I tried to memorize as much information as possible from the different screens, but most of the cameras were either broken or pointing to no useful places.

There were some useful screens, though. Mainly about the next biomes. Sea, ice, jungle… how did they put all of this into a lab? It should have cost a few billion or more.

"There are traces of webway stone, so forget about money. Every kilogram of pure, refined webway stone can be sold for a whole human city."

“Okey, that’s a lot. We could get our hands in a few space stones of that and buy a city’s worth of food, what do you say Norn?”

"Yesyeyyeysysyyeysyeysysss!"

“Darwin? How can we grab that stone?”

It doesn’t work like that, we need a very advanced space-time control of reality and energy manipulation to gather the stones and build things like this lab. It probably is an old Aeldari outpost that got ransacked millennia ago and some military organization discovered. We are in a pocket dimension.

“Wow, I want it. So bad. Fuck the food."

"HEY!! Don’t insult the food! But yes, we could store more food in the dimension."

"I want my own pocket world. How could we get it, Darwin?!"

"We need to find some Aeldari craftworld and convince them to separate the webway stones from this space point, repair them, and then give it to us."

“You make it sound kind of harsh. So this, Aeldari, are they like, willing to help others?”

"Hahahaha!! Oh, my host! Tell another one! Hahaha… Ahhh, no. They don't. They are a bunch of prideful racists, despite being a dying race. Bunch of pointy ears…"

“Oh shit, space elves? We’re fucked. Those are a prideful bunch of fuckers filled with malice and prejudices against other races.”

I stopped and pondered about it. How did I know that?

"Like you? I don’t see you being quite open-minded!"

Shaking my head, I let that thought go as it came.

“Well, almost every creature I have met was trying to either kill me, hurt me or eat me, sometimes all three of them in any order. So yeah, I'm quite concerned about my security.

And what about you?! You treat every single living being as food, isn’t that like… Racist?”

“Kai, I see prey as food because that’s what they are or will be. I don’t see myself above them or hate them, I just want to kill them, eat them, and keep busy in my own things. Like, killing and eating.”

“Uh-huh, yeah, sure. Not a bit psycho at all.”

As we kept speaking, the floor has trembled a couple of times.

Whatever kind of battle taking place outside the lab, one thing was sure.

It could blast all of us into oblivion.

"I want a spaceship so bad…"

"We can indeed produce a Hive Ship with enough biomass. Even a fleet."

"WE CAN HAVE ONE? MANY? Oh god, I am so pumped right now!"

I went back into the room filled with decayed and tainted vegetation and tried to salvage any clean biomass that was left. I also began to summon units and let them keep clearing the area and digest the highly corrupted biomass.

---------------

The corridor was in silence. But the spiders knew they had to defend it.

They had set the silk trap in place to avoid any intruders to pass and disturb the mother-queen.

One of the younger spiders had picked up something. It appeared to be a bug-thing, like the ones that attacked a few days ago, hurting their brothers and sisters.

The spider soon detected more of them, bloated and slow, the dangerous ones!

She quickly began to move some key threads alerting the whole nest, bringing it into life.

More and more arachnids began to appear and took positions, waiting for their prey to get closer to the trap.

It was weird, the bug-things were walking straight to the web.

The first of them just arrived at the web’s side and began to pour some foul liquid that burned the webs and emitted toxic fumes. All spiders were on high alert! What is that liquid? It was dangerous.

The mother-queen was monitoring everything from the nests’ chambers.

She then moved a few strings to communicate with her descendants.

Capture them and bring them to the queen so she could eat their flesh.

The spiders moved with enthusiasm to follow their queen's orders.

Soon, their kind would dominate the great rift and fight against the fly-things! Death to the fly-things!

The spider saw how its brothers and sisters jumped through the web towards the bugs-things, capturing them in a quick and decisive action.

The bigger spiders attacked through the ground, and the smaller ones threw the webs in an agile and elaborate strategy.

They captured all of them; their destiny was sealed in white silk.

The bug-things were immobilized and pushed through the air vent right into the nest.

A few minutes later, they were offered to the mother-queen.

But then, more enemies arrived at our doors! Bigger bug-things with huge pincers!! They tried using those claws and pincers to cut our silk trap, in a futile attempt. A few minutes later, all of them were either stuck or surrounded by drone brothers.

Again, we used silk to wrap them and sent them to the queen’s sacred chambers.

It kept happening every few hours. We grew used to their strategies and optimized our hunting strategy.

Not a single enemy managed to pass through our superior senses and infinite view. We will prevail.

------------

"Aaaand, that was the last one."

I waited for a few more minutes and kept checking the spider nest. The situation was what I hoped for.

They were a weird kind of eusocial nest of spiders. Despite the lack of sense, I learned as they captured our brood. The smaller spiders acted like sentinels to the designed post. Once a threat came, they called for their bigger counterparts and joined the fight, shooting silk threads.

One thing was sure, they were not too bright.

“They kept capturing each and every unit I sent, not knowing they are getting closer to their doom! Hahahahah.”

"Weirdo laugh… Stupid Kai."

“Always a joy to hear you, Norn.”

I sent some telepathic orders, and a chemical reaction started happening inside the nest. Most of the cocoons began emitting grey and green smoke that keeps spreading and poisoning the air.

The spiders broke into chaos mode, not knowing what to do.

Most of them went back into the nest to protect the queen, blocking the other spiders trying to escape from the poison.

Having unlocked the Spore biomorph to level 3 was a good idea.

I could enhance my units, implanting biomorphs into them to a limit. I put venom glands in most of the first batches and pincers in the rest so they could destroy the web obstruction in the corridor.

The first part worked perfectly, but the nest was still there.

I was now my turn to get out of this biome. We could not find any more biomass, so it was time to move further into the lab.

Summoning a new batch of units, I started walking towards the intersection. Trying a new tactic, I put a bomb unit on top of my head so it can function as an improvised cannon, spreading venom and acid everywhere there are webs and silk. In case of a major threat, it could always jump and detonate.

The fight started as soon as we approached the silk threads. The confused spiders were easy prey for my first round of fighters, but their friends at the ceiling soon noticed us. More and more white threads fell upon us, and my bomb units started to show their might.

My bomb unit saved me from getting trapped, and I kept pumping venom and spores into it, so the unit did not run out of juice for the time being.

When we were arriving at the door’s frame, I heard a loud crack, then another. I turned to see what was that noise.

A couple of spiders jumped at me while I was distracted, biting my side.

It hurt quite a bit, but my reinforced chitin helped to keep the damages to a minimum. With a slash from my tail, I chop them both and pick one to keep eating and gaining a few more points.

Desperate times indeed. Every biomass point was necessary. I eroded my reserve to poison their nest and wasted several times my reserve of energy to allow the units to keep attacking.

I turned, and I saw the poisoned and enraged spider queen smashing its body against the glass. It did not look good, the glass was cracking.

"Fuuuck, quick, fighters, to the hinges! Break them!"

The damage we did a few hours before helped speed the process, and the acid mixture had weakened the old door. But its a huge fucking metal reinforced door!

"Who the hell installs this kind of door into a lab? What would happen if they run out of electrici-"

* CRACHHSHHH

“Oh, fuck!!” I turned again, and I saw a half of the spider's body out of the room already. There was black smoke getting out, and most of the spiders on the nest were dead or too poisoned to put up a fight.

More and more spiders were falling from the air vent and joining the fight. Half of the fighters stopped their work at the door and turned to fight them.

I kept losing more and more units, and so, I had to burn biomass at every second to keep throwing units at the fight. It was a dire situation.

The fight was more or less stable for the next minute until the spider queen managed to get out of its cage. It was poisoned and had several cuts on its lower abdomen, but it wasn't enough. She stood up and started to walk towards us.

"Host, we have to get out of here, distract her!"

"I can pass to the next biome! I just need a couple of minutes!"

I summoned a pair of bomb units and grabbed one with my tail. I spun and sent it flying next to the queen.

* Booom! Screaaach!!!

The bomb exploded onto the spider's body, damaging it.

Then I grabbed the second and repeated the process, but failed to hit the queen as another spider attacked me and threw more web onto my body.

"Goddammit."

The little unit on top of me started to pour acid to melt the threads, and then, I saw the queen approaching us.

“We’re running low on time!!! How is the door?!"

"The fighters have managed to damage one hinge."

"WHAT! C’mon, we need to work faster!!”

I created two more bombs and took one, throwing it to the spider.

The second one walked slowly and attached itself to the spider. The one I missed came back and grabbed a rear leg while the other was on the abdomen, the spider wasn't even paying them any attention.

"It will be your loss."

I then hit my tail against the door and managed to finally break one of the three main hinges that were holding the door.

"One less! Two to go."

* Thump, thump...

The spider queen was now at 15 meters, getting closer step by step. It was quite slow, but also relentless despite the poison and injuries.

"Fuck!"

I sent a couple of fighters to try to gain some time while I kept damaging the door with all my strength.

They attacked and managed to hurt one of its legs, but that only enraged her even more. The huge queen turned her back at us and started shooting huge amounts of webs, trapping all of us.

The mite over my head began to pour some poison, damaging the web. But it is way less effective than with regular silk. I saw my energy levels and gritting my maw, I activated the spores and burned the last reserves of biomass I had to gain a few seconds worth of energy.

“Why is she not being affected by the poison?! Those fumes were filled with venom designed to break apart cells, and I don’t see that happening! Norn?!!! Any input?"

"We're lacking a catalyst to start the process!"

"A catalyst?! Seriously!!! I asked you before to make a big boom with fire!! Now you ask me to cause her critical damage somehow?! Okay! I’m on it.”

The spores began to destroy a section of the webs and kept damaging the door at the same time as they spread. I picked the unit on top of my head, the little bomb, and prepared to throw it.

Once the spider saw me destroying her webs, she roared and began sprinting towards me.

8 meters, 7, 6...5… 4. I could see every little detail of the huge and bloated body, there were injuries and damaged tissue here and there, but it wasn't enough to stop it.

3 meters, she is over us!!!!

“NOW!!!”

* BOOM BOOMM!!!

Two explosions happen at the same time and pick by surprise the spider, one at her back legs and another on her thorax, hurting her badly with venom, toxins, acid, and pieces of chitin shrapnel.

She then screams of pain, severely wounded.

Using that chance, I threw the last bomb into her mouth, and I saw it doubt for a second; I smiled and blinked at her, then… "DO IT!"

* BOOMMM!!!

Half of her face explodes and melts at the same time. Her whole body broke apart and fell to the ground, dead. "Yes!! We did it!!"

The amount of damage she could sustain was incredible. Way beyond what I initially expected.

"Go search for a core! This creature must have one big!"

I went to the top of her head and bit at it with my secondary maws, breaking it apart and digging with my claws to try to find a core, as Norn asked me to do.

A few seconds later, I found it. That crystal had a lot of value for me right now. It was both an energy source and a promise of evolution.

A core the size of a small egg. It was huge compared to the pea-sized of the first bird and the pebble size of the second. This one was twice as big in comparison. And now it was mine.

I collapsed on the ground, completely drained. I rested for a few seconds, too exhausted to think about anything.

"Hey! Hey, wake up! Be Careful!!”

“What?! Oh shit!!!”

Another bunch of spiders started to appear out of the nest! "Where did those come from!?"

I sent the last 3 fighters to protect me while I ate the flesh of the queen; it tasted horrible but is also so full of energy and rich biomass.

I kept eating and eating until I felt bloated. Then, I went to the door and started to slash at the weakened area to make way for myself.

I used the spores, a bomber, and even my tail to pry and try to open an overture.

After a few seconds, I started to feel a few cracks appear at the pincers of my tail. They were too damaged from all the hits. But it was done.

I managed to create a breach. I then use my mouth to try to make it big enough to pass. Once my energy rose a bit, I threw more units to defend me while burning the recently ingested biomass.

I paid very little attention to the battle next to me, as I was entirely focused on leaving. But then, I felt some huge vibrations again and turned slowly. "What the hell is that?!"

I turned and saw another spider queen. Despite being half the size of the recently deceased queen, it was well over 70 to 80 kilograms, more than twice my weight, and I was considerably tired already, without much reserves nor units to fight. I had to run.

The spider queen saw the corpse of the colossal queen dead and looked at me, roaring. It then starts a mad sprint to catch me, ignoring the units in front of it.

The fighters kept attacking it, but its size alone was enough to keep advancing through the battlefield.

The area was filled with corpses of both mites and spiders. Acid burns and body parts present everywhere. The spiders on the ceiling had nearly run dry of silk to throw but kept attacking nonetheless.

I tried to pass through the whole but got stuck due to my bloated body.

"FUCK! I overate, damn it!"

I kept pushing and managed to fit my head and front claws, then 2 legs that I used to keep pushing.

“Norn!! Make the chitin weaker or something for a few seconds!"

"You ate too much, idiot!!"

"YOU ASKED ME TO EAT, now help me!!! We’re gonna get eaten if you don't!!!”

It had been a horrible decision to eat so much without thinking.

As I was stuck and only managed to hurt my body by pushing, I activated the spores, damaging the metal even more. As I felt the large creature approaching, I panicked and managed to push 2 more legs.

I was halfway, but some chitin plaques were stuck and didn't allow me to move any further.

As I was desperate, I started to swing my tail blindly to scare the small queen while I was pushing and making my best effort to get through the door. But then, the worst happened.

* Chomp!!

"AGHH!! Let me go, you 8 legged bastard!"

The spider managed to catch my tail with threads and started to pull it to the other side.

“No, no, no, no! Aghhhhhg, Darwin! Can you detach it from our body???”

"I can be done. But it will be difficult to rebuild the biom-"

“JUST DO IT!”

* Cr-craackk!!

I felt pain in my lower back as my flesh and chitin were being severed. A few seconds later, I felt something breaking apart, and I was ejected from the door, flying half a meter and rolling through the ground.

"Fuck... That was way too close…"

My body began to heal shortly afterward, but I was half-dead on the floor, too busy, just breathing.