If Gao Gong had not evolved it himself, he would have found it hard to imagine that there could be a "technology tree" so savage.
With its evolution complete, the appearance of this insectoid technology tree revealed itself in an aggressively invasive form.
Rather than a tree, it was a cold totem of barbaric growth, condensed from countless concepts of slaughter.
Its main body was a rough, hideous "spine," dark as dried, congealed blood, yet faintly gleaming with the matte finish of a high-density biological alloy.
The spine naturally possessed a twisted curve that seemed poised to strike, brimming with explosive force. Its surface was covered in layers of bone plates and chitinous armor, sharp as blades, like natural armor born for war.
Countless branches "burst" madly from the spine.
They looked nothing like twigs. They resembled bone blades and arthropod limbs of various shapes, rupturing through the flesh of a ferocious beast.
Some branches were slender as spikes, their tips so sharp that, under the illumination of bioluminescence, they seemed capable of slicing space apart on their own.
Others were thick and sturdy, like the ramming horns of siege hammers, covered in savage barbs and patterns resembling impact structures. Still others took the form of spiral drills, or serrated silhouettes whose edges vibrated at high frequencies, slightly blurring the surrounding light and shadows.
The surface of the entire "tree" was threaded with viscous, seemingly living, dark-red energy veins.
These veins resembled blood vessels and neural networks. They pulsed and spread beneath the bone armor and blade edges, flickering erratically.
The brightest points were several nodes. They looked like hideous pupils embedded among the clusters of blades, or the cores of some kind of biological energy furnace, constantly inhaling and exhaling dangerous energy pulses.
Every pulse was accompanied by an