Tentacle Monster (Individual Type).
Combat tier: Near-Heavyweight.
Individual evolutionary stage: Mature Stage (Lv0.623, Activity Value 0.738H)
Individual Talent: One-Star (1.184H)
Description…

The Huoxue updated quickly. The Tentacle Monster’s entry was added — but not before a substantial internal debate among the Research Institute’s editorial team.

The sticking point was the Tentacle Monster’s Talent ceiling: One-Star at 1.184H, actually lower than the Dog-Croc’s One-Star at 1.264H, and lower still than the demoted Spike King’s 1.358H. For a creature classified near-Heavyweight, the numbers were hard to justify on Talent alone.

The debate crystallized into a classification question: should near-Heavyweight designation be determined by Talent, by combat capability, or by something more specific? And if combat capability, was that measured in the creature’s optimal environment or in baseline conditions?

The team settled on a framework that resolved all the pending cases at once. Colony-type evolved beasts would be assessed purely on combat output. Individual-type evolved beasts would be assessed on two criteria together: Talent reaching One-Star or above, plus demonstrated destructive capability in their primary combat environment — what they called “home ground combat effectiveness.”

Under this framework: the Giant Condor’s aerial advantage made it decisively threatening to humans — qualified. The Violent Ape King’s direct combat power and mass — qualified. The Spike King’s rolled defensive form was effectively unkillable by conventional means — qualified. The Tentacle Monster’s underground performance was categorically dominant — qualified. The Dog-Croc’s ground capability combined with its underwater advantage, which made it effectively unanswerable in aquatic environments — qualified and promoted.

The Spike King returned to near-Heavyweight. The Dog-Croc received a small upward reclassification.

The Huoxue: Evolved Beasts Volume now read clearly:

Super-Heavyweight: Disaster Locust swarm, Dragon Hornets, Iron-Eater. Three known.

Heavyweight: Violent Great Ape colony, Pox Fly swarm, Bloodthirsty Mosquito swarm, Swiftclaw Leopard, Golden Jiao. Seven known.

Near-Heavyweight: Violent Ape King, Giant Condor, Tentacle Monster, Spike King, Dog-Croc. Five known.

Lightweight: Violent Great Apes (mid-size), White Bone Beetle colony, Terror Rat colony, Giant Stag colony, Giant Salamander Monitor, and others.

Featherweight: Violent Great Apes (small), Bull Demon King, Venom Duke, Sharp Eagle, Dragon Hornet individual, Furious Sparrow group, and others.

Bantamweight: Deathclaws, Melancholy Birds, Wild Boar King, Thieving Crow group, and others.

Flyweight: Terror Rat individual, Giant Stag individual, White Bone Beetle individual, Thieving Crow individual, Fang Wolf, Tairitian, Burrower, Tumor Pig, Great-Fang Rat, Treasure Bee colony, and others.

Grassweight: Treasure Bee individual, Furious Sparrow individual, and others.

The Huoxue review complete, Shen Cong drove the freshly maintained Great Vajra out of the Mingfa Camp without picking up any assigned missions and headed directly to the area around Xinqiao Airport.

He had plans for the airport. Aviation fuel and aircraft engines had been on his resource wish list since before the Vajra overhaul began. The Pox Fly swarm was the obstacle. The obstacle required intelligence before it could be managed.

He parked on the Hefei-Liuye Expressway, sent the drone up, and watched.

The Pox Fly swarm occupied the woodland around the airport’s ruins, moving in and out of the tree canopy in small groups but showing no large-scale departure. An hour of observation produced nothing beyond moderate restlessness.

He switched to the roof, binoculars up, watching the tree line directly.

“They’re not going out to forage. What are they eating in a stand of poplars? No fruit. I haven’t seen them consume leaves. What’s their food source?”

Patience. He’d planned a full day.

At nine o’clock in the morning, the swarm moved. A dark mass lifting from the canopy in one coordinated surge, heading southwest.

Southwest was Luan City direction.

Luan is closer to the Huoshan Oasis. Richer Activity, richer resources — much richer than the standard abundant zone. The Pox Fly swarm may be ranging all the way to Luan for feeding.

He tracked them until they disappeared below the horizon.

Then he waited. Eleven-thirty: the swarm returned, settling back into the woodland.

From that point until sunset, they didn’t move again.

Nine o’clock to eleven-thirty. Two and a half hours.

Second day. Same position. Nine o’clock: the swarm lifted and headed southwest on schedule. Noon: returned. Three hours this time.

He needed more data before committing.

Third day: nine o’clock departure, eleven-thirty return. Two and a half hours again.

Two and a half hours is the consistent window. Allow thirty minutes safety margin. Two hours of usable time.

On the fourth day, he waited for the swarm to clear the tree line and drove immediately.

Great Vajra moved down the airport access road and into the ruins of Xinqiao Airport.

An international-level airport — passenger and cargo throughput that had ranked it in the top thirty in the country — meant many aircraft. Finding wreckage was easy. Finding the right kind of wreckage was the problem. He wasn’t looking for fuselage sections. He was looking for wing sections. Engines were mounted on the wings.

Half an hour of systematic searching through the debris field. Fuselage fragments in abundance. Wing sections: none visible.

The airport had been comprehensively destroyed. Without the pre-prepared map he’d brought, he couldn’t orient himself in the rubble. Everything was gravel and blown sand and compacted earth, a meter or more of accumulated material covering what had been an operational airfield.

This approach isn’t working. Try the fuel depot instead — the underground tank farm should be roughly in the next section ahead.

Surface fuel storage hadn’t survived — thousands of tons of aviation fuel had burned or evaporated in the disaster’s first days. What interested him were the underground tanks. At least five hundred tons of aviation kerosene, stored below grade, potentially intact.

The Provincial Garrison had been eyeing Xinqiao Airport since the camp’s establishment. The Pox Fly swarm was the reason they hadn’t moved on it. When the camp’s own fuel supplies ran critically low, that calculation would change — they’d have no choice but to force their way in. Shen Cong was just arriving earlier to assess conditions.

He wasn’t here to transport fuel today. He was here to confirm the underground tank structure was still intact and hadn’t corroded through.

The aircraft engines remained the primary objective.

The surface fuel storage was long gone — only structural remnants where the tanks had stood. He cross-referenced his pre-disaster map, identified the underground tank farm’s position, and started with the Condor Spade.

Three strokes in, the spade hit something that wasn’t bedrock.

He cleared the surrounding material.

Wing section. Buried under the rubble layer, but intact.

The engine would be attached to it.

(End of Chapter 189)