I let out a light hiss, tasting the air again. The scent-taste of desperation pressed against my tongue, or at least I imagined that it did. The many-legged bad-things had failed to put out the fires; they weren’t like the Great Core’s disciples, in that. The Coreless, back in the first many-nest that I had claimed for the Great Core, had fought the little fire that I set with ease. Shaped pieces of darkwood and hard-shell from monsters had let them toss great swathes of mana-water to douse the flames.

The many-legged bad-things couldn’t do the same; their focus on growing inordinate numbers of legs had failed them yet again. It was a tragedy that they had managed to be born that way, but I couldn’t find it in myself to pity them.

I was sure they deserved it, somehow.

Without the blessing of being designed by a greater Core, the many-legged bad-things were suffering. They had managed for a little while longer, pulling in captured prey from sections of the cavern that I hadn’t yet visited, but even that wasn’t enough. With all of the Darkweavers gathered the way they were, any food that was brought in went fast.

And mostly, it went to the strongest among them - a bad-thing larger than the rest, half a not-Needle tall where the others just under a third. Eventually, those who left stopped coming back. Some to avoid losing the food that they found.

Some because I found them first.

A spore-puppet crawled its way past me, pulling free of the wall-crack that I had created, heading out again to search for what I had ordered. The opening was large, large enough that I would have once called it a tunnel. Big enough that I could move in and out, with space for a puppet or two to join me. There was little else to do while I waited, and practicing more with [The Golem’s Fading Heart] was never a bad idea.

Besides, I needed somewhere to store everything that I had stolen.

Behind me lay sacs of bad-thing flesh, wrapped up and preserved in the Darkweavers’ black threads. Not only the few that my spore-puppet had carried from the stone-spike, but also those that I had gathered since, sending my spore-puppets out with instructions to gather any bad-things caught within the traps without alerting their former allies. The corpse-sacs that resulted lined the walls and ceilings of the carved-out nook, haphazardly attached with my own puppets’ threads in an attempt to save space. There weren't all that many, but enough that it could have been a problem otherwise.

Enough that I had begun to use one or two as bait.

The idea had come to me the first time a pair of bad-things found us; my spore-puppets had worse control of their limbs than the many-legged bad-things did, because the control of so many legs could only come naturally to the enemy. So it wasn’t surprising that, on occasion, a sac was pierced by a stray limb. I hadn’t noticed it happen, remaining unaware that my puppets had left a trail of corpse-fluid to mark their path.

In their growing hunger, a few bad-things followed its scent. Not long after, they were following the Great Core instead.

After that, it was just a matter of doing it intentionally.

I slithered forward, my scale-flesh sliding smoothly against the ground, as another three Darkweavers tore into a corpse-sac with ravenous fangs. An acrid fluid dripped down from the tears in the sac, stray bits of rotting flesh drifting through the growing puddle it formed. A few of my puppets crawled behind, beside, and above me, creeping across threads and stone both.

One of them made a sound, their unwieldy limbs scraping against the floor. The bad-things turned to meet it. I thought I saw surprise showing in their many eyes, just moments before [Illusion Spark] and [Sound Shaping] released from scale and tongue, assaulting the bad-things’ senses. They staggered, disoriented and off-balance. Ripe for the taking.

Primed for defeat.

My puppets fell upon them, ripping flesh and breaking limbs, each of their strikes possessing the chance to spread a set of spores. Without the worry of accidentally spreading spores that I had while near the Great Core’s Coreless, it had been an easy decision to alter my spores to be more infectious; it meant that my spore-roots were harder on the bodies that they infested, steadily eating away at their flesh in order to increase their virulence, but that was a sacrifice I was sure my puppets were willing to make.

For that small price of steadily-dissolving flesh, their kin would be able to join them all the more quickly.

Through a mix of [Spore Puppeteer] and [Verdure Parasite], I sensed that the one furthest from me had already been infected; immediately, I pulled my puppets away from it, flexing my will. Streams of time and potential growth moved from the great number of spore-roots infesting my puppets to that of the newly-infected bad-thing, forcing its own spores to grow many times over.

The bad-thing sensed that something was happening; it flinched, reeled, and then tried to run. Still blinded and disoriented, it tripped midstep, tumbling to the ground in a flurry of fumbling limbs - but in the end, it didn’t matter much. Even if it got away, [Verdure Parasite] had enough range to reach its spores. Unless it somehow cut them from its flesh, the bad-thing was already mine.

When it stood up again, I decided to let it run. It would come back.

The other two never got the chance.

Hidden behind a wall of flesh and stone, I refilled my reservoirs of light. With my ore-flesh left behind at the Darkweaver, where I was sure it was now hidden by countless thread after the bad-things failed to destroy it, there was only one source of nearby light that I could draw from - the shed skin created by [The Endless Cycle], positively bursting with the Great Core’s light. It felt right to use that light, and part of me was convinced that it was more easily stored within my scale-flesh. Maybe that was wishful thinking.

When my reservoirs finally replenished in full, a much longer task than it had once been, a nearby spore-puppet moved to block the light, burying the skin beneath countless threads. I didn’t think that the bad-things could destroy it, not in a way that mattered, but I preferred to be careful.

I lost a checkpoint once, way back in the first many-nest of the Coreless, and didn’t want to risk it happening again.

Above the threads that held my shed skin were the results of my spore-puppets recent efforts; sacs of corpse-flesh lined the walls and ceiling, enough that I had been forced to expand the hollow in order to make space for their display. Many were now empty, having been consumed by my spore-puppets in order to keep up their strength - a strength that, for many, was already waning. The spores that I had infected them with were quickly destroying their bodies in return for the increased potency that I had given them, causing their appearance to become some strange mixture of revolting and oddly beautiful.

The legs were still disgusting, but in the spaces where the flesh had been dissolved, I could begin to see lines of blue and gold, each glinting in the light that my shed skin had recently provided.

Beautiful, their allegiance to the Great Core clearly displayed.

In the darkness, even with [Ambusher’s Vision] reactivated, that allegiance wasn’t quite so easy to see. Still, I worried that the remaining bad-things would notice, and made sure to keep the most-deteriorated puppets back. At first.

With a final thought-hiss, one of the healthier spore-puppets clambered upwards. Its limbs cut one of the larger corpse-sacs from the wall, opening it up and bringing it before me.

It was revolting and rotted, its flesh almost liquefied below the surface of its skin. I wanted nothing less than to stay far away.

Instead, I leaned in. Bit down. Released my venoms, their stores larger than ever, entirely into that disgusting slurry.

A gift for the largest of the bad-things, ready to be returned to the starving nest.