Root Vine Monster

The Creep bulged and burst open.

Amid dim yellow motes of light, flying grass clippings, and swirling leaves, countless roots snaked up from underground and twisted together. Before long, a clawed monster the size of half a person formed from root vines and yellow-green light, resembling an enlarged squirrel.

Crackling sounds rang out one after another. More than a dozen Root Vine Monsters of varying sizes and shapes burst from beneath the Creep.

Most of them resembled beasts or birds, but lacking fur, skin, and feathers, they had no ability to fly or glide.

With the creaking of vine roots grinding against one another at their joints and across their bodies, the monsters began moving swiftly. As if driven by deep hatred, they wildly attacked the Creep with their claws, beaks, and teeth.

But undifferentiated Creep had no concept of being "whole" to begin with.

The Creep tissue that had been torn to pieces instead clung tightly to the gaps between the vine roots, corroding the plant tissue and multiplying madly.

Yellow-green radiance appeared once more over the Root Vine Monsters, accompanied by grass clippings and withered leaves.

The wounds caused by corrosion healed rapidly, and the renewed vine roots crushed the Creep tissue clinging to their gaps. Yet they could not stop it from continuing to divide.

"They are units formed from Psionic Energy, so they have a certain degree of immunity to the virus..." Agatha said as the carapace on her upper body opened and an Acid Spine shot out lightly.

Agatha had not used much force. The Spine merely lodged in a Root Vine Monster's chest instead of piercing through it. The acid carried on the Spine corroded more than half its body in an instant, and a strange stench spread through the area.

No yellow-green fluorescence emerged from the Root Vine Monster again. The root vines forming its body swiftly withered and dimmed.

"The psionic reaction has disappeared. It is dead," Agatha said crisply.

Clearly, this kind of monster could not fully regenerate once most of its body had been damaged.

Agatha did not fire another Spine.

However, the Creep's writhing clearly quickened. Under the Overmind's perception, a large number of conducting structures rapidly differentiated beneath the Creep, continuously delivering nutrients to the front line.

The Creep around those Root Vine Monsters immediately began proliferating much faster.

Watching the little monsters struggle to move while tangled in Creep, the Overmind suddenly realized that he still had another force at his disposal.

He pointed a finger.

Countless ants, beetles, and centipedes crawled out through small openings left in the Creep, gathering into a slender black stream.

Before long, they had covered the Root Vine Monsters from head to toe.

Through the mental link, the Overmind felt as though he had become one of the countless insects. Clinging to the branches forming the monsters, he opened mandibles strengthened by Zerg genes. Crack—the wood fibers snapped.

The Root Vine Monsters began twisting wildly. Because of where they stood, the insects were caught between the grinding vine roots and crushed into pulp.

Only then did the Overmind come back to himself. The muscles beneath his face twitched twice instinctively, but there were no mandibles by his mouth now.

What a... strange feeling.

The Overmind's actions drew the Root Vine Monsters' attention.

They began shifting toward the Overmind and Agatha. But with the Creep now filling nearly every gap in their bodies, they had almost completely lost the ability to move.

By the time one of them trembled its way before the Overmind,

he casually kicked it over. With more of its body pressed against the ground, and the Creep near Agatha already relatively thick, layer upon layer of bindings left the Root Vine Monster completely unable to get back up.

When the surrounding Creep flowed over and fully wrapped it up, its regeneration could no longer keep up with the Creep's corrosion. Before long, it was completely digested.

New Root Vine Monsters continued to emerge, but they caused no real trouble. After the first dozen or so monsters had been eliminated, the Creep divided and thickened, making it difficult for newly born monsters to break through the initial blockade. They were wrapped in Creep the moment they emerged.

Most of the root vine fragments were digested and absorbed by the Creep. A small portion was collected and sent to Agatha under her control.

Agatha pinched a fragment of root vine between two sharp claws and examined it carefully. Every so often, her claws loosened, letting it fall to the ground, forcing her to bend down and pick it up.

Of course, this was not because Agatha could not hold things. She had instinctively tried to support the root vine fragment with telekinesis, but her Psionic Energy was not powerful enough to affect physical objects, and it fell to the ground.

"Did you find anything?" the Overmind asked.

"Yes, Overmind," Agatha replied. "The DNA of these plant tissues matches that of some tree roots beneath the Creep."

That was the strangest part. Judging from their DNA, these plants should have had no ability to move at all, yet they could form freely moving monsters.

"Tree roots?" The Overmind considered it. "The roots of those trees that were just 'eaten' by the Creep?"

"Yes. The roots capable of producing psionic units still retain a certain degree of vitality."

The underground roots of rainforest trees were usually as large as the trunks and canopies above ground. To ensure that the ground did not cave in, the Creep had to divide and fill the cavities while corroding the roots, naturally slowing its corrosion speed somewhat.

"What is this supposed to be? The resentful souls of trees?"

"It may also be a special psionic phenomenon," Agatha offered another possibility. "Plants themselves do not possess Psionic Energy. Perhaps their deaths triggered some particular mechanism that gave birth to these unusual entities."

"The night..." The Overmind suddenly spoke, raising his head toward the sky. The full moon was gradually moving toward its highest point. "Could it be related to the moon?"

"The satellite does indeed have some effect on Psionic Energy, but the tidal pull here is especially weak..." Agatha trailed off, her expression becoming grave once more.

"What is it?"

"They are beginning to merge."

"What?" The Overmind connected to Agatha's senses.

Sure enough, beneath the Creep, the individual yellow-green energy vortices that had produced the monsters were gradually disappearing. In their place, an enormous vortex was slowly solidifying.

"Level-four psionic fluctuations, level-five psionic fluctuations, still rising..." Agatha lowered her hands from before her chest and assumed a combat stance, warning the Overmind, "If the target's Psionic Energy exceeds level eight, please retreat immediately."

The Overmind possessed the strongest armor the Zerg could attain, but unfortunately, his Psionic Energy was too weak to activate his shield. He could only rely on the physical protection of his flexible carapace. But against high-level psionic users, no matter how tough or strong physical armor was, it meant nothing.

For example, a Protoss Psionic Beam Blade cut through Battlecruiser armor as easily as tofu. More accurately, aside from Psionic Energy and force fields, no material could withstand its cutting edge. The Overmind's armor was no exception.

Even with the help of a focus device, condensing a psionic blade required level-seven Psionic Energy. Yet experienced level-eight psionic users could unleash similar attacks in short bursts even without any equipment.

"Those roots!" the Overmind suddenly said. "Their vitality is abnormal."

From Agatha's perspective, the biological activity of every remaining tree root buried deep underground now exceeded that of the still-intact plants. Moreover, they seemed to be faintly linking together.

Agatha immediately mobilized the Creep and began rapidly clearing out all the remaining roots underground.

"Focus on severing their connections," the Overmind ordered.

Plant root systems were massive and complex networks. Even at the Creep's rate of consumption, it would be difficult to devour them completely in a short time. But cutting apart the places where the roots connected was much simpler.

Before long, the underground root systems that had originally been nearly connected as one were divided by fungal tissue into separate sections.

The largest energy vortex stopped expanding, but it did not disappear.

The birth of the Root Vine Monsters gradually reached its end. Amid swirling blades of grass, root vines grew rapidly and intertwined. Gradually, a Root Vine Monster more than three meters, nearly four meters tall, with a slender figure, a narrow waist, and long limbs appeared at the center of the vortex.