The council had thought long and hard about the potential of bringing Brixin on as an ally. Whilst she was an enemy in one sense, that wasn't really how demonic society functioned. She was expansionist by her very nature, she needed conquest and control the same way Grokus had needed to stuff his face and wallow in luxury, and if there was one thing I had come to learn about the demons it was that they were never looked down on or questioned for following their obsession.

A hunger demon might not exactly be happy to be the victim of a murder demon, but they understood it in a very pragmatic way. Murder demon gotta murder. By the same measure, Brixin hadn't been doing anything immoral in attempting to wrest Roklu from my family, she didn't see herself as our enemy, to her we were merely an obstacle. Being defeated surely rubbed her the wrong way though, but by offering the olive branch, we turned a potential rival into a powerful ally.

After all, not only did we recruit a tier seven demon who was more than willing to assist us in bringing more cities under our combined rule, we also gained the tier seven monsters who remained her allies. A powerful nucleus that we could build our own demonic legion around. It was unfortunate that the strike team she'd sent to Roklu had been wiped out in its entirety, those had also been potential recruits after all, but I was extremely glad to hear that the defence had gone as well as it had.

I'd have to give Leeroy a big pat on the carapace when I saw her again. She must have pulled out all the stops to win that fight. The fact that all of the Immortals had somehow managed to survive even this trial left me gobsmacked. They really were living up to their moniker.

Although for some reason, all the healers in Orpule spent about an hour howling with laughter after the messengers from Roklu had come in. I'd have to find out what that was all about.

The following few hours were fairly dull. Hammering out the details of our agreement with Brixin, she wasn't pleased we'd already knocked down her residence and started building an anthill on it for one, and laying the groundwork for the short to medium term strategy.

Right now, both Orpule and Roklu were severely depleted in terms of combat obsessed demons. Multiple wars and invasions meant that whilst both cities still maintained a healthy population of more reticent monsters, the out and out fighters were largely dead. Indeed, Orpule in particular was massively low on frontline demons, all of their remaining tier sevens were of the casting variety, which wasn't a bad thing overall but meant they lacked balance.

Overall, the demons had a rather relaxed attitude toward the death of their own kind. I mean, it was hardly surprising since all they had to do was lean out over the edge of the plate to see literally millions of infant demons ripping each other apart, desperate to ascend. Under population was a problem that was guaranteed to remedy itself given enough time. Which was what we demanded Brixin agree too.

The Colony had very much overextended itself recently, much as I'd told the council after the invasion of Roklu. We needed to continue our expansion, that was true, but the breakneck speed my siblings had been working at would only lead to disaster. Even now there was a mountain of work to do before we could properly integrate Orpule and the surrounding territories! Already tunnels were being excavated and infrastructure prepared to install a lift system to connect the second stratum above to the new city. Which meant expanding the encompassing defensive positions above. Which meant more outposts, possibly new nests, more scouting and patrols, which required more ants, which meant more hunting for Biomass and cores. On and on and on it went!

Time! We needed time!

Perhaps as much as a month, at least two weeks. Time to consolidate, to raise new ants and make use of the resources we had managed to acquire. We'd only just managed to expand into the third stratum and had done literally nothing to make use of that fact! Surely there was some incredible stuff down here that we could use, if only we gave ourselves a chance to find and experiment with it!

Gah! You'd think every member of the council had turned into Vibrant the way they were acting lately. After convincing Brixin of our timetable she had made her way back into the city to ponder her new circumstances and work out where the heck she was going to live. She'd gone from having no cities under her control to two in the matter of a few sentences, so I'm sure she has a few things to process.

[Hmmmmaaa? What's going on?]

[Hey Sarah. Welcome back to the world of the waking.]

The big bear rolled over before she jerked herself upright.

[Wait! What happened!? Is everyone okay?!]

Her panicked reaction to what she might have done while she rampaged tugs at my heartstrings. Imagine having to deal with that every time you came back to yourself. Just terrible.

[It's fine,] I assure her, [Vibrant led you around the city until you ran out of steam thanks to not fighting anything, then you collapsed and the Colony moved you over here. According to everything I've heard and seen, you did an incredible job and saved a lot of ants over this fight. Well done!]

The Asura Bear sags in relief, lying flat down on the ground again.

[Thank goodness,] she says.

I wander over and give her a pat on the back.

[Hey. Don’t stress so much, we've got you. You might have been on your own before, but now you have thousands of us who are on your side. You'll be taken care of, okay?]

The bear rolls her head in muted embarrassment, bringing her paws up to cover her eyes.

[I can't get used to that,] she admitted, [turning toward the things that I avoided for so long and embracing them. I just feel so scared.]

[No need,] I say dismissively. [Say the word and we can get a hundred thousand beings, each one far more intelligent than I am, to help sort things out. Do you really think you have a problem so big that the Colony can’t fix it?]

I wave my antennae at the city around us.

[… No,] she says. [I can’t imagine what your family can’t handle.]

[Oi,] I poke her with a leg. [OUR family.]