The intruder was one of my kin, the same as me, and a higher species that had evolved along a far more powerful route at that.
'.......'
I examined my kin's appearance closely.
She looked far more vicious than I did.
She was the same in being made up of 3 parts, head, body and legs, but her tentacles were abnormally long and their surface was covered all over in suckers.
The suckers had countless blade-like protrusions sprouting along their rims, built so that they sucked in with the suction pad and drove teeth in at the same time.
Not only that, at the tips of her tentacles, part of the shell that had degenerated into her body pierced through the skin and jutted out like a horn, so that she looked as if she were carrying ten awls around.
On her head were fins shaped like a bat's wings, and their ends hung down long, as far as between her body and legs, so that she seemed to be wearing a dress skirt.
'In a word, it means she looks scary as hell.'
The Blade-Tooth Madam, alias Blade Madam, came this way.
...CRUNCH! ...CRUNCH! ...CRUNCH!
She stabbed the sea urchins I had laid out with the awls at her tentacle tips and tore them to death just like that.
MUNCH! MUNCH! MUNCH! MUNCH!
Then, in the blink of an eye, she scraped out and ate every last bit of the innards inside the sea urchins' shells.
'The sea urchins I went to such trouble to scout....... That rotten bastard.'
The employees who had guarded my hideout until now had been wiped out all at once, so as their boss I could not go without taking revenge.
'Let me see. That one is the ultimate attack meta, and I'm a defense meta of sorts. A showdown between a good spear and a usable shield, is it?'
When I evolved from the Infant Form to the Juvenile Form, I chose my present form out of 4 options.
A Blade-Tooth Madam gains tremendous attack power, but in exchange it cannot secure any vision at all, so its early survival rate is low.
But that individual before my eyes had apparently been quite lucky, surviving all along even after evolving into a Blade-Tooth Madam and even achieving a rise in Combat Power.
Normally I would have avoided a fight to the death with such a daunting enemy if I could, but.
'I can't just have the hideout I worked so hard to build taken from me for nothing.'
I burst out of the hideout at once and ambushed the Blade Madam.
'You punk! If you want my hideout, pay the key money and buy it! Or at least give me moving costs!'
The Blade Madam answered my surprise appearance at once.
BABABABABAM!
The mimic shell I had brought out as a shield was hit by the Blade Madam's tentacles and smashed to pieces.
WHIIIIIIIIIRR!
The suckers on the Madam's tentacles began to move.
The blade teeth sprouting along the suckers' rims spun and ground the mimic's shell into bone powder.
BA-BAM!
The sea urchin spines caught up in the current the blades made were also broken into bits and turned to powder.
'Insane. What kind of attack power......?'
Aghast, I backed away.
Granted, the mimic's shell was old and weakened, but it was not so weak as to break that easily.
Most likely my 'Ironclad Skin' trait, taken from the mimic, would not hold out long before that one's blade tentacles either.
'Then how about this?!'
I spouted a stream of ink at the Blade Madam.
[......!?]
The Madam looked a little flustered by the baptism of sticky ink thrown at her face.
'The Skull-Head Octopus's ink is as sticky as instant glue, you know.'
Taking the opening while the Blade Madam's vision was blocked, I swung a tentacle at her.
WHA-CK!
It felt like pounding a thick slab of pork belly with a baseball bat.
The Blade Madam staggered backward.
She swung her blade tentacles, spinning at high speed, every which way.
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! GRRRRRRRIND!
It was like a blind madman swinging a chainsaw around in all directions.
Having got clear of that terrifying rampage, I kept spouting ink at the Blade Madam.
SPRAY! SPRAY! SPLA-T!
Dark and sticky.
A radius of a dozen-odd meters around the Blade Madam was dyed black all over.
In a darkness where you could not see an inch ahead, only the sound of rock being broken up fine rang out.
GRRRRRRRRRIND!
I scooped up mud, sand and gravel from the floor and poured them over the Blade Madam.
The Blade Madam, seeing nothing, slashed away like mad.
KA-BOOM! CRRRRRUNCH! GRRRRRIND!
Mud and rock debris were being ground away by the saw blades spinning at high speed.
Just then.
CLA-NK!
The Blade Madam's high-speed grinding suddenly stopped dead.
[!?]
She looked bewildered, not knowing why her tentacles would not do their job.
But I had known all along that this would happen.
'With that much sludge caught in your saw blades, what were you doing, not even cleaning them?'
Mud and rock debris were packed into every gap between the blades of the Blade Madam's tentacles.
That foreign matter, because of my sticky ink, clung fast to the saw blades and blocked their rotation.
To use a comparison, it was as if you were cutting wood with a chainsaw and oil grime had caked thick in every gap between the teeth, with dirt and sawdust clumped thick on top, until the saw's chain had stopped completely.
On top of that.
[Kiik!?]
She seemed somehow short of breath.
Naturally.
'Because I planted deadly poison and parasites when I landed that first blow.'
The Blade Madam had poison resistance, so the deadly poison did not work all that well, but she had no immunity to parasites.
Lung fluke: Puts the host into a state of respiratory distress. Reduces Combat Power by 1 per second and slows its movement speed.
The lung flukes I had planted had entered the Blade Madam's body and were causing respiratory distress.
[Kugh! Kik— Ugggggh......]
The Blade Madam curled up the tips of her tentacles in agony.
At that very moment, I gathered my ten tentacle tips before the Blade Madam's eyes.
'This is the highlight!'
The final blow.
Like high beams blazing on a highway in the dead of night, my powerful blinding glare burst forth.
FLA-SH!
The light I gave off with all my strength burned the Blade Madam's two eyes, grown used to the dark, white.
[Gu-eeeeeek!]
The Blade Madam, blinded in an instant, began to thrash about.
But her blades were already out of operation because of the ink and sand, and her body, too, was weakened by poison and parasites.
In that situation, there was no way she could withstand my attack.
I rolled my tentacles up into the shape of fists and coated them in Ironclad Skin.
CRRRACKLE—
A 10-hit string of one-two punches, thrown with boxing gloves dyed black.
BAM! WHAM! BAM! BAM! WHA-CK!
Under my barrage of fists, the Blade Madam staggered like a pitcher who had just given up a home run.
Naturally. Because she was specialized in attack alone and had no talent whatsoever for defense.
-<Kraken 'Juvenile Form': Blade-Tooth Madam>
-Combat Power: 3,987 [-1,334]
Her Combat Power had fallen below mine.
At this rate, I could hunt the Blade Madam down smoothly.
BAM! WHAM! WHACK! CRACK!
The Blade Madam tried to get her saw blades running again, but the dirt and sand, mixed with my ink and set hard, would not come off easily.
'Now, this is the end!'
I raised my fist.
I meant to finish the Blade Madam off completely with a last blow.
WHO-OSH!
My fist flew at the Blade Madam's face.
I did not doubt for a moment that I could finish the Blade Madam with this one hit.
......At that very moment.
WHACK!
My fist was blocked by something.
'Huh?'
I could not help but open both eyes wide.
A short, thick tentacle had stretched out from the side and was blocking my fist.
A pitch-black tentacle coated in solid ironclad scales.
That thick, stout tentacle, packed full of muscle, was not the Blade Madam's.
I followed the tentacle with my gaze.
There, a kin that looked a good two times my size was looking down at me.
In appearance he was like a big jellyfish, and his body was wrapped round in heavy black armor.
The translucent body showing here and there between the black scales looked as bouncy as jelly.
I recognized what it was at once.
-<Kraken 'Juvenile Form': Ironclad-Scale Bouncy Jelly>
-The juvenile form of some cephalopod.
It has taken on a fair shape, but it is still weak and immature.
Thick round shields are attached to the tip of each of its ten tentacles, so it looks extremely hard.
-Combat Power: 5,203
-Traits: <Absorption>, <Cannibalism>, <Basic Poison Resistance>, <Ironclad Skin>, <Impregnable Fortress>, <Double Yolk>
I had seen it among the options.
Another higher species I could have evolved into.
An evolution route that goes all in on defense alone, unlike the Blade Madam, which goes all in on attack alone.
'Wait, where did this punk show up from without a sound?'
I could not help but be aghast at the sight of the jellyfish armed in heavy armor.
'Is he trying to snatch away the Blade Madam I've as good as caught?'
If so, it could not be helped.
My only choice would be to bolt while he was busy devouring the Blade Madam.
......But the situation was flowing in a far worse direction than I had expected.
THU-NK!
The Ironclad Scale stood in front of the Blade Madam, blocking the way.
A movement as if to protect a companion.
The Blade Madam slowly rose, supported by the Ironclad Scale.
The two looked to be in a perfect relationship of mutual cooperation.
I was astonished once more.
'No way. By the lore, there shouldn't be any sibling affection between a kraken's young?'
A kraken is a monster.
A kraken's young are monsters too.
Monsters basically have no such thing as a sense of fellowship at all.
'So why are a kraken's young cooperating with each other? And ones that evolved along different routes at that...... Ah!'
In that instant, I noticed one peculiar thing.
The Blade Madam and the Ironclad Skin before my eyes.
They had one trait that other kin did not.
-<Trait: Double Yolk>
-Flesh and blood born of one egg share life and death.
Those two...... it looks like they're single-egg twins.