A dozen of the shells began to crack around Basil. The red one was the fastest of the bunch, growing an odd number of limbs out of the dried husk and a maw with rows of teeth letting out a thunderous shriek. Basil was shocked at the sight of the thing; it had no eyes, but he could feel it sensing it.

The parasite got up from the ground with its long legs and started ramming towards him. Basil jumped to the side when it was getting near, it was a nasty thing, and there were more arising around, shrieking at him.

From afar, Basil heard a cry different from the parasites, one coming from a giant creature. This situation gave a sense of urgency to Basil, he needed to get out of this hell hole, or he would be consumed by those things or whatever was coming for him.

He looked around. White, gray, and red husks were coming at him with their bodies disfigured or cracked by the things that got out. There were tongues and lumps of meat that looked like an eye. All directed at him.

Basil asked himself if he could be infected with one of those things when he ate all those shells. In the end, he couldn't know, but this was not the time to think. Basil grappled the nearest with his claws and bit a good portion of his body. The inside was a gray-tinted flesh beating. There were no organs, and its vital fluids were purple.

He tossed aside the gross thing and grabbed another one to repeat the process, but the fastest one was upon him, trying to bite him with its serrated maw and tongue. Basil's scales were growing again but were still weak, and there were patches without them yet.

One of the husks bit him in one of those patches, and it felt like it was trying to drill and cut at the same time with the tongue. Basil took the one in his mouth with rage and struck at the thing at his side. Blood wanted to flow from the shallow cut.

Basil could not overpower all of them, so he changed his strategy and fled the circle the things made around him, jumping over one of the smaller kinds. There were more crackings in his surroundings and at least ten behind him, but that was not the worst as a giant bug entered its sight.

It looked like one of the sturdier carcasses, white and with five legs at each side with regalia of spikes surrounding its frame. Four red compound eyes occupied the front of its face, the upper eyes being smaller than the lower ones. There were two pincers in its face, too. In the end, it has the appearance of a sleeker spiked beetle. Basil's attention was on the spikes and the legs because they looked like roots. The creature was carrying a sack filled with the tubers he ate his way here.

Realization struck Basil. That thing was a breeder, and Basil happened to be eating her eggs. That's why they had a liquid filling. He stopped in his track, and the husks following him did that too. The parasites were opening and closing their maws, analyzing the situation. Basil saw all and understood that he was between two enemies.

More Shrieking behind him was the introduction to chaos. Parasitic husks were congregating with their group. The mother was looking at all its dead brood and the things that controlled their bodies. She let out a cry with anger and power, making the little cavern tremble with her fury. The sacks she was carrying began to tremble, and from inside, insects with matching colors of the eggs were forming rapidly.

That felt like a signal for the parasites. They moved in unison and tried to attack Basil and the Breeder. Simultaneously, many insects were being born and rushing to defend her mother from the menace, including Basil.

Basil did not expect to include himself in an underground war, but he can only defend himself in the building Chaos. He got attacked by one of the gray children; the thing was almost his size, including its pincers. They were not sharp; however, they had tremendous strength in them. Basil evaded them, putting himself swiftly on top of the bug, and bit its carapace with force, making the odd beetle screech in pain at having its innards consumed.

The bug collapsed on its legs, and Basil, with a mouthful of gray shell and red flesh, began to look for a way out of here. Everything was a blood bath. The Bugs and the Parasite controlling their brother's bodies painted the ground in purple and red liquids. Basil was not safe because he, too, was targeted by the two forces in battle.

Basil didn't hesitate and started to kill everything that got near him. He was making a mound of bodies, but his energy was not infinite, he was thinking of a solution, and the pieces were congregating around him,

He took the bodies he killed and began pilling them around himself, like some barricade. He knew that he would still be engaged, but this gave him some defense and respite against both sides. He started building around him and, at the same time, killed whatever entered his perimeter. He was going to survive.

Evalyne almost died from shock three times that day, and this time she could feel another shock almost knocking at her mind, the first one was when Basil got hunted by the Ihema, the second one when he fell in the hole, the third when he tried to grab one of the roots to stop his descent.

It was like a rollercoaster, the suspense was everywhere, and he survived every one of them. It was almost stupid at some point. Still, when he started eating the eggs of the Sikara Mother, he marked himself for death. Those things are full of a pheromone cocktail so potent it will make you a target until you kill the Mother or die trying.

The victim can't wash the pheromones away, but that was not the worst. Basil got himself inside a Selajivi congregation. Those things use dead shells as a place to grow and create a body for their flesh.

If those parasites feel or see a great host, they will attack it to get its body. They were collecting Sikara bodies to make an army. That’s sickening. Those things were not intelligent, so she could only put two plus two and understand that these were Limited's champions.

She saw Basil fighting with tooth and nail to make a wall to defend itself or gain some time for the others to use their resources before him. He was bloodied, mauled, cut, and enraged. He only wanted to escape, but that was not an option on a Battlefield like that.

Specimen Name Basil Specimen Lifeforce Core Gekkonidae Lifeforce 35/100 [Bleeding] Stamina 67/160 (Nutrients and fat in reserve [50]) Energy 200/200

"He still doesn't know how to use Energy. If that Ihema didn't attack him, he could at least have gotten the Toxic energy. Dammit, this will be a long night."

Basil was tired, a wall of corpses surrounding him. After an hour, he got a respite but could still hear the battle outside, the royal bug had a lot of resources, and there were still many Parasites. At least fifty of them were still battling, and those were the bigger ones, those with his size and more prominent, but the Mother was creating more sons to protect her.

Some "Children" targeted Basil in his bunker. The bulkier kind rammed at the corpses that composed his wall, making them fall. These holes gave space for many of the red and slight variants to enter and attack him. Basil clawed at their heads and killed them instantly with only a faint screech as a response.

The bulky one tried to catch him with his pincers, but he was tired of this. He rammed with his head with rage flowing inside him, cracking the tank's shell. Before the thing could react, he bit its head and broke the carapace with extreme force while pushing the bug outside. Basil bit again with pressure, killing the beetle tank.

He could not escape with the Mother there sending more troops towards him. He thought he could outrun the Parasites because they were clunkier in their movements, unlike the original creatures they robbed the bodies.

He ate what he could, the pincer, eyes, shell, everything, from each of the bodies and sealed the entrance the tank bug create. He tried to rest a little before the next attack. He didn't have the claws to excavate a way out because if he could, he could have done it already. His only way out was behind the Breeder. He needed to kill her to escape.