There was a reason that I hadn’t just thrown spore-puppets at the enemy from the start. I could have done that. I could have slowly whittled down the nest’s population, trading the life of one spore-puppet to infect another, but it would have taken too long. If I had enough puppets that they could simply swarm over their kin, then I might have actually done it.

Unfortunately, I just didn’t.

Despite my efforts, the nest contained many times the number of Darkweavers that I had converted, and my spore-puppets were - sadly - weak members of the Great Core’s followers. The strength of the spores that infested them constantly created injuries that verged on crippling, making them many times weaker than their healthier counterparts despite their willingness to injure themselves when necessary.

In a direct battle, I would have never won. Not even if I went in myself; without [The Golem’s Echo] in this life, or an equally powerful ability, I just wouldn’t be able to do it. Maybe if I had picked [Death], it might have worked. I didn’t know. I still wasn’t sure what exactly death essence could do. Either way, [Size] wasn’t enough. Maybe against a few, but not against overwhelming numbers. I’d take too many wounds, and I had doubts that I could hide within the flames of [Chrono Fire] as easily as I did when I was smaller.

It wasn’t all bad, though. I had plans for [Size], ones that I was determined to use in this life. Plans that required as many spore-puppets as possible. And, beyond that, there was something satisfying about watching the nest fall into chaos from afar.

Moments after my spore-puppets reached the back of the bad-thing crowd, and just before a new wave of thought-hisses began to call out to me, [Verdure Parasite] and [Spore Puppeteer] prodded me. I twisted a few streams of time, stealing unnecessary growth away from already-grown spore-roots with [Verdure Parasite], accelerating the infection.

A thought-hiss later, and the nearby puppets began to avoid the now-infected bad-thing, its location clear enough in my mind that I could have found it in pure darkness. It lashed out, confused and afraid, but eventually skittered away, heading for safety.

At the center of the crowd, the tides of battle were finally changing. A great many of many-legged bad-things lay twitching, whether from battle, exhaustion, or venom. A few had thrown themselves upon the corpse-sac, mouths working away, while others had succumbed to the temptation of newly-dead flesh around them. Many more were still fighting, even if it was a slow and plodding thing. Their weakened limbs bounced off hair-hidden hard-flesh, doing little to actually defeat their enemies. Even the strongest of the bad-things were no better; they stumbled about, venom doing its -

The thought-light flickered, interrupting my thoughts.

Experience Gained! Reduced Due To Assistance Received.

The first of them went down, wounds and venom running their course. Its death weakened the other three of the original four, and all but one quickly followed.

Experience Gained! Reduced Due To Assistance Received.

Experience Gained! Reduced Due To Assistance Received.

Finally, only the largest of the bad-things remained. It swayed with every strike, nearly slipping on the ichor that dripped from hair after hair. Again and again, it raised itself on back limbs, using its greater weight to pierce through the unprotected backs of its enemies. And yet, each time, it opened itself up to attack from another.

And even worse, there was a spore winding its way across its flesh. Nearly grown enough that I could focus and -

A thought-hiss.

That was all it took; a thought, a flex, and a slip, and the most dangerous of the bad-things went down. Buried under its kin.

Thinking on it, I realized that they might have just killed their mother.

The thought-light flickered again.

Experience Gained! Reduced Due To Assistance Received.

At the crowd’s center, the chaos stilled. As if the bad-things didn’t know what to do anymore; their battle was completed. Their fight was won.

And then another of the bad-things, filled with the venom of corpse-flesh, fell dead.

Experience Gained!

My spore-puppets pushed in from the edges, wreaking havoc.

Chaos resumed.

I slithered through the ruined nest, puddles of ichor slick and sliding against my scale-flesh. A pair of spore-puppets walked beside me, one on each side, new-made converts to the Great Core. More than once, they were forced to cut threads that stalled my slithers, ones that had been ignored by the fighting Darkweavers. With the way that they could climb and clamber across the threads, it was like they had hardly noticed they were there.

I noticed; my escorts pulled them aside so that I could continue on.

The bodies grew in number as I moved closer to my destination; some half-eaten, others half-destroyed. It didn’t matter. Each of them, I constricted, pulping them into sizes small enough to consume. One after another. Some were too damaged to cause the thought-light to flicker. Many weren’t.

Blooded Trait: [Ambusher’s Vision II] Increased.

[Ambusher’s Vision III] Acquired.

Progress Towards Next Upgrade: 0/40.

…

Progress Towards Next Upgrade: 19/40.

My vision changed again as [Ambusher’s Vision] increased, making my surroundings a little clearer in the darkness. It still wasn’t near the level of what I was sure the Darkweavers had, with how easily they walked about, but it was an improvement. And, looking around at the ruined corpses, I knew that another would follow. I had tried to convert as many of the many-legged bad-things as I could, but some had been lost.

Despite that, things had gone well. I had taken over the next with a decisive bite, sinking my teeth into its heart. The Darkweavers’ Broodmother had died, murdered by her own children. The nest’s strongest members had died with her. With them gone, it hadn’t taken much to finish up.

I reached the next grouping of bad-thing corpses, pulled into a pile by their former brethren. I slithered closer, wrapped myself around the first, and started to squeeze.

Progress Towards Next Upgrade: 20/40.

…

Blooded Trait: [Ambusher’s Vision III] Increased.

[Ambusher’s Vision IV] Acquired.

Progress Towards Next Upgrade: 6/80.

With [Ambusher’s Vision] upgraded for what would be one of the last times, I marveled at how much difference it made, flexing the muscle that controlled its activation. The membrane slid past my eyes, turning my vision back to its natural level. The cavern plunged into darkness; no threads, no corpses, no puppets. Nothing.

The membrane slid back, and the world slid back with it.

I slithered forward again, eager to search the nest’s biggest stone-spikes for anything interesting. They had been in complete ruins last time, and not even worth the effort to search. I entered the nearest, hissing delightedly.

There was nothing that interesting. Just a bunch of glowing things that the Darkweavers hadn’t been able to destroy, each covered in enough threads to block their light entirely. The funniest were the globs of mana-water stored within near-solid weaves of thread. I couldn’t help but imagine the light-hating creatures’ horror at the liquid’s invulnerability, refusing to be destroyed despite endless thrashing limbs.

I did find my ore-flesh as well, though it was a bit dented. It hurt my eyes to keep it exposed; with [Ambusher’s Vision IV], I was beginning to understand the bad-things’ response to light.

I took it anyway, attaching it to a nearby spore-puppet.

Finally, with all of the bodies consumed and the nearby survivors now followers of the Great Core, I took a moment to figure out the direction of the mana-water river that led to the lake. It wasn’t that hard; the mana-water was one of the few reasons that the cavern wasn’t absolutely impossible to see in. As far away as it was, it didn’t do much, barely even touching the darkness. Without [Ambusher’s Vision], I wouldn’t even notice it - but with [Ambusher’s Vision], things were much different. It was faint, but I thought I could feel a tiny, almost unnoticeable difference in the light from what I hoped was the mana-water. The only other source I thought I noticed was stronger, closer. Back the way I had come from. The [Little Guardian’s Focus] that I had created.

I slithered towards what I thought to be the mana-water, a thought-hiss directing my newfound allies to follow as I navigated the near-darkness.

All the while, [Verdure Parasite] and [Spore Puppeteer] continued to feed me the locations of various bad-things that had escaped, spores growing within their flesh. A few, I focused on. The ones that moved the quickest. The healthiest. They would be the most useful; I only had so much food to feed my puppets, and I couldn’t feed their own corpses to each other. Not if I wanted [Ambusher’s Vision] to increase as much as it could. Many would begin to die soon, falling to hunger.

After all, someone had burned the supply.