While the corrupted spider was roaring angrily and trying to pierce me, I pushed it towards the pit, and once it began to fall, I jumped to the other side of the hole and launched a group of hunters that started to snipe at our enemies. The projectiles were not strong enough to damage the thick shell of the corrupted spider but could hurt the rest of the creatures.

We focused on the smaller and nimbler enemies first, and the swarm of uncontrolled collectors did their best at devouring and searching for weak spots in our enemies, be their eyes, thorax, or limbs, they bit non stop with sharp and oversized maws.

Yet what surprised me was the corrupted elite spider. It used its two scythes to slash at the wall and stop its fall. It roared, and I noticed its corrupted offspring turning more frantic and violent, cutting and tearing apart my collectors with single-minded dedication, near an obsession.

As the spiders on the nest were being devoured alive, the hunters did an excellent job keeping any invaders at bay, but the spider was trying to climb up by sheer will.

I summoned a tank, and it jumped at the spider, trying to attack its eyes or limb joints. Yet, a couple of lesser spiders jumped madly at my unit, making all three of them fall to the digestive soup.

They fell and started to roar together with the rest of the enemies that were being slowly digested.

“I also know how to play at that.”

This creature shriek in anger and then had to suffer me throwing several fighters and bomb units at it. The damage it incurred was incredible, but it didn’t give up. And as I threw more units, it used one limb to keep suspended and the other to slash at my units.

I neared the pit, thinking about jumping to finish it myself but noticed a glow on the beast’s eyes. It was waiting, biding its time and enduring. “You’re one smart bastard.”

Cracking my neck, I noticed that the collectors had mostly finished their life cycle of violent, animalistic rampage with the spiders. Once their work was done, I put the hunters into slumber and created several more collectors, and sent the starving bastards towards the wounded beast.

They fell over it and began to chip off its shell, and the spider had little to do against the nasty and continuous bites of the lesser creatures. It then tried to climb faster, but the pit proved a challenge for the beast, as it had lost most of its legs in our prior exchange.

The cave trembled again, and I could hear hisses from the tunnels, as some new enemies were nearing our position. “Ok, fuck it. Darwin, release the nest, we’re using it.”

“Host, it is not ready, it will need several hours to regrow all the units, and-”

“I decided it will look better down there, over that bastard’s face!”

Climbing the ceiling, I moved back to the nest’s chamber and avoided most of the webs and body parts from the corrupted lesser spiders.

I summoned two tanks, and we started to push the massive structure of the nest towards the pit. Despite my increased strength and weight, it proved quite an effort, and by when the structure started to reach the hole, the corrupted elite spider was about to exit the trap thanks to its sharp limbs that used as climbing tools.

The creature saw the nest and began to roar, trying to slice and cut the structure, but it was a reinforced nest with several chitin layers of hardened biomass.

“Come on! A little more!!”

The nest finally reached the point where it was tilting, and the spider panicked as it saw a big mass of green, purple, and dark chitin and organic flesh pushed over it.

* Baam!!

The nest fell and hit the creature, that began to fall under the excessive weight, but used its scythes to lock its body, holding for a few more seconds. I sent the tanks to attack its left limb, and I used that chance to start to strike at the right one, hitting it with my tail’s pincers.

After three or four strikes, the damaged limb’s joint snapped, and the spider fell heavily on the deadly pool of digestive acids.

* SCREAACHHH!!!! REAAHGHH!!

It screamed and roared, moving its legs and scythe, trying to get free from the dead weight and my two tanks, but it only managed to aggravate its wounds.

Without several limbs and having lost one of its primary weapons, it was as good as dead.

I then picked up the scythe and inspected it. The sharpness was astonishing.

“We’ll copy it when Norn is back. There are enough samples of the creature’s DNA for that.”

The whole beast was there, plus several collector mites that had taken small bites of its flesh.

As I looked at the weapon, the beast roared one more time and finally dropped dead. Its head slowly got submerged with acid, and it began to melt. I noticed how part of the flesh released some dark substance that floated on the top of the boiling acid.

“I hope that doesn’t affect us in the long term. We must find a way to cleanse the corruption.”

Without wasting more time, I moved back through the tunnels where I saw some spiders enslaved by parasite-flowers, lead by a huge hybrid creature.

“Oh, shit…”

The new enemy had a sort of corrupted body that mixed both arachnids and plant traits of the flower-parasites. It looked like a mixture of a crab and a spider somehow.

* Roaaghhh!!

But it then roared and advanced in a mad rush as it saw me. It was more than twice my size, easily surpassing the 100 kg of mass and pushed through the tunnel with difficulties. Yet it proved to be relentless.

The creature just kept pushing forward, roaring, and ignoring the pain.

It then opened its mouth and launched several vines to capture one of my tanks, devouring it in mere seconds. It took me half a second to process what happened.

From under its body, some vine parasites started to writhe with shocking speed, and I didn’t think it twice. I turned and started running for my life.

I didn’t even need to throw anything as the walking tank-ish beast was making the whole tunnels tremble and cave in. Some rocks fell, but the mutated creature managed to keep advancing, although rather slowly, allowing the smaller and nimbler flowers to slither forward.

Once I reached the pit, I jumped to the pool, falling over the broken nest and the half-digested corpse of the corrupted spider. My chitin slowed the effects of the acid to extreme levels, but I could not swim through it as if it were water without suffering a terrible itch that kept growing.

A pair of vine parasites fell to the acids only to start screaming in pain as they tried to climb back. Meanwhile, I hid into the nest, starting to modify the feeding tubes and capillaries that were grown from the digestive pool towards the nest in the other room and re-attaching them here.

The whole liquid started to overheat and turned into vapor, but the corrupted parasite stood there, patrolling the area. It suffered the toxic fumes in silence, as it guarded the pit.

I couldn’t quickly get out of the pit as I would get exposed to the creature’s attacks.

With a few seeds, I created spikes in case the creature thought it was a good idea to jump over us in a suicidal attack.

“Darwin, can I send you more transporters to speed the tunnel towards the waterfall?”

“No, the direct routes are cut off by the parasites or enslaved spiders.”

“Agh, c’mon! Give me some good news…”

“The elite spider had a core. It’s intact.”

I open my eyes and exit the nest, searching for it with desperation. I don’t want it to get damaged by the acid or start to react and cause an explosion somehow.

“It seems that we will have to wait for Norn to wake up…”

--------------------

Meanwhile, the parasites had started following a trace towards a nest of many-legged creatures and began observing them.

The spiders had also changed into darker and more dangerous creatures, with sharp limbs that fended off the enslaving creatures.

On the meadows, the huge tree had grown twice its size in the last few days, and had a presence nearby, hiding in its shadows. It looked like a bloated tick. Illusory tentacles moved, and part of its many eyes could be seen as the branches moved without any wind.

Mixed within the roots, dozens of dead creatures were feeding the organism, that started to spawn more and more leaf-parasites and flowers to advance through the biome.