The transporters were digging nonstop, and I was eating the remains of the collectors that managed to come back with chunks of biomass.

But the situation only worked for a short time before the corrupted octopus had enough and tried to launch itself towards the front enemies to take them down and reach me.

Yet the bombs acted as a preemptive measure, exploding when it tried to grab them or get itself out of the water.

"How long until we can get out?!"

- "The transporters are stuck on a hard layer of rocks. We need more time to pass through."

"Fuck!" I was having a hard time pumping energy through burning biomass to keep the swarm going on. I went back to the transporters and took the damaged core, trying to tamper with it to know exactly how did it work so that I could extract energy from it.

- "Host, that core is highly unstable and dangerous, Queen Norn-"

I stopped and was about to throw it to the wall in distress.

"What do you propose, then?! We're running out of energy and biomass, I'm weakened and can't take that creature down, nor the one that will come after it. And the cave will soon be filled with even more- Wait..."

I looked left and right, trying to pinpoint the weakened areas where the flowers were trying to use to reach us.

"Darwin, point out where the flowers are going to enter through!"

The scout unit moved around the cave while the corrupted octopus was busy fighting, and I detected three areas where that seemed promising.

Two were at our side of the cave, but one was near the entrance, and the octopus creature was between them and us.

We could use it as a useful diversion.

"Send some units to bomb and blow up a hole in that section next to the cave's entrance! Let them in."

Darwin keeps silent for a few seconds, analyzing my idea and soon gave its response.

- "It is a high-risk movement. Allowing another group of foes can ruin our escape options if they team-up-"

"They will be too busy fighting amongst themselves! Trust me."

A group of bombs moved towards the weakened wall, where they latch themselves, prepared to detonate at my signal.

I made them start screaming, calling the attention of the corrupted creature, that shifted its focus and tried to take them down.

And as it approached, I detonated the bombs and created a massive explosion, throwing acid, chitin, and rocks towards the octopus.

* Boomm!! B-BOOM!!!

The wall crumbled, and a group of snake flowers showed up, some of them in their vine form, while others were grotesquely attached to spiders or lesser animals.

"Darwin, focus all the available units at the tunnel; we must get out before they focus on us again!"

The creatures started to jump at the waters, hissing in pain shortly after as the acid and poisonous bath started burning them.

The parasite-spiders started to climb through the ceiling, and I then reactivated the hunters to start shooting chitin projectiles at them to make them fall, but they were resilient enough to keep advancing for a while.

"Did we kill the corrupted beast?"

- "Negative, there are signatures of movement on the cave's waters. Get prepared for an emergency attack!"

I nodded and looked left and right through the ripples on the water, where burned and mangled tentacles started to rise, capturing a few parasites and pulling them towards it.

*ROaaaaah!!

With a tremendous roar, the beast jumped out of the water, maddened, and having sustained an enormous amount of damage.

As the flowers saw it, they tried to launch themselves to kill or slave the creature, yet it fended off the enemies and hid again underwater.

"Look! They are fighting!! Hahaha! YES! It worked!!"

I used this chance to pull the corpses of the lesser octopus to the hill with the help of a tank and started devouring their flesh with gusto.

But my good mood was short-lived.

* Cr-craack-CRAAACKK!!!

The entrance was falling apart, and an oppressive and ominous aura hit me like a slap. "Wait! What is that?!"

Some dark and tainted liquid started to pour into the cave. More and more tentacles appeared, causing a considerable disturbance on the cave's waters, and I took a few steps back. Air seemed to have vanished from the cave. I looked at it, and I was sure I knew this beast.

- "Host, that creature matches the beast detected by the scout."

"That's the same fucker we met on the lake. Look at the skull."

A spiky bone shell protected its head and body, while the tentacles emerged from under its torso. I could see how the worms had partially burned and melted skin.

"God, that beast is even bigger than before?! How can it be possible?"

I noticed spikes on its body and two growing horns, appearing from over its face, making it look both dangerous and menacing.

- "It is fully corrupted."

Yes, of course. It had that warp and disordered energy, like a sort of cancer spreading and consuming it. There was no trace of the might it somehow exuded before.

If anything else, the corruption had turned into something wrong. There were a terrible aura and stench of corruption permeating the cave.

Its body was looking both lifeless and mutated on equal proportions, with pieces of flesh wide open, new eyes grown randomly in its skull, or a pair of vast and menacing jaws.

- "Host, the tunnel will be finished in two minutes! Survive two more minutes, and we will get out!"

The creature's tentacles ended in some sharp and lethal-looking bone appendixes. That beast was on a league of its own.

It started to spread an obscure and dark substance on the water, and a cold and thick layer of darkness began to permeate on the cave, weakening us. My creatures slowly began to fall on the ground, falling as darkness spread.

"Darwin, we're not its match... can't you see it?"

I could even feel it in my very insides. I felt slower, weak.

The terrible aura fell upon the cave, rendering us sluggish and scaring some of the parasites into hiding.

Even I was slowly falling to that terrible emptiness looking at me through the creature's eyes.

It was an empty abyss, and as I was looking at it, it was looking-

- "Psychic attack detected, countermeasures activated!!"

My eyes suddenly shone with purple light, and Darwin somehow took control of my body for a few seconds.

My Tyranid body stood up and started screaming, a mighty and stimulating shout that awoke my troops from the slumber.

* SCREAAAACCHH!!!

"Psychic Dominion activated"

A powerful pulse of energy surged like a heartbeat, allowing me to breathe again.

"Aghh! W-what was that?! Also, what did you do to stop it?"

- "I used our mental powers, burning energy to keep a psychic field strong enough to counteract the creature's own."

The vibration over the cave increases in speed and frequency once I leaked more energy. It looks like those bloody snake-plants are trying to reach us from every direction. More and more rocks kept falling.

But the oppressive feeling had lessened.

I took the broken core and inserted it into the transport that was carrying the blood worms and stopped for a second.

"Fucking bastard. Is the tunnel ready?!"

As the creature noticed my scream and that my units began to move again, it got angry and advanced, ignoring the acid and poisonous water as its skin seemed to nullified it completely.

The profoundly injured octopus started to retreat, scared by the monster that had spread such corruption and dreadful aura.

I transplanted a few lethargic worms to another transporter and prepared to cause massive wreckage on the cave.

As the corrupted beast saw it, it roared and stopped advancing. Without wasting any time, it turned and grabbed the escaping creature that was reaching the entrance, about to escape.

It used its clawed tentacles and pierced its back, pulling it back while the creature roared and bled all over the corrupted creature.

"The hell is that wicked beast doing?!"

I saw how it secured the grab of the weakened yet fierce beast. And then it started to move forward, using it as a meat shield.

"Stop it!!"

I dropped any collector's connection I had and summoned tanks and bombs, running completely dry. But the creatures were not nearly ready for taking their positions, and it was advancing too fast.

As the corrupted beast got to the shore's defenses, it just launched forward its kin, that flew towards us, about to crush our position with its body.

Yet at that moment, the Mantis Queen moved forward and used her claws to produce an ear-splitting sound.

I barely saw a little flash of light, followed by a muffled scream when the creature stopped mid-air in a cloud of blood. "Wh-what?! Darwin, what was that?!"

The attack was a concentrated sonic blast that hit the creature and almost blasted into pieces. It fell to the ground, bleeding profusely with a cracked shell and broken body.

- "Host, a Psychic blast was detected. The Mantis Queen has used a sort of hypersonic strike added with psychic energy."

I saw the Queen collapse after the attack, but her offspring moved forward to pick her up.

"Let's use that body to pump our biological barrier!! Open that tunnel, Darwin, we have no more time!"

The corrupted beast saw its companion nearly explode in pieces, but only reacted when it saw the transported I had brimmed with acid worms, it got enraged and started to lash its tentacles as whips.

My units managed to stop it for a few attacks, and I used that time to prepare the dangerous and deadly load of worms, activating them.

I then introduced the broken core into the transporter and pumped biomass into it, starting a reaction highly unstable. The horrific worms began to multiply and grow inside the transporter, which started bloating as the larvae grew in a few seconds.