Chapter 60: The Apex Harvest

The physical collision between the two localized anomalies was a catastrophic, grinding stalemate of raw, unadulterated mass.

Ren drove his ten-inch, pitch-black Rending Claws completely to the hilt inside the Citadel Apex’s reinforced chest cavity. The twelve-hundred-pound, heavily mutated quadruped shrieked—a deafening, metallic sound that vibrated violently against the hundreds of glass containment tubes lining the frozen vault. The beast did not retreat from the horrific puncture wound. Its feral, starving brain lacked the capacity for self-preservation. It simply pushed harder.

The heavy, depleted-uranium tank plates bolted to the monster’s shoulders slammed repeatedly against Ren’s chest. The blunt-force trauma was immense.

Ren’s heavy combat boots lost their grip on the ice-slicked steel floor. He was physically shoved backward, his heavy rubber soles hydroplaning over the freezing cryogenic fluid. The massive beast bore down on him, its thick, multi-jointed front claws sweeping over his broad shoulders and digging frantically into his back.

The heavy bone-scythes of the Level 20 boss screeched violently against Ren’s Chitin Shell.

The dense, grey armor plates covering his spine sparked and fractured under the immense pressure. For the first time since his evolution, the defensive layer actually buckled. Jagged fissures spider-webbed across his back, and thick, hot drops of his own dark blood began to well up from the micro-fractures, instantly vaporizing into white steam in the freezing air of the vault.

Ren completely ignored the agonizing, tearing pain.

He tightened his calloused grip around the thick, mutated sternum buried deep inside the beast’s chest. The sapphire veins crawling up his thick neck flared into a blinding, furious blue light. He anchored his boots against the shattered, elevated rim of the creature’s broken containment tank, entirely halting their backward slide.

The Apex thrashed wildly. Its massive, fleshy sensory cluster—a horrific mass of pale, blind pits and jagged mandibles—snapped forward, attempting to bite directly through Ren’s collarbone.

Ren didn’t try to pull his trapped arm free to block.

He tilted his head back, his glowing violet eyes locking onto the thick, glowing green surgical tubes pumping the continuous, pressurized stream of liquid mana directly into the beast’s exposed spine.

He gathered the highly volatile, concentrated enzymes pooling deep within his mutated throat.

[Skill Activated: Corrosive Saliva]

Ren spat a massive, viscous glob of glowing green acid directly point-blank into the beast’s fleshy neck cluster and the exposed surgical conduits.

The chemical reaction was instant and absolutely devastating.

The highly concentrated stomach acid of the Abyssal Glutton clung to the soft, mutated flesh and the thick plastic tubing. It rapidly ate through the dense molecular bonds with an aggressive, deafening hiss. A thick, billowing cloud of acrid white smoke erupted between them, smelling sharply of vaporized plastic, boiling black blood, and toxic sulfur.

The thick surgical tubes melted completely in under two seconds.

The pressurized stream of liquid mana ruptured, spraying violently across the frozen steel floor. Deprived of its artificial energy feed, the Citadel Apex seized. Its massive, heavily armored body convulsed, the mandibles on its face dissolving into a bubbling, toxic grey slurry.

The beast’s heavy claws went entirely slack, slipping off Ren’s bleeding back.

Ren did not give the monster a microsecond to recover.

He gripped the beast’s internal skeletal structure with his embedded talons and channeled the absolute, raw kinetic torque of his Level 18 Strength directly into his right shoulder. He twisted his wrist violently, completely shattering the ribcage, and ripped his arm backward in a massive, horizontal arc.

He tore the beast’s entire chest cavity completely open.

Thick, freezing black blood geysered over his bare torso. He pulled his hand free, dragging the monster’s massive, artificial core out into the freezing air.

The core was a horrific, jagged amalgamation of three different high-tier crystals, surgically fused together with thick copper wiring and metal brackets. It pulsed with a violent, unstable, multi-colored bioluminescence.

The twelve-hundred-pound Citadel Apex collapsed heavily to the slick steel floor, its heavy depleted-uranium plates clattering loudly against the ice. Its ruined limbs twitched twice before its biological functions permanently ceased.

[Target Dead: Project Chimera – Citadel Apex (Lvl 20)] [Experience Gained: 14,000] [Level Up!] [You are now Level 19.]

The systemic rush of raw, unrefined mana flooded Ren’s vascular system. The localized biological furnace in his chest flared violently, the extreme heat radiating outward and instantly cauterizing the deep, jagged fractures in his Chitin Shell. The intense pain in his back vanished, replaced by the heavy, settling density of new bone mass and hyper-condensed muscle fiber.

Ren stood over the massive, butchered carcass. He looked at the jagged, fused core in his blood-soaked hand.

He crushed the massive crystal between his heavy molars. The sharp glass and copper wiring simply pulverized against the cast-iron density of his teeth.

[Gluttony Activated.] [Consumed: Artificial Chimera Core (Lvl 20)] [Strength +3] [Vitality +2]

The energy return was heavy, tasting of bitter ozone and industrial chemicals, but it was massive. His Level 19 biology aggressively assimilated the stats, his broad shoulders expanding slightly, the grey armor plates on his forearms thickening into heavy, jagged ridges.

The immediate threat was permanently neutralized.

The cavernous, freezing vault fell entirely silent, broken only by the low, ambient hum of the remaining cryogenic containment tubes.

Chloe stepped slowly out of the heavy iron freight elevator.

She kept her combat boots planted carefully on the dry sections of the steel plating, avoiding the massive, pooling lake of freezing black blood and cryogenic fluid. She lowered the FN P90 submachine gun, the heavy ballistic nylon of her Level III-A plate carrier weighing heavily on her exhausted shoulders.

She stared at the massive, twelve-hundred-pound carcass of the armored beast, her mind struggling to comprehend the sheer scale of the violence. The monster was wearing Old World tank armor, and Ren had simply melted its face and ripped its heart out.

“Is it over?” Chloe whispered, her breath clouding thickly in the freezing air. She looked around the massive subterranean cathedral, her eyes wide as she took in the staggering, kaleidoscopic light of the hundreds of suspended cores.

“The guards are dead,” Ren stated, his voice a low, flat rumble. He wiped the thick black blood off his chin with the back of his armored forearm.

He turned away from the dead Chimera. His glowing violet eyes swept the massive, towering walls of the vault.

Two hundred high-tier monster cores.

They were perfectly preserved, heavily concentrated, and completely undefended. The Old World military had spent eight months sending entire heavily armed battalions out into the wasteland to hunt, butcher, and harvest the most lethal leviathans on the continent, all to lock the spoils inside this freezing room.

The Gluttony skill in his chest did not just roar. It reached absolute, critical mass.

Ren walked toward the closest containment tube.

Inside the heavy glass cylinder, suspended in the pale blue fluid, was a massive, jagged crimson crystal pulsing with intense thermal energy.

Ren did not look for a control panel to drain the tank. He did not search for an access hatch.

He simply drew his right fist back and drove it directly into the center of the heavy, reinforced glass.

The thick cylinder shattered instantly. Hundreds of gallons of freezing cryogenic fluid violently washed over his combat boots. He reached into the rushing liquid, grabbed the massive crimson core, and crushed it in his jaw.

[Gluttony Activated.] [Consumed: Magma-Crawler Core (Lvl 14)] [Strength +1]

He moved to the next tube.

He shattered the glass with a brutal backhand, entirely ignoring the jagged shards bouncing off his Iron Skin. He ripped a smooth, deep purple orb from the freezing fluid and consumed it.

[Gluttony Activated.] [Consumed: Void-Stalker Core (Lvl 15)] [Agility +1]

The process was not a careful extraction. It was a rapid, violent, systematic gluttony.

The deafening sound of shattering glass echoed relentlessly through the massive vault. Tube after tube exploded under his heavy fists, flooding the entire steel floor with thousands of gallons of pale blue liquid. Ren moved down the massive wall with terrifying, mechanical efficiency. He didn’t chew. He didn’t savor the distinct, localized mana signatures. He just consumed.

Chloe stood frozen near the elevator, completely paralyzed by the sheer, unadulterated display of apex consumption.

She watched the glowing, violet-eyed monster wade through the knee-deep cryogenic fluid, shattering the impenetrable military containment units as easily as fragile crystal glasses. With every core he consumed, the massive, pulsing sapphire veins on his body grew brighter, casting a fierce, blinding aura that completely illuminated the dark corners of the subterranean room. The air pressure in the vault began to shift violently, the ambient mana reacting to the massive, localized singularity growing inside his chest.

He was eating the entire Old World arsenal.

[Level Up!] [You are now Level 20.]

The System prompts flashed rapidly across his retinas, entirely ignored in the blinding frenzy of the harvest.

Ren steps aggressively to the next massive row of illuminated containment tubes, his bare, hyper-muscular back corded with absolute tension, driving his blood-soaked fists through the reinforced glass, entirely committed to completely draining the Citadel of its hoarded power before he returns to the surface.

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