Much like Tiny, Crinis wasn't satisfied with her initial rampage and pursued her opponents deeper into the tunnels. I use the word pursued in the literal sense since they were actively running away from her at that stage. On some level, it was fascinating to watch, since there didn't seem to be much defence against the ghost tendril attack that she used to directly attack the minds of her foes. Once she managed to drill those tentacles into their heads, the opponents would go slack before they inevitably turned into raving mad-things that lashed out at everything around them.

The obvious solution would be to make sure that the limbs never touched you, but that wasn't exactly an easy thing to do, since she could manifest them from every shadow within her range, which was almost a hundred metres at this point. They could pop out at our feet, creep out of the wall behind your back, even drop down from the ceiling above. If you were somehow able to keep track of all of that, she could simply phase them out of reality, slipping straight through your body, moving through weapons and armour before driving toward the brain.

It posed an impossible problem and even tier four and five monsters did little better. They might be able to slice a few of her tentacles off, perhaps even many of them, but it didn't seem to matter as Crinis produced more flesh at a ridiculous rate, fuelled by her constant eating. Eventually even these stronger monsters were overwhelmed as their minds were invaded.

Once things reached this point, only one monster had been able to resist to any significant degree that I saw. A demon of the spell casting variety, it used its magic to fend her off as long as it could, but it too was eventually overcome. Once Crinis managed to drive her tendrils into its mind, the creature stilled, but not completely. Moving its thin arms desperately, it tried to claw at her tentacles and I could sense the vague shifting of mana around it as it attempted to form another spell. With a flick, Crinis sent a dozen more limbs toward the creature, each of them driving their tendrils into its mind which eventually overwhelmed its defences and it succumbed like the others.

When it was all said and done, we made our way back to the nest with a rather smug Crinis riding on my back.

[What happened with that demon, Crinis?] I ask her, [it seemed to put up more of a fight than anything else when it came to those tendrils.]

She huffed.

[That filth thought it could intrude on the domain of the master's family, it deserved worse than it got!]

[Yeah,] I ignore that part, [but how was it able to resist your new… thing?]

[Oh! What I attack with the Soul Seeker Cilia isn't actually the brain, but the mind, or I suppose you could say the spirit?] she tells me. [Creatures with stronger Wills and stronger spirits are harder to drive over the edge, so I had to use a multi-pronged attack.]

I'm a little nervous.

[When you say drive over the edge… what do you mean… exactly?]

She wiggles with glee on my carapace.

[The edge of sanity, of course, Master,] she giggles.

Ahhh heck. This evolution has only driven her further over the edge to a creature of pure horror. As long as she's happy, I suppose it's fine. I'll just have to make sure I find a way to avert my eyes from this point forward.

With the flexing of their newly evolved muscles out of the way, I take the group back to the evolution chamber to formally introduce them to the new temporary member of the group. I'm sure they both noticed the grub locked away in her cage when they woke up, but neither bothered to comment at the time, preoccupied with other things. However, when we arrive, I'm a little surprised to see that the larva has undergone a shocking transformation.

No longer a grub, she has busily spun herself a cocoon in the time we were gone and is now fully encased, undergoing her transformation within its silken confines. Larva has successfully evolved into pupa! Actually, that reminds me. I quickly snoop around for the cores I left behind, remembering what happened when Vibrant moved to this stage. Sure enough, they're gone. Now I have the skills to actually recognise the stronger mana signature coming from the former grub in front of me. How did she do it?! Is it something to do with champions?

[Is this what you were referring to, Master?] Crinis asks, extending a tentacle to poke the pupa gently.

[Yeah, this is her. This little grub has way too much energy, managed to escape out of the nest on her own. Was quite the sight, let me tell you.]

I frown as I look down on her. This is probably a little too quick for her to become a pupa, if my numbers are right. I get the feeling the little trouble-maker got impatient and decided to advance ahead of schedule… although the accelerated feeding program we had her on might have contributed to the problem. She would have reached the required Biomass far ahead of most of her siblings.

It's an interesting stage of life for an ant, the pupal stage. The larva that existed before doesn't remain for long, the entire body turning into a liquid goop that is reformed into the new body. Once she's ready, she'll eclose, and after allowing for a brief period of time so the carapace can harden, she'll be a fully formed hatchling! Ready for my personal brand of education!

The question is, what do we do now? Monsters can't spawn in this section of the nest, thanks to the removal of the Dungeon veins, so she'd be perfectly safe if we left her here. My only worry is what would happen if she woke up and broke out before I returned? Considering the amount of chaos she caused as a grub, what could she achieve as a hatchling? I shudder to think of it. No, can't leave her here on her own. That means she has to come with us.

[Tiny, can I get you to break open that cage and carry the pupa along with us. Whatever you do, don't damage her, alright? That's the next generation there in front of us.]

With unusual respect and gentleness, Tiny reaches down his tree trunk arms and shatters the metal cage with ease, grasping hold of the pupa with one hand and bringing it up to his chest where he cradles it with one arm.

[Nice work. Alright then, time to get back to it. We need to keep the pupa with us at all times, which means one of us is going to be on pupa watch every time we fight. I'll work out the rotation and I don't want to hear any complaining.]

I give Tiny the stink eye for a second and he looks at me with a wounded expression.

[The wave will peak and then subside soon, so we need to be careful of any new types of monsters that poke their noses up, or higher tier ones. We've been lucky so far that no tier sevens have shown up but I don't expect our luck to last. Any questions?]

They each shake their heads/tentacles and we make our way back to the front for another foray, helping to take the heat off the Colony's defenders. What I really want to do is push all the way down to the third strata again, strut our stuff down there now that the full group has evolved, but it's too risky. With all sorts of monsters spawning in the tunnels now, who knows what might pop up that the Colony can't handle without us?

No, we need to stick around and keep fighting. For the time being at least.