Chapter 549

As it turned out, the creature that had emerged from the alien egg was a flying being that he could use as a mobile base. The process of developing it from the relatively small being that had crawled out of the alien egg into its final form was extremely slow. It took him several weeks to fully develop the creature to its final stage. During all that time, he remained completely focused on the task, leaving him with little time to do anything else.

The creature grew steadily larger with each passing day. At first, it was small enough to move around the lair on its own, but eventually, its body grew too massive for the Apex Hollow. At some point, it also lost its ability to crawl but acquired the natural ability to levitate. The transformation was gradual, but once it happened, the creature moved through the air with surprising grace and ease despite its large size.

As Jake continued feeding it biomass, the creature continued to grow, gradually requiring more and more space. Its body kept expanding, its internal structures becoming more complex, and its appetite increasing with every stage of development. Eventually, Jake had no choice but to let it out. Keeping it inside the lair was simply no longer possible.

The creature began wandering around the Scarlands, gliding silently through the air high above the barren landscape. However, it never strayed too far from the chasm leading to the Apex Hollow. Even without direct orders, it seemed to recognize the area around the lair as its territory and instinctively remained nearby.

Even though there were no other creatures in the Scarlands, at least on the surface, and he had never encountered any intelligent beings anywhere near his lair, Jake still had a few wyrmcallers constantly monitoring the developing creature. They followed it from a distance, keeping watch over its surroundings and scanning the horizon for any potential threats.

If any hostile being appeared, they were ready to immediately deploy combat units and protect the creature at any cost. Jake had invested too much time and resources into its development to allow anything to interfere with it. Fortunately, that never happened. The Scarlands remained as empty and lifeless as always, leaving the creature free to continue its slow transformation into the enormous vessel it was destined to become.

The developing creature required ridiculous amounts of biomass, quickly exhausting the reserves stored within the lair’s storage units. Its growth demanded a constant supply of resources, and the amount of biomass it consumed only continued to increase as it approached its final stage. So while it wandered around the Scarlands, Jake helped his crawlers capture subterranean bugs and bring them back to the Apex Hollow, where they were then processed into biomass.

The crawlers worked almost constantly, scouring the underground tunnels and caverns beneath the Scarlands in search of anything that could be converted into useful resources. Even with their efforts, keeping up with the creature’s appetite was becoming increasingly difficult. Whenever the Leviathan needed to feed, it returned to the lair and patiently waited outside until enough biomass was brought to it. It didn’t need to be guided back. Instead, it seemed to understand where its source of sustenance was located and instinctively returned whenever it required more resources.

And a few weeks later, the creature finally completed its development, reaching its final stage. The creature, which he had named the Leviathan, now soared in the sky high above the Scarlands. It no longer moved on its own like an ordinary creature. It had transformed into something entirely different. It had become something akin to the living ships the Grafters used. The Leviathan didn’t have a mind of its own. It wasn’t really a living being in the traditional sense anymore. More than anything, it was a vessel meant to be controlled, a massive biological construct designed to obey his commands. 

Or, more accurately, it was much more than just a transport. Jake had turned it into a mobile base capable of carrying everything he needed. Inside its numerous chambers, he had built all the structures the Apex Hollow possessed: hive nexuses and larvae chambers, biomass processors and storage units, extractors and creation chambers, bio-fusion chambers and resource nodes, genome fusion labs, and all the other necessary structures.

The interior of the Leviathan was essentially a second Apex Hollow, except one that could move freely through the world. Every chamber had been carefully designed and integrated into the creature’s body, allowing Jake to operate his entire system from anywhere he wanted.

He could now use the Leviathan as both a lair and a means of transportation. And not just as transport but also as a powerful battleship and an enormous carrier capable of deploying his troops wherever they were needed. It was the perfect combination of everything he needed: mobility, firepower, and the ability to expand his influence far beyond the limits of a single location.

He remembered that when he had first located Los Demonios’ main base, he had liked their idea of building it deep beneath the Scarlands so much that he had borrowed the concept for his own lair, which he later named the Apex Hollow. And it was a similar situation with the Leviathan. He had really liked how the Grafter bio-ship he and Owen had infiltrated in the past was operated, so he decided to implement similar mechanisms. The way the Grafters controlled their living vessels had been unlike anything Jake had seen before, so he spent some time adapting their methods to his own creation.

So now his airship had a bridge deep within it, protected by layers of living tissue and surrounded by the Leviathan’s internal structures. At the center of the bridge was an elevated platform with a rounded control panel. The entire area had been designed specifically for him, allowing him to directly connect with the vessel and control every aspect of it.

Whenever he needed to control the Leviathan, all he had to do was approach the control console and mentally command fleshy tubes to extend from it and attach themselves to his body. The process was almost instantaneous. The tubes moved like living creatures, emerging from the control panel and reaching toward him before connecting to his flesh. Once connected, he could feel the Leviathan as if it were an extension of his own body.

Each tube controlled a certain function of the airship. One allowed him to see any area outside the vessel, giving him a complete view of his surroundings. Another controlled its movement through the air, allowing him to guide the Leviathan and adjust its speed and direction. Another gave him direct control over its weapons, letting him aim and fire them whenever needed. Another allowed him to monitor the ship’s interior and operate any structure or device within it.

There were many more functions as well. Through the connection, Jake could access almost every system within the Leviathan, from managing its internal structures to controlling the various biological processes happening throughout its enormous body. The entire vessel had effectively become a massive extension of his own body, responding to his thoughts almost as naturally as his own limbs.

The Leviathan had 5,000,000 HP and 15,000,000 MP. It also possessed a number of useful abilities for various situations. One of them was Cloak, allowing the airship to become invisible and undetectable not only visually but also by any technological or magical means.

The Leviathan mostly resembled an enormous airship. Its entire body was pitch-black and lacked any noticeable features, making it look like a massive shadow drifting through the sky. Its surface was smooth and covered in dark organic material, with no windows, markings, or traditional structures visible from the outside. At the rear of the vessel were powerful thrusters that propelled it through the air, allowing the enormous creature to move surprisingly smoothly despite its massive size.

At first glance, it might have seemed that the Leviathan had no weapons. But that wasn’t the case. Its lack of visible weapons was simply because it didn’t need to carry them permanently. Whenever needed, the airship could grow organic-like weapons anywhere on its outer hull in a matter of seconds. The flesh of the Leviathan would rapidly reshape itself, forming the necessary structures and transforming them into fully functional weapons.

At that moment, it possessed two main types of weapons: a rapid-fire energy turret and a powerful railgun.

The former was designed for dealing with enemies in the immediate vicinity. It could unleash a continuous stream of energy bolts, making it ideal for eliminating large numbers of weaker enemies or defending against anything that managed to approach the vessel.

The latter was meant for long-range combat. The railgun could eliminate targets located at extreme distances, allowing the Leviathan to strike enemies before they even got close. It took a long time to charge, but the damage it could inflict was devastating. A single shot from it was powerful enough to destroy heavily protected targets.

Later on, Jake figured he could develop additional types of weapons if necessary. The Leviathan’s ability to grow new structures meant that its arsenal could be expanded almost indefinitely as long as it had enough resources and time. But for now, he thought those two weapons would be more than enough to handle most situations he was likely to encounter.

Naturally, the Leviathan could also deploy combat units whenever needed. However, the process worked very differently from how the Grafter bio-ships deployed theirs. The Leviathan didn’t need to open a massive mouth or other openings in its hull to release them. Instead, deep within the vessel were special structures Jake had developed specifically for this purpose called transfer chambers.

Whenever he needed to deploy combat units, all he had to do was order them to enter those chambers. Once inside, the creatures simply merged with the Leviathan’s flesh, becoming temporarily part of the vessel itself. At the same moment, an equal amount of flesh was formed somewhere on the vessel’s outer hull. The newly created mass rapidly changed its shape, recreating the exact same creature that had entered the transfer chamber.

The process was very similar to how the Ravage Contamination spawned its monsters. However, unlike the Ravage Contamination, Jake had complete control over what creatures were deployed and when they appeared. The entire process of deploying combat units from the Leviathan took only seconds from the moment they entered the transfer chambers, allowing the vessel to rapidly send reinforcements wherever they were needed.

There were plenty of transfer chambers throughout the Leviathan, spread across different sections of the enormous vessel. This allowed multiple combat units to be deployed simultaneously, ensuring that the Leviathan could quickly create an army and send it into battle whenever necessary.

Naturally, every action the Leviathan performed, such as activating its thrusters, deploying combat units, growing weapons, firing them, and so on, consumed a considerable amount of mana from its own reserves. The larger and more complex the action, the more mana it required. A simple movement through the air consumed relatively little, but deploying large numbers of combat units or using its more powerful weapons could quickly drain its reserves.

That was why, deep within the vessel, Jake had built a powerful mana generator that constantly absorbed mana from nearby mana clouds. The generator worked continuously, replenishing the Leviathan’s reserves and ensuring that it could remain operational for long periods of time without needing frequent stops to recover. As long as there were mana clouds nearby, the vessel could maintain itself almost indefinitely.

The Leviathan itself didn’t consume any CP, which was a huge relief, as a creature that massive would otherwise have required an enormous number of command points. A single creature of this size consuming CP would have severely limited Jake’s ability to create and control other units. Fortunately, the Leviathan functioned more like a structure or a vessel rather than a regular creature.

The downside, as Jake learned a little later, was that while he had one Leviathan at his disposal, he couldn’t use the Incubator to create another alien egg. The system simply didn’t allow him to have more than one Leviathan at the same time. He had originally considered the possibility of creating multiple vessels, but after thinking about it, he figured that was probably unnecessary. The Leviathan was already enormous and powerful enough to serve as his main base, transport, and weapon. He was sure one would be more than enough.

The Leviathan was over 300 feet tall and about 600 feet long. That made it more than large enough to carry the Saurian Prowler aboard. Its massive interior provided plenty of space for the Kaiju, as well as room for additional Kaiju he might need in the future.

So once he had finished developing the vessel, he moved his Kaiju onto it. The Saurian Prowler was no longer in Dead City. From now on, it would travel with him, ready to be deployed wherever its strength was needed.

The bridge was located near the center of the vessel, at the upper half of its interior. From there, Jake could control the Leviathan while having a clear connection with the rest of the massive structure. Directly beneath the bridge was a huge cavern he had created specifically for the Saurian Prowler and any other Kaiju he might develop in the future.

The chamber was large enough to comfortably accommodate even the enormous body of the Saurian Prowler, with plenty of empty space left for future additions. Inside that cavern, he had developed a Behemoth Cavern, a specialized structure designed to create and support massive creatures. At that moment, a second Kaiju was already in the process of development inside it, slowly growing as it progressed toward its final form.

Since the Saurian Prowler was huge, it couldn’t use any of the transfer chambers. Those chambers were designed for regular combat units and creatures of a much smaller size. Trying to transfer something as large as a Kaiju through them was simply impossible.

Because of that, its deployment method was completely different. Whenever Jake needed to deploy his Kaiju, he could open a massive aperture at the bottom of the Kaiju chamber. The Leviathan’s flesh would separate, creating a passage large enough for the Saurian Prowler to emerge. Once the opening was created, the Kaiju could simply descend from the vessel and enter the battlefield below.

This method was somewhat slower than deploying regular combat units, but considering the Saurian Prowler’s size and power, Jake considered it perfectly acceptable.

So at that moment, he stood on the bridge of the vessel before the control panel. He extended one arm toward it, his palm facing forward, while issuing a mental command. Immediately, one of the knobs lining the top of the control panel began to move. It quickly unfurled, transforming into a long fleshy tendril that shot toward him.

At its tip was what looked like a round sucker lined with numerous small, hook-like teeth. For a human, the sight could definitely be very unsettling. But Jake without hesitation allowed the tendril to attach itself to the palm of his hand.

The moment it connected, Jake immediately felt a connection with the Leviathan. A flood of new sensations washed over him as his consciousness expanded beyond the limits of his own body. He could suddenly feel the massive vessel around him, sensing its movements and countless internal systems as if they were parts of his own body.

He could now see everything outside the vessel. The surrounding landscape appeared before him from every angle, allowing him to observe the world around the Leviathan without needing any external cameras or windows. The entire sky and ground beneath the vessel became visible to him at the same time.

At another mental command, a second tube unfurled from the control panel and connected to his body. Another connection formed, granting him direct control over the vessel’s propulsion and flight systems. He could feel the Leviathan’s powerful thrusters and the flow of mana through its systems.

Having chosen a direction, he wasted no time activating the thrusters. The Leviathan responded instantly. The massive vessel began gliding through the sky, moving over the Scarlands and gradually accelerating. Despite its enormous size, its movement was surprisingly smooth and silent.

Jake stood there, connected to his creation, watching the Scarlands stretch out before him. It was finally time to explore new regions and discover what had happened in the world during his absence while he had been trapped in the Dark Void.