The morning sun filtered through the canopy, brightening the forest floor and revealing the massive heights of the Collum trees. Their heights were several times taller than ours, and I was a 150-meter-tall Kaiju. It was humbling, in a way. Even as apex predators capable of leveling outposts, the Wild Lands still managed to make us feel small.

  Samsara yawned, her upper body stretching. Since she was fused to my lower back, I felt the pull of her muscles against mine.

  "I'm starving," she groaned, rubbing her eyes. "Those humans yesterday were filling, but it’s like I didn’t even eat them at all."

  "We need a Kaiju," I said, scanning the underbrush for any small snacks. My hearing picked up nothing. We weren’t close to any food yet. "Something with a lot of meat. Of course, we’ll save the Core for Aisling.”

  We stomped through the vegetation. My feet crushed flora that would have been large to humans, leaving deep craters of dirt in the ground. My black ink repelled the dirt, keeping my soles clean. We weren't trying to be stealthy yet. Since our hearing was excellent, we would be aware of any potential threats or prey nearby. Therefore, it was best to conserve mana by not using [Color Camouflage II].

  Our rampage from yesterday had brought us to 3,100 souls, up from 2,945. We hoped to gain some extra souls to reach our third Kaiju evolution.

  After a few minutes, I smelled something.

  "Do you smell that?" I asked, twitching my nose.

  Samsara stopped. Her head, along with her hair snakes, hissed. They all smelled the same scent.

  "It smells like… freshly baked cookies?" she asked, confusion coloring her tone. She hadn’t had cookies in over 10 years. Whatever was making this smell clearly wasn’t cookies. We weren’t anywhere near a human city or town.

  "That definitely smells like freshly baked cookies," I said. My stomach let out a rumble that vibrated through my core and into Samsara’s back. "The sweet kind. With chocolate chips."

  Clearly, this was some kind of monster girl. Multiple monster girls. I activated [Color Camouflage II], turning us invisible.

  I pivoted, following the delicious, sugary scent trailing through the humid air. The smell of mulch and damp earth vanished, replaced by a warm, inviting aroma that made my mouth water. We pushed through a thicket of ferns that brushed against my feet. The trees here were slightly less dense, allowing shafts of sunlight to illuminate a clearing ahead.

  "There," I telepathically told Samsara.

  A group of smaller trees was up ahead, no taller than my thigh. In the branches of the small trees surrounding the clearing, dozens of figures swung and chattered. They were small humanoid figures covered in light brown fur. Long, prehensile tails curled around the thick branches, anchoring them as they leaped from tree to tree. They had pale, feminine faces. However, unlike normal humans, they had button noses and wide, playful eyes.

  Monkey girls. I could tell based on their tails. And they were all feral since they weren’t wearing any clothes. Plus, whatever sounds they made didn’t sound like words—just random gibberish.

  "They look… cute," Samsara said, hesitating.

  "They look like snacks," I corrected her. "And there's a whole buffet of them."

  I focused my mana. [Color Camouflage II].

  "Let's eat," I said internally.

  We crept forward. My massive footsteps shook the earth. The monkey girls panicked, looking around. Even though my footsteps left large craters, the monkey girls remained oblivious. Some of them growled, looking for threats. A few of their eyes passed by me, ignorant of the predator that was stalking up on them.

  I reached out with my hair tentacles. They snaked through the air, invisible limbs approaching the unsuspecting prey. Samsara did the same, her three hair snakes extending and dashing through the air.

  I targeted a cluster of three monkey girls taking watch on a low branch. My tentacles lashed out, wrapping tight around their waists.

  Squeak!

  I internally giggled at the noise they made.

  Their eyes went wide as they were suddenly yanked into the air by an unseen force. Before they could even scream, I pulled two of them toward my maw.

  Crunch.

  My teeth sank into them. An explosion of warm, gooey sweetness filled my mouth. It was just like a chocolate chip cookie. As my teeth pulverized their bodies, their blood flowed throughout my mouth. It tasted like milk. Huh. Milk and chocolate chip cookies.

  "Holy shit," I said, chewing blissfully.

  Samsara’s invisible snakes snagged two of them. Their fur and skin tasted like chocolate chip cookies. The snakes each bit into them as the monkey girls squirmed in their jaws. The struggles came to a stop, and each snake swallowed their sweet-tasting prey.

  "Whoa," she said, excitement bubbling inside of her. "They taste so good. I want more."

  "Right?" I swallowed, savoring the aftertaste. "Feel free to catch more. Or do you want me to feed your snakes some monkey girls?"

  “Sure,” Samsara said. “I like it when you feed my snakes.”

  “A batch of prey tasting like chocolate chip cookies coming right up,” I gleefully announced in her head.

  "This is the best breakfast ever," Samsara cheered as my tentacles fed her three hair snakes. Another monkey girl went into my mouth. And my other free tentacles grabbed more of the monkey girls.

  The clearing erupted into chaos. The remaining monkey girls screeched, their cute faces twisting in panic as they watched their sisters disappear into thin air. They scrambled up the trees, using their tails to swing wildly to higher branches. Luckily for us, the small trees that were part of their homes weren’t very tall, allowing me to keep picking them off one by one.

  I grabbed one mid-leap, tossing her into my mouth.

  The sweet crunch of the monkey girl filled my mouth, the taste of chocolate chips exploding across my tongue. I swallowed the warm, milky blood, barely pausing before sending my tentacles back out into the chaos.

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  The clearing was a frenzy of motion. The monkey girls, realizing that they couldn’t ascend any further, began leaping towards the ground. They were fast, but I was quicker. My tentacles snatched them, feeding them to both my mouth and Samsara’s hair snakes.

  I decided to try something new. I swept my tentacles in wide arcs, snatching three at once. They squirmed against my grip, their little paws batting harmlessly against my skin. I brought them to my mouth in a cluster. Chomp.

  Oh, fuck yes. The sugar rush hit my brain instantly, mixing with the adrenaline of the hunt.

  We decimated the population in minutes. The number of survivors dwindled and dwindled.

  Samsara sighed, the satisfaction radiating from her mind into mine. Her hair snakes flicked their tongues, scanning the air for any more monster girls. They smelled nothing. We devoured everything.

  I patted my stomach.

  It was good to get a nice breakfast. I wiped a stray bit of milky blood from my chin, reflecting on how easy that was. Back when I was just a small squid girl, hunting was an ordeal. I had to be meticulous. I had to stalk solitary prey for hours, waiting for them to turn a corner or enter a dark alley. If I attacked a group? I’d be dead. I’d be overwhelmed, torn apart, and probably eaten myself.

  Now? Now I walked into a horde of dozens and treated it like a buffet.

  [Color Camouflage] used to be so tedious. If I moved too fast, the colors would blur, giving me away. I had to move in slow motion, matching the green flora or the brown wood perfectly. But [Color Camouflage II]? It was flawless. I didn’t have to worry about any of the downsides of [Color Camouflage].

  "We're unstoppable," I thought, mostly to myself, but Samsara felt the surge of pride.

  "Don't get cocky," she murmured, though I could feel her own sense of power humming in the back of her mind. "We still need a Kaiju. Snacks are great, but they won't help us evolve or fix Aisling."

  "Buzzkill," I teased. "But you're right. Let's go find the main course."

  We continued trekking through the Wild Lands. The sun climbed higher, but as we pushed deeper into the forest, the light began to fail. The Collum trees here were older, taller, and thicker. Their massive trunks grew so close together that they formed a wall of wood, and their canopies wove together into a solid ceiling of green and black. There was still space ahead of us.

  The temperature dropped. The humidity rose, turning the air sticky and heavy.

  Eventually, we entered a zone where the canopy was so dense that noon turned into twilight, then into near-darkness. The vibrant greens of the ferns were replaced by pale, fungal growths that glowed with faint, sickly hues.

  Samsara shivered against my back.

  "It feels... kind of scary here," she texted me mentally. "Like something is watching us."

  "We're the scariest things in the woods, remember?" I reassured her. "Unless there's a Kaiju that’s evolved 5 times napping around here, we're fine."

  It was too dark for eyes to be useful, and [Color Camouflage II] relied on affecting light. If there was no light, there was no point.

  "Don't be scared," I said, reaching back to stroke her arm. "Most things in the dark are just hiding because they're weak. Easy prey."

  I stopped and flared my nostrils. I took a deep breath, filtering the damp, moldy air through my senses.

  Sniff. Sniff.

  "Hey," Samsara hissed, her snakes recoiling. "Do you smell that?"

  I did. The smell was sharp and pungent. It smelled sulfuric… like roasted garlic.

  "Garlic?" I asked. "Or maybe rotting eggs?"

  "It smells good," Samsara said. Most humans would scoff at what she said. But hey, food is food.

  We adjusted our path, heading straight toward the source of the stench. The ground here was spongy, covered in layers of decaying leaves and soft moss. My footsteps and Samsara’s slithering broke the silence. Just the sound of our breathing and the squelch of the earth.

  I peered into the gloom. Ahead, through a gap in the massive tree trunks, a soft light pulsed. It was a beautiful, hypnotic blue, cutting through the darkness like a beacon.

  "Shiny," I noted.

  "Be careful," Samsara warned, though her curiosity spiked.

  I reactivated [Color Camouflage II]. This could be a Kaiju that had a mutation to give off light.

  We broke through the line of trees and entered a cavernous open space beneath the canopy. And there, floating in the center of the clearing about fifty meters off the ground, was a girl.

  She was radiant.

  It was a fish girl. She had shimmering, light-blue scales that glowed with their own internal light, illuminating the area around her. Her fins were long and elegant, drifting in the air as if she were floating underwater. Her eyes were closed, her expression peaceful, as if she were in a deep sleep.

  "A fish girl?" Samsara asked, confused. "Floating in the air? That doesn't make sense."

  "Maybe she has a mutation?" I suggested.

  "Fish can't float without water," Samsara insisted. "It would make more sense if she were a bird girl. But it doesn’t look like she is doing any motions to stay afloat."

  "Well, she looks asleep," I said, eyeing her. "And she smells like that garlic-sulfur scent. It's coming from her."

  "She smells good," Samsara agreed.

  We approached slowly. The floating fish girl didn't react. She just bobbed gently in the air currents, her glowing scales casting long, dancing shadows against the surrounding trees. She was small, around the size of a human. She could be a bit larger. Still, a bite-sized snack compared to us.

  "I'll grab her," I said. "Quick snack, then we keep moving."

  I extended a single hair tentacle. It slithered through the dark air, invisible and silent. I aimed for her waist.

  The moment my tentacle wrapped around her, she felt... solid. Cold. Not like warm flesh, but like dense, rubbery muscle.

  I tightened my grip.

  "Gotcha."

  I pulled, expecting her to come flying toward my mouth.

  She didn't move.

  It was like pulling on a whole mountain. Not that I had actually tried pulling on a mountain. My tentacle went taut, straining against the resistance. The floating fish girl remained fixed in space, not drifting a millimeter.

  "What the...?"

  I scowled and pulled harder, putting my back into it. Still nothing. It was physically impossible for something that small and floating to be that heavy unless she was anchored to something.

  Confusion broke my concentration, causing me to drop [Color Camouflage II]. Samsara and I became visible. My one tentacle outstretched, continuing to tug on the tiny glowing girl.

  "Ramona?" Samsara asked me, panic rising inside of her. "Why isn't she moving?"

  "I don't kn—"

  A loud growl echoed throughout the clearing.

  The sound didn't come from the fish girl. It came from the darkness behind her. It was a low, vibrating rumble.

  Two yellow lights snapped open in the gloom above the floating girl.

  They weren't lights. They were eyes.

  The darkness shifted. A massive set of jaws, lined with needle-like translucent teeth, slowly parted, dripping thick saliva that sizzled when it hit the ground.

  The "floating fish girl" wasn't floating. The small fish girl was the lure. A thick, blue, and fleshy cord extended from the top of her head, disappearing into the dark, connecting directly to the forehead of the monstrosity emerging from the shadows.

  "It's a trap!" Samsara exclaimed.

  The Kaiju stepped forward, its massive, bulbous body crashing through the trees we thought were secure cover. It obliterated the wood of the Collum trees like it was nothing. It was huge, eclipsing our 150-meter height by about 10 meters or so. She was also wider and bulkier. Her skin was a slimy, mottled gray, covering up her fish scales.

  The Kaiju roared and lunged.