" I am going to choose The Brood-master '' Ethan stated he had a plan deep in his mind and he couldn't let go of it. He felt that this was the right choice.
Before that screen went away another one popped up. "Error! Please choose your mutation upgrades before choosing an evolution as it could affect choices as well as the power of your abilities after your evolution."
Ethan had to choose upgrades for his webbing, his legs and his mandibles. For the webbing an upgrade list showed up, there was an extensive upgrade list. "Wow, you can do some crazy things with webbing. Whipping webbing... you can make a central brain for your web and the edges of the web whip at prey and drag them into the web. Or self repairing web, acid webbing, tranq webs, and the list goes on and on. I need to think of what to use the webs for and what I want to go for in the future. I want them to catch prey and hold them until I can get there. I am going for the whipping web. "
Once Ethan made his choice he then got another screen for the legs once again Ethan saw a massive screen of choices. " I thought the legs option would be easier to choose as it's kind of a mundane option. But I was wrong, you can do so much with this. You can actually do a lot. From barbs on the legs to create a saw-blade kind of action, making them bulkier and more numerous able to regrow themselves? You can do it all, again I have to think about what I want from my legs.... I am going to go with regeneration legs."
Then lastly I have to choose my mandibles. Another screen, more options. As Ethan was scanning the list of options for his mandibles he found one that really was too good to be true " Vampire mandibles... leach health with each hit and kill.... That could be so broken... done. That's mine!" Ethan having made his choice was suddenly enveloped in a ball of light as a cocoon wrapped around him and then he felt his body shifting and changing and growing. Then Ethan went unconscious.
Ethan woke up and looked around and he realized that he was not alone, a shadow-like entity was standing before him. " Ah, good you are awake. I was wondering if I had made a mistake sending you here, but since you're up you obviously are living through your first evolution." it said with a smirk. "Most do not, I am glad to see that you have otherwise I would have to outsource, And I hate doing that."
Ethan just stared at him blankly "and after a few moments spoke up " Wait, that could have killed me? What the hell is the point in that!? All this time and effort only for me to die like that?!" Ethan felt his temper rising "Well, not all beings are created equal, it's the strong ruling over the weak. There are no participation trophies here, you either live and win or become food for something else. Those are the breaks." The Shadow being said with a way too big white smile stretching across his face. "That being said, I just wanted to congratulate you on making it this far. This is where the real fun begins!" The Shadow said while cackling in a deep and foreboding voice that got louder and louder.
Then Ethan woke up... again, this time for real. He looked around and noticed that he can actually see a little bit better now and when he looks at his surroundings he noticed that he is a hell of a lot bigger compared to before when he was 3 meters wide and 4 meters long... he now was a whopping 15 meters wide and 10 meters long.
All around him were the remnants of the cocoon that he was in, if you looked at Ethan now he had a purplish tinge to him and small glowing holes all over the back of his body that pulsed with a purple energy. Just as he was getting acclimated to his new body information started to flow into his head and he now could use the ability that was the name sake of the Brood-Master and that was Brood Swarm. " Well, no time like the present!" Ethan thought as he activated his ability The holes lit up with a deep purple light and suddenly eggs started spewing out of them. They looked like the size of golf-balls and there were 40 of them laying on the ground. Soon after they landed they hatched and he could see mini versions of himself laying all around him. " Well this is trippy, I didn't expect them to look like me."
Ethan then realized that he could control them with his thoughts and if he needed to he could actually talk to them as well. " They were not very smart but they could understand direct commands." Ethan thought as he looked at them performing little tricks as he was testing his ability.
"Alright, let's try these guys out while hunting." Ethan moved deeper into the forest and trees cracked and broke due to his bulk with creaking noises and crashes as he moved through the forest basically ringing the dinner bell for any would-be predators.
Soon enough, Ethan had his first taker. What looked to be a giant ape with fangs and his hair was constantly moving like the wind was centered around it and only it. " What the hell is that?..." Ethan said as the ape leaped towards him and belched a giant wind ball at him that started shredding the surroundings. Ethan jumped up over to the side evading it... barely. Then Ethan commanded his 40 minions to swarm the ape.
They latched on like ticks and began biting and ripping into it. Which pissed it off even more. The ape unleashed a whirlwind from its body that launched everything away from it.. Sending the minions flying away, some of them flying into trees and smashing into bits.... As soon as some died, more eggs popped out of Ethan and they were replaced almost instantly.
Seeing this and knowing that a drawn out fight was not in its favor the ape jumped over Ethan and was about to launch a wind blast point blank into Ethan
At least that's what the ape thought was going to happen.. but it was knocked to the side as a bunch of the swarm-lings wrapped around it rapidly and wrapped it up in webbing so that it landed in a nice bundle. "Ah thanks guys! You brought me a Capri sun!" Ethan said as he bounded over to the ape and dug into it beginning to drain it. "Dig in y'all it's good!" The swarm-lings obliged and after a minute amount of struggling and whimpering the ape died. *ding* "You have absorbed 600 mutogene from killing an evolved monster!" Ethan paused. "That's an awful lot for how little I ate, my swarm-lings ate a lot too." Gladys chimed in " that's because they are an extension of you. When they eat anything it goes to you."
Ethan stopped for a second and pondered this " so this evolution path is even more useful than I thought!"
With that he dug himself a burrow and layered it with webs and had the swarm-lings bury themselves around the entrance as well.
"I need some time to go over my stats and make some mutation choices, especially considering it's life and death here." With that Ethan started going through the menu.