Day 53 The great sapphire's death throes and subsequent collapse sent a shudder through Damien's core. There was far too much here that was far beyond Damien's comprehension, but he knew his enemy was finished. These repetitive encounters and experiences constantly confirmed that he was right to be afraid of the world around him. There was so much pain, and so many ways to lose. But for now, it was time to take what was his. It was time to build his lair into something far greater than it had ever been before. Damien pressed his domain into the vacant air before him, quickly filling the void left by his great foe. As the inert energy gave way before him, he entered into the fourth and final room of the enemy. It was square, vibrant, and lush just like the other rooms of the lair, but what it contained was exemplary beyond all the others. The grass was greener, thicker, and taller. In the center of the room was a young tree. It was only two feet tall, but compared to the grass around it, it was a green titan sprouting into the sky. The room was much brighter, and the source of that light was the most striking feature of the room. It was a single cluster of the largest crystals he had seen yet, and it was a giant mass of light. Nestled between some of the thickest crystals was the heart of the enemy lair, a giant, dull, blue, sapphire. It was only dull compared to Damien's own core, its brilliance would have matched or beaten any natural sapphire man had ever found, but the magical light inside it was gone. It was over. 'I won. I survived.' Damien's heart fluttered at the realization. The sudden collapse had distracted him from the moment of triumph. His foe was vanquished, his survival guaranteed. At least for the moment. His crafty plan and the strength of his insects had overcome a seemingly insurmountable gap between them, and now his domain had more than doubled. He had added nearly a thousand mammals to his lair, gathered new plants, and his core throbbed with power. As he gazed upon the corpse of a valiant foe, satisfaction and confidence swelled within him, and then an idea sprang forth. He knew just how to celebrate. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Day 54 Setting up had taken far longer than Damien expected. A full day had passed, and it was nearly dusk by the time he was finished, but it was well worth it. He had dug a broad tunnel crossing from the enemy core to his own. It was four feet wide all the way through, a great thoroughfare that would unite the two halves of his domain. Damien had called up every last creature he could spare, and mustered them in the enemy throne room. The weakest of his creatures formed the rear by the blue crystal, and his greatest creatures at the fore, stretching into the thoroughfare. It was a magnificent assembly, only the infants too weak or small to make the journey and the ants caring for their young were left behind. At the head of his troops was the great bearded dragon Rex Tyrannus, stood proudly with his throat puffed out, and his head in the air. He thoroughly enjoyed his place of honor, even if he knew he would have to share it shortly. Ajax would march by his side when his task was finished, with Sheila's gifts close behind them both. The mixture of red, brown, black, and gold spiders were drawn in two lines across the tunnel. The baby spiders quivered with impatience, however they did their best to hold their formation as Damien demanded. Next came the champions of the last battle, and those most accustomed to marching, his ants. Five brigades stood at attention behind Damien's favored pets. Each brigade was a colony of ants, arranged in perfect formations. The ranks were irreproachably straight, with the greatest and largest among them taking the lead. The first division was the monstrous red ants, and they stretched across the entire tunnel with their enormous bodies. Next came the guardians, the gatekeepers of his domain. The two black brigades formed up side by side behind the great reds, and taking up the rear of the ant lines were the ambushers. Despite their size, their numbers were the greatest among the ants, and they matched the size of the guardian's formations. After the ants were the beetles, with their broad and firm carapaces divided by type. The carrion beetles took the lead. While they had proven absolutely ineffective against the rodents, they had continued to reside near the top of the lair's food chain throughout the drawn out war. Following behind them were the moss beetles and roaches. While they existed only to feed his armies, the moss beetle's glowing carapaces would still add to the imposing sight of the mustering. Bringing up the rear of the entire formation were the maggots and the mighty maggots. Tens of thousands of the writhing creatures were lined up, from greatest to smallest just as the rest. It had taken many hours for them to make the great journey across the thoroughfare, but they were by far his most numerous minions. Any victory march made without them would have been pitifully lacking, and that was exactly what this was. He was fueled by the triumphant return of historical generals and heroes from his past life, and just as he had dragged the enemy ant queen back with great fanfare all those weeks ago, he intended for his first victory over another lair to be far more memorable. And there was still one final force remaining. The flies. He had run out of room on the floor of the enemy throne room long before, and many of his troops spilled out into the great tunnel, so he kept he flies in the only place that made sense, the roof. The roof of this final room was absolutely covered in flies. From the great horseflies to the infant common flies just hatched from their pupal form, they were all here. They would swoop down and soar over his troops as his airborne corps. It would be a spectacular sight, if only it wasn't so dark. It was petty, and he could of course see with or without the light, yet it irked him that his celebration of triumph would be in darkness now that he knew he could make light. Shortly after he began his preparations, he realized that most of the mana he was collecting was being sucked away by the crystals. Each room in his new domain held great chandeliers of the sun crystals, and they sucked him dry to power their light. He had wondered why his foe, with such a tremendous supply of mammals to supply him had not grown far larger than he had, and now he had the answer. He had poured all of his power into building a paradise he could barely maintain, however Damien would never be satisfied with only that. He hadn't noticed at first, he had been too focused on the final battle, and each one by itself wasn't impossible to sustain, but with the addition of the enormous crystal in the final room, it became insufferable. Carving out the dirt that lay between their cores had forced him to evaluate his options. He tested out the first one, to make sure it could be brought back, and the second he gave it a tiny bit of energy it immediately awakened. It sucked for mana like a revived drowning victim gasped for air. With the confirmation that it could be reversed, he cut them all off one by one. They fought, in their own way. They sucked at the mana around him as he carefully refused their needs, but soon they grew dormant. And then there was darkness. Regardless of the inconvenient darkness, Damien was ready for the march to begin. He was only missing his guest of honor, and Ajax was just in the process of retrieving it. High above the assembled troops below, Ajax was fussing with the gem. He used his claws to brace on the dormant sun crystals and heave on the blue core. He had grown far larger than any spider of his kind ever should have, and he was incredibly strong for his size, yet he couldn't get the core to budge the smallest inch. It had seemed to simply be wedged into the crystals, but the reality was that the crystals had grown around it. The edges of the gem were inside the crystals. Ajax lashed out in frustration at the crystal, and his powerful claw tore off a tiny chunk. 'Keep going.' Damien urged, his pets were absolutely obedient, but they were growing impatient. The more they resisted his will, the larger a strain it was on him to maintain order. Without his authority, all of these creatures would tear each-other apart. It was the natural order of things, and it served to empower the strong and extinguish the weak. Ajax continued to chip away at the crystal, yet it was agonizingly slow. 'Go and help him. Tear that crystal apart.' he called to one hundred of his mightiest red ants. The greatest champions of the last battles had swelled to four inches, a terrifying size for an ant, and their mandibles were mighty weapons of war. Their crushing power would far eclipse the scratching of Ajax. It took a few long minutes for them to arrive, yet they set to work immediately. Ajax retreated to the ceiling, and they moved to the three large pillars of sun crystal gripping their prize. A red ant's powerful jaws clamped around a chunk of crystal, and with a resounding crunch a deep gouge appeared and cracks spread throughout the crystalline structure. With each bite the delicate integrity of the structure was torn apart, and soon huge chunks of the strange crystal rained down to the floor below. Some of his maggots were crushed by the falling debris so he cleared a small area around the crystal and turned the ants loose once more. They cut through the crystal with such ease that Damien had to wonder at their power. As they were just about to free the gem, Damien called for a halt to have Ajax move into position to grab it. But that call came just a moment too late. One ant was in the middle of biting down just as Damien thought to order a stop, and before that thought turned into an order its jaws clamped shut. The cut left by its mandibles sent out a web of minuscule fissures, which merged with those scattered before, and a deep crack echoed throughout the lair. Two small chunks fell out of the crystal, and then more followed, and two turned into an unending cascade of crystals falling to the floor below. Many ants were caught up in the collapse, crashing down the floor below, still holding on to the crystals. The ants easily survived the fall, but many were buried and crushed by the crashing crystals. With the cascade came great boulders of crystal, and some burst into shards when they impacted with the jagged wreckage on the floor below. The shrapnel burst out, killing thousands of his maggots, and still more continued to fall. Then the final pillar holding the blue gem gave out completely, and the gem plummeted to the floor below. 'Fuck' Damien cursed as the gem raced to the ground below, and Ajax sensed his master's distress. He leapt out into the air after it trailing a strand of silk, desperate to stop its fall. Ajax hurtled through the air after the doomed gem, gaining on it ever so slightly as they came closer and closer to the jagged crystals strewn over the ground below. Ajax stretched out his forelegs, and touched it with his claw before the silken thread snapped taught, bringing him to a jerking halt just a few inches short of the jutting shards of crystal. The glittering sapphire gem slammed into a large crystal fragment at full speed. The small cave was flooded with a blazing blue light, and a cannonade of echoing explosions. Shards of the precious core burst out like shrapnel, blazing deadly paths through the cavern. Thousands of his insects were impaled, or caught by the flurry of splinters from a shattered shard. Most of his greatest pets were far away down the tunnel and spared from the indiscriminate onslaught, yet chaos reined in this small hell. Ajax was a bloody mess, with half his legs blown off and ichor pouring out it was a miracle he was still alive. Only his thick carapace had saved him from immediate death. His minions that had escaped the explosion were seething. Damien tried to bring them under control, yet they were being worked up into a wild frenzy. The explosion had released a tempest of mana into the confined cavern, and his minions were soaking it up like dry sponges. With each passing second they fought harder and harder as Damien strained to control them, their minds taken over by an intoxicating power. Despite their internal turmoil, everything was calm, and despite their writhing everything was under control, until a surviving ant emerged from the wreckage and pressed too close to the wounded Ajax. Ajax raised one of his good forelegs menacingly in the air, but the ant ignored the warning. It crawled just up to the great spider, but its attention was not focused on the peerless predator. It stopped at one of the sapphire shards just in front of Ajax, and reached out to grasp it in its mandibles. Ajax's leg snapped down, impaling the threat with its long, wicked claw. He shook off the impaled soldier, and then picked up the shard. He raised it to his own mouth, and devoured it whole. Damien sensed a small surge of energy as the crystal was eaten, and the great spider's wounds started to heal rapidly. All at once, everything moved. The ground writhed as tens of thousands scrambled, and the ceiling erupted as his great host of flies took flight. That single act had broken the dam Damien had been holding against the reckless frenzy straining to be set loose. The creatures tore each-other apart. The maggots squirmed and tore off chunks of flesh from their neighbors with their over-sized maws, tearing into anything within reach. Unlike them, the surviving ants worked together, forming up into a circle, mandibles jutting out towards the foe and crushing whatever beast was foolish enough to enter into range. The flies dived down into the fray, tearing into each-other on the way and whatever lay below as they landed in the midst of the chaos. Ajax stomped through the fray with his mostly regrown legs, impaling an offending maggot with every step as he towered above them. Despite how it appeared, they were not hunting each-other haphazardly. Every movement they made was to push towards a shard of his great foe, or protect one they had found long enough to devour it. Those who succeeded in eating a shard had even the most mortal wounds healed, or they doubled in size, or swelled in strength, or all of it at once. It was an incredible, and unprecedented growth and the longer he watched, the less he tried to calm the chaos. This was a chance for growth that most likely wouldn't come again for a long time. It was the normal state of his lair for them to fight amongst themselves, for only the strongest to survive, grow and thrive. This was the same, except that they were pressed together, and the stakes for the competition were far higher than ever before. The great changes that transformed the creatures that devoured a shard weren't something that could be labeled as mere growth. It was evolution.