War God Ship, Baldr, Interior
Baldr was a Superior Embryo that contained a living area—likely a boon from being partially Type Fortress, derived from Type Castle.
The amenities it provided were minimal, though. There were only a few rooms equipped with some basic collapsible beds. This was another manifestation of how well-rounded Baldr truly was, but that came at the cost of specialization.
Regardless, these rooms rarely saw any use, with Shu mostly only treating them as storage.
However, today, one of these rooms was actually freed up for a guest, and the one sleeping in it was none other than Riella.
Following their defeat and retreat, she’d lost consciousness and collapsed like a puppet with its strings savagely snapped.
There was nothing better to do for her right now than let her rest.
Upon putting her to bed, Shu had gone to the room right next to hers. Baldr was currently on autopilot, heading toward the rendezvous point set by Shu and Asam.
“Phew.” Shu didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing him here, so he was out of his bear costume.
He glanced over the multiple monitors presented to him by Baldr and realized something.
“...There’s nothing living here.” He already knew that the sea here was shallow and difficult for large monsters to live in.
However, he now couldn’t see any small monsters either.
The loud sounds and splashing caused by Baldr’s hovering would usually attract something, but there were no signs of that happening.
Shu made a guess...
“Were they eaten?”
...that Abyss Shellder had consumed them all.
“A UBM that eats pearlified creatures and grows stronger... It tried to eat the nerd’s Mu too. What would’ve happened if it did?”
He had to consider the possibility, but it wasn’t a pleasant prospect. There were only two outcomes: Either nothing would happen, or something unbelievably terrible would.
Neither of them were positive.
“And then...there’s the question of its limits.” That was something Shu had thought about even in the middle of the battle.
Abyss Shellder was empowered by its predation, but where was the limit of this empowerment?
Shu knew for certain that this limit did exist, because if it didn’t...
“It would’ve been even worse than it was.”
If simply consuming creatures let it grow stronger without end, its size and arsenal would’ve been far greater than it currently was.
Abyss Shellder had already ravaged most of the South Sea. In this area in particular, its feeding was so thorough that Shu couldn’t spot even a single monster. It was hard to comprehend the number of creatures it had consumed.
However, its size was only a few times greater than Baldr’s ultimate form, and the spewing heads could actually be counted.
That could only mean that there was some limit to its ability to absorb the powers of its prey, no matter how much it ate.
The question now was where this limit could be found on an Irregularity that broke even its level cap.
“That aside...” Shu let out a sigh. “It’s the pearlification that fixes the Resources to corpses, and the predatory absorption that empowers it when it eats them. The combo is the real problem here.”
Theoretically, there was no limit to how powerful it could grow.
And just last night, Shu had actually seen a creature with the exact same combination of powers.
“It would make sense if they’re chimeras from the same facility. It would, but...something’s off.”
Granvaloa’s theory was that the chimeras were made in the same research facility, with Abyss Shellder being the success and the others being failures.
But that left one thing that did not make sense.
It was something Shu had wondered about back when he’d seen the photos of the Irregularity and the Mocks, and something he’d noticed when he finally saw Abyss Shellder with his own eyes.
That being...
“There’s no overlap in their parts.”
If these were created by the same chimera research project, it made no sense for the success and the failures to not share any body parts whatsoever.
Looking at the photos of the failures, there was a certain degree of similarity between their body parts. Kraken like the one from yesterday, fish, starfish, jellyfish, sea anemones, sea beasts, seabirds... There were many parts from similar monsters.
However, in both the photos and in the flesh, Abyss Shellder didn’t have a single body part in common with these “failures.”
A massive spiral shell, crustacean legs extending from it, the seadragon heads the shell had transformed into...
The body parts used were so different that it didn’t really seem like the successful version of whatever experiment had produced the Mocks.
He had two guesses for how to explain this.
First, if the Mocks were indeed created in some ruins, they could be completely unrelated to Abyss Shellder and simply happened to have “Abyss” in their name by complete coincidence. However, considering that last night’s Mock had had the same pearlification and consumption power as Abyss Shellder, this seemed unlikely.
The second guess made him recall Asam’s words...
“Based on our examination of the combat data and their visual appearance, we have surmised that the monsters used as materials for the chimeras were not all that powerful—Demi-Dragons and below.”
“...Excess parts.”
Shu had already considered this. If Abyss Shellder could subsume the powers and bodies of its prey—like the seadragons from its shell—its current body was far too small. The sea was full of massive creatures, and if it consumed their bodies and added them to its own, as it seemed to be capable of doing, it would be far larger than it was now, even gargantuan as it was.
That was why Shu had thought that there must be a limit.
But what would one do with such a restriction? They would surely fill the entire available space with only the best parts they had, while discarding all parts that were unnecessary.
Following on that assumption...
“Slimes and some other monsters have skills that let them split themselves into duplicates,” Shu thought, recalling a far-too-familiar face.
“The Mocks...” He didn’t want to be right—this guess had some awfully dangerous implications.
However, this explanation also made the most sense.
It went...
“All of the Mocks...are split from Abyss Shellder.”
As Shu said that, he remembered the actions of the Mock he’d fought—the kraken chimera that had consumed the Frost High Serpent.
He recalled how it had eaten the monster even as it was being attacked.
“Whenever its feed gave it excess parts—the parts of weaker monsters, that is—it cut them off from itself and had them operate separately. If the Mock consumed a strong monster, it would retrieve and use its parts for itself. Even if the Mock accomplished nothing, simply discarding the less useful elements was beneficial in its own way.”
Chimeras had a flaw in that awkward and forced connections would make them more frail, and such careful curation of parts would minimize it.
It was an awfully well-functioning system. Perhaps the only thing holding it back was what he had learned from Satomi and Granvaloa—the fact that not all of its splits had the power to pearlify and consume.
“...Oh! So that’s what it means!” Having figured out this much, Shu remembered what Humpty had told him about the name.
He now knew what “Abyss Shellder” meant.
“Shell” obviously referred to its appearance, and its toughness suggested that it was based on the word “Shelter” too.
However, the more important part here was “der.”
That was the abbreviation for “derivation,” “derivative,” “derive,” and “derived.”
The real meaning of the name lay in those three letters.
“‘That which is derived from the abyssal shell’... It includes the Mocks too! There’s three meanings to it! There are so many names with meanings you can’t even begin to guess, but then you have others that are just loaded like this!” He spat a mix of complaint and grudge toward the Control AI in charge of UBMs.
At the same time, his face showed a hint of panic—a rarity for him.
“Though, this is...real bad. Abyss Shellder can grow stronger the more it eats and can create countless splits to give it new parts. That means...”
Shu went on to imagine the worst-case scenario.
“In the end...the ecosystem of this entire world could be replaced by Abyss Shellder.”
An invincible main body, and splits that empowered it by consuming other creatures.
A structure where the entire ecosystem was exploited by and dedicated to its apex.
Where the SUBMs had been a threat to countries, Abyss Shellder was a threat to the world as a whole.
To be continued