Apollyon Core
Anti-life
Risk category: Extreme
Industrial value: High
Personal value: None
One of the more complex anomalous creations, Apollyon Cores are small, bright red spheres that begin approximately the size of a marble. The core will produce wood-like growths immediately upon birth and will form a sapling, as it continues to grow, it matures into a tree and eventually expands into a Apollyon sphere. It grows this wood without requirement and slowly expands itself as one might expect of a traditional tree at first, its branches and body have a very dry oak-like appearance, no foliage and a twisting, knotted and almost demonic air to its creeping architecture. Initially, Apollyon saplings pose little threat as it grows upwards, thickening its trunk and primary branches, although extremely tough, the wood is able to be damaged by conventional means and this is by far the best time to deal with it. Once it reaches maturity however, the Apollyon Core forms the first of its head sized crimson orbs that hangs from one of its branches, akin to a fruit. The formation of this fruit-like artefact signals the next stage of the Apollyon Cores progression, it is hypothesized that the orbs have an intelligence to them and actively watch the area around the tree for aggressors and opportunities to reproduce.
When threatened or when it sees an opportunity, the Apollyon Core will sever one of its own branches, which will shatter into perfectly formed splinters and stakes. These spines will hurl themselves directly at living creatures/threats with tremendous force and lethal accuracy, the older/larger the tree, the more dangerous its spines are. In the event of a miss, these spines will cease anomalous activity, but in the event of a successful kill on a living creature, they will begin to grow a brand-new Apollyon Core. The wood will grow extraordinarily quickly through living flesh, consuming the corpse within minutes will start an accelerated life cycle immediately.
As the tree continues to grow, its rate of growth increases and it will sprout more fruit to accelerate its growth further, the larger formations are able to regrow massive branches severed for weaponization in a matter of minutes and will send flurries of giant stakes hurtling miles through the air to spread their roots further. They will become more aggressive with larger size, seeking to reproduce and will actively assault any living creatures in range with their spine hails.
Although they can only replicate by killing living creatures, there is no upper limit on the size of these Apollyon trees and they will continue to grow and wrap around themselves, eventually forming planet-sized masses that will fling spines at other space born objects to continue their spread. There have been reports of planets pulled out of orbit by massive networks of Apollyon Wood that spreads millions of miles between planets, linking them in what appears to be a gnarled, twisted network of “dead” wood, punctuated by crimson “fruit-like” orbs that hang freely from its horrifying network of entangled branches.
Because of their extreme danger to life, Apollyon Cores and trees are always dealt with by overwhelming force, because in the event the attack fails, the result could be hundreds of new Apollyon Cores. But despite their active hostility, once the cores have been neutralised, the massive amounts of dead wood they leave behind is surprisingly useful. Some factions, such as the Cold Ones even use the dead wood planets as a base for their hives.