The two figures crept forward, each step thudding against the stone?hard ground. They inched ahead, navigating the uneven floor littered with bumps and hollows, wary of a single misstep. As they advanced, weapons at the ready, their eyes flicked toward every shadow. Every surface was coated in a black, obsidian-like material, and the only light came from the entrance they’d just stepped through.

  Unseen above them, what looked like a harmless lump stirred, revealing itself as more than just a strange design element of the interior. It uncurled like a serpent waking from slumber, stretching to its full length. The black tendril swayed lazily at first before angling toward the humans. At its tip, a single glistening eye emerged, the iris narrowing in a keen, predatory focus.

  The Oculus Vine, a new type of creature he had developed a couple of days earlier, resembled a fleshy, organic cable. About three feet in length, it was flexible yet sturdy, capable of extending and curling like a serpent. At its tip bloomed an organic lens surrounded by robust sensory fronds. Unlike a human eye, the Oculus Vine’s gaze could stretch and twist at unnatural angles, providing a panoramic view of its surroundings.

  The surface of the vine was covered in small ridges, pulsing faintly with magical energy. The Oculus Vine didn’t just see. It could detect subtle vibrations in the air, thermal differences, and even microscopic particles, making it a remarkably useful instrument for detection and surveillance. When threatened, its eye could snap shut, shielded by chitin-like plates, and retract into the mass of corruption from which it grew.

  Most of the time, the Oculus Vine remained dormant, curled in on itself with its single eye closed, resembling nothing more than a harmless lump. When it sensed unfamiliar vibrations or other disturbances from an intruder, it would unfurl and open its eye to monitor their movements. Once it confirmed the presence of an uninvited visitor, it also telepathically shared the information with all other creatures in the lair and also sent Jake a message in the same telepathic way.

  After developing this useful creature, Jake had placed several of them throughout his lair in strategic locations. Before now, he could only connect to his Mana Core when he wanted to see what was happening in his lair. The Mana Core provided him with a 360-degree view, but it couldn’t see through walls. This meant that he could see only the chamber housing the Mana Core, with no way of knowing what was happening in the other chambers on this floor or on the others. But now, with oculus vines strategically placed in every corridor and room, nothing within the lair could escape his watchful gaze.

  The two intruders never looked up, failing to notice the oculus vine watching them from above. Their attention was fixed on the dimly lit chamber, unaware that their every move was being observed by the creator of this horrible place through the oculus vine above them.

  It was the very first time that humans had dared to venture into his main lair. He recalled telling Catalina to spread the word to stay away from his lairs during their conversation while he was piloting the helicopter to the Los Demonios main base. She must have done so because survivors seemed to heed his warning and had kept their distance from his lairs.

  Until now.

  Jake couldn’t help but wonder what had changed. Why would these two humans dare to intrude on his lair? Had the survivors finally decided to make a move against him? He had always known that the humans he protected from Los Demonios would eventually turn on him once the bandit organization was gone, but he hadn’t expected that day to arrive so quickly. On the other hand, if that was the case, why hadn’t they come in force, armed with far more powerful weapons and equipment than what these two humans carried?

  Keeping watch as the two humans gradually moved across the first floor of his lair, Jake attempted to use Mind Reader on them. And it worked. It was the first time anyone had entered his main lair, and therefore the first time he’d used this ability while controlling an oculus vine, so he hadn’t been sure if it would work. But it did, which was great.

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  He explored the two humans’ memories and learned their names were Noah and Victor. He learned their reason for trespassing was nothing more than reckless arrogance, a stupid attempt to prove themselves. He also found that they had killed two of his arachnids gathering resources before coming to his lair. Additionally, he learned that both men, as well as their two companions waiting in the car, hailed from Base Samantha.

  Over the past several days, Jake had been keeping tabs on the human strongholds, gauging both their activities and the prevailing moods within. There were three in total: Catalina commanded one, Melissa led another, and the newest, built only recently, was under Samantha’s control. Each leader commanded her own devoted forces, though Samantha’s ranks were largely made up of former resistance fighters, men and women who had once served under Samantha back when the main base of Los Demonios still existed.

  Jake knew that Catalina was the only leader who remained loyal to him. Melissa, however, was on the fence, unsure whether she should continue to see him as an ally or start viewing him as a potential enemy. She was friends with Catalina, and Catalina had been trying to convince her that as long as they didn’t encroach on Jake’s territory, they had no reason to fear him. While Melissa wanted to believe her friend and was making an effort not to do anything stupid, she still didn’t trust Jake and suspected he might turn on them without any provocation.

  As for Samantha, she hated him and wasn’t shy about showing it. Under her influence, her people shared the same sentiment. She still couldn’t forgive him for refusing to let her claim the Los Demonios main base for herself and her followers. Her dislike of him shifted to pure hatred, fueled by fear, when she returned to the city and discovered he had massive lairs where he was building an army of powerful monsters. Although he did help her destroy Los Demonios and liberate her people, her gratitude was short-lived, giving way to mistrust and open hostility.

  However, Samantha’s stronghold was barely a few days old, still fragile and far less developed than the fortified bases of Catalina and Melissa. She knew she wasn’t ready to wage open war against him, and if he attacked, he could easily obliterate her base. Everyone understood that reality, and Jake most of all. Even if Catalina and Melissa sided with Samantha, their combined strength would still fall short. Los Demonios had once been far stronger than anything the three of them could muster now, so Jake was certain he could crush them in a single day if he chose to.

  Yet he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. For all his power, he had little desire to turn on those he still thought of as allies. After all, he knew he could coexist with humans. If they left him alone, he would have no reason to turn against them. To develop his lairs, he only needed mana, biomass, and genetic materials. Collecting mana was fairly easy, while genetic materials could only be harvested from elite mutants. Biomass could be collected from both humans and mutants, but taking it from humans offered him no advantages. Therefore, there was no reason to hunt humans instead of mutants for that resource.

  In short, if humans didn’t trouble him, he had no interest in troubling them. That had been his stance toward Los Demonios when they first arrived in the city, and it remained unchanged toward the human factions now in power.

  Not being powerful enough to take him on might be just one of the reasons Samantha hadn’t attacked him yet. Another was the emergence of a far more unsettling danger. With Los Demonios gone, a new menace had begun to rise, one lacking any shred of intelligence. Known as the Ravage Contamination, it was a mindless plague sweeping through the city at alarming speed. Nobody knew why it had appeared or how to destroy it or even how to stop it from spreading.

  So while Samantha had clearly been intending to make her move on him eventually, those plans had to be postponed until the Ravage Contamination was resolved. This issue was far more pressing. If the task wasn’t completed, going to war with him would be pointless, because soon, the ravagespawn would overrun the entire city.

  Jake continued to monitor the two humans, Victor and Noah, as they advanced deeper into the first floor of his lair. They had no idea that something deadly was silently drawing near. When Jake upgraded his Mana Core to Rank VII, a structure called the Trap Constructor had become available. Over the past several days, he had been experimenting with it, working to develop traps of his own design. His first several attempts failed, but eventually, he succeeded in creating an effective trap that worked flawlessly.

  And neither Noah nor Victor had the slightest clue that they were about to walk straight into that deadly trap.

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