Chapter 11
‘Fuck-!’
Rooooar-!
The moment Nereia realized the thing was targeting it, it fled at the Mutant Propulsion Sac’s maximum output.
Like a bullet fired with a deafening boom, Nereia shot through the deep-sea waters and began fleeing from the colossal deep-sea creature.
Normally, it would have enjoyed the sensation of speed, but perhaps that was because its life was on the line now.
Far from enjoying the sensation, Nereia could think of nothing but surviving.
How long had it been fleeing like that?
Just as Nereia wondered, ‘Isn’t it about time I stopped?’ and glanced back, it couldn’t hide its shock.
Whatever its body looked like, the thing chasing it was a calamity in the truest sense of the word.
It was so enormous that Nereia couldn’t make out its shape properly.
Neither its species nor its appearance.
All Nereia could do was guess.
Did it move on legs like a human? Swim like a deep-sea fish? Or use tentacles to get around? And so on.
Meanwhile, with every movement of the thing pursuing it, the surrounding area began to be destroyed so thoroughly that ‘chaos’ didn’t even begin to describe it.
The seafloor overturned under the violent impacts, and fissures opened.
The deep-sea water was pushed aside, creating turbulent currents that swallowed everything in their path.
Lava even surged up from beyond the cracked crust,
and the enormous rocks that Nereia hadn’t dared climb, and had always had to go around, shattered as the thing brushed past and were swept away by the currents.
The nearby deep-sea creatures, too, could do nothing but flee from the suddenly rampaging calamity.
As it fled, Nereia thought:
‘It’s causing all this chaos just to catch me?’
And all for
‘eating one tiny crumb?’
Of course, Nereia was in the wrong.
Even if it was just a crumb left behind while eating, a bug stealing it would still be irritating.
But for something to be that enormous, it must have evolved dozens of times to match its size.
Wouldn’t that mean it could ‘spare’ a little for a pitiful deep-sea creature like Nereia?
No, perhaps that was far too ‘human’ a way of thinking.
If it had evolved dozens of times and grown that powerful, it would know all too well how valuable a biological core was.
So of course it would be angry if a creature no better than a bug stole even a crumb of one...
‘Gyaaah-!’
Startled by the dreadful chill it suddenly felt behind it, Nereia hurriedly shot upward.
A sharp turn... no, should it be called a sudden ascent?
At the same time, Nereia saw an enormous mass of ice narrowly miss it by a hair’s breadth.
KABOOM-!
The mass of ice that had just missed Nereia—no, something so enormous it could easily be called an iceberg—slammed into the seafloor, sending out a shock wave.
Swept up in the shock wave spreading in every direction, Nereia staggered for a moment, but quickly regained its balance and swam off again to escape the colossal deep-sea creature.
But then...
‘Could I always do this?’
Nereia wondered to itself.
When it had tested the Mutant Propulsion Sac, it had naturally experimented with changing direction, too.
But now, something was different.
The thrust generated by the Mutant Propulsion Sac was linear. In other words, it was only meant to move forward.
To move left or right, or up or down, it had to briefly reduce its thrust and adjust the angle of the Mutant Propulsion Sac.
That meant it needed a short pause to change direction while accelerating with the Mutant Propulsion Sac, but now it was different.
Now, it didn’t need to stop its thrust to change direction. It didn’t even need to slow down at all.
The Mutant Propulsion Sac now let Nereia smoothly change direction wherever it wanted—up, down, left, or right.
Even if that meant making a sharp turn, ascending or diving suddenly.
It could also add all sorts of rotations to its movements, and its speed had increased as well.
What in the world had...
‘Oh, right. I mutated.’
Only then did Nereia remember that it had mutated after consuming a fragment of a higher-level entity’s biological core, and understand how it could move like this.
Being able to move faster and in more varied ways was great, but there was one problem.
【Your mana is rapidly decreasing.】
A warning from the system.
Still, Nereia could feel it perfectly well without the system telling it.
Its mana consumption had increased in proportion to its faster speed and its ability to make all sorts of movements and turns.
At this rate, its mana would soon run out, and then the enraged colossal deep-sea creature would kill it.
Before that happened...
‘I have to think of a way to survive.’
* * *
Bang! Bang!
Ka-boom-!
Enormous chunks of ice kept falling.
Changing direction. Twisting its body. Swinging its tentacles when the situation called for it.
Nereia desperately dodged the chunks of ice created by the colossal deep-sea creature and thought.
How could it escape unharmed?
What in the world did it have to do to survive?
Maybe...
‘Should I try what I did when I devoured the Deep-Sea Predatory Larva?’
The situation was similar to what it had been back then, so it seemed like there might be a chance. But Nereia immediately rejected the idea.
‘It might be a similar situation, but the difference in our levels is enormous.’
The Deep-Sea Predatory Larva had only been a Lesser Predator at best.
But that thing had to be a top-tier predator, at the very least.
If Nereia deliberately let itself be swallowed so it could gnaw away at the thing from the inside, it would surely dissolve without a trace in its stomach acid.
Even without stomach acid, if it had a body that enormous, the inside would be no different from hell.
Just as on land, symbiotic relationships existed in the deep-sea ecosystem, so perhaps countless monsters were teeming inside it.
But fighting back would be tantamount to suicide.
‘Damn it! What should I do?’
Its mana was steadily dwindling, and the distance between it and the thing—which it had managed to put quite far behind—was gradually closing.
Nereia was growing more and more frantic, desperately racking its brain, when...
Gooooo-!
An ominous sound came from behind it.
It sounded like a massive amount of water being sucked into a hole. Nereia glanced back, and its eyes widened.
‘This is insane-!’
Far off in the distance, a gigantic hole appeared.
No, it wasn’t a hole.
That thing, filled with a darkness deeper than the darkness of the sea, was the creature’s mouth.
As it opened its enormous mouth, everything nearby began to be sucked inside.
The fleeing deep-sea creatures. The fragments of shattered rock.
The lava surging up from beyond the cracked crust, and everything else.
It was as if...
‘It’s swallowing an entire chunk of the deep sea!’
Horrified at the sight of the creature swallowing the deep sea whole, Nereia hurriedly moved its tentacles.
Before that insane suction could reach it.
Crack!
Craaaack-!
Nereia drove its four tentacles, strengthened just like the Mutant Propulsion Sac, into the surrounding rocks and seafloor.
At the same time, an immense suction force came rushing in.
‘Ghk! Damn it!’
Nereia managed to hold on with its tentacles and silently cursed.
For now, it was somehow holding out with its thrust and tentacles, but that wouldn’t last long.
The suction wasn’t targeting Nereia; it was swallowing the deep sea itself across the entire area.
Either its tentacles would be torn off once they reached their limit,
or the rocks and seafloor they were lodged in would give way and be sucked into the creature’s mouth.
At this rate, it was all but certain that Nereia would be sucked into its mouth and die.
It had to think of a way out before that happened.
A way to survive that insane monster...
‘Ah!’
As it desperately held on, Nereia let out a low rumble.
There was one. No, it had thought of one.
One way to survive that monster.
Of course, the odds of surviving were abysmal, making it little more than a gamble, but there was no helping that.
No matter how low the odds were, Nereia would die if it didn’t take a gamble now.
So...
‘Ghk, I feel like I’m going insane.’
Pulling its tentacles out of the surrounding rocks and seafloor, Nereia let itself be carried along by the immense suction the creature had created and muttered inwardly.
Even if it was a gamble to survive, being sucked into that enormous maw of its own accord was terrible for its mental health.
Even so, Nereia held its nerve and tightened its grip on its composure.
A single mistake would mean certain death, so it had to focus as hard as it could if it wanted to survive.
And so, within the immense suction, Nereia moved desperately.
Moving this way and that as though swimming through raging currents, Nereia managed to grab onto a huge chunk of rock.
Just before it was sucked into the creature’s mouth...
‘Maximum thrust!’
BOOM-!
It used every last drop of its remaining mana to generate thrust at maximum output.
This wasn’t to resist the creature’s suction.
Instead, Nereia headed toward the creature’s enormous mouth.
It hadn’t gone insane.
Nor had it given up on living.
Nereia was using the creature’s suction against it.
Using maximum thrust powered by every last drop of mana, Nereia turned the suction created by the creature’s enormous mouth to its advantage...
Krrrraaaak-!
‘I-I did it!’
Nereia narrowly managed to skim past the side of the creature’s gaping maw.
Nereia had come up with this method after realizing something while holding on with its tentacles.
The suction created by the creature’s mouth didn’t pull in a constant direction.
The things caught in the suction crashed into one another and shattered, while Nereia’s tentacles, driven into the surrounding rocks and seafloor to keep it from being swept away, felt as though they were about to be torn to pieces.
From that, Nereia realized that the immense suction had chaotic paths running through it, like a raging typhoon.
By figuring out those paths and making use of both the immense suction and its maximum-output thrust, Nereia had barely managed to save its life.
However, although it had survived, Nereia was in bad shape.
It had managed to escape, but in the process, Nereia had brushed past the creature’s enormous body.
Yes, it had only brushed past it.
Even so, the outer shell that had grown stronger through mutation after it consumed the biological core fragment shattered into pieces.
If it hadn’t mutated—or if it had passed just a little closer to the creature—its shell wouldn’t have been the only thing to shatter.
Even amid the terrible pain throughout its body, Nereia forced itself to stay conscious and moved.
It swam through the deep sea, trying to get as far as it could from the creature, which had yet to realize that Nereia had escaped.
The system told it something along the way, but Nereia didn’t have time to check it now.
Before the creature noticed, it had to get as far away as possible.
How long had it swum, dragging its broken body along through sheer, desperate will to survive?
Only when the creature, whose size defied all common sense, was no longer in sight could Nereia finally stop.
GROOOOOAR-!
Suddenly, the creature’s roar echoed in the distance, shaking the deep sea.
Nereia realized the roar held the creature’s anger at having lost the one who’d dared steal its food, and said with a laugh:
One day, I’ll definitely...
‘I’ll evolve and get my revenge.’
Right, just like with the Deep-Sea Predatory Larva.
But for now...
‘Just... let me rest a little.’
Its mana was depleted, and its body was so badly shattered it would collapse at the slightest touch.
It no longer even had the strength to move its fins. The tension that had been stretched taut by the fear that it might die snapped, and all its mental exhaustion hit at once.
Without even checking where it was, Nereia slowly closed its eyes and fell into a deep sleep.