We had been travelling for quite a while, slowly but surely getting closer to our destination. We had plenty of breaks in between. Unlikely Smoothie and I, Haelley needed to sleep, eat, and everything else that came with being normal.

In the distance, brown haze that stretched across the horizon swept our way from the east dimming sunlight as it approached us. The closer it came, the more ominous I felt. However, the two fellows with me appeared completely unfazed.

"What is that thing? Why aren't we running away?" I asked.

"Insects."

"Insect swarm. This is the perfect opportunity for you to level up, right? It's too fast for us to run away." Smoothie remarked as if she knew all along.

"Wah? They're going to eat me alive! I'm a plant!"

I thought back to my previous life where I had seen a scene of locust swarms eating all the plants in sight, causing famine everywhere they passed. I doubted I could survive billions of bites non-stop. I wasn't some unkillable weed or anything like that.

"Mother, don't worry about me, I'll hide under your flowers! Please make sure to synthesize lots of sticky goo. Once they're caught, just use [absorption] on all of them. Easy?"

"Easy for you to say. You're just sitting around."

"Haelley hide too!"

The two of them huddled around me like children playing hide and seek.

"Why? You have such high stats. They should be easy for you!"

"Too many."

Kids these days, what a handful bunch.

"Fine, fine, I'll create a barrier for the three of us."

I understood the gist of what I had to do. There was still some time before the swarm reached us. I dropped a clone, then using [synthesis], I grew vines and leaves one after another to completely cover us in a green dome. Once that was done, I anchored newly formed roots deep underground before I merged with the clone itself. This was the easiest way for me to use [absorption] and control the plant body itself. Once they were stuck and weakened, penetrating their bodies with thorns would be enough to finish them off.

White flowers quickly blossomed one after another. And, as Smoothie recommended, I synthesized as much sticky goo as I could that normally dotted the tiny tendrils on my white flowers. However, I didn't just overload my flowers with this goo, I also covered the vines and leaves with the same substance.

I guess this is a good experience, my first combat experience.

I still wasn't sure how I was able to defend myself in the future. One of the two ways I had thought of was to permanently modify the regular strawberry plant stems into vines covered with sticky goo. With that, I could use [absorption] to finish my opponents off. The issue with that approach was that they had to be slow moving. Aside from using [absorption], growing thorns and needles on my vines was the best way to wound and kill foes.

Anyway, about what felt like half an hour to me passed as I continuously made more preparation. And, after much anticipation, the swarm reached our location.

At first, I felt like I was being showered with pebbles. I used [absorption] on them immediately to regenerate my expended spiritual stats and resources. As the swarm continued, the size of these insects increased steadily. It went from feelings of pebbles hitting me to lumps of rocks being dropped on me.

Am I doing this right?

As the incoming sizes grew, my outermost layer of barrier collapsed under the weight of all the dead insects. Since I wasn't used to absorbing this much physical material, it couldn't be helped that they remained stuck to the sticky goo. 

Boom.

What the hell? Did I misunderstand something?

My second layer collapsed only a few minutes after the outer layer collapsed. Thankfully, within a plant body, I had no feelings of pain while I could still feel every part of myself.

Even though I had churned [absorption] and [synthesis] to maximum, I couldn't hold off the continuous waves of these flying insects. The only saving grace was that I reached level 50. At least, one more level for the anticipated evolution. Whatever evolution options it gave, it better be worth my efforts.

Boom.

Boom!

There were two more layers to go. Should both of them collapse before the swarm ended, those two would be finished. I wasn't concerned about my own safety since I had |parallel bodies| trait. Although I had never used it, I could always revive in one of my clones should all else have failed.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

This time something felt completely different from the previous ones that collapsed from weight. These were direct hits. The impacts were as if meteorites had struck me consecutively. The fourth layer of my barrier was ranked second, next to the fifth layer, in terms of durability. Not only that, I wasn't able to absorb anything that matched the power of those impacts. It was as if I was being specifically targeted.  

What's going on out there? Just what is going on out there? Are these really insects? You can't be serious, right?

There was only one layer remaining. This was the last defense. I figured there was no point defending it once I had strengthened it as much as I did. Furthermore, there wasn't anything sticking to my barriers so there wasn't anything useful for me to use [absorption] on. To make the best use of myself, I split myself off from my plant body to examine the situation in person.

"What is going on out there?"

"Mother, let me enter your clone! I miscalculated."

"Miscalculated? What are we really dealing with?"

"Basically, the thing you considered flying maggots. One of their fourth evolution is trying to crack our last defense."

"Wait, those ugly things? Those weaklings? They evolve too?"

I could hardly imagine how much uglier they evolved to be. In the first place, I thought they were pollinators.

Did evolution change them so much?

"Most things do. Please, let me go into your clone. I don't want to die yet. Don't worry about Haelley though, she'll go fight it."

She nodded, "I will fight and level up."

"If you're going into my clone, what about me?"

"Mother. Fight on! You help Haelley."

Boom.

"Wait a second! Why are the big folks attacking us? I didn't even provoke them."

"You killed those from its colony."

"But I killed plenty of them back in the days. They never fought back."

"This time is different. You killed some of their twice evolved comrades. Anyway, I'm merging, bye!" She waved her hand before disappearing into a clone body of mine. Since it was originally my clone, I still had some control over it. Therefore, I extended the roots as deep as I could. This way, Smoothie should be safe even if everything on the surface was destroyed in the proceeding battle.

How did I get into this mess? In the first place, I was told to kill them. Did that brat scheme all of this?

"I am ready."

Boom.

More light seeped into my tiny hideout, illuminating the two of us facing each other. I didn't know exactly how strong this opponent was but from the expression on her face, she was confident and calm like a valiant warrior.

I guess it's beatable.

"Smoothie said you should spread clones and use [absorption]."

I nodded, "Got it. I'll do what I can."

blanksphere

Stuff is happening, slowly.