An Elder Secret (Merciless)

An Elder Secret (Merciless) is the first stage in Growing Strange. Beating this stage allows the player to access one of seven random Continuation Stages. The possible Continuation Stages include:

• Color of Blood (Merciless)
• Fear of Flying (Merciless)
• Hearts of Darkness (Merciless)
• Holy Wrath (Merciless)
• Galactic Threat (Merciless)
• Clash of Steel (Merciless)
• Seas of Death (Merciless)

Each is based around a different enemy type, with a 99% chance of yielding an Elder Catfruit Seed and a 1% chance of an Elder Catfruit. (At least one reward is guaranteed.)

Battleground

• The stage begins with 2 Mr. Angels, followed by 2 Ginger Snaches.
• When the enemy base is hit, a debuffed Mr. Angel spawns as the "boss" with 2 more Mr. Angels, a Ginger Snache, a Metal One Horn, 2 Heavenly Hippoes and a Pigeon de Sable.
  • There are several other enemies that will spawn during the boss fight, including:
    • 4 more Mr. Angels
    • 2 more Pigeon de Sables
    • 2 Zories
    • 1 Shadow Boxer K
    • 1 Maawth
    • 1 Berserkory
  • The only thing that keeps all of them from spawning at once is the low enemy limit. This means that as you defeat the enemies, they get replaced by others.
  • There's a limited number of foes inside the base, so eventually nothing will spawn besides the occasional Ginger Snache.

Strategy

Since you will have to deal with another level afterwards, you can use one of these 2 methods to beat this:

1. Hope for 1-2 specific follow-up level(s) and go with a focused army that can defeat them easily. (Very luck-based and inefficient, but MUCH easier.)
   • Example 1: You can use Eva Unit-01, Ganglion/Orbital Platform Armageddon and anti-Zombie, Alien or everyone as general attackers, so if the Alien stage or the Zombie one comes out, you can beat them without much trouble, but you will fail against the other 5 stages (unless you have enough free spaces for other cats), getting the Catfruit Seed 2/7 of the times on average.
   • Example 2: You can use an army such as: Ramen, Jiangshi, Cat Machine Mk 3, an anti-Zombie and a Critical Hitter for this level (Mk 3 is for the Pigeons, it will die and be resummoned in time for Berserkory as well, Eva Unit-00 is worse here because it can't be resummoned nor resist Berserkory), then add something to make a couple of stages doable, such as a Metal staller or 2 for the Metal stage, an extra unit who is strong against Zombies for Zamelle in the Zombie stage, Bombercat and a unit who deals very high damage to Black for the Black stage, etc.
2. Go with an anti-everyone loadout that can defeat (almost) all follow-up levels. (VERY hard, but efficient.)
   • Example: You can use a combination of certain cats and some anti-everyone to have a chance against every possible follow-up level except, maybe, 1 or 2, this way you WILL have an hard time, but if you can manage it, the chance to win (and get the Seed) will be higher, maybe even guaranteed.

Either way, there are some units that should be used in all cases, those being a Wave Shield and a Crit. Hitter as well as small Combos that include cats that would be useful anyways and anti-everyone cats. Some recommended units are: E. Kubilan Pasalan + Lion Cat (very good Combo + a decent anti-Metal), Ramen Cat, Mitama, Gao (can also act as only Crit. Hitter if you want), Drone Cat, Holy Valkyrie Cat (and RNG), Exalted Ganesha (or similar units), Manic Eraser Cat, Shishilan Pasalan, Orbital Platform Armageddon (Zombie Killer helps a lot, not to mention the DPS and lack of White foes) or Amaterasu, as well as many others.

You must also remember that items do not carry over, meaning that Treasure Radars will be useless and you can't get any extra help in the second stage, but you can use a weaker anti-everyone army that can only beat the first stage with the help of items to focus a bigger part of the army on the second level.

Strategy 2 (Lv. 40 Eva Units + Paladin Cat)

Lineup: Dual Erasers(Eraser is 30+40, M. Eraser is 45), Talented Ramen (Only Health Up (MAX)) (45+13), (Not necessarely Talented) Sanzo (Slow (5 or higher) (30), Cyborg¹ (40), Talented Pizza (Shockwave (MAX)), Paladin (35), Eva Units 00 (40), 01 (40), 02 (True Form Only) (45).

Cannon: Slow (10 or higher).

Steps:

1. Send a M. Eraser and wait for the Mr. Angels to arrive to the base and send Pizza and once they get knockbacked, send Cyborg and upgrade your Worker to Lv. 6. Dont worry about the Ginger Snaches, they will die soon ;)²
2. Once your worker is at Lv. 6 and you have the money for a Pizza, send it³. Once the base is hit by Pizza, fire the Cannon. Wait for both Pizzas to die, begin meatshielding and send 00⁴ with some Pizzas/Cyborgs. (Dont let the Zories deal too much damage to the base/00).
3. Once you have the money for it, send Paladin⁵ and once the Metal One Horn dies, spam all units⁶ and if everything went right, you might win.

Notes:

1. Its necessary to bring Cyborg cat since she inmunes to the weaken effect from the Winged Pigges in Holy Wrath.
2. Dont worry about the Ginger Snaches; the stats of a Lv. 40 Pizza Cat can take them out.
   1. Since Pizza cat has slow movement speed and he will be the only one on the battle field, it will allow the player to save money.
3. Sending another Pizza cat will make the enemies from the base take longer to reach the base, which (again) allows the player to save money.
4. Important: Dont let your Eva Unit-00 or else Berserkory will screw everything with its Shockwave. Believe me.
5. Paladin Cat's criticat chance is the only RNG based thing you should worry in here since he only has a 50% chance, and if he doesnt do a critical in 2-3 hits, he might be able to knockback/kill 00 and/or destroy the base.
6. When spamming everything its important for you to look at your money and stop sending Cyborgs since they will waste a lot of money and they wont allow you to keep meatshielding.

Check the other stages for the continuation of the Strategy.

Trivia

• Prior to version 7.5, this stage contained a 400% Calamary instead of a 1600% Maawth.
• In the speech-bubble reference beside the event name, this level is labeled "Deadly", although it should be "Merciless".
• This stage's gimmick is the opposite of the regular Catfruit stages. The first level is similar to Catfruit Jubilee, while the Continuations are similar to the other "Growing" stages, featuring enemies of one trait (only that a Metal and Zombie level were added as well).

Reference

• https://battlecats-db.com/stage/s01162-01.html