Alien Evolution System 5 Hobgoblin Ambush

The Collector tensed its muscles, readying to pounce as it tracked Draug's every move.

Draug stumbled forwards, yawning as he absent-mindedly scratched his privates through a dirt-brown loincloth. Alarmingly, he dragged a wooden club behind him – this was outside the Collector's calculations. The club was brutish, roughly carved from a tree trunk with splintering spikes left at the end to gore any unlucky victims. His muscles rippled as he knelt by the pond, cupping some of the water and greedily shoving it in his mouth. He took a single gulp of water before he started coughing, spitting out the rest.

The Collector took note. By its calculations, it determined that Draug had taken in a dosage of venom not strong enough to immobilize him, but still potent enough to give him a general sense of numbness. It waited now for an opportunity to strike. It had to make sure everything went perfectly to compensate for Draug's club.

Draug took an angry look at the water and punched it. A splash of water erupted upwards – a testament to his strength. Having vented enough immediate rage, he turned around with intent to order his goblins to find more water.

However, the precise second Draug turned his back, the Collector struck, using its powerful rabbit legs to eject itself down from the trees like a missile. It had its spider-limbs stuck forwards like blades, aiming to impale through the hobgoblin's heart.

Surprisingly, Draug had the reactions to turn around. However, he did not have time to hit the Collector away, only to cross his arms to defend against impact. The Collector adjusted its angle of attack mid-air as Draug had protected his heart with his burly arms. It twisted, angling its descent a little further downwards, and pierced straight through Draug's right thigh.

Before Draug could retaliate, the Collector withdrew its spider-limbs and leaped backwards, flicking blood on its claws away and onto the gra.s.s.

Draug roared in pain, one hand clutching at his now useless right leg and another wildly swinging the club, swatting at empty air.

"Curse you!" said Draug, spittle frothing from his mouth. He tried to stand, but the best he could do was awkwardly limp, unable to put any weight on his right side.

The Collector did not respond, nor could it due to a lack of vocal cords. Its eight eyes focused on Draug, looking only for any weaknesses to exploit. His right side was open. Any attacks from there would be difficult for the hobgoblin to retaliate against. It would also force him to put more pressure on his right leg, speeding up his already profuse bleeding.

"What are you!?" said Draug through heavy breaths. "You…monster? No, you not monster I see before. You must be human's pet. Human's monster!"

The Collector used Draug's wasted effort in shouting as a moment to attack, pouncing to Draug's right side and striking at his throat with a clawed spider limb.

Draug, however, was quick, using his one good leg to push backwards to narrowly dodge the swipe. It was evident that he was used to combat, his movements sharpened and trained. An expression of surprise came upon his face as he moved back, past his familiar trail, and stepped on a ma.s.s of webbing with his one good foot. He lost balance, toppling over backwards.

The Collector leaped into the air and landed on Draug's chest, aiming to use its powerful mandibles to sever his throat entirely. Draug, however, was quick and devastatingly strong. He reacted to the Collector's bite, quickly using his free hand to grab one of the Collector's mandibles before it could close on his throat. With a guttural grunt, Drag ripped off the mandible entirely.

The Collector did not flinch or react. It registered damage and took to a more wary approach. It moved downwards a bit, dodging an attempt by Draug to grab it, but still placed its weight on the hobgoblin's legs to keep him on the ground. Then the Collector's six arachnid arms, their sharp, clawed tips exposed, savagely began tearing into Draug.

Death by a thousand cuts.

Draug screamed in pain as he covered his face and chest with his arms, trying to preserve his vitals. However, the Collector was a surgeon, and this was its operating table. Its attacks, fast and savage as they were, were not wild. They were precise and meant to inflict as much damage as possible, cutting at tendons and major blood vessels.

One swipe punctured a lung, finding the soft tissue through ribs. Draug s.h.i.+fted his arms instinctively lower to defend himself, leaving one half of his face open for a split second. Enough time for a limb to skewer out his left eye.

With a final burst of strength reserved only to those knowing death was near, Draug roared and abandoned his defense, swinging his club. The Collector immediately swerved backwards, but Draug's attack had inflicted some measure of damage.

Following a sickening crunch, three of the Collector's arachnid limbs sailed through the air, landing on the forest floor still twitching and oozing blackish-green blood from their dismembered tips.

The Collector could feel pain, but not enough to adversely affect it. Just enough to let it know that damage had been inflicted. Any more pain would have been useless, and anything useless biologically had long been cut away from it.

Draug groaned weakly. He was bleeding from several cuts, sprays of arterial red spurting from his thigh wound.

The Collector circled Draug's p.r.o.ne and weak body. It was cautious, not willing to enter his attack range. Even though Draug was soon to bleed to death, it did not want to risk any form of retaliation that might have injured it. That was one of the primary laws of a predator – take no risk. Among predators and prey, if prey could inflict even a single crippling wound, then the meal was not worth it.

Draug made several attempts to attack, weakly lunging forwards or trying to swing its club. Each time, the Collector simply leaped backwards just enough to dodge before circling again like a vulture waiting for its weakened carrion to slump over.

Eventually, Draug knelt in gra.s.s drenched in his blood, breath wheezing from his damaged lung. He struggled to keep his eyes open and his body shook, resisting shock from blood-loss.
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"Kill me," gurgled out Draug.

The Collector kept circling.

"Kill me!"

The Collector ignored Draug. It wondered why the creature was so eager for death. All it had to do was be patient.

Draug grunted in defeat and acceptance of death, letting go of his club and using both arms to try and turn to his side to bleed out with a little more comfort.

The Collector saw Draug give up the club and struck once more, knowing that it was now risk free to attack. It skewered a spider limb through the oversized goblin's empty eye socket, scrambling the soft brain beneath it.

The Collector was impressed. Draug had been a worthy foe to its current state. Collectors were created with a combat-oriented mindset that found value in battle and consuming strong opponents. This was the most compatible independent personality for a life of endless battle, of fighting and consuming the strongest and best genetic material across the cosmos. In contrast, a biological robot programmed only to consume would not have the independent thought to adapt to battle situations and find itself outmaneuvered by the ingenuity of tinkering, s.p.a.cefaring races.

That was why when the Collector consumed Draug, it did so relatively slowly, cutting into the hobgoblin's body like it was a fine dining dish. It wished to savor the taste of an enemy that had managed to wound it. It seemed that in broad daylight, this jungle was relatively safe with much of the predators prowling at night when visibility was lower. Also, with the goblins still asleep, the Collector had time to enjoy harvesting good genetic material.

-Bioma.s.s gained

--Bioma.s.s Level 100/100

-Genetic Material Gained

--Black Goblin

--Black Ant

--Black Hobgoblin

As predicted, the Black Hobgoblin, being powerful, large, and intelligent, granted an immense amount of bioma.s.s capable of allowing the Collector to reach its next stage of evolution.

By this point, Draug had been reduced to a few bones – all that was once left of the proud warrior hobgoblin.

The Collector leaped up a tree. It did so awkwardly, having lost three of its spider limbs, but still managed to slowly crawl up to its branches. There, it curled up and began its evolution. At lower metamorphosis levels, it could not afford to be picky with the genetic material it had as growing stronger at any cost was its prime directive. It would use what it had.

The Collector's body began melting, secreting a slimy ooze that formed a coc.o.o.n over it. It was more monstrous than before, with large, beating veins streaking across its glossy surface. The Collector also did not melt into complete primordial liquid, instead condensing into a sphere that pulsated like a heart at the center of the flesh coc.o.o.n.

In its current state, the Collector could not construct a form utilizing more than three genetic bases. As it reached higher metamorphosis levels, this would increase, but for now, it would have to make do with what it had.

There were two new pieces of genetic material: the black goblin and the black hobgoblin. However, the hobgoblin was simply superior in every aspect and so the Collector chose to switch out its rabbit genes with that of the hobgoblin. Although it did not like a.s.suming a humanoid form because bipedal humanoids evolved through a reliance on tools and not biological might, it was still the strongest base form it could achieve. It retained its spider and centipede genes, useful as they were for extra limbs, compound-vision, webbing, and minor venom.

The metamorphosis would take close to thirty minutes this time as the Collector was undergoing significant physiological changes. During this time, it searched the hobgoblin's memories using the keyword of "human". Although the Collector had ignored the hobgoblin's angry bleating during combat, it had remembered his words.

Judging from the way the hobgoblin spoke about humans, it would seem they were an intelligent species, perhaps in direct conflict with these primitives. However, the implication that these 'humans' could control or create monsters indicated a significant amount of intelligence and technological development. Perhaps this was a truly intelligent tinkering species that had mastered some low level of gene-splicing and cloning. In that case, they were extremely dangerous presences, likely armed with firearms and vehicles capable of easily destroying the Collector's current state.

The memories came. It was obvious that the hobgoblin held powerful emotions of humans, with many of his memories tied to that keyword. They came like hazy recollections or half-remembered dreams, murky and almost surreal, lacking in many details, but still understandable.

--

A memory.

The hobgoblin running. It was young and small, no larger than the goblins it lorded over. It was injured, with burns and cuts littering its body. Behind it stood the entryway to a cave, smoke curling out from within.

Powerful emotions of sadness and rage.

The humans had come and exterminated the hobgoblin and his kin. Their swords and spears had skewered many friends, decapitated his parents, and dealt him many painful wounds.

A vow of revenge against the humans.

Later.

The hobgoblin was grown, leading a large tribe of goblins and hobgoblins to a human village.

He rallied his kind, raising his club into the air. He promised death and destruction to the humans. Their food and women would be the spoils of war.

A cheer.

Later.

The hobgoblin lay bleeding under a tree, arrows skewered in his side. The battle had failed. Strong humans had appeared.

Another vow of vengeance. He would find more goblins to his cause in the jungles, build up his strength and attack once more.

--

The Collector burst from its coc.o.o.n and immediately fell from the tree. It had grown far too large to scurry about on treetops, being almost two and a half meters tall. It oriented itself before it crashed into the forest floor, making sure to land on its two feet.

The Collector grunted as it moved its body, flexing its muscle and wriggling its extremities to improve bloodflow that had been stemmed during metamorphosis. It did not like a.s.suming a bipedal form. All the races the Collective had destroyed had been bipedal tinkerers too weak to use their natural strength. Bipedalism was a symbol of relying on tools over biological might. But no matter. It could easily discard this current form following its next evolution.

As of now, the Collector looked far less hideous. It was a towering ma.s.s of muscle plated with smooth, bony carapace tinted black from hobgoblin's genes. Once more, six arachnid arms ripped out from its back. They were stronger now, larger and built with more muscle. A plus about this hobgoblin genetic base was that it was extremely compatible with the Collector's natural ultrafiber muscle adaptation as the main reason the hobgoblin was so much more muscular and stronger than the normal goblin was due to a mutation that affected its muscle hypertrophy and bone density. It was simply a matter of a.s.similating that gene into its ultrafiber muscle adaptation.

Its head was a mix of insect and humanoid, being humanoid in shape but armored entirely in black carapace. Two long, black antennae emerged from its forehead, dotted with its sensitive hairs adaptation. It retained its mandibles which sloped down from its temples to its proper mouth, acting like chin-guards.

-Metamorphosis Complete. Metamorphosis Level 2 Reached

-Bioma.s.s Fully Consumed

--Bioma.s.s Level: 0/100

-Genetic Material

--Black Ant

--Black Goblin

-Current Adaptations

--Ultrafiber Muscles Rank 3

--Sensitive Hairs

--Organic-Hyperalloy Carapace Rank 2

--NEW: Monomolecular Claws

The Collector was pleased with its new adaptation. It would console the fact that it had to a.s.sume a humanoid form with the opportunity to develop one of its natural abilities that it had missed the most: monomolecular claws. It watched as almost metallic-white claws curved like scythes emerged from its fingertips and protruded from its feet. It generated spikes on its elbows, compensating for the inefficiency of its bipedal form.

Monomolecular claws were one of the crowning evolutions of the Collective, being extraordinarily powerful tools and yet incredibly genetically efficient. To put it simply, they were composed of the same durable organic-hyperalloy base as Collector's carapace, but their edges had adapted to a different structure that thinned to a razor sharp, monomolecular edge capable of splitting apart substances at the molecular level, resulting in a sharpness unparalleled across the cosmos.

As of now, the Collector's offensive capabilities with its claws was devastating. Even at the height of its power, the sharpness of its claws was the same, making it one of the most efficient adaptations it could have obtained. The only reason it had not obtained it before was because it had prioritized the carapace for survival. The biggest flaw of these claws right now, however, was the fact that the durability of them was tied to its level of carapace, meaning though they could slice through any known matter, they were brittle, capable of being destroyed with sufficient force.

In addition, from the hobgoblin's memories, the Collector could make out that these 'humans' were relatively primitive also. More advanced than these goblins, but still at the level where they swung around sticks of metal and padded themselves with clunky, unrefined steel with no hint of advanced weaponry such as firearms. They even still used beasts of burden called 'horses' to carry them about.

Nothing to worry about.

In celebration of regaining one of its prized adaptations, the Collector decided it would feast, and there was no better feast waiting for him than at the now defenseless goblin den.