The two figures crept forward, each step thudding against the stone‑hard ground. They inched ahead, navigating the uneven floor littered with bumps and hollows, wary of a single misstep. As they advanced, weapons at the ready, their eyes flicked toward every shadow. Every surface was coated in a black, obsidian-like material, and the only light ca from the entrance they’d just stepped through.
Unseen above them, what looked like a harmless lump stirred, revealing itself as more than just a strange design elent of the interior. It uncurled like a serpent waking from slumber, stretching to its full length. The black tendril swayed lazily at first before angling toward the humans. At its tip, a single glistening eye erged, the iris narrowing in a keen, predatory focus.
The Oculus Vine, a new type of creature he had developed a couple of days earlier, resembled a fleshy, organic cable. About three feet in length, it was flexible yet sturdy, capable of extending and curling like a serpent. At its tip blood an organic lens surrounded by robust sensory fronds. Unlike a human eye, the Oculus Vine’s gaze could stretch and twist at unnatural angles, providing a panoramic view of its surroundings.
The surface of the vine was covered in small ridges, pulsing faintly with magical energy. The Oculus Vine didn’t just see. It could detect subtle vibrations in the air, thermal differences, and even microscopic particles, making it a remarkably useful instrunt for detection and surveillance. When threatened, its eye could snap shut, shielded by chitin-like plates, and retract into the mass of corruption from which it grew.
Most of the ti, the Oculus Vine remained dormant, curled in on itself with its single eye closed, resembling nothing more than a harmless lump. When it sensed unfamiliar vibrations or other disturbances from an intruder, it would unfurl and open its eye to monitor their movents. Once it confird the presence of an uninvited visitor, it also telepathically shared the information with all other creatures in the lair and also sent Jake a ssage in the sa telepathic way.
After developing this useful creature, Jake had placed several of them throughout his lair in strategic locations. Before now, he could only connect to his Mana Core when he wanted to see what was happening in his lair. The Mana Core provided him with a 360-degree view, but it couldn’t see through walls. This ant that he could see only the chamber housing the Mana Core, with no way of knowing what was happening in the other chambers on this floor or on the others. But now, with oculus vines strategically placed in every corridor and room, nothing within the lair could escape his watchful gaze.
The two intruders never looked up, failing to notice the oculus vine watching them from above. Their attention was fixed on the dimly lit chamber, unaware that their every move was being observed by the creator of this horrible place through the oculus vine above them.
It was the very first ti that humans had dared to venture into his main lair. He recalled telling Catalina to spread the word to stay away from his lairs during their conversation while he was piloting the helicopter to the Los Demonios main base. She must have done so because survivors seed to heed his warning and had kept their distance from his lairs.
Until now.
Jake couldn’t help but wonder what had changed. Why would these two humans dare to intrude on his lair? Had the survivors finally decided to make a move against him? He had always known that the humans he protected from Los Demonios would eventually turn on him once the bandit organization was gone, but he hadn’t expected that day to arrive so quickly. On the other hand, if that was the case, why hadn’t they co in force, ard with far more powerful weapons and equipnt than what these two humans carried?
Keeping watch as the two humans gradually moved across the first floor of his lair, Jake attempted to use Mind Reader on them. And it worked. It was the first ti anyone had entered his main lair, and therefore the first ti he’d used this ability while controlling an oculus vine, so he hadn’t been sure if it would work. But it did, which was great.
He explored the two humans’ mories and learned their nas were Noah and Victor. He learned their reason for trespassing was nothing more than reckless arrogance, a stupid attempt to prove themselves. He also found that they had killed two of his arachnids gathering resources before coming to his lair. Additionally, he learned that both n, as well as their two companions waiting in the car, hailed from Base Samantha.
Over the past several days, Jake had been keeping tabs on the human strongholds, gauging both their activities and the prevailing moods within. There were three in total: Catalina commanded one, lissa led another, and the newest, built only recently, was under Samantha’s control. Each leader commanded her own devoted forces, though Samantha’s ranks were largely made up of forr resistance fighters, n and won who had once served under Samantha back when the main base of Los Demonios still existed.
Jake knew that Catalina was the only leader who remained loyal to him. lissa, however, was on the fence, unsure whether she should continue to see him as an ally or start viewing him as a potential enemy. She was friends with Catalina, and Catalina had been trying to convince her that as long as they didn’t encroach on Jake’s territory, they had no reason to fear him. While lissa wanted to believe her friend and was making an effort not to do anything stupid, she still didn’t trust Jake and suspected he might turn on them without any provocation.
As for Samantha, she hated him and wasn’t shy about showing it. Under her influence, her people shared the sa sentint. She still couldn’t forgive him for refusing to let her claim the Los Demonios main base for herself and her followers. Her dislike of him shifted to pure hatred, fueled by fear, when she returned to the city and discovered he had massive lairs where he was building an army of powerful monsters. Although he did help her destroy Los Demonios and liberate her people, her gratitude was short-lived, giving way to mistrust and open hostility.
However, Samantha’s stronghold was barely a few days old, still fragile and far less developed than the fortified bases of Catalina and lissa. She knew she wasn’t ready to wage open war against him, and if he attacked, he could easily obliterate her base. Everyone understood that reality, and Jake most of all. Even if Catalina and lissa sided with Samantha, their combined strength would still fall short. Los Demonios had once been far stronger than anything the three of them could muster now, so Jake was certain he could crush them in a single day if he chose to.
Yet he hoped it wouldn’t co to that. For all his power, he had little desire to turn on those he still thought of as allies. After all, he knew he could coexist with humans. If they left him alone, he would have no reason to turn against them. To develop his lairs, he only needed mana, biomass, and genetic materials. Collecting mana was fairly easy, while genetic materials could only be harvested from elite mutants. Biomass could be collected from both humans and mutants, but taking it from humans offered him no advantages. Therefore, there was no reason to hunt humans instead of mutants for that resource.
In short, if humans didn’t trouble him, he had no interest in troubling them. That had been his stance toward Los Demonios when they first arrived in the city, and it remained unchanged toward the human factions now in power.
Not being powerful enough to take him on might be just one of the reasons Samantha hadn’t attacked him yet. Another was the ergence of a far more unsettling danger. With Los Demonios gone, a new nace had begun to rise, one lacking any shred of intelligence. Known as the Ravage Contamination, it was a mindless plague sweeping through the city at alarming speed. Nobody knew why it had appeared or how to destroy it or even how to stop it from spreading.
So while Samantha had clearly been intending to make her move on him eventually, those plans had to be postponed until the Ravage Contamination was resolved. This issue was far more pressing. If the task wasn’t completed, going to war with him would be pointless, because soon, the ravagespawn would overrun the entire city.
Jake continued to monitor the two humans, Victor and Noah, as they advanced deeper into the first floor of his lair. They had no idea that sothing deadly was silently drawing near. When Jake upgraded his Mana Core to Rank VII, a structure called the Trap Constructor had beco available. Over the past several days, he had been experinting with it, working to develop traps of his own design. His first several attempts failed, but eventually, he succeeded in creating an effective trap that worked flawlessly.
And neither Noah nor Victor had the slightest clue that they were about to walk straight into that deadly trap.
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