Chapter 212: The Wailwastes

The Collector continued mass spawning of units. It could field approximately two thousand golems before it ran out of raw materials considering the additional resources it had to invest in spawning units that were not simply giant and roughly shaped chunks of raw material. The Collective units that the Collector were now creating might have been smaller in physical dimensions, and they did take up less raw physical materials, but they required more concentrated primal energy to give them animated commands as they possessed far more complex behaviors than the relatively simple ones manifested by ordinary golems.

As a result, the Collector created eight hundred units in total. The vast majority of these were Striders, though it did create a sizable host of Spitters and Abductors also. The fewest amount of specimens it created were the Breakers for they were the most resource intensive to create on account of their fortified carapaces and bulk.

The Fortress Vanguard could use some level of psionic power to beam up units when needed, and indeed, the Collector's own Sapia could be channeled through the Vanguard as well when needed. However, Abductors and their potential to carry units in their stomach sacs would be more cost efficient overall provided they were properly utilized.

The Collector did not use up all of its raw materials because it wanted to wait for its Jotnar core to regenerate naturally to slot in via the Origin Rune a Jotnar core that was highly specialized for golem creation such as that of the Immortal Legion, for this would allow the Collector to take golem creation to a dramatically higher level where it would be capable of recreating even the more complicated and higher strains of Collective units.

As for why the Collector did not simply undergo metamorphosis now, it held off because it did not possess any significant genetic samples it wanted to incorporate into itself, and gaining additional levels actually did not grant it too much additional strength at this point.

Right now, the Collector's combat capacity was determined mostly by its mana capabilities for they fueled both its physical stats and its magical powers, and its ability to consume and adapt spirit roots into itself was no longer limited by level gates.

This meant that if the Collector leveled up, it would come to access more of its prior natural adaptations, and indeed, many of them were useful, but not useful enough for the Collector to undergo a lengthy metamorphosis period that would last up to the span of an entire day cycle during which time any significant attack to the Vanguard unit would be left unanswered.

The Collector could still field golem units to combat while in metamorphosis, but these units, though they could swarm other units of similar strength, would not be able to handle the might of a single superpowered individual nearing the level of the Collector or the fighter specimen known as Kui.

Thus, the Collector had to weigh the benefits of waiting three days until its Jotnar core naturally healed or evolving now and waiting the better part of a day cycle to regenerate its core while leaving the Vanguard defenseless against a strong unit.

For now, the Collector desired to save its metamorphosis for better specimens to incorporate, because at this point, it was not the Collector's levels that mattered so much as it was the enormous strength of specific specimen's genetic samples it could incorporate.

These included Fangs that had Old Gods implanted within them, the corpse of the ancient dragon, and the Facestealer among many other potentially powerful beings in the Wailwastes.

The Collector spent twenty four hours creating units, refining and fine tuning its creation process over countless trials, but when it finished, it had streamlined the creation process to an efficiency level where it could create one hundred Striders per hour, easily reaching a production speed where unit creation would be gated not by spawning rate, but the raw resources available.

The Wailwastes themselves were not that noteworthy. When the Vanguard unit went below fog cover to scout out the land, the Collector saw that the Wailwastes seemed even more devoid of life than Fjall. There was less snow and instead vast swathes of pure ice, with this ice likely floating upon a frigid layer.

Condensed fog and cloud layers above enshrouded this area in a near permanent state of darkness, though surprisingly, the Collector could not find any Shadow specimens in this area despite it seeming to be the perfect environment for them.

In this desolate, dark land of ice, the Fortress Vanguard floated alone, its vast wide bulk seeming like a tiny little ant compared to the immenseness of the empty environment around it.

The Collector estimated that it was now at the poles of this world where temperatures and environmental conditions reached their lower peak, and indeed, some deep pockets of ice flickering with hazy, smoky energy reminiscent of the wavelengths of Undeath could reach just shy of absolute zero.

There were pockets of depressed ice leading into deep trenches of icy waters that glowed with primal energy, and these, the Collector had the Fortress Vanguard suck out, draining them of primal energy.

Primal energy was the most valuable resource for the Collector to collect for now.

Primal energy reserves needed to naturally recharge over time, though it could be absorbed from the environment and condensed inside the Vanguard or directly absorbed from heavily charged areas. Raw material was not too much of an issue for the Collector could constantly absorb ice and rock in plentiful amounts around itself.

Thus, for most of the twenty four hours, the Collector kept to its namesake and collected. The Vanguard drained primal energy deposits when it could, absorbed plentiful amounts of Everfrost, Truefrost, and an unknown type of magically charged ice that came from the shadow wreathed ice pockets.

With this much additional raw materials, the Collector repurposed one of the stomachs of the Vanguard unit from a Holding Bay into an Armory for its units, creating banks of Truefrost and Everfrost where goblins could do as they wished, fashioning arms for themselves or attempting to bend Truefrost to their will.

It was past the twenty hour point of consistent travel where the environment became different.

There arose forests, yet, none like any the Collector had ever observed before. They were not forests of any known plant matter, but instead collections of glaciers shaped in the visage of trees. The smallest 'trees' were fifty meters high, and the tallest could easily reach up to two hundred meters, breaking into the cloud and fog cover ahead easily.

These trees generated their own type of fog, and their trunks and branches glowed with an eerie white shine that ran through their bodies like networks of vein - pure primal energy flowing through them. Every so often, the Vanguard unit would stop, biting into a branch and sucking out primal energy like drawing out nutritious drew from an ordinary tree.

The Vanguard unit had some difficulty navigating through this area on account of its bulk, and at the twenty four hour point when the Collector was done creating its initial fighting force, rested the unit in the branches of one of these glacier trees.

At this point, the Collector finally detached itself from the Command Chamber. The mounds of flesh and tendrils tethering its lower body to the glowing white core of the Vanguard unit detached, and the Collector pulled free, floating in the restorative waters for a moment to heal any leftover damage it had sustained exerting itself to create units.

Once healed, the Collector flew upwards, towards the ceiling of the spherical chamber where a spiral shaped pattern was etched into the flesh above. When the Collector touched the spiral, its form phased through it, allowing it to leave the dimensional space that housed the Command Chamber.

After a full day of being separated from the swarm, the Collector began to sense some levels of unease among the goblins even with the carrier unit assuring them of the Collector's well being. The Collector would have to tend to the goblins to assuage their concerns, it seemed.