Day 45 Once again, Damien was left surrounded by the corpses of his treasured minions. The third battle in his war with his sapphire adversary had cost him dearly, barely fifty of his spiderlings remained. Three fourths of Sheila's legacy had been erased in seconds, the only upside being that those who had survived had grown from their battle with their much larger foe. The greatest spiderling looked just as Sheila once had, her body was a rich deep russet with that nostalgic red-brown striping. She was two inches wide, and the only surviving spider with her mother's color. As he watched, his crystallized heart celebrated this spider. He had lost so much, but she remained. She was not a replacement, but a potential successor. I will call you Shae, he thought. The rest would have to prove themselves before they earned names but just this one, the strongest, the one with her colors, he would allow himself to dote on. The battle had been fierce and he couldn't help but mourn his lost spiderlings, but elsewhere his forces had fared better. Ajax had the most tremendous growth, allowing him to reach a ten inch leg-span after he had slaughtered the helpless rodents around him. The mammals' mana was far more dense than Damien's insects, their souls larger, and their slow, painful deaths allowed him to squeeze out far more of their power than usual. His legs grew thicker and sturdier, his fangs longer, his vision sharper, his reflexes faster, and the glow of the yellow on his back grew brighter. It would be impossible for him to hide in the dark from now on, but that wasn't Ajax's style anyway. He would be a blaze of gold in the thick of the chaotic battlefield. Rex had grown as well, and reached seventeen inches from nose to tail. With this rapid growth, his legs had begun to change. They grew in size and strength, it wasn't much but he carried himself higher and his belly didn't always scrape the ground as he crawled around the lair. His spines grew longer longer and sharper. His venom became more potent, and he now scurried across the room with a tremendous speed. Damien would be hard pressed to guess which of his two greatest minions was the stronger. The reptilian Rex's energy was more potent, his soul's energy greatly exceeded that of the arachnid, but Damien had learned that the strength of the soul wasn't everything. Each mouse's energy far outclassed any of his minions, easily double that of Rex despite being a fifth of his size and the comparison to Ajax was even more ridiculous. Yet he had watched Ajax slaughter scores of rodents, one after the other with little effort. In fact, Ajax's weaker soul seemed to be a strength. As he slaughtered the mice, his weak soul swelled with strength from the sheer quantity of the mana released by his prey, and his growth was tremendous because of it. Short of ordering them to duel, there was no way to know for sure, but he was not about to risk it when both of their venoms could be so lethal. They were also not the only ones who had won great victories. His ants had held the line, and they had served him admirably. Especially amongst the red ants, heroes had emerged in this great war. Most were still little more than an inch, but the veterans towered over their comrades. The ants that brought down the mice or rats and survived enjoyed explosive growth spurts, with the largest reaching three inches in length. It was an absurd size for an ant, but the red monsters were eager for battle once more. Their lesser cousins, the guardians, had heroes larger than the normal reds, and this caused short term difficulties as they scrambled to widen their tunnels to accommodate them. But the last group of ants had achieved something far more interesting. The first colony of ambusher ants, those who lived in the trenches and traps of the first bulwark and had slaughtered over a hundred mice hadn't grown at all. Their size didn't change, but they were gifted with something better. Their color changed, they had originally been black just like the other common ants, and yet they were now a dark brown that matched the earth around them. Their bodies grew lighter, their footsteps softer, and they were much faster. Their speed had more than doubled and they raced around their colony with steps so soft Damien could scarcely notice them despite them being inside his domain. Without his mental link to them, and seeing what they see, and feeling what they feel, he wouldn't be able to tell if they were floating or walking. If they hadn't been his own subjects, he probably wouldn't have even known they were there. All of his ant colonies had suffered less than thirty percent casualties. For the first time the bulk of his armies remained intact after a battle. For the first time he was still strong. He had finally crossed the most vital threshold in this war, the turning point. His forces grew faster than his enemy could kill. No matter what his enemy sent, he could defeat them. And each time, his armies would grow. He had been outsmarted this time, he had grown complacent. It was a costly mistake and it was one he would never make again. However the fact remained, he was growing stronger. He knew he should be patient, he knew that being cocky would get him killed, but he had a plan. It was a flawless plan, something that would put an end to this once and for all. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Day 52 Seven days had passed, it had been a full week since the last incursion and the time had not been wasted. Damien had done his best to remember the exact location of where he had bumped into the sapphire foe, and he sent a tunnel out the western side of his lair and then up and over where he believed the enemy lair to be, leaving plenty of room as a cushion so he wouldn't accidentally break through and alert the enemy to his plan. This would be his point of attack, by cutting through the roof he would enter in a place none of his foe's troops could defend. Aside from this long protrusion his lair had changed drastically, but one of the greatest developments had come from the outside. One of his dens that he had dug into the hillside had finally been occupied, and it was claimed by a strange and very fat weasel-looking creature. It was mostly a rich brown except for its underside which was a pure snow white, and the creature was under a foot from its nose to the tip of its tail. Damien had never seen a weasel so fat, it had to be someone's overweight pet. In life, he had always hated people who allowed their pets to get so unnaturally large, yet now he was grateful. She was lazy and almost never moved or left her new den, and the mana she released seemed to have swelled with her size. Damien couldn't wait to make her his. But she wasn't the only new addition to his lair. The worms had finally submitted to his will. For nearly two months Damien had slaughtered and dragged up every last worm that entered his domain to fuel the wild growth of his armies. He only possessed a single species capable of eating the moss of the cavern other than the mice which he was currently corrupting, and while he had captured two dozen mice in the last battle, they were too precious to use as food. He hadn't even come close to controlling any of them. Even those from the previous battle still resisted him valiantly. That only left the moss beetles and the worms in the ground to feed his growing armies, and the moss beetles simply hadn't grown numerous enough to bear the burden alone. however for the last few weeks, there had been constant war. His minions fed off the corpses of their brothers and their mammalian foe, and the worms slowly returned to the earth beneath his lair. Without his routine genocide, the worms flourished in the nutrient rich earth. The blood of countless insects and mammals had soaked the soil, leaving a great feast for the invertebrates. Damien didn't know what good could come of it, but under the influence of his mana, they would breed far more rapidly than before and he could always harvest them later. The last of his new residents were cockroaches. The common pests had finally followed the stench of decay into his lair, and while they posessed no real combat usefulness yet, they would serve well as food for Rex and Ajax once their numbers grew to a sustainable population. Aside from all these permanent residents, he had many visitors. An alligator lizard had dropped into his cave, its snakelike appearance was a stark contrast to the majestic Rex, and while Rex was strong and powerful, this new reptile was crafty. It slowly stalked into the cave, and just as Damien grew excited it placed an arm onto the edge of one of the pitfall traps. The reptiles weight sent his arm straight through, and it flailed for a brief moment before it regained its footing and it immediately scrambled a hasty retreat back to the world above. Hornets continued to dart in and out, scavenging the wreckage of the battle before darting back off into the world above. Their numbers seemed to be growing rapidly, likely due to the plentiful food available in his dungeon. All of this combined with the coming battle was enough to make him almost bubbly with excitement, but there was yet another cause for celebration. Light danced around his throne room as his his vampyric heart flickered with mirth in celebration. The first ambusher colony's queen had given birth to another queen. He hadn't known until she hatched from her pupa, she had seemed just like the others as a larva, but it was a truly wonderful occasion. A single queen was worth thousands of ants, tens of thousands even as she would birth far more than that in her lifetime. He was strong. He was growing. He was ready. On this seventh day since the last battle the walls of his souther bastion suddenly burst open, a great gaping maw opened itself wide as many hundreds of rodents and dozens of rabbits swarmed out into his lair. It was the largest assault yet. The enemy had saved up his strength for a whole week for this very moment, but Damien was fully prepared. His forces scattered, and soon nothing remained except maggots and grubs. His flies swarmed through the air and into the tunnel Damien had dug over the head of his foe and the ants scurried along pre-dug paths from their colonies to the new tunnel. He kept a few of his best and biggest flies and ants in reserve, the flies to breed in case his mission failed and his ants to tend to the queens and young. The spiders retreated to the ceiling, Rex climbed the walls to an alcove on the roof, and the beetles scurried for cover. Every last creature that could was either hiding or marching to war. Damien focused all of his will onto the flies and ants marching to the great battle, and as they reached the end of the tunnel he dug straight down until he breached the ceiling of the sapphire lair. He felt shock emanate from his foe at the sudden incursion, and as his flies and ants descended into the breach he game them his final command. Attack! he thought to his troops, Rush on and slaughter them all! Kill everything that lives in the sapphire bastard's lair! Leave only the heart alive and return to me, his end shall be neither fast or merciful, we shall pay him back for all our pain! We shall have our revenge!