I woke up after having some bad dreams, but I forgot every piece of them as soon as I opened my eyes. Well, some of them.

Even while I sleep, I have 2 or 3 of my six eyes opened, so I always have some vision of my surroundings.

After moving around the small cave, I checked the biomass gathered by my transporters and was quite happy with the number, nearly 100 points ready to do something with them. I decided to invest in a couple of new transporters, raising them to 5 and leaving three fighters with substantial biomorph upgrades to fight with me.

These bad bugs had been with me for a few hours already, even escaped the flowerpokalypse.

Then, I sent two transporters back to the cenotes to gather air and carry it back to the cave, making it more breathable. I escorted them with the fighters while the rest of the transports were either digging or filtering.

Luckily there were no incidents, so after a couple of travels, I left them to work autonomously.

I wanted to catch some snake-plants to unlock their weird DNA, but I thought it would trigger them to hunt me again, and that's a big concern right now. I'm not going to give away my position so quickly, not before I level up and can put up a fight in this cave.

For that, I need more than raw strength. We need new units and reliable defenses.

While swimming with the units, I turned my head slightly to look at my body.

After the new changes I did with my biomorphs, I have a slightly thinner body frame, but it's way more agile and adapted to moving through the water, so I don't feel like it is too bad.

"Ok, time to explore!"

My team and I, with a transporter for air, jumped into the water and we kept exploring for half an hour before we reached some exciting places.

There were traces of some sort slime or worms in the cave.

I found pools of red goo on the bottom of the cave that picked my interest; it looked like some slither creatures passed through here. I tried to pick it up with one of my limbs, but it started to burn my chitin and become apparent that it was a dangerous element. I detached a few chitin plaques from my leg and avoided touching that again.

"This could be an interesting weapon!! I need to avoid killing myself while getting it."

Ten minutes later, we found a group of red worms devouring the remains of a body with a weird skull at the bottom of a tunnel, next to an opening to the biome's vast lake.

Huh, so some creature was enough of an idiot to be captured by them.

I sent a fighter to catch one and come back, but as soon as my unit bites it, the worm started to fight back, releasing an enormous cloud of red goo we saw and biting back the skull of my fighter that starts to panic trying to detach that vermin from itself.

As it was fighting and moving erratically, the rest of the worms picked up the scent of blood and started to converge on my unit, attacking it and devouring the mite with an insane level of aggression and hunger.

It was a short but gory show.

As I see the fight lost, I order my unit to jump to the open lake to try to minimize the concentration. It barely manages to fall down the cave before dying.

"My god, Norn, I think I have a new pet for you, they seem just as hungry as you used to be!"

"Not funny! Get one, but try not to die while you're at it."

"Yeah, that sounds like a plan."

I swam forward to the area where the vermin are still populating the skull from an unknown species.

Their numbers have reduced, but after giving it a thought, I created a fighter and sent it in a suicide mission again.

After a couple more tries, I could finally see that the worms were eating. It seems like a crab of some sort, quite mutated, and- "Is that a core?!! Okey, the danger level of this little worms has increased by a whole level."

If they could kill a corrupted beast with a core, they surely can handle me if I give them the chance to surround me with enough numbers.

Another mite dies bravely infested by a considerable group of worms, and all that remains are a few dozens more.

I go close enough to feel my chitin itching and pick one of those red worm bastards. It starts to bite my limb with fury immediately.

"You think you are so tough. Let's see if you like your own medicine!!"

I bite at it, and it plops in my mouth and, oh GOD. I feel lava in my mouth!!

"IT'S FUCKING SPICY!!! Aghhhh! For god's sake, what are these worms made of!?!?"

"Get out before you pick the other worm's attention!"

I barely heard Darwin as I was too focused on the painful sensation melting my mouth. I even had to release poison to try to decrease the damage in my mouth and stomach.

My hp fell from 21 points to nearly 13 in less than a minute, but I survived the test.

I kept drinking water from the environment, but it didn't help much with the burning after taste of this inferno creatures.

"That was both brave and stupid. You could have used the collectors to try digesting one of those worms without risking yourself."

"I could? But you saw how they melted the fighters defenses, that's some serious acid there. It would not have worked."

I then did a mental puppy look to Norn, and she started to fumble about being exploited to work all day long, having no food or rest.

"Norn, I gathered that bastard. Could you please do some weapon with them?"

"Give me a few hours or days, and I'll make something with that sample that almost killed us back there."

"Sure, keep doing your thing, Norn."

Darwin then put a piece of advice that I found quite interesting.

"Host, after you reach the next level, we could try to start digging into more complex structures to defend that base you built at the caves. Tyranids are both famous for their relentless units and adaptable biostructures."

"That's also a good idea Darwin" With that, I could stop micromanaging every aspect of the fights, and focus more on our strategy and defense.

"Norn, are we ready to level up? No?? Tomorrow?! But why? What do you mean blocked?! Aghhhh, ok, keep working on it then, I will keep exploring this area then."

I used another fighter and several collectors to try to eat a few worms, with very little success. These worms not only provoked the units' severe corrosive damage, but they also devoured vasts amounts of biomass, rendering them unusable. They also reproduce like a plague when there is enough food. What a nightmare of a creature.

I could hardly gain any biomass from them, losing some with all the healing and unit spawning. It was a net loss, but quite useful to understand how these creatures behave.

After a lengthy discussion, I decided to use a transporter specially designed as a containment unit an put some life worms inside it to have live samples for later.

Darwin and Norn thought it was a weird decision, but I have plans for these red worms.

After cleaning the nearly destroyed carcass, I try to look for the core, hoping to see some radiant crystal, but it was badly damaged. I stored it with a bit of sadness as it could have been a nice extra kick.

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A few shadows far from the group of weird creatures swam through the dark caves while clicking their claws.

Click clickkk clikck clickkk… (Mother, what are we doing in the caves? We need to run!).

Click! CLickk clikcck (Have no worries, my child, I have sensed a strong life force inside that could help us now that we require protection).