limit on their growth. But it was these Facehuggers that had caught Kai's attention the most.
Kai winced, pain stabbing its way through his amputated leg with surgical precision.
Then he recalled what 47 had written about these creatures on the document before passing it over to him.
Xenomorph species started with Ovomorphs, or the eggs, laid by the Queen in her Ovipositor, also known as the egg sack. These eggs could remain hibernated for thousands of years until sensing a suitable host for the Facehuggers that lay dormant within them. [Image 1]
Once a host was detected, the Egg released a catalyst that unlocked the acids bonded into the chemical salts, releasing the energy being stored.
These free acids were then transferred to the Facehugger, which only became "live" at this point. The top of the Egg then would split open into four sections that peel back like the petals of a flower, allowing the Facehugger to leap out.
The Facehugger itself was the second stage in a Xenomorph life cycle and existed only for one thing — to implant a Chestburster within a living host creature via their mouth. As such, it had no real offensive capabilities and relied on stealth, surprise, or its victims being previously immobilized by an attacker to achieve implantation. Notably, a Facehugger died shortly after its task had been completed. [Image 2]
The Facehuggers resembled a pair of skeletal hands fused, with a spine-like tail. It had eight long, finger-like legs which allowed it to crawl rapidly, and a long tail adapted for making great leaps.
The underside of the Facehugger and its orifice resembled a human female's vagina. [Image 3]
Kai remembered how the first Facehugger he had seen had attached itself to the Pokemon, Spinarak's mouth.
After subduing the host, the Facehugger then used its proboscis to deposit a mutagenic substance into the host.
This mutagen brought about a restructuring of the host's cells, essentially causing the host's body to assemble the Chestburster at a cellular level from its biological material. Once implanted, the host was as good as dead.
But the moment Kai had read about this mutagen substance, which was not named in the document, he had fallen in love with it.
In genetics, a mutagen was a physical or chemical agent that permanently changed genetic material, usually DNA, in an organism and thus increased the frequency of mutations above the natural background level.
And genetics was Kai's playground. Not to mention the change in Selene's DNA and the black and yellow parasites that had brought about that change still lingered in his mind like a prime mystery.
The things he could do if he could just get his hands on that substance… Kai sighed.
The Facehuggers were coming closer, and they had probably sensed that he wasn't in any state to escape their clutches. No amount of HP pills he had bought from the 4th floor and the one given by Systems were enough to regrow a leg.
'If it wasn't me,' Kai reasoned, shaking his head, 'then an average lone-Contestant would have already died by now.' The harsh reality of the Tournament of Worth had made Kai realize that Contestant without some kind of backing was better off not taking part in it. If it wasn't for the rewards, in the end, Kai would have thought the entire Tournament was a way for the top organizations to showcase their power.
Suddenly, a whining noise came from his behind.
Kai put the Power Sword at his waist, held the other two swords, pushed himself up, and went behind the rock. There, tangled in thick slimy threads, were three Candidates. They were just coming back to their senses, it seemed. The moment they saw Kai's face, they shouted for help.
"Please…"
"Take anything…"
"We will help you…"
But Kai knew it was already too late for them. Soon, the three convulsed simultaneously, like a fish out of water. Their faces crumpled with pain, becoming as ugly as anything could be.
Then, with a sudden jerk, slimy, blood-covered, worm-like creatures burst out of their chests. The moment they came out, they bared their pointy teeth, opened their tiny jaws, and proceeded to devour their hosts. [Image 4]
'So these are chestbursters,' Kai thought, nodding to himself. 'The third stage of the Xenomorph life cycle. In a few hours, they will become fully grown Warrior Xenomorphs.'
Just as he recalled the Warrior Xenomorphs, Kai remembered the Queensguards.
Yes, he suddenly realized. 'My backpack must be around their corpses somewhere.'
Kai hopped on one leg, heading to the single opening up on the wall to his left. The pain was still there, but Kai had learned to ignore it if needed. There was no other choice, either.
The Facehuggers had come, with long penises hidden inside their vagina-like mouths, and bent on ejaculating the substance down his throat.
"Haha!" Kai laughed as he thought so. No matter how disgusted it sounded, he couldn't help but think it was funnier than being scary.
Kai used Telekinesis sparingly, flinging off a few Facehuggers, who were jumping on him from what they must have thought about hidden places. Somehow, he felt he could sense better than before. [Image 5]
Even his Advance Slither Footsteps and Advance Twin-Saber Style's Proficiency had increased by a bit, Kai realized.
Suddenly, an image formed in his mind, as if a Facehugger was coming at him from above, just behind his head. Kai looked over his shoulder and up. And, yes. There it was, but it had just left the roof.
Confused, Kai could only put this oddity in the back of his mind and carried on. From left and right, up and down from the holes into the earth, they lunged at him. But not one of them could reach Kai and get flung away like a mere stone.
It was then did Kai see pieces of what could have been giant Queensguards once, and behind them, some hundred meters away into the tunnel was his backpack.
Pain, he could ignore, but not blood loss. Stars were shining in his eyes, and with every other jump, darkness was getting to him. Every next Facehugger approached him nearer before Telekinesis threw it away.
The last he had to cut down, acidic blood almost licking his Afro's Tachi.
Just as he reached the limit of 10 meters, Kai directed the entire Advance Ability to lift the backpack and threw it towards him. He hastily took out one of his two most potent HP pills, given to him by 9th-floor Contestant, Robin, and gulped it down.
A rush of heat coursed through his veins.
The entire pill's potent power concentrated on the bloody stump, and Kai saw his flesh squirm like bubbling water. Gradually, the entire leg grew back, and even then most of the pill's effect had yet to vanish.
As the Facehuggers kept dropping on him like raindrops, Kai's injuries and wounds healed. Then his HP bar shot, hitting the limit with a bang.
He took out the Tablet, went through all the images his Self from this timeline had taken in the last 24 hours, and smiled. Kai threw his backpack over his shoulders, looked at the second wave of the Facehuggers, and his smile widened.
"Home…" he said, grinning ear to ear.
With the Queen Xenomorph and Blooded Yautja gone, the island had lost its apex predators. But just now, a third Predator had taken their place.
And this predator had only one purpose — To annihilate all life.
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