Strange Lion

Caw—Caw—Caw—

Amid the beating of wings, a flock of gray-black birds rose from the jungle. After circling briefly in the air, they scattered into the surrounding forest.

However, most of the birds were not Arrow Gulls, but sparrow-sized little birds the Overmind called Bait Birds.

As their name suggested, they were not combat units. Their primary value was to be eaten by large animals, then use the vast amount of virus stored within their bodies to infect the greedy eaters and turn them into Zerg units.

Without a Hatchery, an Arrow Gull's entire growth cycle—from gestation and hatching to adulthood—had been compressed to around six days. With the strange tree's aid, it had been reduced to a little over four days. By now, the Overmind had only hatched two batches of Arrow Gull eggs.

Even though biological reproduction grew exponentially, two cycles alone did not amount to much.

Bait Birds, on the other hand, were small and had a growth cycle of less than three days. Empowered by the strange tree's green energy, that was further shortened to two days. After four cycles, their numbers had already reached the tens of thousands.

The Overmind did not have the two avian unit types search the jungle for similar traces. Instead, it focused on locating large predators in the area.

The birds were not very intelligent, after all. They had difficulty understanding what "traces that ordinary beasts could not leave" meant.

In contrast, the jungle's large predators ranged widely, possessed relatively greater intelligence, and knew the dangers lurking throughout the forest.

Rather than have the birds search for a needle in a haystack, it was better to find these creatures, infect them, and have the Overmind and Agatha use psionic energy to read their memories.

The strategy was undoubtedly a success.

Very soon.

In the mind of a python, the Overmind found the locations of two sets of claw marks; in the mind of a wolf, it found an old urine mark; in the mind of a bear, it uncovered two exceptionally exaggerated digging marks...

The mysterious creature's range of activity was steadily narrowed down.

Until three days later.

Only then did the Overmind find the mysterious creature's exact location in the mind of a female tiger—near a pool of water forty kilometers from the Overmind.

This fellow's range was truly outrageous. More than six thousand square kilometers—ten times the territory of a Siberian tiger, equivalent to seven or eight county towns.

By the dawn of the fourth day, the Overmind saw the mysterious beast through an Arrow Gull's eyes.

A colossal creature standing three meters at the shoulder and measuring nearly nine meters from head to tail.

Vertical pupils, a short snout, digitigrade legs, a mane along its neck... It appeared to be some kind of lion, yet it had two horns at the sides of its forehead, while scales of varying sizes grew over its shoulders, neck, tail, and hind paws.

The gigantic beast, half lion and half lizard, was lazily sprawled atop a rock, basking in the sun. It ignored even the two hopping Bait Birds that landed on it.

"Level-seven psionic fluctuations." Agatha made the judgment through the senses of a specially modified Arrow Gull.

Equivalent to a Protoss Zealot... a Zealot stripped bare and equipped with nothing.

By comparison, because its territory had expanded, the Overmind's psionic power had improved somewhat. It could sustain the expenditure of dozens of level-five psionic units, but it had yet to reach the level-six standard.

The Bait Birds tried pecking the giant beast twice. Though Bait Birds possessed no offensive capability by the Swarm's standards, a casual peck from one was enough to leave an ordinary person with a wound down to the bone.

When the blow struck the Dragon Lion, it merely made its flesh quiver. The Dragon Lion barely changed expression.

With a body this tough, no wonder it could leave such marks on trees.

The Overmind's thoughts stirred.

The Arrow Gull carrying its consciousness took to the sky. After circling once overhead, it tucked in its wings and dove straight down at the beast. Its neck stretched forward, and its two sharp horns extended another inch.

With a sharp crack, cold light flashed and vanished.

The Arrow Gull's neck snapped beneath the immense force, and its two sharp horns were blasted away.

A strike capable of piercing solid wood had not drawn even a trace of blood.

"Roar—" The strange lion let out a thunderous bellow.

Clearly, although it had not been injured, it had been hurt.

The strange lion swept out with a massive claw. The already doomed Arrow Gull was slapped away like a cannonball, smashing against a stone beside the pool and bursting into a heap of mangled flesh.

Even the two Bait Birds perched on the strange lion's shoulder could not escape.

One was swatted down by the enraged strange lion, while the other was stuffed into its mouth and swallowed whole, feathers and blood alike...

A high concentration of Zerg virus, carried in the Bait Bird's bodily fluids, flooded the strange lion's mouth, flowed past its tonsils and into its esophagus, before ultimately falling into its gastric acid...

Perhaps the smell of blood had stirred the strange lion's appetite. It rubbed the spot that had just been struck against the rock, let out a low, muffled growl from its throat, and stalked away from the pool with a stream of grumbling curses.

Just over ten minutes later, on a Creep sofa more than a hundred li away, the Overmind suddenly opened its eyes. Its face looked slightly weary; locking onto a cluster of viruses through the Hive Mind was far too mentally taxing.

One thing was certain: the viruses that had invaded the strange lion's body were all dead.

But the Overmind was not disappointed.

After successfully infecting some of the oral epithelial cells, the viruses had been detected by the strange lion's immune system and destroyed along with the infected cells.

At the very least, this meant that the strange lion was not like the Protoss, completely impossible to infect. Its immunity was simply exceptionally powerful.

Two Bait Birds descended, hopping around as they searched. After a while, they picked several strands of brown fur from the ground in their beaks and spread their wings...

Although Venom Devourers could not completely analyze a species' DNA like the Spawning Pool and Evolution Chamber, merely analyzing the unique structures in its DNA and producing a targeted virus was easy enough.

That very afternoon, Bait Birds fitted with a brand-new virus soared into the sky...

The strange lion had been having a miserable time lately.

Ever since it had gorged itself three days ago, its whole body had inexplicably been burning up. Even soaking in water did nothing; just when it started to feel a little better, its head began to throb and spin again.

It could not sleep, either. The moment it closed its eyes, it felt someone stroking its fur, scratching beneath its chin, and whispering by its ear: Join us... Obey... Evolve...

The voice was strange, yet it somehow understood it, and even felt that it made sense... The only problem was that whoever was petting it had terrible technique, waking it up again and again.

Still, it was probably nothing serious. At worst, it would be like that time when it had suddenly felt the urge to eat several brightly colored little frogs in one go. It would feel sick for two days, then get over it.

Its appetite was even pretty good right now. Being able to eat and drink meant there could not be anything wrong.

Thinking this, the strange lion stretched out a forepaw covered in reddish-brown growths and scars, scooped up a Bait Bird from beside it, and tossed it into its mouth. Feeling the juicy body burst in its mouth with a pop, its broth-like fluids writhing as if alive before tumbling down its throat, the strange lion wore a satisfied expression.

How many of these tasty little things had it eaten again? The strange lion turned its head to look at the Bait Birds still packed densely all around it... Hmm, there were still so many. It seemed it had not eaten much.

Ah, its back was a little itchy?

Thinking this, the strange lion opened its mouth and extended its long tongue, scratching at the newly grown, still somewhat malformed extra limb on its spine, shedding lion fur all over the ground.

Huh? Come to think of it, had its tongue always been this long...

With that thought, the strange lion's mind gradually fell silent, and it drifted back into sleep.

And this time, no one stroked its fur anymore—after all, it was practically bald already.

It had a dream.

Yet it was not of anything specific.

Instead, like a revolving lantern, it replayed all its memories, from the recent past to the distant...